Jin Shrine: A Landscape of Earlier Offerings
Jin Shrine is read in four parts: the Zhou cypress in the garden, the forty-three painted figures in the Song hall, the bridge set over the fish pond, and the springs that named the place.
Taiyuan.
Taiyuan is the capital of Shanxi, in the centre of the province, with the Fen River running north to south through the city. The name means 'great plain', marking the place where the river leaves the mountains; mountains close the city on the north, west and east, and an open valley runs through the middle into the south. The city has more than 2,500 years of urban history: its first walled city, Jinyang, was built in 497 BC, and in 690 Wu Zetian made it the Northern Capital. In the Qing dynasty the remittance shops, or piaohao, of the Shanxi basin made the middle of the province a financial centre in Qing China. Coal trading still shapes the city.
Taiyuan
The Fen River Runs Through the Provincial Capital
The Fen gives Taiyuan its name and its economy: the article follows the river from the northern mountains to the reservoirs and riverside park that now hold its water inside the city.
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The Jin Bronzes in the Shanxi Museum
The museum's Jin gallery, the tomb finds of Sima Jinlong and the Northern Dynasties hall show how the state of Jin survives in metal, and how the museum itself grew from a library of 1919.
ReadTwo Ming Pagodas Above the City
The twin towers of Yongzuo Temple were built for the city's fengshui and became its emblem; below them a gallery of collected steles and a brick hall without beams hold the site's other histories.
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Chongshan Temple in the Middle of Taiyuan
One Ming hall survives where a thousand-room monastery stood: the Great Compassion Hall, its eight-metre painted figures, its scripture library, and the naming history behind them.
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Tianlongshan Grottoes: Carvings Cut into a Western Hill
Caves cut into the western hills of Taiyuan from the Northern Wei to the Tang: what the two sources count, where the sculpture went, and what the digital reconstruction is putting back.
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The Giant Buddha at Mengshan: An Ancient Carving, a Modern Head
The Mengshan Buddha is a Northern Qi cliff carving rediscovered in 1980 without its head, measured at about forty-six metres, given a new head in 2008 and lit, in the old records, by ten thousand oil basins.
ReadSun, Pits and Vats: Vinegar in Qingxu
Shanxi mature vinegar is made from sorghum, barley and peas through steaming, fermenting, smoking, pouring and drying; the season that finishes the work is the winter, when ice is fished off the vats.
ReadKnives and Boiled Noodles from Shanxi
Knife-cut noodles and the boiled dough shapes that go with them: a Jin cuisine tradition of central and northern Shanxi, made from hard high-gluten dough and shaped by hand at the pot.
ReadPlaces
Jin Shrine
A hillside shrine beside the Jin Springs that grew layer by layer: a Zhou-period cypress, a Song hall of forty-three painted figures and a cross-shaped bridge over a fish pond, all in one walkable landscape.
Shanxi Museum
The province's largest museum holds the Jin state's bronze bells and covenant tablets, the tomb figures of Sima Jinlong and Northern Dynasties treasures, arranged in a building shaped like a tripod vessel.
Twin Pagoda Temple
Two Ming brick pagodas stand on the southern ridge of Taiyuan, one begun in 1597 and the other in 1612, above a gallery of about 260 collected steles and a brick hall built without beams.
Chongshan Temple
One Ming hall survives in the middle of Taiyuan, where a monastery of a thousand rooms once stood; rebuilt around after a fire of 1864, it keeps large painted figures and a library of Buddhist scriptures.
Tianlongshan Grottoes
Caves cut along the cliff of Taiyuan's western hills from the Northern Wei to the Tang, emptied of much of their sculpture in the 1920s and now partly reconstructed digitally.
Mengshan Giant Buddha
A Northern Qi cliff Buddha in the western hills of Taiyuan, rediscovered in 1980 without its head and given a new one in 2008; the body is about thirty metres high and the original figure around forty-six.
Fen River
The longest river in Shanxi runs through the middle of Taiyuan, a valley that gave the city its name and its wealth, and whose flow is now held in dams and reservoirs.
Shanxi Mature Vinegar
Shanxi mature vinegar, one of China's four famous vinegars, is made from sorghum, barley and peas through steaming, fermenting, smoking, pouring and drying, and aged through the seasons.
Noodles of Taiyuan
Shanxi's knife-cut noodles and the boiled dough forms that go with them, made from hard high-gluten dough and shaped in the hand: a provincial tradition that has travelled far beyond the province.
Photo credits and rights
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The Sacred Mother Hall at Jinci with its bridge and courtyard.Patrick20242023 / CC BY-SA 4.0 · CC BY-SA 4.0 Photo source ↗ Rights information ↗
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The Fen River in Taiyuan: water, riverside walk and the city behind.lienyuan lee / CC BY 3.0 · CC BY 3.0 Photo source ↗ Rights information ↗
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A bronze basin from the museum collection, photographed as an object.Windmemories / CC BY-SA 4.0 · CC BY-SA 4.0 Photo source ↗ Rights information ↗
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The red street wall and gate tower of Chongshan Temple, Taiyuan.Zhangzhugang / CC BY-SA 3.0 · CC BY-SA 3.0 Photo source ↗ Rights information ↗
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A seated Buddha and attendant carved in the Tianlongshan rock.Patrick20242023 / CC BY-SA 4.0 · CC BY-SA 4.0 Photo source ↗ Rights information ↗
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The Mengshan Buddha head and shoulders cut into the hillside.YOTTKP_cultural_trip.jpg: Dereklamnc1104 derivative work: 如沐西风 / CC BY-SA 3.0 · CC BY-SA 3.0 Photo source ↗ Rights information ↗
