Luzhi Things to Do

The highlight of the town of Luzhi, and its real treasure is the Baosheng Temple, first built in AD 503, but reconstructed many times. The present building dates only from the 1920s with large parts younger than quite a few pairs of socks of mine. I have things in my fridge older than much of China’s ancient architecture. Inside the temple, in a special hall opporsite the entrance, is the panorama of the nine statues of the arhats, made from clay. The whole structure is in a very poor state of repair and – once again – virtually nothing is explained to anyone, but they are actually the work of Yang Huzhi, a Tang Dynasty artist. One of the guide books states that the temple is in “Fragrance Lane” which is the epitome of useless information. Firstly, no-one in the town knows what the (English) “Fragrance Lane” means, and secondly very few foreign visitors are likely to know how “Fragrance Lane” translates into Chinese. Duh!
The temple has a number of interesting relics, but it is not clear if these were found on-site or trucked in from somewhere else and planted in the garden – not uncommon in China.
The Ye Shengtao Memorial Museum is in the temple grounds, and, curiously, three “unique trees” that are very special. Special for what, exactly, we are not told, nor even the species. I assume that they are the Apple Tree from the Garden of Eden, a triffid and Jack’s beanstalk. The visitor is forced into imagining something in the absence of anything that might set the context for all these “things” that Luxhi presents.
It’s to the left, down a side lane, off the main canal as you walk northwards, about halfway along it.