EPCOT’s China Pavilion: Architecture, Legends, and Hidden Details


Hello and welcome to the Where In The Park Podcast, this is Kevin, and on this episode we will be continuing our exploration of the World Showcase at EPCOT. We started this series back in January, when we covered the history of EPCOT and the World Showcase, followed by episodes about the Mexico and Norway pavilions in February and March. Continuing clockwise through the park, our next stop on this journey is the China pavilion.

Okay, so when you're continuing along the path around the World Showcase lagoon, just after passing the Akershus Royal Banquet Hall in Norway, you are immediately transported to China.

Why a China Pavilion

As I had mentioned on our first episode in this series, when EPCOT Center's World Showcase was first being developed, many countries around the world were under consideration for inclusion. China, though, was not one of those original nations. China wasn't even on the original set of follow-up lists of potential locations.

It wasn't until the 1980 annual report for the Walt Disney company that a "future development" for the People's Republic of China was announced, over a year after EPCOT Center had already begun construction. A year after that, they included a piece of concept art for the China pavilion, and mentioned that a film was being shot in the country, without any other details provided. That art was labeled preliminary concept art, and it was dated February 13th, 1981.

Now, China, the nation, had been closed off to the western world from the Chinese Revolution of 1949 until the Open Door Policy in 1977. This was only after the death of the Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, Mao Zedong, in 1976. During this time, the Disney company, along with every other American film studio, couldn't distribute their films in mainland China. I bring this up because this means the years before Disneyland was even being planned, through Walt Disney's death in 1966, mainland China likely wasn't an option that he would have had on his wish list to be represented in a park. China likely wasn't included in the plans for Disneyland's International Street, and as far as I can tell, it was not included in the Ford's Magic Skyway queue's International Gardens. There was a Chinese pavilion at the 1964-65 New York World's Fair, but that was for the Republic of China, aka Taiwan, not the People's Republic of China.

Walking into the Pavilion

But anyway, as for our exploration of the pavilion at EPCOT, walking from Norway, the first building on your left has octagonal windows on a fairly plain looking wall, but it has an ornate roof. This is actually the rear of the Nine Dragons restaurant, the main dining location of the pavilion.

Now, before I start taking big swings at pronouncing Chinese words, I do want to let everyone know that I do not speak Chinese. I respect other cultures and will not intentionally mispronounce anything, but if I'm way off, let me know so I can get it right the next time I'm talking about this pavilion with friends and family.

Okay, so we found a photo posted at the Harvard Curiosity Library that was taken sometime between 1933 and 1946 that shows Wanshou Temple, a structure built in 1577, and it has a section of walls with octagonal and hexagonal windows, and we'll include that photo over on our podcast blog at WhereInThePark.com/podcast. I believe this design was fairly common in the architecture of ancient China. To be clear though, glass windows didn't appear in the country until at least the 18th century.

According to our copy of the Imagineering Field Guide for EPCOT, published by Disney Editions in 2010, the architecture in this pavilion is primarily from ancient China, specifically the Forbidden City and the Temple of Heaven. They point out that these areas are found on opposite sides of the city, but they're actually just three and a half miles apart, on opposite sides of the Dongcheng central district of Beijing. 

The Large Ornate Gate

Connecting those sections of the pavilion is a large ornate gate with a plaque on it that reads Zhao Yang Men, and then it has a translation of "Gate of the Golden Sun." The Imagineering Field Guide and countless online sources state that it is modeled after one found at the emperor's summer palace near Beijing. I tried to find a photo of it online by searching for the gate of "the golden sun" to no success, well other than to bring up more photos of this gate at EPCOT. If you fire up Google Translate on your phone and point your camera toward the Chinese text on the panel in the center of the gate, it translates to chaoyangmen, which is a word with a Wikipedia entry that explains that it was a gate that used to exist in the city wall of Beijing. It had actually connected the Chaoyang District and the Dongcheng District.

