中国著名景点介绍:南京中山陵(英文介绍)

My dear friends ,when you come to a city, you probably want to visit the most famous scenicspots of special interest. nanjing has many place of historic interests and has been capital forsix "dynasties." but if you leave nanjing without visiting dr. sun yat-sen's mausoleum,undoubtedly you have missed the most arresting and famous tourist attraction of the city.

Talking about the mausoleum we should have an idea about sun yat-sen, the great pioneer ofchinese democratic revolution. mr. sun `s original name is sun wen and styled himself yat-sen. so foreign friends would call him "dr. sun yat-sen ". since he took "woodcutter inzhoushan "as his alias when he took part in the revolutionary activities, he was respectfullyand widely called mr. sun zhongshan in china. on october 12, 1866, mr. sun was born in afarmer's family in caiheng village of xiangshan county (the present-day zhongshang city) ,guangdong province. when he was still young, he had great expectations. he studied medicinein honolulu, hong kong and some other places and after graduation he worked as apractitioner in gangzhou, macao and other places later he gave up medicine as his professionto take part in political activities. in 1905, he set up china alliance organization in japan and hewas elected president. he put forward the famous guiding principle- "driving the invaders out,restoring the sovereignty of china, establishing a republic and equalizing the land ownership" and the three people's principles-" nationalism, democracy and the people's livelihood. " onoctober 10, 1911, the wuchang uprising broke out and dr. sun as elected inrterim president ofthe republic of china by representatives from seventeen provinces. on the following new year'sday (january 1, 1912) mr. sun took the oath of office in nanjing. from then on ,mr. sunexperienced yuan shikai's usurpation, the second revolution, "campaign protecting theinterim constitution." in 1921, mr. sun took the position of president in unusual times inguangzhou. at the first national congress of kuomintang held in quangzhou in 1924, heperfected the original three people's principles and put forward three people's new principles.he also proposed the policies of "making an alliance with russia and the communist party ofchina and helping the farmers and workers. " in november 1924, in spite of his illness, mr. sunwent up to beijing to discuss state affairs with general feng yuxiang.

Unfortunately, he broke down from constant overwork and passed away on march 12, 1925.

The location of the mausoleum was chosen by mr. sun himself. here is exactly a good place tobuild a mausoleum. you may wonder: mr. sun was born in guangdong but died in beijing. forhis whole life he traveled throughout china for the revolution. why did he choose nanjing asthe venue of his tomb?

It is said that far before mr. sun took office in 1912, the abbot of lingu monastery hadrecommended him that his place is good for fengshui, because it faces the plain and is backedup by green mountains as its protective screen. on march 31,1912 mr. un resigned as apolitical compromise for the sake of the union of the north china and the south china. one dayof the early april, he went hunting with hu hanmin around the piety tomb of ming dynasty. theytook a rest in the place wehre the mausoleum is located now. mr. sun looked around and said"if possible i would like my countrymen to allow me to have this place to bury my coffin." surely,the fengshui of the zijing mountain is not the basic reason for the location of mr. sun'smausoleum . the basic reason is that, he said on dying "after my death, you can bury me at thefoot of the zijin mountain in nanjing in memory of the revolution of 1911, because nanjing iswhere the temporary government was founded. "so although mr. sun stayed in nanjing not along time, it had a special meaning to him. fundamentally speaking, the reason he chose zijingmountain as his permanent resting-place is to commemorate the revolution of 1911 and toencourage the revolutionaries.

In order to respect mr. sun's wish, the preparatory committee of sun yat-sen's funeral,including his wife song qingling and his son sunke, examined the area and chose the site for themausoleum. they delimited 2000 mu and offered a reward in newspaper for the best design ofthe mausoleum. among all the contribution, young architect lu yanzhi `s design, a design inthe shape of a bell ,was highly praised and gained the first prize and he himself was invited tosupervise the whole project as well.

On march 12,1926, the first anniversary of mr. sun's death, the project got started and 3 yearslater, it was completed in spring of 1929. it cost 1.5 million silver collars totally.

unfortunately, luyanzhi, the young architect with great gift, suffered when supervising theproject ,and died at 35, just before the completion of the mausoleum. the completionceremony was held on june 1, 1929 and mr. sun's remains was transported from beijing tonangjing. from then on ,mr. sun has slept here for nearly 70 years.

