Massive efforts are being made to protect and restore the original look of the Summer Mountain Villa, the largest remaining classical imperial garden architecture in China, which is now over 300 years old.

Ongoing projects include dismantling recreational facilities for children and repair and maintenance of several temples and pagodas, including the Yongyou Temple and Luge Pagoda, inside the mountain resort, located in Chengde of north China's Hebei Province. All the projects are expected to be completed in August this year, at a cost of 15 million yuan (1.81 million US dollars).

Occupying an area of 5.64 million square meters, the Summer Mountain Villa, also known as the Ligong Palace, was Emperor Kangxi's and Emperor Qianlong's temporary imperial palace of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). Construction on the mountain resort began in 1703 and was completed in 1792.

To date, the mountain villa, which consists of more than 100 buildings, still houses more than 20,000 daily life articles used by emperors and empresses of the Qing Dynasty.

The hills to the north and east of the resort are dotted with temples built in the 18th century in Han, Tibetan and Mongolian architectural styles known as the Eight Outer Temples, covering a total area of 427,000 square meters. Along with the resort, these

temples make up one of the three major ancient architectural groups in China. The other two are the Imperial Palace in Beijing and the combination of the Confucius Mansion, Confucian Woods and Temple of Confucius in Qufu, east China's Shandong Province.

The Chengde mountain resort, 230 kilometers from the Chinese capital Beijing, together with the outlying temples is regarded as an outstanding masterpiece of imperial gardens and a precious heritage of ancient Chinese garden construction. It was put on the World Heritage list in 1994.

The mountain resort has become a famous scenic spot that attracts 4 million visitors each year, especially in summer, in recent years. Low-priced entrance tickets also lure numerous

Chengde citizens to do exercises inside the resort in morning all the year around.

However, increasing numbers of visitors and presence of people doing exercises has caused serious damage to the ancient buildings inside the resort, which have already become fragile after 300 years of disturbance in winds and rains.

To reduce damages to the ancient buildings inside the resort, the local cultural heritage bureau has raised the price of entrance tickets to limit the number of people doing exercises and control inflow of visitors in holidays.

Many local people support the government's decision to raise the price of entrance tickets. Zhao Qingkui, a retiree, said, "The mountain resort is a World Heritage site and it does not just belong to the people of Chengde."

The Hebei provincial bureau of construction is drafting a plan to move an urban area southward from the Mountain Resort area to return tranquillity to the imperial garden.

On August 20, 2003, regulations for protecting the Chengde mountain villa and outlying temples adopted by the Standing Committee of the Hebei Provincial People's Congress took effect.

The regulations stipulated that buildings in the protection area of the mountain resort must be in line with the styles, height, color and patterns of temples and other buildings inside and around the resort, and those buildings which are disharmonious with the environment inside and around the resort will be dismantled.

Li Xiaodong, former director of the provincial cultural heritage bureau, said the provincial and Chengde city governments have since 1999 invested a huge amount of money to dismantle 100,000 square meters of non-relic buildings and rebuilt 80,000 square meters of green land. More than 40 historical sites have been rebuilt and 63 ancient buildings have undergone facelift.

The value of the mountain resort is far more than gardens and temples. Historical records show that four emperors of the Qing Dynasty, namely Kangxi, Yongzheng, Qianlong and Jiaqing spent six months each year at the mountain resort, where they organized martial art competitions and receive the elite of ethnic minority groups from around China, for the purpose of consolidating the northern frontier and unite ethnic groups in frontier areas.

Outside the enclosure of the Mountain Resort, the 12 temples in Tibetan and Mongolian architectural styles arranged in a semi-circle dotting the surrounding hill slopes, symbolize the unity of all ethnic groups and the centralization of authority, experts point out.

Source: Xinhua