sillybearhappyhoneyeater Posted December 7, 2014 I'm in Henan for a while and have time to travel a little. Was at the Kaifeng dao guan yesterday, but it was mostly just full of local farmer types and about zero real monks. I was thinking of popping up to zhengzhou and hiting up Dengfang, which is home to both Shaolin and Zhongyue guan. I think I'll give Shaolin a miss this time, as I doubt I can meet anyone very interesting there. Zhongyue seems like a cool place though and I just wonder if anyone has ever been and has any comment on the place? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Silent Answers Posted December 7, 2014 (edited) I haven't been to that particular one... but the monks you're looking for do not exist at Chinese temples. Most are now poorly run tourist attractions and a place for those farmer types to selectively become religious when they need to pray for luck or health etc. The monks at these places may be dressed in orange/brown/blue, complete with a different Rolex for each day of the week. I've only been to one open temple where there were real daoist monks. If you want to meet some interesting folk, you should head to the mountains or small hidden temples that you wouldn't expect to find anybody at. Parks are good in the morning, too. There's been few times I've gone off trail up a mountain and stumbled across gatherings of old folk taiji-ing in the middle of nowhere. That's pure chance, though. Edited December 7, 2014 by Silent Answers Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
