Kunming 昆明市 - The Gold Horse and Jade Cock Archways 金马和碧鸡牌楼

The Archways are located in Jinbi (Gold and Jade) Street. The archways, 19.5 meters tall and 14.7 meters wide, feature stone bases carved with eight famous scenes of Kunming. Included is the West Kunming, which looks like the profile of a sleeping beauty. One of the archways has the gilded characters “Jinma” (Gold Horse) at the center of the top beam, the other has the words “Biji” (Jade Cock). For five centuries, the two archways had witnessed the ups and downs of the city of Kunming. During the “cultural revolution” (1966-1976), the two archways were destroyed. These two archways were rebuilt in 1999 to cope with the development of Kunming. There are many legends about the horse and cock. The most popular one goes that a golden horse flying out of the sun and a jade cock from the moon descended on Kunming.. Whenever they went, lush grass and tall trees would blossom in gold. The horse and cook sang and danced side by side, making Kunming one of the most charming places in the world. But the most distinctive aspect about the two archways is their architectural design, which combined mathematics and astronomy. Before the archways were destroyed in the 1960s. local people gathered around them in the afternoons during the Mid-Autumn Festival, waiting for “wonder” to come.The local legend has it that between 5 to 7 pm on one Mid-Autumn Day, the heads of the shadows of the two archways would meet as the setting sun in the west and the rising moon in the east both spread light on them. But it is said that this only happens once every 60 years. The local people call it Jinbijiaohui, or “the sun and the moon join their brightness.” However, historic records vary on the year of the wonder—no one knows exactly when it will happen again. People still wait patiently for this omen. Since the 1980s, the city’s people lobbied for the archways’ reconstruction. During the preparation for the horticultural-exposition, the city government included the archways into the project of the tourism center. Over 50 companies participated in the construction. Two new archways were erected in April 1999. At the southern rim of the Horse and Cock Square, tourists come into rows of new buildings in Kunming’s traditional style. Rice noodles, baked bean curd and some strange but tasty insects will satisfy the choosy gastronomes. Across the street from these small shops, tourists will find a sunken arena—an open square of over 2,000 square meters about 10 meters into the ground. Purple-column archways guard all four sides of the square, a total of 24 elevators carry people up and down.

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