The Jixi Building
The living quarters.
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The palace where Puyi, the last emperor of the Qing dynasty, lived from 1932 to 1945 as head of Manchukuo, the state set up in north-east China under Japanese control; today it is a 5A museum that tells the story of that period. The building was originally a salt-tax office, hence its nickname the «salt palace», after work on a planned new palace stopped in 1943 and was never finished. The complex covers 43,000 square metres, split into an outer court of government buildings, among them the Qinmin Building and Jiale Hall, and an inner court of living quarters with the Jixi Building and Tongde Hall; its architecture mixes Chinese, Japanese and European styles, with gardens, rockeries and a fish pond between the buildings. Visitors see the rooms as they were: reception halls, offices, bedrooms and a piano room. Tickets cost CNY 70, and it is open Tuesday to Sunday from 8.30 am to 5.20 pm from May to September and until 4.50 pm the rest of the year, with no entry in the last forty minutes; it is closed on Mondays, per visitor guides.
The living quarters.
As they were.
Chinese, Japanese, European.
Guangfu North Road, Kuancheng District, north-east Changchun, Jilin
The last emperor of China's Qing dynasty, who abdicated as a child in 1912 and was later installed as head of Manchukuo in north-east China from 1932 to 1945, living in this palace throughout.