Former German Governor’s Palace

European architecture style has long been my favorite, for its grand and majestic feeling. Someone told me there was a Former German Governor’s Palace in Qingdao, Shandong Province. Without much hesitation, I grabbed my backpack and headed there. While I was on the train, I checked some information about it, which made me more interested and I couldn’t wait to see it.



In the year of 1897, German took up Qingdao and they dispatched someone as the governor of the city. So the building of Former German Governor’s Palace kicked off. Its construction style reflected renaissance period construction trend of thought, also took in both western and Chinese cultural features. Legend has it that the governor who built the palace was removed from the office in the very next year, cuz it was too well built, even better than German Presidential Palace at that time.



The ironic part is the construction took almost 4 years, but Germans only lived there for 7 years. When the World War I broke, Japanese occupied Shandong Peninsula and kicked out Germans. Typical rules of life, when you wish for the best, chances are great that worst might come soon. So better wish for nothing and just live for the moment, life without regret is the best, at least for me.

Even it’s been over 100 years, it’s still preserved pretty well. In the front of the palace, there were two interesting roof design. Left side was Norman dragon head from Nordic vikings staring at the North, anchor links around the sun, reflecting the relationship with the sea. Right side was obviously eaves from Chinese design.



Though it looked a little bit aged on the outside, I was still shocked by its glorious and splendid design.They used real gems ceiling, formed with blue, red and green colored small lights. Light could shine through rhombus surface of gems then reflect to the roof irregularly. The palace has five floors in total but only 2 floors are free to visit. There is a golden lobby on the first floor, for meeting or banquet use.

On the second floor, there were bedroom of the governor, children’ room and housekeepers’ room. The amazing part is the huge flower house connecting the first and second floor, creating a wonderful indoors garden. What a genius design. Now I get why the governor was removed from the office.



I walked really slow all the way, trying to read instruction for some old articles placed in the showcase. These stuff were the live evidence of the past, looking at them, you could get a real feeling of the past. There was a small hole inside the governor’s bedroom. When there was guests visiting, servants leaded them to reception room on the first floor, governor could see them through the hole but visitors couldn’t see him. If he didn’t feel like meeting them, servants just simply told them governor wasn’t home.