Temple of the Month (slightly surreal edition)

The temple this time is the Guangfu Temple compound, an hour's hike up the mountain from a serene lake outside of Xichang, where I went on my own for a bit of language practice last August.



The surreal bit is that my Lonely Planet guidebook (2008 edition) describes the temple as a series of slightly interesting ruins, as the entire complex was largely destroyed in the Cultural Revolution. Which means that the most of these "ancient temples" are, given delays in updating my guidebook, four or five years old at most. Of course, the few tourist signs in English that describe the history of the temple make no mention of this fact, and I think I'm safe in assuming that the signs in Chinese likewise omit that particular phase of Chinese history.

Walking around, the newness of everything is apparent. The walls are the typical washed and weathered shade of Chinese temple red-brown, but the foundations in many cases are fitted cinder blocks instead of the usual weathered cut stone. At the foot of a massively huge ancient cypress (800+ years old , if I remember right), there is a series of before and after photos showing how experts shored up the base of the tree to keep it alive for another couple hundred years or so.



Wandering around the compound in the rain, appreciating the peace and tranquility while simultaneously imagining Red Guard soldiers herding monks out of the compound and destroying the buildings just fifty years ago, made for a very uncanny experience. A bit like being in a small serene Disneyland with an invisible elephant following you everywhere.

On the other hand, the temple was still a temple. Incense still burned, bells still chimed, and people went about their daily business. While drawing a thirty-foot high statue (no photos allowed inside), I chatted with a monk in his late twenties, answering the usual questions about where I was from and what I was doing in China. Using my kindergarten-level Chinese, I was able to find out a few things about him as well (he grew up near Chengdu, but his parents are from nearby), but there was so much more that I wanted to find out.