The construction of dr. sun yat-sen's mausoleum was an important event in the history ofnanjing. in order to meet mr. sun's coffin, the first asphalt road was built from zhongshan portin the west to zhongshan gate in the east; it is 12 kilometres in length and also calledzhongshan road. up to today, zhangshan road is still one of the most important main roads. atthe same time, the city gate chaoyang gate which was built in ming dynasty was renovated andchanged its name to zhongshan gate. between zhongshang gate and dr.sun yat-sen'smausoleum, a road called the mausoleum road was built. just as the people of paris take prideof their les champs-elysees and the people of new york ,the fifth avenue, the nanjing people areprond of their boulevards. and the 3 kilometers long mausoleum road is undoubtedly the bestrepresentative of these boulevards. along both sides of the "green corridor" grows the mainkind of tree in nanjing as parasols usually chinese people call them french plane trees, in factthey are chinese local products. just because frenchmen took them from yunnan province tofrance and later they transplanted them in their leased territory in shanghai, that is why theygot such a name.

Now ,we are going out of the zhongshan gate and driving along the mausoleum road. thedestination ahead is a square in shape of crescent, according to lu yanzhi's design, the place ofthe mausoleum is like a "duo", a big wooden bell, which was used to announce a policy, decreeor a war in ancient time. duo's sound is loud and clear, implying to make the whole worldpeaceful and happy. the design reminds the people of dr. sun yat-sen's well-known saying "therevolution is far from success and we should continue working hard." this saying also serves san alert to the later generation. the crescent-shaped square is the bottom of the "bell offreedom".

Now ,please look to the south. there is a octagon platform structured with reinforced concretebut covered with jinshan stone of suzhou. the platform is divided into three layers and eachlayer is enclosed by stone rails. the copper "ding" (an ancient cooking vessel) with two loopedhandles and two legs weighs 5000 kg. it is 4.25 meters high and its diameter is 1.23 meters. itis one of the construction for memory of the mausoleum. the "ding " was built in autumn, 1933 with donation of students and teaching staff of the zhongshan university and mr. daijitao. one side of the "ding " is engraved with three characters "intelligence, humanity andbrevity". these three words are the school instruction of zhongshan university. inside of the"ding "stands a hexagon copper tablet on which dai jitao's mother's handwriting of the "filialpiety" is engraved. to the bell-shaped mausoleum the "ding " is just like the pendulum . itseems to serve to alarm the whole nation by striking the bell.

Stepping on the steps, we will see a soaring memorial archway with four columns. the archwaywas built between 1931 and 1933, 12meters hight and 17.3 meters in width. it is made of hugegranite from fujian province, but its structure is in chinese traditional wood structure style.now, look up at the shining words inscribed on the horizontal board. the word in english meanfraternity. they were written by dr. sun yat-sen. the word are taken from a tang dynasty poethan yu's "fraternity is humanity " .it is said that mr. sun very much liked to write these twowords to others. dr. sun devoted his whole life to bourgeois democratic revolution withgreat fraternity and struggled for the national independence and freedom fro scores of years.so we can say that "fraternity" is the best generalization of his life.

Further from the fraternity archway, there is a road leading to the mausoleum. the road is 480meters long and dozens of meters wide. the whole design of the mausoleum gives prominenceto chinese traditional style, grand, solemn and specific. in order to embody the greatness ofmr. sun, the mausoleum followed the example of ancient mausoleums and was built againstmountains and the coffin chamber was placed at the top of the mountain that is 160 metershigh. in addition, the plants of the mausoleum are symmetric, which make it feel moresolemn. now, please look forward to the north, along the hillside ,situate the mausoleum gate,the stele pavilion, the memorial hall and the coffin chamber right behind. the pines,cypresses,ginkgoes and maples on the both sides of the road represent mr. sun's revolutionary spiritand lofty quality. they take the place of statues and stone beasts which usually flanked thesacred road in ancient times. among the trees, cedar is one of the "four kinds of tree forappreciation" and has been honored as the tree of nanjing city. the grand archway at the endof the mausoleum road is the formal beginning of the mausoleum area. it is 16 meters high, 27meters wide and 8.8 meters deep. it is made of granite from the fujian province, too. inscribedon the horizontal board of the middle passage is dr. sunyat-sen's handwriting. it means thatthe state doesn't belong to one family but belongs to the entire nation and the common people.this is the goal for which mr. sun struggled for his whole life and it is also the excellentexplanation of the democracy of the three people's principles. we have passed the gate of themausoleum, then in front of us is the stele pavilion. the 9-meter high stele in the middle of thepavilion was engraved with 24 gold-plating characters of yan zhenqing style, "chinese kmtburied premier sun here on june 1, 18th year of the republic of china". these words were writtenby one of the founder members of kmt, tan yankai. when talking about setting up a stele,wang jing wei and hu hanmin were arranged to write an inscription for mr. sun, but two yearspassed, yet nothing they could write. because they thought that mr. sun's merits couldn't begenerated by word, then they chose to use the present from to praise dr. sun withoutengraving an inscription.

