Rediscovering Beijing: The Ancient Observatory

Editor's Note: Asia Obscura's Andy Deemer has been kind enough to let us rummage through his archives for some of his best posts from his Beijing days. We're sharing them here to give you some inspiration to get out and explore our city.

The author of the the 1897 guide book charts the Astronomical Observatory as one of the must-sees of Old Peking. It’s his first stop on any three-day tour.

I’d always planned to pay a visit. This is what you see from the highway:

Almost identical, but…

In 1897 it wasn’t a museum. It was a working observatory, some 480 years old. You had to bribe your way in.

The Observatory, called Kwan-hsiang-tai by the Chinese, is generally open to European visitors with the help of a little money, although the admittance of visitors is strictly prohibited. Through the incautiousness of some travellers one of the instruments got damaged, and, on account of this, admittance has been of late somewhat more difficult.

In the 115 years that have passed, little appears to have changed. You still have to pay to enter. And what’s inside looks very similar.
 

Except for the yellow cranes, of course. Those are new.

Read the rest of this post at AsiaObscura.

Photos: Andy Deemer