The Summer Palace In Beijing

Summer Palace has a history of over 800 years. In 1153, when the Jin Dynasty made Beijing (then called Yanjing) its capital, it built an imperial palace (the Golden Hill Palace) on the present site of the Summer Palace. In 1750, Emperor Qianlong spent 4.8 million taels of silver building the Garden of Clear Ripples and changed the name of the hill to Longeyity Hill to celebrate his mother's birthday. He also named the lake Kunming because he wanted to follow the ex-ample of Emperor Wudi of the Han Dynasty who had trained his navy centuries before in Kunming Pool in Chang'an (somewhere near Xi'an today).

And let me say something about emperor dowager cixi,she was the 7th emperor’s first empress during that time，at the year of 1860,the Anglo- French allied force invaded Beijing,so the emperor and other royal family members escape to north part of China,however, the empermor died of illness several months later there,then her six years old son was choosen to be the next emperor for China,a yellow silk curtain was hung between the boy empermor and emperor dowager cixi,while the emperor sat on the throne in the front,cixi would tell him what to say and what to do from behind,,this way of ruling the country was called Power behind curtain.

In the qing dynasty,cixi also enjoyed a kind of luxurious life in Summer palace,for example,she ordered them to cultivate swan mussels in the huge lake of summer palace,later on,those ones could make pearl for here,furthermore,she made use of pearl powder and wore pearl necklaces or bracelets,which was good for people‘s health, Although the average life span was only 55 years old for the common people in the Qing Dynasty , the Empress dawager was died at the age of 73,and that’s because she Used a range of pearl products.

In China - especially in the southern region where our pearls are from - breeding conditions for pearls are ideal.

Our country is huge, with diverse waterways that provide many different environments for oysters. We have vast watersheds that provide huge breeding areas for oysters, and millions of tons of natural food. In the South, our waters are just the right temperature and salinity to encourage oysters to grow. In addition, we experience few earthquakes and violent storms, making ours a peaceful place for oysters to grow large pearls over a long period of time. In addition, the China pearl industry is ancient. We combine cutting-edge technology with knowledge accumulated over thousands of years to grow the best pearls in the world.