Taiyüan is surrounded by a lofty wall, with a gateway at each of the four points of the compass. The Chinese always use these terms when we should use “right” and “left”: they speak of the position of furniture in a room, for instance, as being north, south, east, or west, and can always tell you the relative positions of places and things in that way. It is the seat of the Government of the province, and was the first place in the Empire to have a Western university after the 1900 troubles.
The finest of all its temples—whether Confucian, Buddhist, Mohammedan, or Taoist—is the temple of Heaven and Hell. The entrance is magnificent in colouring, with roof and walls covered with turquoise-coloured tiles peculiar to this province, which make its temples so much more beautiful than those in the west. There are interesting but repulsive statues within, mostly depicting the torments of hell. In one temple, however, there is a deity to which childless women especially come to pray. She is a hideous figure about life size, with a gaping mouth, into which they stuff raw eggs by way of offering. On the adjoining wall is a fresco representing people receiving babies out of a cash-bag full of them, which a man carries over his shoulder.
I visited the temple at the time of a large fair, which was held in its courtyards (a common custom in China), and had one of the teachers in attendance, to his great disgust, as it is not the correct thing for Chinese ladies to go to fairs, and European manners had not yet penetrated to this part of the Empire. It was a very fine sight, notwithstanding the absence of the élite, for the women and children were most gaily attired—and then the setting! They were all perfectly civil to us and ready to talk. A woman was feeding her five-year-old baby, not yet weaned. Family parties kept arriving on donkeys, and women had their feet tied up in bags to protect their dainty shoes from the dust of the road. At one side theatricals were going on, to a loud and ceaseless accompaniment of drums. The theatres are all connected with the temples, a visible sign of their origin in the East as well as in the West; and the theatre and temple dues are collected together. Actors are looked down on, and none is allowed to compete in the literary examinations; they are in the lowest grade of society. The accompanying sketch gives some idea of the beautiful colour scheme of temple and theatre eaves. It is the open-air stage of a theatre at Showyang, about sixty miles from Taiyüan. The little figures of beasts on the roof are a characteristic feature.
THEATRE STAGE
The stalls were full of interesting objects from all parts of the province, and we went round buying various things that took our fancy. There were handsome embroideries and lovely silks, and I was surprised to find that we could take whatever we liked without paying for it; it was sufficient to say, “Come to the mission hospital to-morrow and the doctor will pay.” No Chinaman could have had better credit, and few, I think, as good, in this city.
From the temple of Heaven and Hell we returned past the barracks, and saw the men practising walking on stilts; apparently that was part of their drill, as finally they all filed off into the yard on them. The soldiers are quite a decent set of men, and one of the officers frequently sent them to the hospital to be broken of the opium habit. It is terribly common here. In a neighbouring town it is estimated that 90 per cent. of the population (men, women, and children) are smokers.
From Taiyüanfu we made an interesting little excursion to a place to the south-west called Tsinssu, where there is a magnificent old temple on the rocky hillside dominating the village. The temple is overshadowed by hoary trees, and has remarkable golden dragons twisted round the pillars of the façade. In the grounds are hot springs, and the water flows under an ornamental bridge leading to the terrace on which the temple stands. Had it not been for the hot water it would have been impossible to sketch, as the water froze on the surface of the paper, and every few minutes I had to put my paint-box in the stream to thaw the coating of ice formed on the colours. The subject, however, was so charming that I could not waste the one chance I had of sketching, and in the afternoon I made a rapid drawing of a pagoda, with the little bells hung on each story tinkling in the breeze; an adjacent tower looked precisely like an English church, but its real use was as a granary. The hot springs are valuable in enabling the people to grow rice, which is not grown elsewhere so far north, and it is the motive-power of many paper-mills in the district. In a recent expedition roe-deer, leopards, boars, and David squirrels have been found in this neighbourhood, but we saw nothing more interesting than a beautiful pastoral scene—a shepherd lad piping a melancholy ditty to his sheep under the clear blue sky. I should like to have sketched him, but the shadows were already lengthening, and we had to hasten our return before the city gates were closed.
PAGODA