That Wikipedia entry translates "Chaoyang Gate" to "the Gate Facing the Sun." But, that entry also explains that the gate was demolished in the 1950s, and has two photos of the area, one from 1905 and the other 1917, but neither photo has structures that look anything like the gate in the park. (Just for fun for you blog readers, here are the characters that appear on the gate in the park: 朝陽門)

But yeah, so if you look up Summer Palace near Beijing, there is a location in the Haidian District, about a 30 minute drive away from Chaoyangmen. Now, going down that rabbit hole of a search finally got me to a post about the Five Gates of the Summer Palace, where I found what looks like the actual inspiration of the gate in the park. The Yunhui Yuyu Archway, which is also known as the Glowing Clouds and Holy Land Archway. It isn't a one-for-one match as far as replicating every intricate detail, but overall it is really close resemblance.

I did a quick search to see if anyone else has ever connected the gate in the park with the Yunhui Yuyu Archway, and I found a post on the Disney Tourist Blog website, where Scott Bricker has an article that also agrees that this is the likely inspiration.

All of that said, the field guide book also has a piece of concept art by Herb Ryman, which is the same one I mentioned earlier from the annual report in 1981, and this art includes a rendering of a gate positioned roughly where the existing one is in the park, but it's definitely not this one. Ryman had visited China in the 1930s, and that trip inspired his designs for the pavilion, but we're not sure which gate he had originally based his design on.

Also, just for the history lesson, these gates are also referred to as Paifang, or pailou, and they were originally based on Torana structures from India, which were introduced when Buddhism entered China sometime around 2,000 years ago.

The Creatures on the Roof

Continuing into the pavilion, that Nine Dragons building that I was talking about earlier, when viewed from the walkway along the lagoon, has taken on the look of the architecture of official buildings from the Chinese empire, clearly inspired by the buildings in the Forbidden City in Beijing.

If you look at the corners of the roofline of the building, as well as the corners of the top of the large gate I was just talking about, you will see a man riding a bird, followed by a few animals, and then a large dragon head. This same design is found on many rooflines of official buildings in China that were built between the Min and Qing Dynasties, including palaces, government buildings, temples, and, of course, gates.

There are a few different stories as to the meaning of these decorations. Some say the man on the bird represents King Min of Qi (300-284 BCE), who after being defeated in war had a phoenix appear to him from heaven, he then escaped on the back of the phoenix, and he is on the roof edges as an immortal riding a phoenix to symbolize miraculous escapes, essentially altering a dangerous situation into that of safety. Others say, he was the brother-in-law of another king, who was cautioned against trying to rise too far in society, because he would likely fall. He would become associated with the man on the bird, which in this story is usually a rooster or a chicken, and he was put on architecture to warn against being too ambitious. Another legend says that he was a tyrannical prince who bullied animals, and must now face their revenge by having them force him to the edge of roofs.

The Imagineering Field Guide kind of confirms their understanding that the last story is closest to what they thought was the real story, saying that they're based on Prince Min, a third century ruler who was hanged for his tyranny, and the animals are there to keep him from escaping.

The general consensus, though, is that these ceramic figures were traditionally placed on the roofs to ward off misfortune and evil spirits.

Either way, the largest building to has these "walking beasts", "crouching beasts", or "ridge beasts" decorations, the Hall of Supreme Harmony, has that guy on the chicken/phoenix followed by ten beasts, and it was the only building in China allowed to have that many. The number of beasts indicates the rank of the building, and we can see that the corners of the Nine Dragons Restaurant have the immortal followed by five beasts, so it's somewhere in the middle as far as importance goes, while the gate only has two beasts.

Apparently, ever since around 1912, after the end of the Qing Dynasty and the fall of the Chinese empire, these decorations are also commonly found on commercial structures and even boats... And on these structures at EPCOT.

As you continue into the pavilion, like I mentioned earlier, there are two distinct sides: the shopping and dining side, and the attraction side. 

We'll head left first, toward the shopping and dining. This first section of dining locations that you come across opened in 1985, three years after the park. According to a post at WDW Radio, it replaced the opening day feature of a manicured lawn.

