Dafo Temple, Zhengding

Zhengding is a town on the outskirts of my city, and has an interesting assortment of old temples and pagodas. We decided to visit it on Saturday, and started our journey by getting stuck in a traffic jam on the way to the bus station, and then taking part in the vicious scrummage that passes for boarding buses in China. On our way to Zhengding, we went past our own neighbourhood, and realised we could have saved ourselves a good hour or so by picking up the bus there.

I found it hard to believe that I was only forty minutes away from my own noisy and crowded part of the city. It was so quiet that when you were away from the one main road, you couldn’t hear traffic. Everyone seemed for mellow and friendly, and we even saw goats being herded down one of the larger roads.

Thanks to Janie and Eleanor for pointing out that what I thought were sheep were in fact goats. Oops.
Dafo temple is the main draw, but despite being a sunny Saturday, there were very few people there. Still more unusual was that it actually still had the atmosphere of an active place of worship, and we found ourselves instinctively lowering our voices to whispers.

A little background info: the temple was originally built in AD 586, and has been in a state of continuous restoration ever since!


This is the gilded statue of Sakyamuni, which stands in the entrance to Manichaean Hall. This Hall would be worth the entrance fee alone. The statue has a kind of presence that I don't think translates to photographs that meant that, irreligious as we all are, we all just stopped and contemplated for a moment. And then took a photo. And then had a Chinese guy come up and ask us if we would pose for photos with his son.

These are frescoes in the Hall, and again, a photo doesn't do them justice. Amazingly you could walk right up and touch them if you wanted to.

This stunning statue of Guanyin, the goddess of mercy, surrounded by smaller statues and what I assume to be a fantastic realisation of the sea made us all gasp when we turned the corner and saw it. The scale and skill of the artists are superlative.

This is a giant revolving octagonal bookcase that the monks used to house their sutras. They also used as a practical mediation tool, I think by pedalling it around, but unfortunately the English translation was a bit unclear.

Here we have a two-face Buddha, dating from the Ming Dynasty and pleasingly accessorized with lengths of fabric. Check out the intricacy of the ceiling decoration, this is something that always impresses me about traditional Chinese architecture.

One of the many beautiful stone statues that decorate the temple complex - I took far too many photos of them all! I just love that intricacy and spirit of this dragon-lion.

Yup, this statue is as big as the photo makes out. This is another depiction of Guanyin. The 21.3 m high statue was cast in bronze in AD 971. She is housed in the necessarily huge Pavilion of Great Mercy, which was rebuilt in 1999 according to Song Dynasty architectural manuals, and we climbed up the alarmingly steep stairs to get a closer look at her head, and to take in stunning views over the temple complex.


A close up view of her 'thousand arms', used to help reach out to those asking for mercy. Guanyin is a fascinating figure, and since my visit to the temple I'm trying to find out more about her.

The temple has some wonderfully green and relaxing garden area too. The tree is a 'Scholar Tree' and is decorated with lengths of red fabric with covered in messages. I am assuming that this is a form of prayer for good results in examinations, but I'm trying to find out for sure.

There was a collection of old statues missing heads and arms at the back of the temple gardens. I had the odd feeling of thinking that I was at an ancient site in Greece or Italy! I'm not sure if they lost bits through age, vandalism during the Cultural Revolution or if the heads were taken for museums or private collectors.

It was a wonderful day, fascinating and relaxing, encountering the China that you dream about before coming here, but that barely exists any more.

Take a day trip with My World Tuesday.

I am also repeating my plea for English language books that I made yesterday. For many of my students, purchasing a book in English, necessitating as it does a trip to a foreign language bookstore in Beijing, is a proposition as far fetched as flying to London or New York. (An average price for an English paperback is about 100 kuai.) If anyone reading this would be willing to send me an unwanted English language book, please leave a comment and I will be in touch with how to send it to me.

It would mean so much to the person who receives it, and will be a much treasured resource. I am distributing the small collection of books that I have built up here amongst my students, and their joy and gratitude is beyond what can be expressed in words. If you are generous enough to send a book, please make it one without graphic sex or violence. Thank you so much to the people that have already expressed an interest.