China Silk Road Tours, Famen Temple, and Qianling Mausoleum

We paid the infamous Silk Road a visit, the scenery and sights along the Silk Road are spectacular and intriguing. Shown in the image above, those are the infamous caves not made by prehistoric men but during the failed Great Leap Forward revolution, the communist early years and many more, back then China was in great poverty and the need for shelter forced many to dig a cave from the side of a hill as homes. Known as the cave dwelling. As for today’s modern age, no longer homes, these caves are not for the hardcore poor but as a corn storage center during winter.

We visited the Commemorative stele at Qianling Mausoleum, where Wu Zetian and her husband Emperor Gaozong were buried. Wu ZeTian was the only woman in the history of China to assume the title of Empress Regnant, which is something amazing consider Chinese prefers male over females for some unknown stupid reasons. Anyway, I noticed all the sculptures at the mausoleum are decapitated; even sculptures of horses and camels are not spared.

The local are absolutely clueless on who or what causes this, it was probably vandalized by one of the many emperor after the fall of Zhou dynasty, or the infamous Cultural Revolution by Mao ZeDong that witness the destruction of millions and millions of Chinese art, sculptures, paintings, books… in the name of progress. Bloody communist!

Ironically, these two lions are spared, notice the tail? These must be the oddest pair of Chinese Guardian Lions (also known as Lion of Buddha) because it has a tail, normally they don’t. Have you ever wondered why do they call them lion dance performance when lion is not indigenous to China? For your information, the male lion has his right paw on a ball, which represents the “Flower of life” The female is essentially identical, but has a single cub under her left paw, representing the cycle of life. Symbolically, the female fu lion protects those dwelling inside, while the male guards the structure.

And we visited Famen Buddhist Temple, during Cultural Revolution, the Red Guard damaged temple halls and Buddhist figures under the name of “breaking four old fashions”. Most of the architecture and relics are not exactly antiques of yesteryears, after the Cultural Revolution, artifacts are reconstructed based on what they managed to salvage from the ruins, and architecture are rebuild to mimic as if they existed for thousands of years, an imitation, I guess nothing is truly original in China.