The gods must be Chinese

A bicycle excursion to the Taoist temple turns into an ecumenical pilgrimage. On the way, we stop at the South Cathedral, Beijing's earliest Catholic church with an interesting mix of Western and Chinese elements. 

Note the two children on the poster display in one-child-policy country.

 Sensible people take the taxi to the White Clouds temple which is quite far west off the beaten track and beyond the scope of our tourist map. We get a bit lost, spot a pagoda and decide that this must be our destination. We circle it for a while without getting any closer. The security guard we ask for directions does not speak English but points us a very different way. And sure enough, the White Clouds Taoist temple does have a pagoda, only with a horse we are not allowed to ride.

But that's alright– our bums are quite saddle-sore from cycling already.

The Taoist monks are dressed like for a good kung fu movie, Chinese traditional jacket, long white socks over blue knee-long trousers and their hair in a top knot.

monk shoes

Taoism (that's the yin and yang crowd) is not unlike Catholicism in that it seems to have many deities/saints looking after our daily gripes: headache, child birth, the weather etc. And they are depicted just as colourfully. We enjoy the images and stone carvings, including one of the animal years but the most fun is to be had from throwing copper coins at the gong and bell under a bridge going nowhere in particular. We even manage to hit the bell once!

The temple also has a splendid round doorway.

We do lunch at Chinese fast food restaurant Yonghe King (no relation to the royal burger, check out their funn(k)y site) and discover a new taste sensation: oolong tea with aloe. Super yummy.

 

 The Cow Street mosque, our next stop, is not as impressive as the mosque in Xi'an, but still:
a vase taller than Jeannine, that's not bad going.

To round off the day we head to BeiHai park and the White Dagoba. We witness the spectacle of police doing exercise around the lake, but we are too late to visit Longan temple. The huge stupa was built for a Dalai Lama visit – back in 1651 when the Chinese got on better with the Tibetan buddhists. But the park and lake are worth a visit in their own right. 

 

We find another beautiful round entrance – this is fast becoming an obsession – and the source of some beautiful tunes wafting through the park in another doorway. A man playing the flute.