Temples – 寺庙

23 August 2015

On Thursday, I went to the Great Bell Temple (大钟寺), just one stop on subway line 13. The great bell itself, created in the Ming (1368-1644), in imitation of ancient Chinese ritual bills, is too big to get in the frame.

I also like the image of the ‘open for business (营业) ’ sign on the building looming over the temple walls. By way of context, the temple is a little spot of calm in a seemingly endless disorienting sea of Haidian high rise.

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Yesterday, I went further into town to Xisi. It was such a relief to be in the human-scale hutong area. This is old Beijing. Kids running around, old people in doorways, and the same smell of water on the hot street.

I spent a long time in the Guangji Temple (广济寺), home to the Buddhist Association of China. The shady trees, the coloured buildings and the pace of activity there all enable tapping depths of inner peace. There were people overtly praying and sitting in Buddhist meditation – I don’t remember that in the eighties.

Then on for a dose of secularism at the Lu Xun Museum. Lu Xun was the early twentieth century literary master of the novella and short story. (If you’ve not read the delicately satirical True Story of Ah Q, then try it.) Lots of photographs of him and his forward-thinking contemporaries, participating in modernist thought and protesting against cruel warlords and other such social ills.

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