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Yunyang County, where my son (son!) comes from, is the home of the Zhang Fei Temple.
That’s Zhang Fei in the lower right of the picture. The one with the googly eyes and the wrathful grin, yeah?
His temple is the place in this story: http://www.china.org.cn/english/culture/70271.htm
Zhang Fei was a famous general from the third century (and an important character in the epic Romance of Three Kingdoms, one of the first novels ever written) who eventually became revered as a god. (It was 1,700 years ago, right?) Because of his friendship with Liu Bei and Guan Gong, he’s sometimes called one of the Three Musketeers of China. Famously hot tempered, he was said to be so cautious he slept with his eyes open — these are known as “Zhang Fei eyes” in China today. Sailors bring him offerings, hoping for good
So, from that link up top:
Every part of the original temple that was removed was treated with antiseptic, mothproofed and numbered to make sure that it would be put back exactly where it should be.
Each of the temple’s fragile pieces was then wrapped in cloth and loaded onto lorries. The lorries then transferred the items to a gigantic ferry to take them to the new temple site in Bangshang Yuanzi, in the village of Long’an in Panshizhen township in Yunyang County. This site was chosen because its geographic features most resemble those of the original site.
…Gong said: “We are working in line with the cardinal guideline of making no changes to the size, raw materials or structure of the original temple during the relocation process.
“For example, no nails are used in the reconstruction process of the main structures.”
…But the original clay sculpture of Zhang Fei in the temple’s main hall had become fragile with the passing of time and could not be removed safely. It was abandoned and replaced at the new site by a newly cast bronze sculpture that is 3 meters high and weighs 2 tons.
A three-story museum has also been built below the new temple. It will be a treasure house for all the major cultural relics unearthed in Yunyang County, according to Chen Yuanlin, head of the county’s cultural heritage administration and the curator-to-be of the museum.
They had to move the temple to higher ground because of the Chang Jiang’s (Yangtze’s) rising waters. There are pictures of that process (and of Yunyang city itself) in this National Geographic from 1997, if you can find an issue.
Or just check out other pictures of the temple from other places on the net, if you like.
Not everything in Yunyang news has been so picturesque. In 2001, there was some trouble with the resettlement effort. Moving the temple was just the largest single relocation in the Three Gorges Dam project — compared to the moving of hundreds of human beings from their ancestral farms, that’s nothing.
Eight hundred people from Yunyang county were moved to Jiangsu province in eastern China last year. They discovered that most of what they were promised—such as free schooling for their children, welfare for the elderly—were lies. Several dozen returned to demand redress and inform their old neighbors, according to farmers interviewed in Gaoyang.
Qi, the resettlement official, acknowledged that peasants have complaints. “In one place I visited, more than 100 people surrounded me to ask questions. [On my next trip], I bet there will be 300 people,” he said. “One time, someone grabbed my leg and started crying on my pants.”
But he said grievances can be addressed through education campaigns, and regular auditing has reduced fraud. By the end of last year, close to 84 percent of the $3 billion allocated so far for resettlement had been audited. Of that, $244 million had been misused or embezzled, Qi said.
One official has been executed, two have gotten life sentences, 133 have received various other sentences and another 140 have been punished with administrative measures, such as losing their jobs or party memberships.
That’s all from a few years ago.
This is where my son (son!) was born last year.