Also, just a heads up, the dining and shopping locations at this pavilion have been run by The China Pavilion Operating Corporation since 1982. This company is not owned by Disney, instead it is part of its parent company, China Group, Inc. That China Group has been around since at least fifteen years before EPCOT, reportedly having worked on World's Fairs. But yeah, this is the reason why it's so hard to find Disney branded merchandise at the China pavilion, because the shops aren't run by Disney. There isn't a lot of information out there about this company, so if you know more, we would love to know who they are and how they were brought on by Disney to run this pavilion.

Nine Dragons Restaurant

So yeah, after turning the corner, that Nine Dragons restaurant building again transforms into having a more modern look, with beige walls, and some of those octagonal windows. There is also an ornate carved stone arch opening at its entrance.

The glass doors at this restaurant have a circle with two stacked Chinese characters inside of them. I have also found photos of a placemat for the restaurant, it encourages guests to practice writing Chinese characters, and it has these same characters appearing in a square "chop mark" on the top-right of the page. When I scanned them with Google Translate, it came back as either the English word "book" or the Chinese word Dazhong. Apparently, Dazhong doesn't mean book, it literally means "large" and "medium." Technically, the years 847 to 860, during the Tang Dynasty, were known as the Dazhong era, but I don't know if that has to do with anything here. There is a Dazhong Temple, also known as the Big Bell Temple, that has a similar ornate stone arch entrance, with a blue sign above the doorway in a frame. The roofline of that building also has the same bamboo inspired look to it as this location, along with the dragon and beasts with the guy on a bird motif that you see here. It could just be a coincidence, or it could be exactly what they're talking about. If you know details, reach out to us.

That Dazhong Temple, though, unlike its EPCOT look-alike, has arched windows with ornate carved stone borders to the left and right of the doorway, whereas the entrance of the restaurant in the park has what they call "highlight menus" posted with ornate frames to the left and right of the doors.

If you look closely at the bottom of the menu signage, you will see a small oval with a signature inside of it that reads: "d.c. ying, proprietor." That is the "owner" of this restaurant. The text, d.c. ying proprietor, also appears larger on lightly colored lettering found on the arched window above the doors to the restaurant.

From what I can find, d.c. ying isn't a real person, instead they're a fictional character created for EPCOT. I have, though, read that the last name Ying could likely be a reference to Dr. Nelson Ying, a nuclear physicist who served as Chairman of the China Group I mentioned earlier.

Above the ornate carved stone archway at the entrance of the restaurant is a blue sign with a red and gold frame and gold text. On top of the sign is a metal dragon. As for the text on the sign, it has the English name of the location, Nine Dragons restaurant, underneath Chinese characters that translate to Kowloon Restaurant. Kowloon is Cantonese for Nine Dragons. If you didn't already know that, now you will understand why there is an entree on the menu named "Kowloon Spare Ribs." 

The name of this restaurant could be a reference to Kowloon City in Hong Kong. There is a legend that back in the year 1278, the city was named by a 7-year-old child Emperor named Bing, of the Southern Song Dynasty. The story is that the boy wanted to name the location Eight Dragons, because of the eight mountains that surround the area. A person in his royal court, though, pointed out that as emperor, he was also a dragon, so that meant the location had nine dragons. The child emperor apparently liked that logic, and the city was named. Within a year, Kublai Khan conquered the city and the short reign of Emperor Bing was over, but the city of Kowloon is still around today. Inside the restaurant, there is a carved wood divider wall section with a large circle above some mountains and what looks like ocean water, on the circle are a couple of the same Chinese characters found on the sign at the entrance, for the term Kowloon. This piece of art likely represents that city in Hong Kong, with its ocean setting among mountains.

But, also, there is a Nine-Dragon Wall at the Forbidden City, and others similar to it all around China. The original three were constructed during the Ming Dynasty, with the oldest having been constructed in 1391 CE, in Datong. The one at the Forbidden City was built in 1773. They are considered a sign of royalty, and the number nine indicates that something is "complete" in Chinese culture. Inside the restaurant, there is a wall with shadow boxes built into it that have nine glass dragons displayed in them. So, technically, there is a nine-dragon wall in the restaurant, even though it does not look anything like those ancient walls in China.

