Friendly Foes In Fengdu...

From Peru to China this evening, as we take a trip to the “ghost city” of Fengdu. With thanks to friend Sarah for sending these pics in (along with many others) quite some time ago now. Ahem…

Two guys founded the city around 2000 years ago to practice Taoist teachings, and their surnames when combined sounded like ‘King of Hell’ in Chinese, and hence people began to call Fengdu the ghost city.

Sadly, quite a large chunk of the original city is in the process of being submerged by the rising Yangtze River as a result of the Three Gorges dam project. The people who used to live there have relocated to a new city on the opposite bank. However, part of the old town, including a ‘path to Hell’, will become an island when the dam project is completed. Basically, it sounds like a very spiritual place filled with many temples, and, intriguingly, many statues…

These particular statues were particularly ugly, but are apparently friendly ghosts – which supposedly remind people about the excesses that should be avoided in order to avoid going to Hell. Sadly, Sarah couldn’t remember what these particular ghosts were warning against, although she guessed that perhaps they were against the pulling of strange facial expressions? Anyway, despite the warnings, Sarah above and her friend Sue below succeeded quite spectacularly at pulling these facial expressions, all in the name of Stand By Your Statue. Good on ya!