Location info and some photos withheld. As of my last visit, this mural site is vulnerable to theft or destruction. I have withheld the location beneath the county level and any photographs (of steles, signs, scenery, etc.) that might identify the place. If you are an accredited scholar and you have a good reason to want to see this information, email me and we’ll talk about it.
Structure Type: Village temple.
Location: Xiahuayuan District, Zhangjiakou City, Hebei Province 河北省張家口市下花園區. The temple is located near the center of the village, although I’m not certain where the old village fort was or one ever existed. An opera stage faces the temple to the south.
Period: Possibly 16th to 17th century, although this could be completely off. I’m making this guess from the delicate pink and yellow clouds which appear in some of the drawings, a style and palette characteristic of the Ming. The temple was apparently repaired once in the early 20th century, resulting in an extremely clumsy re-painting of part of the Perfected Warrior iconography; these sections are immediately evident.
Artist: Unknown.
Mural Contents: Three halls exist here, all heavily damaged. The westernmost hall is devoted to Lord Guan, and has scenes drawn from his martial biography. Notable among these is a beautiful depiction of him seated on a boat during the battle of Red Cliffs 赤壁之戰, poled by very realistic boatmen.
The central hall was probably once devoted either to the Buddha Śākyamuni 釋迦佛 or to Avalokiteśvara-Guanyin 觀音. Now only the side-wall mural survive, showing the arhats 羅漢 in their various attitudes.
The easternmost hall is devoted to the Perfected Warrior 真武. The lower part of the composition showed his generals 元帥, while the upper parts show events from his hagiography. The opera stage across from the temple also has 19th and early 20th century graffiti.
Other Notes: The temple walls were plastered over during the Cultural Revolution. Since then someone has scraped the plaster back in places, revealing the murals beneath, but the overall condition is still disastrously bad. Nevertheless, if caught in time, this temple could be restored and the murals still hidden beneath the plaster revealed. Despite the very heavy damage here, these are some of the finest murals I’ve ever seen in a village.
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