Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
prefer spectacle, there's a great sinuous wooden dragon on show, once part of a temple ceil-
ing.
The Muslim quarter
Access via the arch at the north end of Niu Jie
Some 3km southwest of Qianmen, Beijing's shabby
Muslimquarter
is focused on congested
NiuJie
(
牛街
, niújiē; Ox Street). It's a chaotic, congested thoroughfare lined with offal stalls,
steamy little restaurants and hawkers selling fried dough rings, rice cakes and
shaobing
,
Chinese-style muffins with a meat filling. The white caps and the beards sported by the men
distinguish these people of the Muslim
Hui minority
- of which there are nearly 200,000 in
the capital - from the Han Chinese.
Niu Jie mosque and around
牛街清真寺
, niújiē qīngzhēnsì • Niu Jie • Daily from first to last prayers •
￥
10, free for Muslims •
010
63532564 • Caishikou subway (line 4) or bus #6 from the north gate of Tiantan Park
Niu Jie's focus is the
mosque
on its eastern side, an attractive, colourful marriage of Chinese
and Islamic design, with abstract and flowery decorations and text in Chinese and Arabic
over the doorways. You won't get to see the handwritten copy of the Koran, dating back to the
Yuan dynasty, without special permission, or be allowed into the main prayer hall if you're
not a Muslim, but you can inspect the courtyard, where a copper cauldron, used to cook food
for the devotees, sits near the graves of two Persian imams who came here to preach in the
thirteenth century. Also in the courtyard is the “tower for viewing the moon”, which allows
imams to ascertain the beginning and end of Ramadan, the Muslim period of fasting and
prayer.
Fayuan Temple
法源寺
, fǎyuán sì • Fayuansi Qianjie • Daily 8.30am-5pm •
￥
5 • 010 63534171 • Caishikou or Taoranting
subway (both line 4), or a short walk from Niu Jie mosque
One of Beijing's oldest temples, though the present structures are in fact Qing and thus relat-
ively recent,
FayuanTemple
is a striking Buddhist place of worship. A long way from tour-
ist Beijing, it's appealingly ramshackle and authentic, with the well-worn prayer mats and
shabby fittings of a working temple. Monks sit outside on broken armchairs counting prayer
beads, or bend over books in halls that stink of butter - burned in lamps - and incense. There
are two great Ming bronze lions in the first courtyard, resembling armoured were-puppies,
and more fine bronzes of the four Heavenly Guardians and a chubby Maitreya in the hall bey-
ond. The halls behind are home to a miscellany of Buddhist sculpture, the finest of which is
a 5m-long wooden reclining Buddha in the back hall.
