Two Buddhas, seen in the grottoes at Xingguo Temple on Qianfo Shan ("Thousand-Buddha Mountain") in Ji'nan, Shandong. The temple is located about halfway up the hillside. Aside from several halls with some fine statues, there are numerous small grottoes with statues carved into the native rock.
Posted to Reddit and Bluesky, August 31, 2025
Main Hall, Qingyun Temple, Zhaoqing, Guangdong--mostly unrestored and therefore beautiful. Founded in 1633, the temple is now inside the lush Dinghu Mountain National Nature Reserve, China's first (est. 1956), which is bisected by the Tropic of Cancer. The stroll down the mountain is delightful.
Posted to Reddit and Bluesky, August 30, 2025
This stone lion looked amazing in golden hour light at Jingju Temple, Ji'an, Jiangxi. The temple was the seat of Qingyuan Xingsi (660-740), a claimant to be the Seventh Patriarch of Chan (Zen). Three of Chan's five recognized schools can be traced through him: the Caodong, Yunmen, and Fayan Schools.
Posted to Reddit and Bluesky, August 29, 2025
This dragon is on the Nine Dragon Wall in Datong, Shanxi, built to screen a prince's palace in 1392. The palace, alas, is long gone, but the wall remains, and at 45.5 meters (150 ft) long and eight meters (26 ft) high, it is advertised as China's oldest and largest screen wall made of glazed tile.
Photographer's note: Screen walls can be tricky to shoot at mid-day. As most palaces and temples face south, the interesting side of the wall faces north. Best to get there in the diffuse morning or evening light.
Posted to Reddit and Bluesky, August 28, 2025
The Bronze Hall is near the rear of Xiantong Temple, Wutai Shan, Shanxi. Its inside is lined with small bronze figures of Manjushri, the Bodhisattva of Wisdom. Built in the Ming Dynasty, it is one of only three bronze temple halls in all of China. The pagodas that stand before it are bronze as well.
Posted to Reddit and Bluesky, August 27, 2025
The gateway to Bukenqu Guanyin Yuan on Putuoshan in Zhejiang. The temple's founding story tells of a Japanese monk who tried to take a statue of Guanyin back to Japan; the statue would not leave, giving the temple its name: Bukenqu, the "refused to leave" Guanyin.
Posted to Reddit and Bluesky, August 26, 2025
The pagoda at Longhua Temple in Shanghai stands outside the front gate, and is its most famous feature. It is the only ancient pagoda remaining in the city; while the foundations may be older, and there have been extensive repairs, the core of the current structure dates to 977.
Posted to Reddit and Bluesky, August 25, 2025
The pond in the background once was home to two ancient turtles in the West Garden of Xiyuan Jiechuang Temple in Suzhou, Jiangsu. An unsourced statement on Wikipedia says, "One turtle died in 2007 at the age of 400, and the other has disappeared." All we have left is this statue.
Tradition said that if you managed to spot one surfacing for air, you'd have good luck. Not possible anymore, I guess.
Posted to Reddit and Bluesky, August 24, 2025
The Buddha and Arhats in the grottoes behind Qixia Temple in Nanjing, Jiangsu. You can clearly see that the heads--replaced after vandalism--are a different color. The area is the so-called "Thousand Buddhas Cliff" (started in 484), which has grottoes actually containing 515 statues and 294 shrines.
Posted to Reddit and Bluesky, August 23, 2025
The "True Relic Pagoda" at Famen Temple in Xi'an, Shaanxi, collapsed in 1981; relics, including a finger bone of the Buddha, were found in a vault underneath it in 1987. The relic is now on display in a modern (and, IMO, "ugly") structure nearby. The reconstructed pagoda here was completed in 1988.
Posted to Reddit and Bluesky, August 22, 2025
The pool is the centerpiece at Guanyin Temple, Shenzhen, Guangdong. New halls were going up around it when I visited in 2011. It's located not far from one of Shenzhen's best folk temples, Fenghuang Shan, or "Phoenix Mountain" in Fuyong Town, which is in turn quite near Shenzhen Airport.
Posted to Reddit and Bluesky, August 21, 2025
The streetside gate at lovely Tongjiao Temple in Beijing, the city's only nunnery. A place of strict discipline, it is open to the public only on new moon and full moon. The ultra-urban location was used as a police station during the Cultural Revolution, but was restored and re-opened in 1981.
Posted to Reddit and Bluesky, August 20, 2025
Dhrtarashtra, one of the Four Heavenly Kings, in the then-newly-built Huayan Temple in Guangzhou, Guangdong. The Chinese call him Chi Guo for "supporting the country." His lute can bring comfort and represent harmony, but also its TWANG! can raise a wind, fanning fires which destroy the enemy camp.
Posted to Reddit and Bluesky, August 19, 2025
The Mountain Gate at Guangyuan Temple, Chengde, Hebei, is closed with adobe. The abandoned temple's grounds are used as a plant nursery. Built by the lama in charge of nearby Puning Temple in 1780 under Emperor Qianlong, it was one of the "Eight Outer Temples" of Chengde. Few of its halls remain.
Posted to Reddit and Bluesky, August 18, 2025
The "Soul Cow" at Zhiti Huayan Temple in Ningde, Fujian. It's said that the cow went down on its knees whenever anyone said "Namo Amitofo" (the name of Amitabha Buddha) to it. It had been saved from butchering and brought to the temple for refuge--and this was as recent as the 1980s!
Posted to Reddit and Bluesky, August 17, 2025
The "white" horse in front of Baima Temple in Luoyang, Henan, represents one of those who gave the temple its name: baima is Chinese for "White Horse." It is said that this was the lodging for the first two official missionaries from India (who rode white horses); it would thus be China's oldest temple.
Posted to Reddit and Bluesky, August 16, 2025
This Spirit Door at Longshan Temple, Jinjiang, Fujian, shows the current building's originally-Daoist design. Now converting to a more Buddhist style, Longshan has a long history of Buddhism, having fostered many by the same name throughout the world--no fewer than five across the straits in Taiwan.
Posted to Reddit and Bluesky, August 15, 2025
These small Buddhas are waiting to be placed in a repainted 10,000 Buddha Hall at Tiantai Temple on Jiuhuashan, Anhui. The highest temple (though not the highest peak) on Jiuhua, Tiantaisi is said to be where the Korean monk Jin Qiaojue built his hut when he came up the mountain to practice in 719.
Posted to Reddit and Bluesky, August 14, 2025
I had started my morning by climbing up to Roushen Dian on Jiuhuashan, Anhui. On the opposite descent, I stopped in at Shangchantang Temple. When I reached the courtyard of tiny Jingjie Jingshi, it was fairly crowded--a sign I was nearing the main road at bottom of the trail.
Posted to Reddit and Bluesky, August 13, 2025
Erzu (Second Patriarch's) Temple in Yuexi County, Anhui, is one of the most remote I've been to. It sits at the foot of Sikong Mountain. The mountain is called "Sikong Yuan" as it was the retreat of an official named Chunyu Dasikong, from the time of Confucius--testimony to how remote it is.
Posted to Reddit and Bluesky, August 12, 2025
