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The promotional material for this attraction is just a little bit misleading. They advertise the ‘one-third’ scale reproduction of the army of Emperor Qin and the Forbidden City. The reproduction of the army of Emperor Qin, an amazing 6,000 soldiers and horses, is an impressive one-third scale – rows upon rows of highly-detailed terra cotta soldiers lined-up in the Earth.
The Forbidden City is not one-third scale, but 1/20th, laid out underneath a 40,000-square-foot metal pavilion. The miniature is highly detailed, complete with people. A third miniature outside is the beautiful Calming of the Heart Lodge, the emperor’s summer palace, also on a 1/20th scale.
Unfortunately, the only way to see the Forbidden City, Calming of the Heart Lodge and Emperor Qin’s army is on a docent-led narrated tour that leaves on the hour. The docents, dressed in all black with jet-black slicked-back hair, seem pretty knowledgeable on Chinese history. But their Marilyn Manson-look is somewhat distracting. The worst thing is that they are on a schedule – one tour per hour, and they don’t take kindly to lingering. And lingering is what you will want to do over such intricate models.
Lingering isn’t a problem in the courtyard – that’s where you have to bide your time waiting for the tour to start. There are some paintings, some sculpture, and a few exhibits including Chinese weapons, three de-constructed models of buildings, food and musical instruments. The best place to wait for the tour to start is looking at all the detail in another intricate 1/20th-scale miniature, the City of Suzhou, complete with the wall dividing the rich from the poor
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