Buddhist temple in Longhua

Visiting the Buddhist temple in Longhua on the holiday was quite touching to me. I always thought there were no monasteries in China, but I guess I was wrong. This is where monks live and the visitors carry their spirituality to this place. I went to this monastery the western way because I wanted to see it like a tourist and what I experienced was moving. First of all, the beauty of the facility is overwhelming. Then I realized how important this place is to visitors. For all but me it was not an excursion with a view of art and architecture, but as far as I can tell, most of them were there for spiritual reasons. You can see people who bring flowers as sacrifices in the temples, standing or kneeling, or praying low on the ground.

You can see a lot, but in retrospect I felt like a foreign body, like a voyeur. I was the only western visitor there. Isn't it good form to go there as a Westerner? But maybe I was the only one because there are almost no Westerners in Shanghai anyway due to Corona. I was not turned away at the entrance and of course you can't just go in anywhere in Corona times, you have to go through controls. So the place is accessible to everyone. But I was probably the only one who was there with no spiritual intention? The amazing thing for me as a European is that almost everyone there was young. Our churches are almost exclusively visited by old people. There you can see a group of stylish, young Chinese girls with brightly colored hair, wide skirts and rather chunky shoes with oversized plastic soles, who devote themselves to prayer with incense sticks. You see a well-trained young man, maybe a student, who looks like the gym is his favorite place. Here he stands with his eyes closed in a concentrated position and prays. You see a young father teaching his little son how to pray with incense sticks and the boy holding a bundle of incense sticks in his hands and bowing a little awkwardly and not really knowing how it all works. One sees a young woman who accompanies an old, frail gentleman and supports him as he climbs over the thresholds at the temple entrance. It looked as if both of them had planned a visit to the temple for that day, as the old gentleman can no longer make it alone. It all had a lot of dignity and beauty and the atmosphere was so dense that it could have been sliced. Monks live there too, of course. You should hold back with the camera as much as possible. The Chinese don't say anything, but looks speak too.