No Birds Allowed

When visiting the Forbidden City, you may notice that no birds are sitting on the roofs. This is because the roofs have a special design.
To keep the birds from landing on the roofs, so as to retain the cleanliness and magnificence of the Forbidden City, the smart craftsmen came up with an idea: they made the slope of each roof higher and made the roof spine wider than the width between a bird’s claws so that birds are unable to land on the roofs. Not only that, the roofs are made of glazed tile. These tiles are very slippery, making it impossible for birds to land on them.Read more