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count 'em! Nine Dragons
Ah, due to some archival errors, we can only present some of the dragons. (You'll have to imagine the rest.) This is one of three Nine Dragon Screens in China, built in the late 1770's during the reign of Emperor Qianlong. So in Forbidden City terms, it's practically new out of the box. I've read that the number nine is supposed to represent the supremacy of the emperor. It has something to do with Chinese numerology - even numbers are female, odd numbers are male, nine is the largest odd number and therefore "ultimately masculine"... Yeah, yeah. It's odd, all right. Return to The Forbidden City The Wacky Seester |