(China part 4) Luoyang: Longmen Grottoes and White Horse Temple
After leaving the Shaolin Temple and with pants and shoes still wet from the downpour, we drove 2 hours to Luoyang city. Being my guide’s hometown, she looked forward to returning there and told me stories of growing up in this bustling metropolis of a city. She explained that the only reason that Luoyang isn’t as huge as Shanghai or Beijing are is mainly due to lack of a metro system. It’s said that ancient artifacts dating back several dynasties are still undiscovered underground so if they started digging out tunnels, they would have to stop and contact archeologists each time before they can continue again. There’s said to be a large & unknown number of artifacts scattered everywhere underground in this city so the Chinese government decided it wasn’t worth the chance of damaging or destroying antiquities just to build one. Once we got in town, I checked in my hotel and Snow suggested I check out a local underground shopping mall. Since I was on my feet all day long, I decided to skip it and instead get some rest. The next morning, I had breakfast and met up again with Snow and we headed to The Longmen Grottoes (04:13). Created during the Tang Dynasty, it’s filled thousands of Buddhist sculptures carved into the Limestone rock over a course of 600 years. Visiting this place brought back a lot of childhood memories for my guide, who said she used to visit here with her family. As we’re going from going from place to place, I can’t help but notice the fine detail in the sculptures and how some Buddha sculptures look very different than others. The main grotto has some of the biggest Buddhist sculptures at the site, with the biggest one being the Vairocana Buddha (14:06). After we headed further south where we crossed the Manshui bridge to get to the Eastern side of the Yi river. Going across with other tourists, friendly kids came up to me to practice their English phrases: “Hello”, “How are you”.
Afterwards we headed to the White Horse Temple which known for being the first Buddhist temple in China (15:06). Built in the Eastern Han Dynasty, it’s known as the center of Chinese Buddhism and has been architecturally upgraded throughout several Dynasties, even currently. When we walked inside, there were some tourists that were there, but not crowded. As Snow started explaining the history, she caught glimpse of the temple’s Abbot and became very excited. It so happened that the Abbot Yin Le was just strolling around outside and had a small crowd of ecstatic people around him, bowing to him repeatedly with prayer hands (15:42). Snow led me over to him and in a matter of words, asked him if I could take a picture with me. He accepted and I got to take a picture with him, who’s a celebrity there in Luoyang. After the picture taking and Snow’s excitement had died down, she kicked herself for not talking a photo with the Abbot herself. I told her that with a little photoshop, I could make an excellent but particularly unconvincing photo with her and the Abbot together. We next travelled through the temple to see the different halls and visit some of the other temples that were made in dedication to the link between Chinese Buddhism and the Buddhism of other countries across Asia. These temples include a Buddhist temple from Thailand (16:43), Cambodia (17:45), and India (19:00). The architecture and artwork inside each temple is simply astounding. Afterwards we headed in town to eat lunch at a noodle shop.
Luoyang was a great place to experience Chinese ancient history, traditional Chinese & Buddhist culture, and a great place to visit “off the beaten path.” Again, most Westerners have heard of Shanghai & Beijing but few have heard about Luoyang, a city just as big…and growing! For the music, it was a blend of traditional Chinese and modern Asian-inspired electronic music.
On the next video, it will feature my trip to Beijing including Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, and other places. The link to get there is: