Larry Speck

This 1400-year-old temple contains statues of Confucian, Buddhist and Daoist gods in stone, iron and bronze.  Many temples in China are similarly ecumenical, bringing together the 3 major religions of the country.  The temple was located at a critical pass on a trade route.  It is beside a river that is now dammed, but was once prone to flooding.  Hanging the temple from the side of the cliff…

I have long been fascinated by buildings created by carving out a void rather than by building a solid form.  I love the rock cut temple at Carli in India and the whole cities carved in the sides of the hills in Cappadocia in central Turkey.  But the very best version of this architecture  by subtraction may be the elaborate series of spaces created to house Buddhist figures near the border of…

It blows me away that this pagoda was built in the 11th century and was constructed with no nails.  It is one of the oldest wooden buildings in the world, and yet huge and magnificently ambitious.  It is in a small town between Taiyuan and Datong--just all by itself in an otherwise nondescript landscape.  The building actually leans slightly and there is concern about its eventual failure.  But,…

Surrounded by one of China's few intact city walls, dating from 1370, Pingyao is a treasure trove of Ming and Qing architecture.  It was an affluent banking center beginning in the 15th century.  When the Qing dynasty defaulted on its loans and abdicated in the early 20th century the city's economy collapsed and financial power moved to Shanghai and Hong Kong.  Pingyao became a backwater, but was…

In the Muslim Quarter in Xian there is an amazing night market that is bustling with people, food and activity.  It is clearly the social heart of an ancient and cohesive neighborhood.  The street market weaves into a narrow bazaar that could be in Istanbul and finally up to the gates of the mosque.  What a visual feast!  And the people are a gas to watch.

Once the largest city in the world, Xian has been the capital of China for over 4000 years of its history.  There are artifacts from many periods of Chinese development.  In the central city, however, there are beautifully preserved relics that date back to the 14th and 15th century, the height of the Ming Dynasty.  The 9-mile long city walls are still intact and well preserved as are the Bell…

Images of the Terra Cotta Warriors makes almost anyone want to travel to China.  Created over 2200 years ago and buried until a farmer discovered them in 1974, these vast excavations definitely live up to expectations.  The objects are beautiful.  The story of  a great leader preparing for protection in the afterlife for decades is mysterious and compelling.  The archeological feat underway is…

Although 92% of China's population is the majority Han ethnicity there are a number of minority cultures that are often located in remote areas.  Some of these minority people live in beautiful Zhuang, Yao and Dong villages in the mountains of southern China where time seems to have stood still.  There are often no roads to these villages, and you must hike in an hour or more to get there.  The…

Taking a boat up the Li River from Yangshuo is like taking a big step back into time.  The villages have a slow, ancient way of life cross-bred with electronic media access and a reputation for beauty and authenticity that has brought the likes of Bill Clinton to visit.  There is some kind of compelling force that keeps people in these villages and loyal to a longstanding way of life.  It is hard…

This is one of the most stunning landscapes in the world.  The flatness of the water and the rice fields contrasting with the karst peaks that have been sculpted by weather has been the inspiration for Chinese scroll paintings for ages.  The dense forests of bamboo are soft and exotic and sway gently in the breezes.

We try so hard in American cities to get an active pedestrian street scene to happen.  In China, with a billion people and 17 million in Shanghai alone, there never seems to be an issue with action on the street day or night.  And, of course, where there are people around, cool things just seem to happen serendipitously.  On Nanjing Dong Lu in downtown Shanghai the mixture of aggressive…