I have also read that the name Nine Dragons is a reference to the Dragon King and his nine sons, but I think that's a stretch. Sure, one of his sons is Chaofeng, the "rooftop adventurer," and is supposedly the dragon represented along with the guy on the bird hanging out with the beasts on the roof corners, but nothing else about this story really fits the restaurant as far as I can tell.

Lotus Blossom Cafe

Continuing on down the road, the next building you will find is Lotus Blossom Cafe. This is a quick service dining location that has a couple of blue wooden signs that look like scrolls, they are on the left and right of the entrance, and they each also say "d.c. ying / proprietor." If you look at the menus posted at this location, they also include that oval logo for d.c. ying found at the Nine Dragons.

The main sign for this location is blue with illustrations of lotus flowers on the left and right, and in the middle is the English name below Chinese characters. Those characters are Lian Hua Zhai, which translates to Lotus Flower House. Lian Hua is the term for lotus flower in both Mandarin and Cantonese. In Chinese culture, the lotus flower represents purity, beauty, and rebirth.

The style of the building reminds me of the Longevity Chamber at the Summer Palace, with beige scalloped walls connecting an entrance with doubled red pillars and a similar bamboo roof with a sloped peak. You can check out our podcast blog for side-by-side photos to see what I'm talking about.

House of Good Fortune

Just past the Lotus Blossom is a red and gold two-level pagoda-style building with a blue sign with a gold frame and gold text that reads the House of Good Fortune in English. Like the other signs, there are Chinese characters above the English text, and on this sign the two characters translate to Good Luck.

A version of this building was included on a painting found on a postcard sold at the EPCOT Center preview center in the Magic Kingdom park in 1981. The back of the postcard mentions that the art is for that they were calling the People's Republic of China pavilion. The architecture in that painting is similar to what is in the park, except the building has a blue roof instead of the gold that we have today.

Also unlike the postcard, to the left and right of the entrance are stone Chinese guardian lions, which are also referred to as Fu Dogs. The one on the right has a ball under its front-right paw, this indicates that this is a male lion, and it represents material elements, and symbolizes power, control, and protection, while the lion on the left is a female that represents spirit, she has a cub under her paw, and she symbolizes nurturing, harmony, and fertility. When paired together, they balance strength with nurturing, and they're considered good luck to have in front of homes and businesses.

To the right of that entrance, there is a red door next to a lamp post made of multiple bamboo shoot-looking poles with paper-style lanterns. Above the door is a sign with Chinese characters that translates to Yong Feng Store, plus smaller text below translating to Chinese Products. The Yong Feng Shangdian Shopping gallery opened on April 3rd, 1983, roughly six months after the park opened. Shangdian just means store, and Yong Feng means prosperous. Yong Feng Shangdian was renamed House of Good Fortune in 2011, but this sign remains as a reminder of what used to be.

If you keep walking down the road, you'll come across some more facades of Chinese buildings, including another entrance to the House of Good Fortune. We found a photo from 1860 of a "House of a Mandarin" that looks very similar to this building. 

After that is a crooked staircase that leads to a red door. On the wall to the left of the door is a metal Chinese character. There are other copies of metal ornamentation like this throughout this section of the pavilion. This one is the character Shou, which symbolizes longevity. The door itself has a metal door pull that looks like a lion's head with a metal ring coming out of its mouth. Similar door pulls are found throughout the Forbidden City, but are typically on red doors that also feature golden nails and paving.

And then after that, there is another facade with another sign with Yong Feng Shangdian / Chinese Products in Chinese text. It has two large lanterns on top of ornate pedestals in front of the door. The red door at that location also has a lion-head door pull, but it's not as big as the first one I mentioned.

