TRAVEL AND BREATH IN CHINA

admin 8 June 2009 Chinese Scenery 444 views One Comment Print This Post  Email This Post

The main attraction of Fengdu is a restored temple that specializes in the mythology of the netherworld,
thus it has come to be known as the City of Ghosts.
Our guide indicated that the temple was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution
by the “very bad” Red Guards (I was surprised by her openness).
It has been restored and opened to tourists in the last decade.
I think Mao would be doubly enraged by this - first of all by the opening of a religious site,
and secondly, by the open practice of capitalistic enterprise at the site (the new religion?). 

The temple is most easily reached via chairlift from the city center. 
 

Here is the view of the rooftops of Fengdu during the ride up. 
 

The temple is full of gates that must be passed in a certain way for good luck.
Some must be passed in a single breath, others in a certain number of steps, etc.
Here we pass through the Gate of Hell, surrounded by the hellish creatures. 
 

Inside the temple live the various lords of the netherworld, such as this gentlemen. 
 
 

I bought a copy of The Sayings of Mao (a.k.a. The Little Red Book) from a street vendor near the Fengdu boat dock.
He had both Russian and Chinese versions - I got the Russian version, since I could at least recognize some words.
The old ideology is passing away, replaced by the new ideology of the market economy.
The selling of a book of ideology in order to participate in the market economy is particularly apt.
 

This portrait of the “Great Helmsman” is inside the front cover.