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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.

These pictures are from the really incredible Yungang Grottoes in Datong, China. Becky wrote about our experience here, but I wanted add some more photos to help get across just how fantastic this place is. This set of photos were all taken at the first big cave. This is why I liked this place over the also famous Longmen Grottoes, because here you can actually stand inside a giant cave and look at an enormous statue. There is not much that is more mysterious feeling than finding a monolithic statue inside a cave. I also love how this statue is lit with natural sunlight that comes through holes cut high in the cave walls.

Monks at Dazhao temple in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, China. 

See previous entry with photos of the temple’s architecture and design and statues.

Statues from Dazhao temple in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, China. 

See previous entry with photos of the temple’s architecture and design.

I said I would give you more about this place and its amazing architecture and design, and here you go. This is the incredible Dazhao temple (or Lamasery) in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, China. We have been to A LOT of temples all around China in our two years here (I mean a ridiculous amount) and usually they all have something special about them, like location, an special statue, kung-fu monks, but all in all, their design and architecture are usually pretty similar. So much so that details of the different temples start to blend into each other and I feel like now I have one giant temple in my mind made up of all the cool parts of other temples. 

The thing is, I don’t think Dazhao temple will easily fit into my mind temple because it is as cool as that place all on its own. It was easily the most uniquely decorated and designed temple we’ve seen (only beat by one very outstanding exception I’ll blog about later). I don’t know why it was so much more colorful, detailed, bling crazy and whimsical than others, but there was definitely some different thinking going on. I can only speculate that it has something to do with the fact that it is a Mongolian style temple instead of a “Chinese” style temple. But I don’t know for sure because we don’t travel tour guide style and so I don’t know a lot of history about it, only that I like it. Which, in the end, is all that matters to me.

I have so many pictures from this place that I will do three posts about it. This post is the Architecture and design. The next will be the statues and the final one will be the monks. 

Note: It was a overcast day and and these picture make it look brooding and melancholy, but that is only the weather and my style of photography and not a completely accurate representation of the place.

This is the second incredible Guanyin statue I’ve seen in China so far. I love these statues that take the effort to represent all 1,000 hands and eyes (there are eyes on the palms of each small hand). This was at the really incredible Dazhao temple in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia. More to come about that place soon. 

1 ... are definitely going to hell: Anyone who uses Google Earth to find churches with lead roofs and then steals them.

2 ... you gotta love: Wendy, the librarian at my temple. She not only bought David Levithan's Boy Meets Boy for the library, but also, when I reviewed it for her and called it a "charming gay teen love story," she said, "Good. That's why I bought it. We need more diversity." Yup, a religious institution that want kids to read all kinds of books. Awesome.

3 ... have illustrated gorgeous books: Greg Foley. We took Willoughby & the Moon out of the library today. It's full of beautiful black and white and silver artwork; some of it looks like extreme close-ups of photographs, while some of it is pen and ink. Upon finishing, Destructo announced, "That was cool. The pictures were super cool. I want to read it again."

4 ... wrote a poem that I love: Joseph Stroud, whose "Manna" was on Writers Almanac this week. Go read it, and then go stand in the snow.

5 ... I hope have a good week: you.

Both my wife and I have rather annoyingly been struck with some terrible back pains at the exact same time. This is especially sucky because both of us are hobbling around the house like a couple of injured camels, complaining, whining, and generally being a pains in the butt.

Yep...lots of fun at the ol' Novak household.

I put a few new zombie designs up recently over at redbubble, including one just in time for the new Indiana Jones flick. Feel free to check them out.

Steve~

I just have to ask the question, because no one else will.

Singer-songwriter Neil Diamond revealed yesterday that the inspiration for his romantic springtime love song "Sweet Caroline" was really an ode to President Kennedy's daughter. A little girl!

Whenever you hear this song, you must now think of this image of a child, and not your first hot and heavy summertime lover.

Read it and weep:

"Diamond was a 'young, broke songwriter' when a photo of the president's daughter in a news magazine caught his eye.'It was a picture of a little girl dressed to the nines in her riding gear, next to her pony,' Diamond recalled. 'It was such an innocent, wonderful picture, I immediately felt there was a song in there.'"

While I am always fascinated to find out what inspired my literary heroes (and Neil Diamond's sappy writing has inspired me, as I wrote in this essay), but this makes me feel a little dirty. Will there be backlash?

Here's my songwriting tip for you: If you are writing one of the best romantic songs of your generation, don't ever tell anybody who really inspired you. It kills the magic...