We came to Linfen (临汾, Línfén) following a question.
What was China like before Qin?
That question had already taken Dad and Elaine more than 4,000 years back at Taosi (陶寺, Táosì).
But in Linfen (临汾, Línfén), another name kept appearing.
Yao (尧, Yáo).
So we went to the place where Linfen has remembered him for generations:
Yao Temple (尧庙, Yáomiào).
But before we explain who Yao was, come inside with us.
🎥 Walk Into Yao Temple (尧庙, Yáomiào) With Elaine
Elaine went ahead.
Follow her.
The first thing that struck us was the scale of the approach.
A long ceremonial pathway stretched ahead.
Stone carvings ran along the central axis.
Red banners and ribbons added flashes of colour.
Old trees rose around the temple grounds.
And farther ahead, traditional roofs and gateways appeared one behind another.
You don’t need to know anything about Yao (尧, Yáo) yet.
Just look.
This is how we first experienced the place.
And as we walked farther in, something else became clear.
Yao (尧, Yáo) isn’t just the name of somebody commemorated inside an old temple.
His name is still embedded in the identity of the city around it.
Linfen (临汾, Línfén) Is Yaodu (尧都, Yáodū)
The central urban district of modern Linfen (临汾, Línfén) is called:
Yaodu District (尧都区, Yáodū Qū).
Break that name apart:
尧 (Yáo) = Yao
都 (dū) = capital
So Yaodu (尧都, Yáodū) literally means:
“Yao’s Capital.”
For an international traveler, that’s an easy detail to miss.
But once you notice it, Linfen begins to look different.
The city isn’t simply preserving a temple dedicated to an ancient ruler.
It still carries the memory of that ruler in its own modern geography.
And outside Linfen, at Taosi (陶寺, Táosì), we had already encountered archaeological discoveries from roughly the same distant world traditionally associated with Yao (尧, Yáo).
Archaeology on one side.
Cultural memory on the other.
And Dad and Elaine were now walking right into the middle of them.
The temple introduction connects Yao (尧, Yáo) with ancient Pingyang (平阳, Píngyáng), the historical name associated with this area.
But Dad still wasn’t ready to give Elaine the history lesson.
There was more to see first.
Ahead of us was the monumental heart of the temple complex.
So we kept walking.
→ Next: Deeper Into Yao Temple (尧庙, Yáomiào) — and the building that stopped us in our tracks.
Deeper Into Yao Temple (尧庙, Yáomiào) — Then Wufeng Tower Appeared
We kept following the central path.
Elaine walked ahead while Dad followed with the camera.
The deeper we went, the more ceremonial the approach became.
The pathway pulled us forward between old trees and red banners, toward a much larger building rising ahead.
This was Wufeng Tower (五凤楼, Wǔfèng Lóu) — the Five Phoenixes Tower.
🎥 Keep Walking With Elaine
This time, watch what happens as we get closer.
The building gradually takes over the view.
[PHOTO — full frontal view of Wufeng Tower]
This was one of those places where photographs don’t quite prepare you for the approach.
The tower sits elevated above the courtyard, with layers of traditional tiled roofs, red columns, painted wooden brackets and a dark upper gallery stretching across the façade.
But Dad’s eyes were also drawn downward.
Right beneath our feet was another story.
“China’s First Dragon”
Running up the centre of the stone approach was a long carved dragon.
At its base were five characters:
中华第一龙
Zhōnghuá Dìyī Lóng
“China’s First Dragon.”
[PHOTO — 中华第一龙 stone dragon approach]
That name immediately caught Dad’s attention.
Because we had just encountered something remarkably similar elsewhere in Linfen.
At Linfen Museum (临汾博物馆, Línfén Bówùguǎn), Dad had seen a painted dragon on pottery excavated from Taosi (陶寺, Táosì) — an archaeological culture dating back more than 4,000 years.
Here at Yao Temple (尧庙, Yáomiào), the dragon had become part of the ceremonial landscape.
Two very different places.
One archaeological.
One commemorative.
But once again, Taosi (陶寺, Táosì) and the world of Yao (尧, Yáo) seemed to be following us around Linfen (临汾, Línfén).
Don’t Rush Through Wufeng Tower (五凤楼, Wǔfèng Lóu)
At the top of the steps stood a large incense burner.