After this, there is a smaller building with a large bronze bell under an overhang. That type of bell is known as a bianzhong bell. It doesn't have a clapper, you know, that thing found inside of bells that hits the insides to make it ring, so it would instead be hit from the outside with a wooden mallet. The design is from the Zhou Dynasty. Apparently, you wouldn't normally have just one of these in your collection, because the bell could only ring in two pitches. There is a set of these bells on display at the Hubei Provincial Museum in Wuhan, China, the Bianzhong of Marquis Yi of Zeng. That set was created in 433 BCE, and looking at a photo of it, you can see how these bells would have been arranged side-by-side, along with smaller, but similar looking, bells hung above them. The wood rack holding up the bells in that set have metal cat sculptures behind the bells that look similar to the one found in the park in the same location relative to the bell.

To the immediate right of where that bell is located, there is a large back entrance to that same House of Good Fortune shop, but this one doesn't have a sign on it, and the facade isn't that of a building, it's actually another, but smaller, Paifang-style gate. It looks a little closer in design to the one found on the Herb Ryman concept art, and has some detail elements borrowed from another one of the gates at the Summer Palace.

The Rest of the Street

As you continue down this street, all of the storefronts are just facades, because this is actually a side of the theater building. The first "building" has beige paint with a red sign with gold Chinese characters on it, those characters are Heng, Chun, and Hang (恒春行). This translates to Eternal Spring Company, with Hengchun actually being the name of a well-known township in Taiwan, but I don't know if there's any connection here. The building has two red pillars that also have Chinese characters written on them. The one on the left says "Yu Qinxingshimen," which Google AI says is a traditional Chinese phrase that is often carved into doorposts to bring good fortune to households, it roughly translates to "Abundant joy extends through this door."

Here is a character breakdown and meaning:

餘 (Yú): Remainder, surplus, or abundance
慶 (Qìng): Celebrate or blessings
衍 (Yǎn): To spread, overflow, or multiply
財 (Cái): Wealth or prosperity
門 (Mén): Door or gate

Then, the one on the right says, "Chang chun rong de ze." Google Translate using my phone's camera thinks that means Everlasting Spring General Administration of Finance, while Google AI says it translates to Enduring Spring Melts Virtue's Grace.

Here is a character breakdown and meaning:

長 (cháng): Meaning "long" or "everlasting"
春 (chūn): Meaning "spring"
融 (róng): Often associated with harmony or melting (as in snow)
德 (dé): Meaning "virtue" or "morality"
澤 (zé): Meaning "grace," "blessing," or "benefit"

The AI does continue to say that the pattern of these two messages side-by-side is similar to a Spring Couplet, or Fai Chun, which are traditional decorations used to bring good luck and prosperity.

There is also a red door on this facade that has a sign with the word "Hotel" written on it in both English and Chinese. Above the door is another stylized Chinese character made out of metal, and on our last visit, it was actually displayed upside-down. According to our image search, if we flip this around, it is a highly stylized Fu character, which means luck. If you would like to get a shiny brass version of this or the Shou that we mentioned earlier, and will mention again, we'll include a link on our podcast blog to a website that sells them, but they aren't a sponsor.

To the right of this facade is another building, this one is made of gray bricks. It actually looks more European than any of the other facades in the pavilion. It has a big blue sign with a cloud-inspired frame, and it has gray Chinese characters written on it. Those characters translate to "Telephone Office," and even on our last visit this past September, there were still pay phones in the alcove of this building. The phone on the left has a metal Chinese character, this one matches the Shou ornamentation on the other side of the street that I mentioned earlier, which again means longevity.

To the right of this building is another beige building with red accents, that has two blue awnings above windows opposite a door. Above each of the awnings are two beige rectangular panels, on one is a stylized version of the Chinese character Fu (福), which represents luck or good fortune, and the other is Shòu (壽), which, you should know by now -longevity. The left window has it in the order by Fu and then Shou, while the one on the right has Shou followed by Fu. Google's photo translations says Shou in this instance can be replaced with the word "life," while Fu could be replaced with "blessing." 

Each of the blue awnings has the following character in the same order: Fu, Shou, Lu, Kang, and Le.

