主题：【文摘】纽约时报登的承德山庄游记 -- 林小筑

看洋人说中国文化总是很有趣的。有时候似是而非，有时候怪里怪气。比如好好的肉包子，他偏要叫 steamed bread stuffed with meat 有些又怎么也猜不透。为什么与释加牟尼并列的两个佛像会一个管钱财，一个管疾病。 是不是他搞错了？

原文在外链出处

Where Emperors Summered

By CRAIG SIMONS

Published: April 25, 2004

ON the way to Chengde, an imperial resort for Chinese emperors, I looked out the bus window at a beautiful fall landscape of russet leaves, umber earth and golden cornfields and imagined Emperor Xianfeng traveling a similar route in 1860. He was fleeing British and French troops who, in a late volley of the Opium Wars, had marched into Beijing and demanded that China open further to Western trade, and he must have been worried to have sped away from the Qing dynasty capital.

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Xianfeng was a weak emperor, more interested in enjoying the pleasures of his rank than in governing, but by birth he held the "mandate of heaven," the right to rule China and, the Chinese thought, the world. When the first British Ambassador to China, Lord Macartney, arrived at the Chengde palaces in 1793, the emperor received him cordially but then sent him away with a letter to the British monarch that concluded, "O king, Tremblingly Obey and Show No Negligence!" Half a century later, Xianfeng had turned tail and run.

I was also fleeing Beijing. I was in the middle of a semester-long language program at Tsinghua University and the school had arranged the two-day outing in October for our group to learn about China's history. We were accompanied by a flag-waving guide who had a minutely planned schedule.

I had mostly managed to avoid such tours after four years of living in Asia. But I wanted to escape the hectic city, and several weeks before I had come across a photograph of a bizarre 120-foot-tall stone spire on top of a hill east of Chengde. Called Sledgehammer Rock, the phallic protuberance has spawned a tantric temple and a variety of off-color folklore about the virility of local men, and it seemed worth a visit.

On the four-hour drive from Beijing to Chengde, about 155 miles to the northeast, I watched the city unfold into soft countryside and then into dry hills covered with pine trees, aspens and maples. Occasionally, a section of the Great Wall - actually many walls built over 19 centuries - appeared from behind a bend or along the top of a distant ridge, and it was easy to dream of imperial travelers as we passed small villages of traditional gray brick houses.

By the time we arrived at the Lolo Hotel, a comfortable, modern place with clean, quiet rooms, a large swimming pool and a sauna, the combination of sun and earth had stripped away the stress of fighting Beijing traffic jams and memorizing endless lists of Chinese characters. I was ready to see how Chinese emperors played.

For most visitors the next step - deciding what to see - is complicated. Chengde was just another village until the end of the 17th century, when the Qing-dynasty emperor Kangxi stumbled upon it during a hunting trip. The rolling hills along the Wuli River inspired him, and he decided to build a summer retreat, now called the Chengde Mountain Resort, a collection of wood and stone structures open to the public as a museum and park, where he could indulge his passions for hunting, riding and hiking. He ordered construction of the first palaces in 1703, and within a decade 1,500 acres dotted with dozens of ornate salons, temples, pagodas and many spectacular gardens and pools had been enclosed by a six-mile-long wall. By the end of the 18th century, when Chengde reached its heyday, it included nearly 100 imperial structures.

Besides luxurious quarters for the emperor and his court, great palaces and temples were completed both to house visiting dignitaries and to impress them with the grandeur of the Chinese empire. The largest of these buildings is the Putuozongcheng Temple, which is also called the Little Potala Palace. The stone structure, built in 1771, was modeled on the Potala Palace in Lhasa and has more than 60 halls and terraces. Even though it is not currently used by monks - Shu Hongyu, our guide, said the government would rather use it strictly as a museum - travelers who don't have the time or energy to fly to Tibet can get the feeling of what the original, a massive maroon and white edifice with large square windows, looks like.