總統府英文導游詞

　　hello everyone:

　　now we will visit the famous tourist site in nanjing——the presidential palace and understand its history.

　　the presidential palace is located at 292 changjiang road. up to now it is over six hundred years old. it was constructed as the marquis guide’s residence and then prince han’s residence in the early years of the ming dynasty. it successively became the official residences of liangjiang viceroys in the qing dynasty. the emperors kangxi and qianlong often used here as their temporary dwelling palace when they made inspection tours of south china.

　　during the period of the taiping heavenly kingdom, hong xiuquan erected a large-scale heavenly king’s palace in the compound of the liangjiang viceroy’s official residence.

　　on 1 january 1912, dr sun yat-sen was sworn in as the provisional president here. it successively became the official residence of the jiangsu military governors, the vice-president’s office and so forth in the following fifteen years. in 1927, the nanjing nationalist government was established and here became the offices of it. after the occupation of nanjing by japanese troops in december 1937, the offices of the nationalist government served in turn as the headquarters of the 16th division of japanese troop. on 23 april 1949, nanjing was liberated. the people’s liberation army occupied the presidential palace on 24 april.

　　the scenic area of the presidential palace covers a space of 80000 square meters.

　　the presidential palace

　　it comprises three pieces of scenery: the former nationalist government and the presidential government in the center; the former provisional president sun yat-sen's office building, the office of the secretary general, the west garden and the general staff headquarters in the west; the executive yuan, the tao shu and lin zexu memorial temple, stable and the exhibition of the material on the liangjiang viceroy's official residence in the east.

　　the presidential palace has a heave historical culture, unique historical materials and beautiful natural environment with classical constructions. now it was opened to the world as the nanjing museum of modern chinese history.

　　now, please follow me to visit the presidential palace.

　　opposite to the gate of the palace across the street is the screen wall. built in 1930, the gate tower is a two-storeyed building with three arch-gates in an imitation of ancient rome style. it used to be the guardroom during the period of the republic of china.

　　the palace of heavenly king, surrounded by the two walls, is found right at the entrance of the gate. the area within the outer wall was called “the city of sun”， while that within the main inner wall was called “the city of the golden dragon”.there were many grand buildings within the two walls. on both sides of the main hall were gardens. the palace is newly restored, including the study, throne and imperial harem. in addition, the history of taiping heavenly kingdom is on exhibition here.

　　the complex in the east of the count was the yamen of governor general of multi-province. yamen is the government office in feudal china.

　　the building is the presidential palace. the first floor was the office of secretariat. the second floor was the president’s, vice president’s office and the secretary-general’s office. the third floor was the state conference hall, in which the most important meetings were held once two weeks.

　　after visiting here, please come with me to continue to visit the western side of the presidential residence.

　　xuyuan garden is located at the western side of the presidential residence. xuyuan garden was first built for chen li as his mansion in the ming dynasty, some 600 years ago. in 1404, the succeeded emperor zhu di made his second son zhu gaoxu the prince of han. as the prince stuck to stay in nanjing and lived here, the garden had been called xu (yuan) garden since that time.

　　xuyuan

　　the garden covers an area of 1.4 hectares, consisting of 3 parts---a small courtyard in front of the garden, he east part with a rocky hill, and the east with a vase-like water pond.

　　the courtyard is a bit small, but yet well worth seeing because it’s the only passage to the west garden. the outer gate of the yard used to be the place for sedan chair carriers taking the load off their shoulders for rest. on the lintel of the gate is inland a carved brick with two chinese characters “xuyuan”.

　　when tourists go out of the moon gate, they come to the main body of the west garden. the rocky is the first attraction when visitors enter the main body of the garden from the yard. in a chinese garden, a rocky hill, which is made of the rocks washed in taihu lake, is an artistic imitation of the nature to indicate the harmony between human and the nature.

　　tongyin hall

　　northeast to the rockery is tongyin hall. as tongyin is similar to qinyin in sound, which is the sound of ancient chinese music instrument, tongyin implies the connotation of bosom friend——zhiyin in chinese pinyin. a story goes like this.

　　the fangsheng pavilion, also called “mandarin duck pavilion,” has two roofs linked like two mandarin ducks sleeping with their necks together. seen from far away, the pavilion seems to be twin pavilions. the design is symbolic of faithfulness between man and woman.

　　the lake we looked is shaped like a porcelain vase. a vase in chinese is pronounced as “ping”, which has a number of the connotations as “peace, safety, harmony, serenity, repose, ease, or tranquility”.

　　the great attraction in the lake is a marble boat called unmoored boat——a miniature of the famous one in beijing’s summer palace. the boat was built in the 1746 by yin jishan, the governor-general of the multi-province, who wanted to show the reception and hospitality to emperor qianlong during the emperor’s inspection tour here. as the boat is made of marble in water, there is no need to moor it, hence the name “unmoored boat”.

　　unmoored boat

　　opposite to the boat, across the lake, lies the pavilion of ripples, which is a complex of architectures of chinese ancient style, including terrace, pavilion and bridge. and the place is wonderful for people to enjoy the scenery of full moon as well as the pleasant music on the evening of traditional chinese mid-autumn festival.

　　there are several interesting buildings worth lingering a while, for example, the sunset pavilion with a three-piece tablet of eastern wu emperor sun hao’s writing, the outlook pavilion with a tablet of chinese painting and carving, the imperial tablet pavilion with the handwriting of emperor qianlong. nevertheless, what the visitors long to visit most is undoubtedly the office of dr. sun yatsen. when dr. sun yatsen was elected provisional president of the republic of china in 1912 after the 1911 revolution, he had a western style office building put up near the garden where he held important meeting and met friends.

　　now you can go around and take photos. if you have any problems, please ask me.