Stone guardian lions flanked the approach.
Above us were painted beams, brackets and calligraphy.
Red ribbons appeared everywhere — tied by modern visitors inside a place devoted to memories from China’s distant past.
[PHOTO — closer architectural/detail view]
This is why we’d give Yao Temple (尧庙, Yáomiào) some time.
Don’t just photograph the main building and move on.
Look down.
Look up.
Read the characters.
Watch what local visitors are doing.
The interesting part isn’t only the architecture.
It’s seeing how an ancient story is still being remembered in a living place.
And we still haven’t properly explained who Yao (尧, Yáo) was.
That was deliberate.
We wanted you to see what Dad and Elaine saw first.
Now that you’ve walked in with us, it’s time for Dad to explain why he brought Elaine here.
Dad Explains Why Yao Temple (尧庙, Yáomiào) Matters
After walking through the temple with Elaine, Dad stopped to explain why we’d come.
🎥 Dad’s Explanation — Right Here at Yao Temple
Yao (尧, Yáo) belongs to the distant world of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors (三皇五帝, Sānhuáng Wǔdì) — the legendary sage-rulers placed before China’s traditional dynastic history.
But what interested Dad wasn’t simply how old the story was.
It was why Yao was still being remembered.
Yao (尧, Yáo) became an ideal of good rulership — associated with virtue, concern for the people, ordering the calendar and choosing the worthy Shun (舜, Shùn) as his successor.
That makes him very different from the ruler we’d encountered in Xi’an (西安, Xī’ān).
Qin Shi Huang (秦始皇, Qín Shǐhuáng) asks us to think about power and unification.
Yao (尧, Yáo) asks us to think about what Chinese tradition believed a good ruler should be.
The Temple Is Ancient — But Not 4,000 Years Old
Dad also points out an important distinction.
The tradition surrounding Yao reaches back into China’s distant past, but the buildings we’re walking through are much later.
A temple commemorating Yao existed in this area more than 1,700 years ago. It was later moved to approximately its present location, and the complex was rebuilt and restored repeatedly over the centuries.
So don’t look at these buildings and think:
“Yao walked through here.”
That’s not what Yao Temple proves.
What it shows us is something different:
generation after generation continued to remember him.
And around the temple, we started finding clues to just how deeply that memory runs.
Ancient Trees, Three Sage-Rulers — and People Searching for Their Roots
Walking farther into Yao Temple (尧庙, Yáomiào), the history wasn’t only inside the buildings.
Some of it was still alive.
A 1,700-Year-Old Tree
[PHOTO — ancient cypress with red ribbons]
One ancient cypress is traditionally dated to the Jin period (晋代, Jìn dài), around 1,700 years ago.
Its old trunk twists upward beneath newer growth, while today’s visitors tie red ribbons around it.
We loved that contrast.
An ancient tree. A very old tradition. And people still coming here today.
Yao (尧, Yáo) Was Only the Beginning
[PHOTO — 三圣庙 / Three Sages display]
Around the temple, three ancient names kept appearing:
Yao (尧, Yáo)
↓
Shun (舜, Shùn)
↓
Yu the Great (大禹, Dà Yǔ)
They belong to China’s traditional stories about the sage-rulers of deep antiquity.
Yao (尧, Yáo) was remembered as an ideal ruler.
Shun (舜, Shùn) was remembered as the worthy man chosen to succeed him.
And Yu the Great (大禹, Dà Yǔ) became famous for controlling the great floods and was traditionally associated with the beginning of the Xia dynasty (夏朝, Xiàcháo).
Dad and Elaine actually followed these names into other parts of China.
Farther south in Shanxi (山西, Shānxī), we visited Shun’s Mausoleum (舜帝陵, Shùndì Líng) in Yuncheng (运城, Yùnchéng) — another stop on our DEEP China: Shanxi History Tasting Menu.
And Yu (禹, Yǔ) opened an even bigger rabbit hole.
At Hukou Waterfall (壶口瀑布, Húkǒu Pùbù), the Yellow River (黄河, Huáng Hé) led us from floods → water control → Yu the Great (大禹, Dà Yǔ) → Xia (夏, Xià) → and eventually into the difficult question of where legend ends and archaeology begins.
That’s the thing about these old Chinese stories.
