Section 1 — Five Peaks, One Bodhisattva, and a Sacred Mountain With an International Story Elaine and I traveled to Mount Wutai (五台山, Wǔtái Shān) in Shanxi expecting one of China’s great Buddhist mountain destinations. What I hadn’t fully appreciated was that Mount Wutai isn’t important only to Chinese Buddhism. For centuries, its reputation traveled far beyond Shanxi — attracting monks, pilgrims and rulers from across a much wider Asian Buddhist world....
Section 1 — One Hangs From a Cliff. The Other Has Stood in Wood for Nearly 1,000 Years. After Yungang Grottoes introduced Elaine and me to the Northern Wei and the Xianbei world of northern China, we continued through northern Shanxi and encountered two buildings that almost seem determined to defy common sense: the Hanging Temple (悬空寺), clinging to a cliff near Mount Heng, and the Yingxian Wooden Pagoda (应县木塔), a towering...
Section 1 — Beyond the Great Wall: When the People From the Northern Frontier Became the Rulers At Yanmenguan (雁门关), Elaine and I stood on China’s northern frontier and asked why Chinese states and dynasties kept building walls. Then, farther north near Datong (大同), we visited Yungang Grottoes (云冈石窟) — and encountered the other half of the story. What happened when peoples from beyond the old Central Plains political world didn’t merely...
Section 1 — We Came for the Ancient City. The Bigger Rabbit Hole Was Money. Pingyao (平遥) is one of China’s best-preserved historic cities and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Elaine and I went for the ancient walls, streets and courtyards. But behind that beautiful Ming-Qing cityscape lies another story that international travelers can easily miss: Shanxi merchants, long-distance trade, and an ingenious solution to a very practical problem — how do...
Section 1 — One Temple Outside Taiyuan Opens the Door to the State of Jin Just outside Taiyuan, Elaine and I visited Jinci (晋祠) expecting an important historical temple complex. Instead, it opened another enormous Chinese-history rabbit hole: the story of Jin (晋) — a state whose eventual breakup helped create the Warring States world of Zhao, Wei and Han. If you’ve traveled around: 山西 — Shānxī Shanxi you may already have...
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