The creepy beauty of The Hanging Monastery statues part 2
Becky wrote about the temple itself here
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Posted on 9/6/2011
Blog: MCFC Books (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: buddhist, datong, hanging monastery, taoist, confucian, travel, china, photography, statues, creepy, Add a tag
Posted on 9/3/2011
Blog: MCFC Books (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: china, photography, temple, statues, creepy, buddhist, datong, hanging monastery, taoist, confucian, Add a tag
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Posted on 9/6/2011
Blog: MCFC Books (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: buddhist, datong, hanging monastery, taoist, confucian, travel, china, photography, statues, creepy, Add a tag
Posted on 9/3/2011
Blog: MCFC Books (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: china, photography, temple, statues, creepy, buddhist, datong, hanging monastery, taoist, confucian, Add a tag
The creepy beauty of The Hanging Monastery statues part 1.
The Hanging Monastery in Datong, China is a completely incredible building in every way. A temple that hangs from the side of a cliff and is traversed by rickety walkways and steep stairs, with only waist high railings to keep you from plunging hundreds of feet, would be fascinating and worth a visit even if empty inside. But it wasn’t empty, it held ghosts.
Ghosts in the form of the strangest statues I’ve yet to see in China (or anywhere). These were statues that stared vacant eyed across the ages with ghoulish expressions of the living dead. I might be making it sound like thought of these statues as grotesque horrors, but that is not true at all. I found them beautiful. Some of the most beautiful and unique statues I’ve yet to see in a temple. They are not beautiful in the shining gold-leaf smiling Buddha way, but in a completely unique way that gouged out eyes and missing hands cannot detract from (in many ways it actually enhances their appearance). Standing in the little rooms they live in, mostly alone with them, I felt in awe in a way the giant Buddhas don’t make me feel.
I spent a lot of time taking pictures of these Buddhist, Taoist and Confucian emissaries from centuries past, and I am going to put most of them on here in two parts.
Becky wrote about the temple itself here.
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