One name leads to another place.
🐇
Then Dad Found the Surnames
[PHOTO — 姓氏文化寻根 / surname roots display]
This was particularly interesting.
Displays around Yao Temple (尧庙, Yáomiào) invite visitors to explore:
姓氏文化寻根
Xìngshì Wénhuà Xúngēn
roughly:
“Tracing the roots of surname culture.”
[PHOTO — surname genealogy chart]
The displays connect Chinese surnames and traditional genealogical stories with ancient figures such as Yao (尧, Yáo), Shun (舜, Shùn) and Yu (禹, Yǔ).
We wouldn’t look at a family tree stretching back more than 4,000 years and treat it as straightforward archaeological proof.
That’s not really the interesting part.
What fascinated Dad was what visitors were being invited to ask.
Not simply:
“Who was Yao?”
But:
“Could this ancient story somehow be part of my family’s story too?”
Suddenly Yao Temple (尧庙, Yáomiào) wasn’t simply about remembering one ancient ruler.
It was about ancestry, identity and the ways Chinese people connect themselves with a very distant past.
And that brings us straight back to the other place Dad and Elaine visited around Linfen:
Taosi (陶寺, Táosì) — where we went looking for the China before China.
Except Taosi asks us to look at a very different kind of evidence.
Archaeology.
Yao Temple asks us to look at:
memory.
And understanding the difference between the two may be the most important lesson Linfen (临汾, Línfén) gave us.
Archaeology Is Archaeology. Memory Is Memory.
By now, Dad and Elaine had encountered Yao (尧, Yáo) in two very different ways.
At Taosi (陶寺, Táosì), we encountered archaeology.
At Yao Temple (尧庙, Yáomiào), we encountered memory.
And somewhere between the two, an old friend appears again.
Sima Qian (司马迁, Sīmǎ Qiān).
At Taosi (陶寺, Táosì), We Can Dig
Archaeologists can uncover walls.
Burials.
Pottery and jade.
Building foundations.
Evidence of ritual, hierarchy and astronomical observation.
They can date those remains and reconstruct parts of the society that existed here more than 4,000 years ago.
Taosi (陶寺, Táosì) gives us material evidence.
But archaeology cannot simply point to an excavated building and say:
“Yao lived here.”
Then Our Old Friend Sima Qian (司马迁, Sīmǎ Qiān) Enters the Story
If you’ve followed Dad and Elaine deeper into China, you’ve met him before.
We went to Hancheng (韩城, Hánchéng) specifically to visit the homeland and tomb-shrine of Sima Qian (司马迁, Sīmǎ Qiān), the man who helped shape how later generations understood China’s past.
Writing during the Han dynasty (汉朝, Hàncháo), Sima Qian began his great historical work, the Records of the Grand Historian (史记, Shǐjì), not with Qin.
Not with Zhou.
Not even with Shang.
He began the Basic Annals (本纪, Běnjì) with the Five Emperors (五帝, Wǔdì).
And there we meet:
Yao (尧, Yáo).
That matters enormously.
Sima Qian was writing roughly two thousand years after the period traditionally associated with Yao.
He wasn’t standing beside Yao taking notes.
He inherited earlier texts, traditions and stories and incorporated this distant past into a much larger account of Chinese history.
So now we have another layer:
Taosi (陶寺, Táosì)
→ what archaeology can recover
Sima Qian (司马迁, Sīmǎ Qiān)
→ what ancient Chinese historical tradition recorded
Yao Temple (尧庙, Yáomiào)
→ how later generations continued to commemorate that past
These aren’t the same kind of evidence.
And we shouldn’t pretend they are.
At Yao Temple (尧庙, Yáomiào), We See What Survived in Memory
People continued telling stories about Yao (尧, Yáo).
They built temples to commemorate him.
They connected him with ancient Pingyang (平阳, Píngyáng) and today’s Linfen (临汾, Línfén).
They remembered him as an ideal ruler.
Even today, central Linfen is called:
Yaodu (尧都, Yáodū)
“Yao’s Capital.”
None of that proves every story about Yao happened exactly as later generations recorded it.
But it proves something else:
Yao mattered.
And he continued to matter.
So Was Taosi (陶寺, Táosì) Really Yao’s Capital?