福 (Fú): Good fortune, happiness, or blessings
壽 (Shòu): Longevity or long life
祿 (Lù): Prosperity, success, or high status/rank
康 (Kāng): Health or peacefulness
樂 (Lè): Joy or happiness

They represent: Fortune, Longevity, Prosperity, Health, and Happiness.

There are two pillars to the left and right of the door, between the door and each window, and they have more Chinese text running vertically. The one on the left translates to either "Source of Wealth and Running Water" or "Water from the source of beneficial bounty." The characters appear to be these: 利 澤 源 頭 水. If you know Chinese better than AI, let us know what it really says!

利 (lì): Benefit, profit, or prosperity
澤 (zé): Blessings, grace, or moisture (metaphorically, "to enrich")
源頭 (yuán tóu): Source or fountainhead
水 (shuǐ): Water

The pillar on the right, might say "Fresh food on a roll" or "Born with potassium" depending on how the Google photo translation is feeling. When I put both sets of text together, Google AI translated the left and right columns to "Re-study source water" and "Fresh appearance," and then Microsoft's Co-pilot says this could be a shop advertising "refreshing drinks" and "handcrafted cooking pots"... So, taking it all together, it could be an eatery serving refreshing drinks and fresh sandwiches? I'm not really sure. Either way, this isn't a real shop or eatery, so I'm not going to stress about it.

Moving on, to the right of that is a red door with a gold push plate instead of a doorknob. The door has another one of those metal Chinese characters, this is the stylized Fu again, and it's hung at a forty-five degree angle. That's right, it's still not the correct side up.

That building is followed by a corner location, which is another large red building, and it also has red pillars with black Chinese text on them. This time, they each have seven characters running vertically.

The one on the left has the characters Yuán yuǎn liú cháng, which is an idiom that roughly means, "the source is distant and the stream is long." While it ends with Yǒu dào cái, which refers to "wealth gained through the proper way." So, put together the message is about how doing things the right way will lead to long-lasting results.

源 yuán Source / Origin
遠 yuǎn Distant / Far
流 liú Flow / Stream
長 cháng Long
有 yǒu Have / Possess
道 dào Way / Principle / Righteous path
財 cái Wealth / Money

The second column starts with Gēn shēn yè mào, another common idiom that means, "deep roots and flourishing leaves." And this is followed by Wú jiāng yè, which means "limitless business." So, put together, they are saying that something done with a deep, solid foundation will be successful.

根 gēn Root
深 shēn Deep
葉 yè Leaf / Leaves
茂 mào Lush / Flourishing
無 wú No / Without
疆 jiāng Boundary / Limit
業 yè Business / Career / Industry

This is, apparently, a common couplet, or Dui Lian, that you'll find on family-owned businesses in China.

Following this location is a fairly non-descript building, it has another one of those bamboo and paper lantern lamps and two red doors.

To the right of that is an outdoor shop, they were selling marionette puppets and folding fans on our last visit, among a few other items. It appears to also be stylized after another Paifang gate, but it also shares some similarities with the Yonghe Temple, also known as the Lama Temple, which is located about five kilometers from the Forbidden City.

Found on the wall of the next building after that facade is a plaque for Xing Fu Jie, which lets you know the area that we just explored has a name, it says in English underneath: Street of Good Fortune.

There are also a few more marble statues that we have taken photos of in this Street of Good Fortune section of the pavilion. Here at Where In The Park, we have learned that when it comes to theme parks and statues, you never know whether or not they'll be in the same place on your next visit, or if they'll even be on display at all. But, we'll describe a few that we have found, and you can go check to see if they're there on your next visit.

One is a marble statue of a person sitting on a lion. This is Kwan Yin, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, and he or she, depending on who's telling the story, is depicted riding a lion to show fearlessness, authority, and the ability to tame the ferocious, untamed mind. The last time we found this statue, it was along the right outside wall of the first entrance to the House of Good Fortune.

