Magic dragon
(Carved window piece: Jing’An temple, Shanghai)
I’ve written a lot about this temple because it is quite alien to me; I looked at pictures, seen movies and read about places like this, but never been there for myself. It is partly because of this that I found it so distracting, even down to details like pillars, scaffolding and this woodwork.
The splendour of this carving does not translate well from the original in my digital snapshot; unfortunately much of its charm is lost in a photograph! It is an open window carving allowing a passage of air into the room of the temple at the top of the steps. Inside was a rare female Buddha, the Goddess of Mercy (which I should have photographed – but it seemed inappropriate) and she was another beautiful wooden structure. In the image you can probably still see that the carving is magnificently intricate and that it is several feet in diameter with a light grey dust of pollution settling on the upper curves. It is up so high that it must often go unnoticed by visitors and I was lucky in my sun-induced lethargy to detect it at all but I am so very glad I did. These are the whispers of magic we discover are still present in China that I hope will always remain.
(Note: for some reason the server for this site was down today (Sunday) and I’m afraid I have no idea why! Sorry about that – everything’s functional once again, so I hope no one except me was bothered by it)
