Jing’an Temple, Shanghai

During my trip to China this year, I visited Jing’an Temple located in downtown Shanghai. It is old and it had a complicated history, but today it stands tall and proud (see images above). For a person interested in Oriental art and culture Jing’an offers many interesting bits and pieces to explore. Being a bonsai enthusiast myself, I couldn’t help noticing a couple of feature trees growing in one of the courtyards. They looked well looked after and thoughtfully styled. Below are photos of the nicer one of the two.

The main hall or ‘The Precious Hall of the Great Hero’ is a beautifully decorated timber structure, which had one curious feature. All outer pillars of it were as shown in the image below right, however one corner pillar was different as you can see in the image below left. We are told that Chinese aesthetics favour symmetry, however in this instance the architect decidedly left a snag with a huge gall as an odd feature.