Another marble statue is of a baby elephant, with its tusks and trunk raised upward. It has a saddle with cloud shapes on it. The oldest known elephant statue is a baby elephant that was discovered in an archaeological dig of a Buddhist temple in eastern India, it is believed to have been carved 2,300 years ago. Like I mentioned earlier, Buddhism entered China around 2,000 years ago, so the tradition of carving elephants traveled to China around that time as well. It is believed that for ancient Buddhists, elephants symbolized royalty, as well as monsoon rains and fertility. The last time we found this statue in the park, it was to the right of that bianzhong bell I mentioned earlier, but back in 2022 it was over near the first facade with the Yong Feng Store sign.

Also, sometimes found to the left of the bianzhong bell is another guardian lion/fu dog statue. This one is smaller than the other two in front of the House of Good Fortune. It has a ball under its right paw, which, again, indicates that this is a male.

As you continue your journey through the pavilion, walking around that corner, you will come across a building with a plaque that reads Liu Yin Ge, along with the translation of "House of the Whispering Willows." From October of 2006 until 2016, this location housed 197 one-third-scale replicas of the army of Terra Cotta Warriors in an exhibit named "Tomb Warriors: Guardian Spirts of Ancient China."

In June of 2016, the current exhibit premiered in this location, "Inside Shanghai Disney Resort." Here you'll find several pieces of art and costumes from the Shanghai Disneyland park and its surrounding hotels. That theme park in Shanghai also opened in June of 2016.

In front of the entrance to this location is another pair of Fu dogs, with a female on the left, and male on the right. Looking at photos we took of the ball under the male's paw, we thought the marble had been broken, but thanks to one of our customers from Florida (thanks Suzie!) we now know that it just looks gray sometimes, but it actually has a special effect of glowing colors.

Continuing on, directly in front of you is the entrance this pavilion's theater attraction building.

It is based on a structure named Qi Nian Dian, or Chi Nien Tien as a sign in front of the building used to have it spelled. The actual building it is based on is found in the Temple of Heaven Park in Beijing. It was originally intended as a location for emperors to pray for good harvests, which is why it has its name, which translates to "The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests." The reason why it is round is because there is an ancient Chinese belief that round things represent Heaven, while squares represent Earth. The Temple of Heaven complex was originally built during the Ming Dynasty between 1406 and 1420, but did not receive the Heaven name until after a renovation during the reign of the Jiajing Emperor in 1534. The Qi Nian Hall building standing in China today is a reconstruction of the original, which had burned down in 1889. The current building is 118 feet in diameter and 125 feet tall, and is made completely out of wood, without the use of nails or metal braces. The building in the park was built at half-scale, and they likely used several nails while building it.

There is a carved stone tablet in front of the Hall that is similar to several stone tablets found between double stairways in the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace, and, of course, the Temple of Heaven. It includes wavy clouds below mountains leading up to more clouds, with dragons frolicking among a flaming pearl. This is a scene from ancient Chinese stories, with the pearl symbolizing wisdom, knowledge, and constant change, and some say that dragons embody nature, symbolizing the weather and water. At the real Temple of Heaven location, there are actually three separate carvings up the much larger staircase, and the one in the park closely resembles the one near the top of the staircase.

The stone fencing around this area of the China pavilion also matches the look of the fencing found all around the actual location at the Temple of Heaven. It is made of a white stone, and has pillars featuring art of birds, either phoenixes or cranes.

The Temple of Heaven park in China opened to the public in 1918, and was designation a national cultural heritage site in 1961. In 1998, it joined UNESCO's World Heritage list.

The inside of the building at EPCOT has some similarities with the real version. You will find a rotunda with twelve outer columns that represent the months of the year, as well as the twelve-year cycle of the Chinese calendar. That twelve-year cycle is why there are twelve animals representing years in China, for example, 2026 is the year of the horse. Close to the center of the domed ceiling are four other columns, they represent the four seasons of the year. At the center of the dome is a golden medallion that features a dragon and phoenix. Those mythical creatures are also found on silkscreened sections inside and outside of the building. Dragons represent power, authority, good fortune, prosperity and wisdom, while phoenixes represent virtue, grace, and prosperity. When combined, they represent harmonious unions. And, if you stand on the center spot under the dome, you can talk to yourself because the symmetry of the architecture creates a pointed echo right back at you.

