On This Particular Stele

My wife had it in her mind to go to a temple today.  It is chu er, the second day of New Year.  This is a day when we should be out with the family in Shandong, or off on a vacation somewhere.  Rather, we’re in the middle of a stay-cation.  What was proposed was a “Miao Hui” which must be a Lunar New Year ritual, involving the rites of the holiday.  After having just schlepped my family around from here to there on Christmas, I feel obliged to support whatever my wife comes up with. 

Arriving at the Dong Yue Temple it appears that it was originally built in the Yuan Dynasty.  Outside the Ming city walls and well outside the Yuan city walls, this appears to have been a Taoist place of worship.  I must have walked through over one hundred temple buildings in China over the years and there is particular ritual to passing through the si da gang guarding the compound and proceeding through the temple halls, one after another.  It was however very cold and one only had so much appetite for investigating the side buildings or the woodwork.

Nestled here across from Fulllink Plaza between the second and third ring road we are on prime real estate. You might think that the carvings inside the temple were afforded a classy remodelling.  You’d have been wrong.  The carvings, which I presume were damaged during the Cultural Revolution, have been updated with carvings suggesting improbable, unfortunate paint jobs.  The old cedars are well preserved and the place is clean but the carvings are flat and lifeless.  They serve to push one through quickly. 

The stele they had on display are however fascinating.  One called the “Lucent’ had six holes carved through the top.  On the way out I noticed a sign explaining that the famous Yuan bureaucrat, painter, Zhao Meng Fu, had carved the calligraphy on this particular stele.  Son of a Song Dynasty bureaucratic family he was criticized in his day for taking a proper position with the barbarian Mongol conquerors.  I went up close to his calligraphy and tried to read or at least appreciate his sturdy penmanship.  It is certainly easier to appreciate his painting.  But then, I’m largely illiterate.

Sunday, 01/29/17