Going out of the pavilion, we'll see numerous layers of steps. the people of nanjing often saythat the steps in the mausoleum ware as number as the stone lions on lugou bridge (knownfor westerners as marco polo bridge). so when coming here tourists usually ask, "how manysteps on earth are there in the mausoleum?" my friends, if you are interested you can countthem.

Now we are coming near the top platform. look ,there are two big copper "ding". they werecontributed by shanghai municipal government of that time. now, please look carefully. there aretwo holes in the bottom of the left "ding". why? just let me tell you .in late 1937, when thejapanese army attacked nanjing, their shooting left two holes in the left ding. now, although thecircumstances have changed, the two holes always remind chinese people not to forget thenational humiliation. not far away, there are two bronze dings in ancient style. they arepresented by mr. sun's son sun ke and his family.

Ascending the steps, now we have reached the top of the platform. here we can have a bird-view of what it is in the distance. the memorial hall is the half way up to the mountain andthere are altogether 392 steps covered if you count from the archway of fraternity. the verticaldistance is 70 meters but the plane distance is 700 meters. if you count the steps from thestele pavilion, the number of steps is 290. in order to avoid monotone ,the architect dividedthe 392 steps into 10 parts and every part has a platform and there are totally 10 suchplatforms. more marvelous, if you look up from the bottom, you can see that the stepsextend to the top without stop and you cant see any platform. but if you look down from thetop, you only see the platforms. the number of the steps, 392, is not a random number, itimplied the number of chinese population at that time-392 million.

Now we are in front of the memorial hall and the coffin chamber. they are the major parts ofthe mausoleum. the construction of these two building was supervised then by lu yanzhi, thegift young designer. if is when he was doing these two building he died of cancer. so when thelater generation mention him they would often say, "it is a great pity he died before hiscomplete success." the structure of the sacrificed hall is of a ancient wooden palace style. it is30 meters long, 25 meters wide and 29 meter high, surrounded by smaller constructions offortress style and two 12.6-meter-high cloud columns. its roof, with double-eaves and nineridges, is covered with blue glare tiles. the outside of wall is covered with granite fromhongkong. the inscription on the horizontal board is engraved with seal characters cut inrelief- "naturalism" "democracy" and "the people's livelihood" . these are the most basic andgeneral guiding principles of mr. sun's revolutionary activities. above "democracy" , there is ahorizontal inscription board with sun's handwriting on it, "fill the world with justice".

Please follow me into the memorial hall. the floor is covered with white and black marble fromyunnan province. the colors of white and black are among the traditional color for burialceremonies in china. there are 12 black stone columns, with 0.8 meter as the diameter foreach. you will see that the interiors of the walls around are inset with black marble. now youcan have a look at mr. sun yat-seen's handwriting of "programme for founding a state",engraved on the east and west walls. the main colors of the hall are black, white and blue,which are used to express filial piety in china. the inside windows are inlaid with smaltos. theypresent western flavors especially with floods of sunshine. the style of the whole structure is ablend of the east and the west, representing the well blended doctrine of dr. sun yat-sen.

In the middle is the sitting statue of dr. sun yat-sen in a robe. it is 4.6 meters high and thebottom is 2.1 meters wide. it was sculpted by the famous french sculptor paul arinsky whosenative country is poland . he was entrusted by the committee of dr. sun yat-sen's funeral forsculpting it. he chose the italian marble as the material for the statue . in 1930, the sculpturewas sent to the mausoleum from paris. its total cost was 1.5 million francs. the sic relief beloware pictures depicting mr. sun's life and revolutionary activities.

