The Temple of the Town God
The Temple of the Town God houses the traditional Taoist gods that protected the population of the Old City of Shanghai from harm and it originally dates from the beginning of the 15th Century, during the Ming dynasty. Like most places of worship it suffered terribly during the Cultural Revolution – this is a much smaller restored version of the original.
Front Courtyard Temple of the Town God
Red predominates in this Temple – but there is probably more red than usual as we are coming up to The Spring Festival (starts 19th February) known in the west as Chinese New Year. It is a time of year when every Chinese person tries to make it home to his/her family. We have been warned that life here in Shanghai will be much like it is in the UK over Christmas and Boxing Day, but that it goes on for a week. And we have also been warned not to try and travel whilst the Chinese are moving on mass, before the beginning of the holiday or at the end. Extra planes are bought in to China at this time of year to try and cope with the extra movement of people. Large numbers of China’s city dwellers are from other parts of the country and all must get home, if they possibly can. We’ve joked that the centre of gravity of the earth must shift on those days when the Chinese are on the move. They do make up 20% of the earth’s population after all, and a significant proportion of those have a long way to get home. It’s not as bad nowadays as it was when I first visited Beijing in the mid 80s.. Our tour guide then told me that it took him three weeks to get home to the far West of China – the last 10 days were on horseback.
Hanging Spring Festival Lanterns
Large Spring Festival Lanterns
Anyway back to The Temple of the Town God. Huge red lanterns were being hung up whilst we were there.
Burning Incense
These festival decorations were being hung in a back courtyard, but the front courtyard was already festooned with similar lanterns. There were again incense burners and the air in the front courtyard was thick with the smoke from burning sticks held aloft by worshippers.
Statues Temple of the Town Gods
As an onlooker, and an ill-informed one at that, I can see many similarities between the different types of temple that I have visited. But I do not have the knowledge to understand the subtle differences. This is frustrating and I do not like my ignorance. There is evidently a Chinese overlay over those temples where the religion such as Buddhism has come in from elsewhere and it is this Chinese way of doing things, which I see in all of them. But the specifics go
Possibly the Town God
unexplained, such as which statue is which and what their significance is. I felt very much a voyeur as I walked around here and elsewhere, fascinated, but bemused.
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