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In late 1997 in northern Shansi province whilst touring round village temples as well as those on high mountains it was soon apparent that the Cultural Revolution had laid the majority of village temples low and left them in ruined dereliction. However, Buddhist temples far from the cities had been more fortunate and these still contained undamaged images albeit in a poor state of care. Many of the village temples were being used as squatter residences usually for a single elderly person, with the walls crumbling, the roofs matted with grass and weeds between the roofing tiles, doors and windows agley and hanging on one hinge, and in a few places the images of the old deities still lying on their backs on the floor where they had been flung thirty years earlier by the Red Guards, and awaiting rescue. Villagers were still interested in their temples but have not the funds to do anything about renovation, at least for yet a while. The elderly remembered the gods and the majority had small cheap images, on their household altars or paper icons pasted to their walls, mainly of Kuan Yin and Kuan Kung.
One temple stood out as a born-again Buddhist establishment, with an in-house priest and several ladies ranging from very old to a young woman in her late twenties who all cared for him and hung on his every word. They were punctilious with their greetings and their constant invocation of O-mi-t'o Fu, as well as with their gentle pressure on their foreign visitors to feel the sanctity of the place and, in particular, of their priest. The temple, a recently refurbished building of wood and tiles on the site of a former temple, had no feel of age nor did it in any way bring to mind its former self, the building which had been destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. Sadly, it was a utilitarian construction with a few religious appendages, and similar in style to many an old village school with little if any of the sense of numinous felt in old temples.
Also during this visit to northern Shansi we came across the old temple which had been dedicated to Wu Lang. This was described in detail in Volume 37 in an article entitled the Yang family of Generals.
Mainland press reports during the years 1995-6 have frequently referred to provincial crackdowns on the construction of 'illegal' religious temples as well as the excessive building of tombs. Some regions, it was reported, had been seeking to promote tourism by engaging in superstitious activities on the pretext of respecting "the traditional culture of the motherland." The People's Daily, the mouthpiece of the party, called for a complete ban on Chinese tourists paying homage at temples and monasteries, even though such practices have been tolerated