The tallest... Tianning Pagoda

Amid all the shit in the world, the French elections, climate disasters, bombs built into an Iraqi school, an 18-year old girl brutally murdered in Belgium,... let's return for a moment of reflection to the top story of our China Pagoda. The tallest pagoda in China was inaugurated earlier this week in Changzhou, Jiangsu province.

The 154 meter high Tianning Pagoda has 13 stories topped by a golden pinnacle. The temple in whose grounds the pagoda stands has been rebuilt five times over the last 1,350 years. Rebuilding the pagoda took five years and cost 300 million yuan.

But it was all worthwhile as more than 100 heads of Buddhist associations and temples in China and around the world attended the ceremony. We have a new vantage point, higher than ever, to observe what's going on in China and the world beyond.

Longhua Pagoda, a Fossil

One pagoda in the spotlight the past few days is the Longhua Pagoda in Shanghai. The Shanghai Daily described it on September 29 as a ‘living fossil’, a day after it celebrated its 1,759th birthday.

The pagoda was built in the year 247 during the Three Kingdoms Period. It is part of the largest temple in Shanghai and a symbol of Buddhism. Longhua Pagoda was destroyed and rebuilt several times. In its current form it incarnates the style of the Song Dynasty. It is 40.64 meters high, comprising seven storey’s, each with octagonal eaves.

The Longhua Pagoda’s health is not so good, not altogether surprising after 1,759 years! It is leaning to one side, like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. The pagoda had been closed to the public since 1949, but after undergoing repairs, was opened for just the first three days of the October First Golden Week.

Climbing to the top didn’t come cheap. Tickets were sold for 100 yuan, but that included a box of mooncakes and a gilded Buddhist card. I don’t know how many people visited the pagoda in the past three days, but will keep you informed if any numbers are published.

It is nice to see that this venerable fossil has been in the limelight again, if only for a few days…

The China Pagoda

Why did I call my blog View from The China Pagoda?

Pagoda’s are a typically Chinese construction. Well, you also find them in Japan, but they probably borrowed the idea from China.

China still has thousands of pagoda’s. They are elegant, beautiful constructions. You can climb to the top of many of them along a rickety staircase. Sometimes it is so narrow you have to be pretty slim to make it to the top. One such pagoda is the one on the hilltop in Yan’an, the old revolutionary base area where Mao ended up after the Long March. I didn’t make it to the top of that one. It was really too narrow and claustrophobic.

The Big and Small Wild Goose Pagoda in Xian are also quite famous. If you do make it to the top of those structures you have a nice bird-eye view of the surroundings. When I climbed to the top of a pagoda in Yinchuan, capital of the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, I could see a church building which was completely invisible from the street. I dropped by and learned that the church had been founded by Flemish missionaries in 1920s!

Pagoda’s are no ivory towers. You don’t lock yourself up in them to escape from the world. On the contrary, from the top storey, they give you a general view. Once back down, you have a better idea how to explore the surroundings.

So the pagoda is a metaphor for my blog: keep an eye on the overall picture, get down to earth and fill in the blanks.

In tomorrow’s post we’ll have a look at another famous pagoda, the Longhua Pagoda in Shanghai, which has been opened for the first time since 1949 for just three days from October 1 to October 3.