The Twin Pagodas

On the second day of the New Year holiday, I took the 307 bus to downtown Suzhou.  The bus conveniently stops near the pedestrian shopping district.  A stop or so before reaching that destination, I noticed a couple of spires peaking above the rooftops to the South.  I'd heard before of a set of twin pagoda's in the area and figured that these spires must belong to them.  So I decided to go exploring that direction before shopping.  I took a side trip through the city park first.  Then I went looking for the pagodas.

It was actually harder to find than I'd originally thought it would be.  Funny thing about Suzhou is that it may have a lot of historical sights (and sites), but most of them are hidden behind walls and nearly invisible from the streets.  Even these tall pagodas were difficult to locate.  The streets are so narrow that you can't get a good angle to see them over the tops of the two-story houses.

But I did find the Twin Pagodas, finally.  The pagodas were originally part of a sprawling temple complex built during the late tenth century, during the Song Dynasty.  There is not much left here other than the pagodas.  They're all that remain of the temple, which was destroyed when the British army came to visit in 1840, in what we now call the First Opium War.   In the top photo of the pagodas you can see a some stone columns and a few more stone foundations that once supported more columns.  These are the temple ruins, left as a reminder.

The sizable stone columns suggest that the original temple must have been impressive.  Most of the temples I've seen, even the older ones, are constructed primarily of brick and timbers.  The foundations here indicate a significant structure under roof.  It must have been well decorated too.  On display are a good number of stone carvings that were rescued.  The photo above is an example.

Next door to the twin pagodas is the Ding Hui temple, a smaller temple that was built upon the ruins.  It is a functioning Buddhist temple for the community.  People come to burn incense and offerings as part of their prayers.  The photo above shows a shop on the street which sells the variety of combustibles used by the faithful.  Red, as you might guess, is an auspicious color for such things.  On the table, to the left, are piles of large and small incense sticks.  To the right, lying horizontally, are red wax prayer candles.

Even the temple dogs were decorated with red for the Holiday.  Inside the temple, below, there were not so many people.  I didn't want to take too many photographs because this was not a tourist place.  For once, I figured I would give a little privacy.   I did get caught up in a conversation with a very nice Buddhist monk who spoke very good English.  He was a young fellow - I'd guess in his mid-twenties.  He didn't try to proselytize.  But he was curious to talk about what Christians believe in.   He was benchmarking.

The temple and pagodas are located on a narrow lane in an otherwise residential neighborhood.  A few folks were out strolling.  The photo below shows an elderly couple playing badminton.  Burning off a few calories after the holiday feast, I suppose.  Badminton is popular here, and you see a lot of parents and children playing in the parks.   I thought this couple was cute.  If you look closely at the man on the left, you can see him pivoting gracefully on his toes as if he were doing Tai Chi.