I am not a believer of Taoism but this temple was a highlight in my Silk Road trip! Our tour guide is a well-read girl and she explained the basic stuff about Yin and Yang. The signs of Bagua (八卦,Eight Diagrams) are actually good advice for our lives: Be patient in wait and be modest at success, and how people should respect nature and stuff. Really made me feel proud of being a Chinese! If you don't know anything about Yin and Yang, this is a good place to learn. If you are not interested in it at all, go outside to the vast public ground and watch how locals spend their afternoon. At the corner of the public ground there was an old men selling Guagua (呱呱, a noodle-like snack made of buckwheat). He was so nice and told me a lot of stories, including the legend of Guagua and making process.
Kathleenlim
Fu Xi Temple is a must if you are visiting Tianshui. Fu Xi was one of the three emperors in ancient China and the ancestor of the Chinese. according to legend, he married his sister Nuwa after a major flood to save mankind! It would not have been acceptable by today's standard and morale! However, here as we go thru' the temple, we not only learnt how the bagua (8 trigrams) came about but also see the paintings of Fu Xi in his various roles - a hunter, a cook, etc! A 1000 year old cypress tree is reverently propped up at the front of the temple.
Reecevan
Another temple,yawn.. There was also a museum with the usual old vases etc. What made the visit worthwhile was seeing the local population interacting with each other outside the temple grounds. Men and women were playing games and gambling, while others gathered to play music with standers by joining in to sing. It was wonderful to watch the locals enjoying the afternoon. There was also a wood carver in a shop making the greatest sculptures from driftwood.
soon10
I was not aware of this important site, until my latest trip to China. Fuxi is supposed to the father of the Chinese people, and it is from him, the Chinese people are descended. The Chinese version of the story is, after the great flood, only 2 people were left alive, ie Fuxi and Nuwa, his sister. Nuwa heard from God to marry her brother. She was extremely shy, nevertheless she obeyed, but by covering her face. Ie why, in China, until recent time, brides has their faces covered with a piece of red cloth.Fuxi has many important invention, one notable one is the pakuat (I have unestimated the importance of this, and thought it was manly used by fengsui practitioners). It is a binary number, which is used in computer language today.This attraction is for those who are intersted in Chinese history and preferably knows the Chinese language. If not, our understanding is rather limited.