Pujiu Temple and the Story of the West Chamber
A temple near the ruins of Puzhou whose relic pagoda was renamed for a fictional heroine, read alongside the Yuan play that gave it its fame.
Pujiu Temple
Pujiu Temple stands near the site of the old city of Puzhou, in Yongji, a county-level city administered by Yuncheng. Its fame comes from a play rather than from its fabric. The earliest written mention of the temple is in the Sui dynasty, but the date it was founded cannot be established, and the main buildings standing today were restored after 1986. One structure carries the story most visibly: the Yingying Pagoda, the mark of the whole temple, which began as a relic pagoda and was renamed for Cui Yingying, the heroine of the Romance of the Western Chamber. The Tang iron oxen of the Yellow River and the Stork Tower stand close by.