--A pilgrim to Xi'an, Luoyang

Jane Chen / Shanghai Daily news

Bidding farewell to Xi'an, I took the train to Luoyang, another famous ancient capital city in China. Situated in the west of Henan Province, it was the starting point of "the Silk Road".

My first stop was the Longmen Grottoes.  The site, whose construction began 1,500 years ago and took some 400 years to complete, was listed by UNESCO as a World Cultural Heritage Site in 2000.  The grottos, together with the Mogao Caves in Dunhuang (Gansu Province) and the Yungang Grottoes (Shanxi Province), are considered the three greatest stone sculpture treasure houses in China.

I passed a gate under the Longmen Bridge, which spans the Yi River. The river runs between two hillsides where numerous caves, each with stone Buddha carvings, line the hills for over 1,000 meters.  While some caves are as small as a book, others are as enormous as thee-storey buildings. Stone figures of Buddha fill each of the grottoes.

In one famous cave are 10,000 carved Buddhas, with the biggest one some 10 meters tall and the smallest the size of the palm of your hand. When I stared into the dark cave from the fence, I mistook the small Buddhas arranged at the back of the cave for written lines.

Many of the Buddhas have no heads, some because of the long years of erosion, and others because of robberies.  In the complete stone Buddhas, I found smiling faces, flowing cassock lines and shapely figures.  These full images reflect the beauty standards of that time.

I would have had more interest in the sculptures if I had had a better knowledge of Buddhism. With no basic religious ideas, I became bored with the stone carvings after two hours of wandering through the grottos. In each cave, I could see nothing but stone Buddhas and lotuses.  Alas!

Buddhists must be able to read more from the carvings.  My guide said different Buddhas are worshipped in the caves with illustrations of related religious stories. The grottos were used by different royal family members of the Tang Dynasty as a private worship place.

Sightseeing cars are available to carry tourists back from the exit of the site to the entrance, because the exit is on the opposite side of the river from the entrance.  But I opted to walk the 1-kilometer distance.  The 15 minutes' walk under the willows along the riversides and over the Longmen Bridge is refreshing.

Another world-renowned site near, though not in, Luoyang, is the Shaolin Temple, a royal temple of the Tang Dynasty.  Its acclaimed martial arts enticed me into taking a 3-hour bus ride from Luoyang.

Entrance to the temple is at the foot of Songshan Mountain, where the temple is actually located.   This long distance of nearly two kilometers is for environmental protection around the temple site.  The temple is applying for UNESCO's World Cultural Heritage Site status.  Some thousands of martial arts schools had been opened in the area.  The local authority has earmarked 200 million yuan to clean them out.  On the shuttle bus from the entrance to temple, I did not see any martial arts schools but only clean natural landscape.

Beyond my expectations, the temple is small.  The three golden Chinese characters of "Shao Lin Si" on the stele are said to be scripts of Kangxi Emperor of the Ting Dynasty.

The temple is full of tourists and prayers. The big incense burner before the halls were packed with high and thick incense bars contributed by pious tourists who sought blessings from the Buddhas.

It was the first time for me to see such big incense bars.  The smallest bars, some 1 meter long and 20 centimeters in diameter, cost 300 yuan, while the biggest bars, as tall as a person, cost up to 3,000 yuan!  It's said the bigger the bars are, the more pious the prayers are.

Martial arts shows are available at the temple.  I didn't see any, however, for I don't like such make-believe performances.  I attempted to find monks exercising martial arts in the temple garden, which I think is more true.  But I failed to do so. 

In fact, I found that the temple doesn't only emphasize on Kung Fu.  Like other Buddhist temples, it stresses mental discipline.  The guide's anecdotes about the temple are all about how the ancient Shaolin Masters worked hard to study Buddhism.

In the pagoda forest to the west of the temple, over 200 stupas of different architectural styles have been erected to praise the deceased Shaolin masters.  To me, the most impressive pagoda is the one, and the only one, whose owner to be remembered is still alive, that is Shaolin's existing chief master.  Distinguished from other antique structures, his pagoda is carved with modern equipment as an airplane and a laptop computer.

My trip around Luoyang was nearing the end.  To my disappointment, the city, which used to enjoy much historical and cultural significance in China and even in the world, along with its counterpart Xi'an, is now far behind in development.  Its urban infrastructure, as well as its current contributions to the country's--and even Henan Province's --traffic network, culture, and economy are all far below those of Zhengzhou, Henan's capital.

Luoyang belongs only to the distant past!

Only one thing is an exception, however.  That is the peony!  Praised as China's national flower, the peony has been carrying both Henan's and China's ancient glory throughout the years--the flower originated here and has grown here for 1,500 years.

Now, the city is filled with peonies, and each April Luoyang has a festival for this flower.

This year, the blossom period was one week behind normal because of the cold weather.  Therefore, the peony festival was one week longer than usual.  Luckily, I had a chance to take in the last few-days. I viewed a sea of treasured peonies.

The park I visited is said to be the largest of Luoyang's six major peony parks.  I can't clearly recall its name, however, because the peony parks in Luoyang have similar and confusing names.   Beautiful girls dressed in Tang gowns guided me throughout the park and showed me the various kinds of peonies.

Definitely charmed by the peonies, I constantly pressed the shutter of my camera to take pictures of their lovely blossoms, in red, pink, purple, yellow and even green!

The flowers, mostly as large as palms, were fully and elegantly blossoming like smiling faces.  I could understand why the Chinese have adopted this flower as a symbol of beauty, royalty, power, happiness and good luck, and why inkwash painters have tirelessly featured it in their work.

The peonies link my impression of Luoyang as a city of the ancient past to a modern society.  While losing its regal significance from ancient China, Luoyang is surviving in modern times.

Keeping this in my mind, I stepped onto the train back to Shanghai and returned into the busy and bustling modern life of this modern city.