Of course, at EPCOT, this is just one part of a larger show building, with this being the entrance to a waiting area for the main attraction of the pavilion, a Circle-Vision 360 travelogue. The original film inside the theater, Wonders of China, was the first Western film allowed to be shot on mainland China for over three decades. That film played in the theater from when the park opened until March of 2002. It also played at the World Premiere Circle-Vision theater in Tomorrowland at Disneyland in California from 1984 to 1996. 

The current show, Reflections of China, premiered over a year after the original show closed in EPCOT, in May of 2003. The newer film used about twenty-five percent of the original footage they shot in 1981, and updated the rest.

An even newer film for the pavilion was announced by Imagineer Tom Fitzgerald at the D23 Expo in 2017, and a name and poster for that movie, Wondrous China, was presented at the Expo in 2019. After the pandemic, there hasn't been any mention of progress on that movie...

So yeah, to round out what else you'll find at the China pavilion, there are gardens all around the Temple of Heaven-inspired section, but those gardens aren't stylized after the grounds of the Temple of Heaven complex. They were likely inspired by the lily pad filled waters and lush gardens of the Summer Palace, as well as the gardens of Suzhou, a large city near Shanghai. The Suzhou location also has ponds with lily pads, but around the ponds are plants such as mulberry trees, camellia flowers, and bamboo, just like you'll find in the park.

Also, when you walk into the pavilion from Norway, on your right you will find some large stones. They represent taihu stones, which are porous stones formed from a limestone found near the foot of Dongting Mountain, which is also in Suzhou. The rocks were said to have been used for meditation, and contemplating life. Emperors would send expeditions out to spend years finding and bringing back large boulders like these to their palaces.

Sometime in 2010, two kiosks opened up on this side of the walkway, the Joy of Tea and The Good Fortune Gift Shop. Also, depending on the time of year you are visiting, there might be another kiosk for China's offerings for the International Food & Wine Festival, with China being included since the first such festival back in 1996.

It might be hard to see the taihu stones because of those kiosks, but don't worry, there is another set of boulders on the other end of the pavilion on the same side of the walkway.

I should also point out that back in 1998, Disney released their 36th animated feature film, Mulan. The story of that film takes place in China. The majority of it was actually animated not far down the road from EPCOT, at what was then the Disney-MGM Studios.

The story takes place some time during the fourth and sixth century, which is why, for the most part, the architecture of the buildings in the film don't closely match what is found in the pavilion, which is mostly from the fifteenth century onward. The Imperial City in the film, though, is based on the Forbidden City, regardless of the thousand year time jump. There is a scene with the film's villain, Shan Yu, on the corner of a roof among some of the ceramic roof beasts that we had mentioned earlier. There are also a few ornate gates, with subtle similarities to the Paifang gates represented in the park, though they are not as ornate. There is also a building with an octagonal window, lion-head door handles, and at least two scenes with fu dog sculptures.

Either way, you can sometimes come across the title character, Mulan, in the China pavilion. You can check the disneyworld.com website, or the app, for her schedule.

Also, just a fun fact, the Christina Aguilera music video for the song Reflection, from that Disney animated feature film, was shot in the China pavilion back in 1998.

Also, the animated film depicts the Great Wall of China, which appears in both of the films that have been shown in the theater in the pavilion, as well as during a scene in the Soarin' Around the World attraction video. But, when you're leaving the China pavilion and heading in the direction of the Outpost, on your left you will see a section of wall that is supposed to hint at the body of a dragon, as well as that Great Wall, which is itself sometimes referred to as "the long dragon."

And well, that wraps up everything I have learned about the China pavilion. If there's anything I missed, or just got wrong, please let us know. You can contact us through our website, WhereInThePark.com, or by sending us a message on our social media pages at Facebook or Instagram.

If you had a good time, please take a minute or two to leave a review at Apple Podcasts or Spotify to help other theme park fans find us. We would really appreciate it.

And with that, this is Kevin signing off from the Where In The Park Podcast. Until next time, we'll see you, somewhere in the park.


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