Passing through the hall, we have come to the coffin chamber. there are two doors that youneed to get through. the outer door consists of two american-made safety door leafs which aremade of copper. the nails on them and the mysterious beasts on the copper loops are typicalof traditional chinese. the horizontal inscription board was engraved with "the noble spirit willnever perish " which was sun's handwriting for the 72 martyrs'tomb in huanghua mound ofguanzhou .the secound door is a single copper leaf engrave with seven characters "mr. sunyat-sen's tomb" which were written by zhang jing jiang.

The tomb is a half globe in shape. the design of kmt emblem is mosaicked in the vaulted dome.the floor of the round room is covered with marble. the room's diameter is 18 meters and theheight is 11 meters .the walls are covered with pink marbles. the circular marble pit is 1.7meters deep and 4.35 meters in diameter. it is enclose with 1-meter-high white marble rails.in the pit lays dr. sun yat-sen lying statue in zhongshan suit. this is sculpted in accordance tomr. sun's remains by a czechoslovakian sculptor. his copper coffin is lying about 5 metersbelow the sculpture. you may ask why on earth the clothes dr. wears for the sitting statue aretotally different from those for the lying one? in those years, the leftists and the rightists insideof the kmt had severe conflicts. the rightists, headed by chang kai-shek wanted to restore theancient ways and opposed revolution. they insisted that mr. sun should wear long robe, whilethe leftists insisted he wear zhongshan suit. since they had different opinions thus the twostatues have different clothes styles.

My friends, i `m afraid you must be concern about whether mr. sun remains are in the tomb ornot. in fact, his remains had a unusual experience. after his death, his remain were dealt withantiseptic and placed in biyun monastery in beijing in march, 1925. when the warlord zhangzong chang was defeated by the north expeditionary army and withdrew to beijing in 1926, heascribed his failure to mr. sun's remains and decided to burn them .it is the patriotic generalzhang xuelian who sent troops to protect the remains. unfortunately they were once exposedto the air though they were safe again. on may 28, 1929, mr. sun's coffin was sent to pukoufrom beijing by jinpu railway, and on june 1 it reached the mausoleum. after the grandceremony of feng'an, the coffin and the remains were put into the pit and used cement toconcrete it .the bottom of the tomb is granite. under the copper coffin, there is a speciallymade wooden pad and enclosing the coffin is a well-sealed crystal box. after the breakout ofthe resistance war against japan, kmt government planed to transport the remains tochongqing and at the end of the liberation war, chang kai-shek planed to transport it to taiwanthis time. because it was not a easy job to take the coffin out and the work might do damageto the remains as well, this plan was fiercely attacked by the engineering field and the left wingof the kmt. at last chang gave up the plan. so the remains have stayed here safely up to today.

Passing through the door in the back wall of the square outside you will arrive at themausoleum park. the back wall of the park is a "exhibition of construction of dr. sun yat-sen's mausoleum ".the exhibition contains nearly 200 precious historic materials which showthe construction of the mausoleum and the process of the transportation of mr. sun'sremains.

Beside the main structure, there are also some constructions around the mausoleum built inmemory of mr. sun. most of the constructions are built after 1929 with the donation of thosefrom both all trades in china and overseas chinese. the fraternity pavilion on top of the plum hillis built with the donation of a taiwanese compatriot. it was completed on november 12,1993,the 127th anniversary of mr. sun's birthday.

Ladies and gentlemen. mr. sun struggled for a better china for his whole life and overthrewmonarch feudalist system which lasted for more than 2000 years. he carried out the threeprincipal policies of "making an alliance with russia and the communist party of china and helpingthe farmers and workers" in his later days. the great feat mr. sun has achieved has gained greatrespect and praise from people from both home and abroad. after liberation, both central andlocal governments have exerted great efforts in preserving this excellent heritage.

Now, as one of the "top forty tourist resorts in china" dr. sun yat-sen mausoleum receivesnumerous chinese and international friends every years. people come here to pay homage tomr. sun. today, the unification has become the main tendency in terms of the relationsbetween the chinese on both sides of the straits . i believe that most chinese people, from bothhome and abroad, are expecting from the bottom of heart the coming of the day when ourcountry is united and getting more prosperous. at that time, when hearing this. dr. sun wouldsmile and be satisfied for sure in the other world. ok, thank you very much for yourcooperation. good bye and good luck!