Beijing's Forbidden City has nearly 9,000 rooms, which housed 10,000 people. Some are embellished with lavishly painted ceilings such as this one. This picture depends entirely upon color for meaning. The colors are muted, far from the brilliant blues, reds, and yellows photographers hunger for. Yet they are still exquisite. Gold, brown, pale blue – the palette of the 15th Century. They are arrayed upon a complex network of interlocking beams and posts that have held the building firmly in place since the Ming Dynasty. These colors, as much as anything else, have captured the flavor of that time for me.