This is where Dad puts on the brakes.
The dates are intriguing.
The geography is intriguing.
The later traditions are intriguing.
And the archaeological discoveries at Taosi are extraordinary.
But:
possible connection ≠ archaeological proof.
That’s why Linfen (临汾, Línfén) is such a fascinating place to think about China’s beginnings.
At Taosi, ask:
“What can we dig up?”
With Sima Qian, ask:
“What was recorded and remembered?”
At Yao Temple, ask:
“Why did people keep remembering it?”
Three different questions.
Three different kinds of evidence.
Don’t force them into one answer.
A Western Handrail
Imagine archaeologists excavating a settlement associated by later tradition with an ancient foundational king.
Then imagine a historian writing centuries later collecting inherited accounts of that king.
Then imagine people continuing to build monuments and perform rituals in his memory.
The archaeology, the historical tradition and the cultural memory can illuminate one another.
But they are not interchangeable.
And that may be one of the most useful things Dad learned by following this rabbit hole through Linfen.
Chinese history isn’t only about what survived underground.
It’s also about what survived in writing — and what survived in people’s memory.
🐇
And our old friend Sima Qian (司马迁, Sīmǎ Qiān)?
He has a much bigger story of his own.
→ Follow Dad & Elaine to Hancheng (韩城, Hánchéng), where we went looking for the man who wrote China’s great historical record.
We Came Looking for Yao (尧, Yáo). We Found an Idea About How a Ruler Should Rule.
After walking through Yao Temple (尧庙, Yáomiào), Dad began to realise that asking:
“Was Yao (尧, Yáo) a real person?”
wasn’t the only interesting question.
There was another:
Why did Chinese civilisation keep remembering Yao (尧, Yáo), Shun (舜, Shùn) and Yu (禹, Yǔ) together?
Because in the traditional story, these three rulers represent something remarkable.
They weren’t father → son → grandson.
Power was supposed to pass to the worthy.
Yao (尧, Yáo) → Shun (舜, Shùn) → Yu (禹, Yǔ)
The traditional sequence goes like this:
Yao (尧, Yáo)
↓
chooses the worthy Shun (舜, Shùn)
↓
Shun (舜, Shùn)
↓
chooses the capable Yu (禹, Yǔ)
↓
Yu the Great (大禹, Dà Yǔ)
This idealised transfer of rulership is known as:
禅让 (Shànràng)
— yielding rulership to a worthy successor rather than automatically giving it to your own son.
That helps explain why Yao (尧, Yáo) became such a powerful model in later Chinese political thought.
His remembered greatness wasn’t simply:
“I ruled.”
It was:
“The realm matters more than my own family.”
And Shun (舜, Shùn) was remembered as continuing the same principle by eventually yielding authority to Yu (禹, Yǔ), the great flood-controller. The Yao → Shun → Yu succession became an influential later ideal of government based on virtue and worthiness rather than bloodline.
But then something changed.
Yu (禹, Yǔ) → Qi (启, Qǐ): The Story Changes
Yu the Great (大禹, Dà Yǔ) is traditionally associated with the beginning of the Xia dynasty (夏朝, Xiàcháo).
And after Yu, rulership eventually passed to his son:
Qi (启, Qǐ).
Now look at the sequence:
Yao → Shun
worthy successor
Shun → Yu
worthy successor
Yu → Qi
father → son
That is a huge conceptual change.
In traditional Chinese historiography, the age of 禅让 (Shànràng) — yielding to the worthy — gives way to hereditary succession (世袭, Shìxí).
Power stays within the ruling family.
And with that, we move from the remembered world of the ancient sage-rulers toward the familiar Chinese idea of a dynasty.
This Is Why the Three Sages Matter
Suddenly the Three Sages (三圣, Sānshèng) Dad and Elaine kept encountering at Yao Temple make more sense.
Yao (尧, Yáo).
Shun (舜, Shùn).
Yu (禹, Yǔ).
They aren’t simply three very old names placed together because they lived a long time ago.
Later Chinese tradition turned their succession into a political ideal:
What if the ruler chose the best person for the people — rather than simply choosing his own son?
That is an extraordinarily powerful question.
And Chinese thinkers would continue returning to it long after hereditary monarchy had become the normal political reality.
