An Army of Torres stood on the outskirts of the city. Hundreds of buildings under construction, skyscraper, Vertical neighborhoods still without windows, cranes sprouting like weeds in the brick jungle, that overwhelms with so much cement, With so many souls lend to inhabit hives. We do not get to glimpse the end. It was the marabunta again, The man invading space. China was also full in Datong.
With shy gesture and face of a good guy, A young man named Liu took us to the hotel that our producer had reserved. From a room of a hostel in Hanoi, Pablo opened his computer designed in California to search on a Dutch website two hotel rooms in the city of Datong, In northern China. In the reception we were asked for Spanish passports and confirmed in English that the reservation had been successfully. Production, today, Take many turns with a single click on the keyboard.
The next day, Liu was waiting for us at the hotel door. I was just twenty years old and did not question the prices that I offered, What was quite atypical in China. It liked us, But we had to get used to the rhythm of your vehicle. To a vertiginous half of 40 kilometers per hour he took us on well asphalted roads to the hanging temple or the Xuankong temple if. We spent several buses loaded with tourists who already formed in row uploading the stairs of the monastery when we arrived.
The Hanging Temple is supported by wooden columns on a wall 75 meters from the ground
The Hanging Temple is supported by wooden columns on a wall 75 meters from the ground, in which no sane architect would have thought of building anything habitable. Or maybe it was a genius idea. In any case there was, surviving time, after more than 1.500 years, a temple that apart from its extraordinary location, It also constitutes a communion of creeds. It is the only sacred place of China venerated at the same time by the Taoists, Buddhists and Confucianists. I guess as it is such an unusual place, which costs so much access, The faithful put aside their dogmas to share the views from the top of the monastery.
Yeray, With its size, I had more problems than the rest of the tourists to drag tripod and camera through the halls of Xuankong, that hung from the precipice. Human trafficking and ravine were a very uncomfortable combination to record with some calm and dedicated the whole afternoon to look at the vacuum, walking slowly, Seeing the suspended colored roofs on nothing. A tiny room with figures from different religions was the only refuge to abstract from vertigo. I felt relieved when we stopped recording the monastery aerial scodges, When we step on the mainland and move away from there to the rhythm of triumphal walk.
I felt relieved when we stopped recording the monastery aerial scodges
Liu also awaited us with his alleged taxi the next day. I came to think that it would have been faster to walk to the next temple, Well, they advanced us with total naturalness to the most rickety motorcycles in China. After enjoying the landscape more time than we wanted, We arrive at the Yungang Temple. Again the mountains had inspired the believers, As if the rocks mark the way to redemption.
Someone must count the figures that are carved there, Well, they ensure that more than 50.000 Buddhas decorate a set of temples capable of overwhelming the most fervent follower of Siddhartha. The mountains are hollow since in the year 494 dc will be completed the construction of 53 caves. The vaults excavated by those faithful wanted to make clear their unconditional love to the image of Buddha. There are small figurines carved on the roofs and walls, There are nicknacins that house human -sized Buddhas and there are giant Buddhas, that barely fit in the caverns created at the heart of chisel. I was overwhelmed by the stone profile of these statues in the gloom of a cave, your calm pose, as if waiting for the visit. Impose respect that goes beyond religion or art. The figures, even being stone, I am convinced that they have reached the Nirvana. There even Chinese tourists, usually noisy, They took pictures in silence.
There are nicknacins that house human -sized Buddhas and there are giant Buddhas, that barely fit in the caverns created at the heart of chisel.
While the temple impresses with its solemnity, The imagination of the artists seems to me a little limited. Buddhists do not lavish in angels, Not in Santos, nor are they misguided with floral or virgin motifs. If you have to worship Buddha, sculpt 50.000 Buddhas and period.
I imagined those artisans rescuing the faith of the mountain, over the centuries, praying to the rock converted in a holy place, To those Buddhas that make you look up, or to the hung temple that makes you closer to heaven. The Chinese who created these temples were not in a hurry and their devotion did not know limits.
Back to the city of Datong I understood that today's devotion. In China, If there is a motivation -whether divine or earthly -, The man leaves any mountain symptom. But of all excesses, I keep that of serene gesture Buddhas and the temple dancing in the air. Concrete neighborhoods have much less grace.
