Stone Dragon Temple
In Haiyan village 1 southwest of Dianchi lake, Stone Dragon Temple 2 squats on a hillside that looks across the water to the Western Hills.
The first temple on the site was built in the early Ming dynasty (14th century), with a wooden plaque inscribed in the Chongzhen emperor’s own script, “The pine trees in the wind, the moon reflected in the water”. Rebuilt during the Qing dynasty, it was once a large complex where local magistrates would hold open air feasts taking in the view across the lake.
This painting of Stone Dragon Temple is by Mei Xiaoqing, formerly vice-chairman of the Yunnan Fine Arts Association and now dean of the Kunming Art Academy.
During the anti-Japanese war (1937–45), when Kunming was under threat, the Kunhua provincial high school for girls (an institution of some note) made the temple its temporary home. There were over 1,000 students and several hundred teachers living here. Under headmaster Yang Jiafeng the school was a centre for the new progressive teaching, including printing of the Shanghai based journal Women’s Voice 3 .
In the 1950s the statues and the entrance halls were demolished. During the 1970s’ Study from Dazhai period, the Lake View Pavilion and another temple hall was destroyed and the temple trees cut down to make way for fields of crops. Of the ten inscribed stone tablets (records of major historical events), only one survives. One temple hall was left standing, as were four trees (Cupressus funebris) over a century old. In 1986, it was listed as a protected cultural relic. In 1999 the local village committee spent some money on repairs, and organized 12 village elders to look after the place on a rotation basis.
Now the local government, in conjunction with a large real estate company, is rebuilding the temple from scratch – the existing old buildings will be demolished, though some of the stone carvings and tablets will be saved and replaced in the new building.
Sources:
Background on Stone Dragon Temple
Stone Dragon Temple recent history
- Haiyan village 海晏村 hǎi yàn cūn
- Stone Dragon Temple 石龙寺 shí lóng sì
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Women’s Voice magazine 《女声》nǚ shēng Begun by Sato Toshiko (佐藤俊子), a Japanese woman writer, one of whose novels has the great title The Mummy’s Lipstick. Her devotion to Marxist-Leninism made her life less than easy. She came to China in 1938 and launched Women’s Voice in 1942. The editorial position was taken over by a left-wing Chinese woman poet, Guan Lu (关露), who became part of the Communist underground in 1939 and a spy on the occupying Japanese military. More here in Chinese: http://www.yourblog.org/Data/20068/475712.html.
