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Alphabetical Listing of China Travel Tips
| CHINA TEMPLES |
 White Pagoda Temple (Baita Si) |
| White Pagoda Temple (Baita Si) on Fuchengmennei Dajie is once again open to visitors. The Pagoda is actually only part of the Tibetan Miao Ying Temple, but since it is the temple's most prominent feature, locals name the whole complex after it. The Pagoda itself is over 700 years old, and was built by a famed Nepalese architect known as Arniger in 1271, during the Yuan Dynasty. The 50.9-meter high structure took eight years to complete |
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| Fahai: Temple Preserves Precious Pictures |
| Hidden in a remote hill in the western suburbs of Beijing is a temple of fading Buddhist beauty and precious cultural importance that has somehow survived the ravages of revolution and other popular acts of vandalism in Chinese history. Today at Fahai, there are no longer the enshrined statues of Ka'syapa, Sakyamuni and Maitreya, Mahakala and Litong, a eunuch of the Ming Dynasty. All were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. |
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| Little White Dragon (SiTan Zhe) Temple |
- Little Dragon Stirs
As tour groups and guidebook backpackers charge off on their iron horses and four-wheeled chariots for the faded glories and grandiose follies of Chengde, there's a forgotten imperial jewel right on the doorstep of this ancient capital city. For far longer than the celebrated Chengde or the spectacular Summer Palace, the Tan Zhe Si mountain monastery was a favored imperial retreat. Its 1,200-year history remains shrouded in mists of myth.
- Where Vegetarians Find Hope
When thoughtful colleagues conspired to conjure an invitation to sample the fascinating fake meat dishes at Tan Zhe temple's new vegetarian restaurant, it was warmly welcomed by Beijing This Month's fussy foreign editor. Tan Zhe Si (See Little Dragon Stirs, page 14) served up a vegetarian feast fit for an emperor, a gargantuan array of sumptuous vegetables arranged in ever more eye-pleasing designs. Nothing too spicy, nothing too hot, and nothing crammed full of flavor was served in traditional vegetarian temple style.
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| Beijing's White Cloud Temple (Baiyunguan) |
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White Enlightening
W hite Cloud Temple (Baiyunguan) is the largest and most popular Taoist site in Beijing, serving as an active place of worship, an ancestral shrine, a reliquary, and as headquarters for the Chinese Taoism Association. The existing temple buildings date back as far as 1706. Until its recent restoration, the site had been used as a barracks for some years.
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Your Guided Tour
White Cloud is fronted by an ornamental outer gate tower with seven decorative roofs known as Lingxing Gate, said to have been used for observing the heavens in old times. On the gate hang plaques inscribed with mottoes in praise of the temple. Behind the tower gate is a screen wall known as the shadow wall, shielding the inside from view from the street.
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Readies for Rush of Spring Festival
Good old-fashioned family fun comes to the White Cloud Temple every Spring Festival with its annual temple fair. What draws the crowds to the Beijing temple at this time of year can also be characterized as a kind of cathartic craving for spiritual replenishment. The new year affords fast-changing Chinese an opportunity to take stock, return to their roots and forge friendly ties with their ancestors. As the only major religion indigenous to China, Daoism can also afford observant visitors a fleeting glimpse into the ancient Chinese soul.
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Hongluo Temple
Traditionhas it that two spiral shells gave out a red light in the evening, hence the temple's name. Located at the foot of Hongluo Mountain, seven kilometers north-west of Huairou District, Hongluo was built during the eastern Jin Dynasty and expanded at the height of the Tang Dynasty. It was originally known as Daming Temple. ....
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Tanzhe Temple
Located some 45 kilometers west of the city, Tanzhe Temple can be found between Mahavira Hall and Vairochana Pavilion. Interestingly, it has been endowed with a somewhat dubious accolade which says: "First there was the Tanzhe Temple, then came Beijing." In fact the temple dates back just 1,600 years to the Jin Dynasty, when it was known as the Temple of Auspicious Fortune. During the Tang Dynasty, it was expanded and renamed Longquan Temple (Dragon Spring Temple). ....
- Yunju Temple
It sounds a little macabre, but main attractions at this temple are three small bowls containing fragments of some of the bones of Sakyasmuni, the founder of Buddhism. Their discovery came to light in 1987, when Zhao Puchu, head of China's Buddhist Association, produced two of the relics at a press conference. Known as sartra in Sanskrit, the fragments had actually been found in 1981 inside two gold bone-bowls which contained five progressively smaller bowls. .....
- Ox Street Reborn
Beijing's Muslim community, estimated at about 250,000, is largely integrated throughout the city, with the main concentration found south of Guanganmen Nei Dajie around Niu Jie (Ox Street). Their roots go back many centuries in the long history of contact and trade with Central Asia via the Silk Road. Almost 2,000 years of movement along this corridor has resulted in many of China's northern cities reflecting substantial Islamic influence in architecture and culture....
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