Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
for the Pan-Pacific Exhibition in San Francisco in 1915 and returned to Shanghai in 2010 for
the World Expo.
LONGHUA PAGODA AND TEMPLE
Retrace your steps and cross Caoxi Road to the east side, to the former Zi-ka-wei Convent.
After a tasteful restoration, it's now occupied by the
Ye Olde Station Restaurant
, see
1
, an
excellent lunch stop. Continue north along Caoxi Road to the massive intersection, where the
skyscrapers, traffic, video screens and giant adverts resemble New York's Times Square.
The Grand Gateway mall here (1 Hongqiao Road) is home to several floors of shopping and
a cinema.
Take a taxi southeast past Shanghai Grand Stage and the Shanghai Stadium to
Longhua
charge). The dark red wood-and-brick octagonal Longhua Pagoda looks as if it popped
straight out of ancient China - which it did, since its current shape dates from an AD 922 re-
construction. The petite pagoda served as a flak tower with anti-aircraft guns during World
War II and was papered over with propaganda during the Cultural Revolution.
Across a paved pedestrian street is the rambling Longhua Temple complex, Shanghai's
largest and most active. Originally founded in AD 345, the Chan (Zen) Buddhist temple has
been rebuilt several times and is a particularly fine example of Southern Song architecture.
The current structure dates back to the 10th century.
Longhua contains some significant Buddha images: Sakyamuni Buddha's Bodhisattva
form in the Hall of Heavenly Kings, and the Maitreya (or Future) Buddha incarnation, also
known as the 'cloth bag monk', in the Maitreya Hall. The temple's Grand Hall features a gil-
ded meditating Sakyamuni Buddha set under a spiralling dome, with a statue of Guanyin (the
goddess of mercy) in the rear, while the Three Saints Hall showcases the three incarnations
of the Buddha.
Striking Longhua's bronze bell, cast in 1894 and weighing 6,500kg (14,330lbs), exactly
108 times to erase the 108 worries of Buddhist thought has become a Shanghai New Year's
Eve tradition. The Chinese New Year temple fair has also been resurrected here, with food,
folk traditions and entertainment aplenty.
MARTYRS' CEMETERY
Exit the temple the way you came in and turn right on to Longhua Road to get to the
Shang-
daily 9am-3.30pm; free). The cemetery commemorates the 'White Terror', the tragic mas-
sacre of young Communists by the ruling Kuomintang on 12 April 1927. In the early hours of