A Western Handrail
Imagine a civilisation remembering its ideal beginning not as:
“The king died, so his eldest son became king.”
but as:
“The ruler searched for the most virtuous and capable person to succeed him.”
Whether the succession actually happened exactly this way more than four millennia ago is a historical problem.
But the fact that later Chinese thinkers wanted to remember it this way tells us something important about Chinese political ideals.
The story itself mattered.
Then Compare Yao (尧, Yáo) With Qin Shi Huang (秦始皇, Qín Shǐhuáng)
This made our journey particularly interesting.
Dad and Elaine had started in Xi’an (西安, Xī’ān) with Qin Shi Huang (秦始皇, Qín Shǐhuáng).
Qin showed us:
power
unification
law
administration
control
Then Linfen (临汾, Línfén) introduced us to the remembered world of Yao (尧, Yáo), Shun (舜, Shùn) and Yu (禹, Yǔ).
And here we found:
virtue
worthiness
responsibility
succession
the welfare of the people
Two very different doors into Chinese ideas about rulership.
And suddenly Yao Temple (尧庙, Yáomiào) didn’t feel like an obscure old temple anymore.
What Yao Temple (尧庙, Yáomiào) Showed Us
We came here because Dad wanted Elaine to see a place associated with one of the oldest names in Chinese tradition.
Instead, we found a much bigger story.
We walked beneath ancient trees covered in red ribbons.
We found people tracing surnames and ancestral stories.
We encountered Yao (尧, Yáo) → Shun (舜, Shùn) → Yu (禹, Yǔ).
And through them, we stumbled onto one of the oldest political questions in the Chinese tradition:
Who deserves to rule?
Then came another:
Who should rule next?
The most worthy person?
Or the ruler’s son?
Those questions would echo through Chinese history for thousands of years.
And Linfen (临汾, Línfén) Suddenly Made More Sense
Remember where we’re standing.
Yaodu (尧都, Yáodū).
“Yao’s Capital.”
Outside the city is Taosi (陶寺, Táosì), where archaeology takes us back more than 4,000 years.
Here at Yao Temple (尧庙, Yáomiào), cultural memory preserves Yao.
And our old friend Sima Qian (司马迁, Sīmǎ Qiān) helped transmit the ancient sequence of Yao, Shun and Yu into China’s great historical tradition.
None of those forms of evidence should be confused with the others.
But put them beside one another and Linfen becomes fascinating.
Archaeology tells us what people left behind.
Texts tell us what later generations recorded.
Temples tell us what people continued to remember.
You don’t have to accept every ancient story literally to understand why it matters.
Should You Visit Yao Temple (尧庙, Yáomiào)?
If you’re already coming to Linfen (临汾, Línfén), we’d absolutely include it.
But don’t visit Yao Temple in isolation.
Pair it with Taosi (陶寺, Táosì).
At Taosi:
look at the archaeology.
At Yao Temple:
look at the memory.
And add Linfen Museum (临汾博物馆, Línfén Bówùguǎn) if you can.
For a traveler interested in DEEP China, Linfen deserves at least two days rather than a rushed day trip.
Possible ≠ enjoyable.
🐇 Uh-Oh. Have You Been Stung?
We arrived asking:
Who was Yao (尧, Yáo)?
Now look what happened.
Was Taosi (陶寺, Táosì) really connected with Yao?
→ Go to Taosi — where Dad and Elaine went looking for the China before China
Who preserved these ancient stories?
→ Follow our old friend Sima Qian (司马迁, Sīmǎ Qiān) toward Hancheng (韩城, Hánchéng).
What happened after Yao?
→ Follow Shun (舜, Shùn) farther south through Shanxi (山西, Shānxī).
Why is Yu the Great (大禹, Dà Yǔ) remembered for controlling the floods?
→ Follow the Yellow River (黄河, Huáng Hé) to Hukou Waterfall (壶口瀑布, Húkǒu Pùbù)
Or step back and see how these places connect:
→ DEEP China: The Shanxi History Tasting Menu — Travel Through Layers of Chinese History
That’s what happened to Dad and Elaine in Linfen.
We came looking for an ancient emperor.
We found a story about virtue, succession, family and power.
And then Yu passed into the age of Xia (夏, Xià).
The rabbit hole had just become a dynasty.
🐇
