Xi Chuan

By Janina Bach

It appears that religious buildings in Peking, Buddhist and Taoist temples, churches and mosques haven't been affected by the modernisation of the city. Their traditional architecture has been preserved, new buildings are not being built, and old buildings are having their traditional architecture restored. The environment around them, however, is changing at a rapid pace. They are now surrounded by chic shopping districts and modern high-rises with glass facades. The Peking writer Xi Chuan is taking a close look at the situation of religious buildings in an era of high-speed urbanism.
In some of the last remaining historic city quarters, Xi Chuan discovered abandoned Taoist and Buddhist temples. Walking through a busy shopping street lined with old, one-storey traditional court houses, he noticed a crumbling portal which led to the entrance of a temple. Looking in, he saw an old man sitting in a meagrely furnished living room which had once been the entrance of a Taoist temple dating back to the Ming Dynasty. The grand courtyards separating the buildings of the temple were now only narrow pathways between newly built extensions. The curved roofs of the temple with their ornamental beams were barely visible over the living quarters and add-ons, piles of junk and clothes lines.
The writer explains that in the "new China", i.e. the communist state, the government designated such temples as living space for mainly handicapped people. Plans to modernise the city by demolishing the traditional residential districts, or even restoring the temples, threatens the existence of the inhabitants living there. Xi Chuan has visited the neglected quarter, spoken with its residents and interviewed urban planners and real estate agents. From his conversations, he's learned that the restoration of abandoned temples has nothing to do with preserving them as places of worship. Only their facades are being reconstructed - as tourist attractions or tea houses, the financial investment will pay off.
While working on his project, Xi Chuan has encountered other areas and issues which he would like to examine further. The "Beijing Case" is now planned as only the first stage of a much larger project which will culminate in a book publication. He has become increasingly interested in the question of how important religion is to the faithful. He has been regularly visiting the small Buddhist temple area Xisi in the centre of the city where he talks to the believers and records their conversations. Still undiscovered by tourists who flock to the more famous temple sites, Xisi remains a place of devotion and prayer. At the weekends, ordinary believers, including migrant workers, meet in the inner courtyards of the temple to talk about Buddhism. For Xi Chuan, they represent the majority of believers in Peking, who - regardless of their religious affiliation to Buddhism, Christianity or Islam - "have found their faith because of personal difficulties." The writer thinks that the motivation of many believers is actually "secular" because they hope religion will solve their problems.
The results will be presented at the exhibitions in Peking and Karlsruhe where he will combine his collection of religious paintings and paragraph-long text passages which he has recorded in traditional Chinese notebooks.