Forbidden City offers up its secrets

The Forbidden City is a trove of cultural treasures that inspired the popular variety show, New Arrival of the Palace Museum. [Photo provided to China Daily]

TV show gives audiences a glimpse into the hidden gems of a cultural masterpiece, Wang Kaihao reports.

The Forbidden City in Beijing stands like a sentinel to culture and history. Its commanding presence evokes long-gone eras. Not surprisingly, the ravages of time have played a key role in its appearance and finding original work existing since it was built 599 years ago is no easy task.

Indeed, a TV show is challenging celebrity guests to be "detectives" of architecture and look for evidence and remnants of its past.

Since construction of this 720,000-square-meter compound was completed in 1420, almost every building in the imperial palace of the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties, now officially known as the Palace Museum, has been renovated, several times.

When the first episode of the second season of the variety show on Beijing TV, New Arrival of the Palace Museum was piloted on Nov 8, celebrity guests were seen trying to, literally, unearth the past and find anything they can dating back six centuries.