Halls of dazzling glory or an 'ill-omened pile of buildings' A sight unforgettably lovely or merely commonplace? Long shrouded in mystery, Beijing's Forbidden City has provoked all these conflicting descriptions. Built to a grand scale, its design determined by the art of fengsui, the Forbidden City was at once a palace and a prison. Good luck did not always bless its denizens, and life was cold, lonely and stifling for many of the emperors, empresses, and imperial concubines who lived within it. Today the palace receives many visitors, yet the realities of imperial life in the Forbidden City are stil little known. This illustrated introduction exposes the private world hidden behind imperial walls, bringing to light mundane processes of its every day life. Ritual procedures and domestic arrangements, wedding, births and deaths, the practical concerns of heating, lighting, and cooking: each of these topics is explored in this unique portrait of one of Asia's premier historical and cultural sites.