Temple Tally

Number of Weeks In China: 5

Number of Temples Visited: 5

I have not yet reached visiting Buddhist Temples quota (寺庙); I am not ‘templed out.’  Seeing a temple once a week I think is a pretty good ratio, I am covering a lot of ground, yet have not begun to mesh all the places of worship together in my head. My study abroad roommate, who spent the beginning of her childhood in Hong Kong and speaks fluent Cantonese, is beyond ‘templed out.’ But she is always gracious enough to accompany me on my excursions. It also helps that there are significant discounts for Peking University students at most historical sights in Beijing 🙂

My introduction to temples started with the Lama Temple and was very much a treat because it is still in use. I was able to hear Buddhist monks hold service and learn how Buddhist’s participate in prayer. I felt really lucky to witness such a simple act of Buddhist religion; it is all still new to me.

That same day we walked across the streets of Beijing to enter the Confucius Temple. This temple was particularly interesting because it use to be the home of the Emperor’s Imperial College.

This past weekend was the China’s National Holiday so I went with my classmates to the city of Chengde for a few days, just a couple of hours outside of Beijing. It rained most of the weekend, so I don’t have pictures from two temples we went to. However, I can tell you the architecture of both temples were very different from the ones we saw in Beijing. This is because the temples were on the Mongolian side of the Great Wall, and were built to resemble the famed Lhasa temple in Tibet.

My latest temple excursion is by far my favorite. The Puning Temple (aka The Big Buddha Temple) is home to the largest wooden Buddha in the world. We went during the Chinese national holiday and so it was extra active with worshipers. ‘The Big Buddha Temple’ is also special to me because of its prayer rituals. Anyone visiting can purchase a prayer lock with your name or family name engraved and place it for good fortune around the temple. The thousands of the golden prayer locks all up and down the temple were heartening.

Every Buddhist temple is different, and I know that visiting every shrine in Beijing would be crazy (疯了). Nevertheless, I can’t wait to pick out a new temple for next weekend!