Yong An Wan Shou Ta (The Pagoda of Eternal Peace and Long Life)

Spring, 1981	September, 2005
Visible for long distances along the canal leading south from the Summer Palace, on the western outskirts of Beijing, this pagoda seemed striking in its stark abandonment. Seemingly cast aside and forgotten, I thought this was an incredible structure, was fascinated to see the details of the crumbling clay-on-wood figures that adorned its sides. Like many relics of the past, there was little to inform me of what it was. There were no signs or placards describing it, only a wall to protect it from presumably rather undetermined intruders. The plaque above one of the arches on the pagoda itself had the name, but that was the only information about it I found. A young man in his late teens who apparently lived in the area approached me as I was taking photos. He was curious to see a foreigner, but when queried, he knew nothing about the pagoda. When I asked him for help reading some of the other inscriptions on the pagoda, I was met with embarrassed silence. He was apparently illiterate, and spoke with an accent that indicated he was not originally from the area. He may have been a migrant worker, illegally in Beijing looking for work, or perhaps he was a peasant farmer who had brought in produce to sell. Both were beginning to appear in Beijing at the time, and have become more common in the years since.	While I was at the Office for Cultural Relics, I asked to see the entry for this pagoda in the book. From that, I found that this pagoda was once a part of a much larger temple called the Temple of Compassionate Longevity (Ci Shou Si). The pagoda was built in 1576, and nearby was a cemetery containing the graves of around 1,700 palace eunuchs from the Ming and Qing dynasties. The Hai Dian District has built a beautiful park surrounding the pagoda now. I don’t know if the park approximates the boundaries of the original Temple of Compassionate Longevity, but it is so labeled on the tourist map. Interestingly, they have not attempted to restore the pagoda itself. The figures adorning it are in the same basic condition as before, though careful inspection reveals that they have deteriorated a little more. While researching this, I found a photo taken in the 1930’s or early 40’s, and it looked very similar to the 1981 photo.