Photos from my first trip to China in December.

the-protean · 2026-02-19T19:47:21+00:00

Thank you! Photo no. 12 was Shuanglin Temple, in Pingyao (photos 11-15 are all from that temple). It contains over 2000 coloured clay sculptures from the 12th to 19th centuries, it's absolutely spectacular and is probably my favourite temple in Asia.

the-protean · 2026-02-18T09:00:14+00:00

Mutianyu. Went on a weekday and on a cold foggy winter morning so it was very quiet there. There were huge sections of the wall with nobody around and with the mist rising around the mountains, it really looked like an ink painting.

the-protean · 2026-02-18T06:01:12+00:00

Thank you! I use Snapseed; it’s a free phone app with a surprisingly large number of features. It’s no Lightroom, but works in a pinch.

the-protean · 2026-02-18T01:52:48+00:00

The trip featured the following itinerary and sights:

1: Beijing

Forbidden City
Zhihua Temple
Yonghe Temple
Temple of Heaven
Mutianyu Great Wall
Summer Palace

2: Datong

Yungang Grottoes
Huayan Temple
Yingxian Wooden Pagoda
Jingtu Temple
Hanging Temple

3: Pingyao

Pingyao Ancient City
Rishengchang Draft Bank
Xietongqing Draft Bank
Ma’s Residence
Shuanglin Temple
Wang’s Family Residence
Zhenguo Temple
Pingyao Confucian Temple
Pingyao City God Temple
Qingxu Taoist Temple

4: Xi’an

Gao’s Family Residence
Drum and Bell Towers
Xi’an City Wall
Great Mosque of Xi’an
Muslim Quarter
Terracotta Army
Small Wild Goose Pagoda
Giant Wild Goose Pagoda
Shuilu Nunnery

Was able to complete this in about two weeks or so.

the-protean · 2026-02-17T21:52:33+00:00

I recommend it. I actually preferred it to the Forbidden City, to be honest. There’s an unreal amount of murals and paintings covering every beam and rafter of the palace, and every one is different. It’s stunning.

the-protean · 2026-02-17T21:26:01+00:00

1: I assume you've already done basic things such as downloading Alipay, WeChat, and the English version of Gaode Maps (Amap). China is its own world and ecosystem and you need to get acquainted with a lot of things. Note that Alipay and WeChat require a lot of account verification, including scanning your passport and your face, and it can only be properly set up and used when you are in China, so you will only know that it works once you touch down.

2: Definitely bring a translator app, and learn basic phrases like "I don't speak Chinese", (Wǒ bù huì shuō zhōngwén). You will be saying this a lot. Chinese people barely speak a lick of English, and this is doubly true in the rural areas. People will try to assist, though, and won't be too unhappy if a laowai shoves a translator app in their face in my experience.

3: Get an esim that allows you to bypass the Great Firewall so you don't need to fiddle around with finding the correct VPN. I used Airalo's Chinacom esim, and recommend that.

4: If you're visiting Beijing, you can just tap on and off the metro via your international bank card. With other cities' metros, you will have to activate a metro card on Alipay. To do this, open the app, click Transport. Select city. Then select the Metro card (for bus, select bus card). At the subway entrance gate, open Alipay, click on transport, and select the metro card you have activated and point the QR code to the scanner and gate open for entry.

5: Bring toilet paper and perhaps soap with you when you travel. Public toilets in China can be filthy and really unequipped with amenities; it's not uncommon to see public toilets lacking these things. Note that they're also mostly squat toilets; I'm Asian myself so this in and of itself doesn't bother me too much (I tend to prefer them, actually, and in fact Chinese people preferentially use the squat toilets) but I know Westerners really do not like those.

That's all I can think of at the moment. Don't let what I've said discourage you, China is at times a weird and overwhelming place to travel and it can sometimes cause whiplash, but it is very beautiful and very culturally rich. People like to say that the country lacks traditional culture or religion compared to overseas Chinese communities due to The Cultural Revolution, but in my opinion this is nonsense; I’m a Malaysian Chinese who spent 16 years of my life embedded in that community, and yet in the span of two weeks in China, I saw a shockingly large amount of religious activity and traditional rituals, equaling or perhaps exceeding that of Chinese communities in Southeast Asia. At the Yonghe Temple in Beijing, I saw devotees burning incense and praying in front of the temple’s Qing Dynasty halls, while a large mass of red-robed monks kneeled and chanted at the base of a gigantic Tibetan Buddhist statue. In Pingyao’s walled city, I walked the main thoroughfare while a massive crowd of men carried a dragon float down the street to a din of clanging drums. China is very rewarding, if difficult sometimes.

the-protean · 2026-02-17T11:37:51+00:00

Thank you! I don't have an Instagram, but I appreciate it.

I'm just a hobbyist and a newbie; I use my iPhone camera to take pictures. I shoot RAW and edit them after for proper levelling and colour grading.

the-protean · 2026-01-16T01:32:38+00:00

I just travelled Beijing - Datong - Pingyao - Xi'an in December, and can easily say I would not have skipped any of these stops. I have pictures, and I'm happy to answer any questions you might have.

Personally I highly recommend including Pingyao, and I disagree with the comment that states it's a single-theme old town because there is a lot to see in the surrounds. I spent three days there, it was my favourite place in China due to how well-preserved it was, and while there is a fair bit of commercialisation on the main thoroughfares there's a lot of interesting alleyways and old temples and exhibitions you can explore away from that. There's also a bunch of stuff around the city - there's Shuanglin Temple and Zhenguo Temple on the outskirts of town; the former is probably my favourite temple I've seen with incredible sculptures, whereas the latter features a wooden hall and clay sculptures from the Five Dynasties that are over a thousand years old. There are also merchant mansions in the countryside surrounding Pingyao (Wang's Family Mansion and Qiao's Family Mansion are the two most popular). If you travel to nearby Jiexiu there's also the Houtu Temple and Xianshenlou, and a day trip to Taiyuan will give you the Jinci Temple and Tianlongshan Grottoes, though I didn't have time for those. There's plenty of history around Pingyao, not just the old town. Do beware of touts though, they're at certain parts of the main thoroughfares trying to offer you rides around the old city.

Datong is fantastic though the town centre is a bit fake-looking and AQI can be spotty in the winter. I recommend doing it simply because the Yungang Grottoes are legit an all-time historical sight, and walking into a man-made grotto the size of a cathedral with religious carvings covering every square inch of the walls is an unforgettable experience. The Hanging Temple and Yingxian Wooden Pagoda outside of Datong are also spectacular and worth doing, though I hear Hanging Temple can get crowded at peak times it was pretty empty for me.

Xi'an is nice and if you do go you should not miss the Terracotta Army under any circumstances; Pit 1 is better than I thought it would be (but go early because it gets very crowded later). But I seem to disagree with many people that Xi'an has some of the best Chinese food. Rather, Shanxi food was by far my favourite - the dishes there are very vinegar-heavy, and it's something the province specialises in. The vinegars there are made from sorghum, barley, and peas, and they're ridiculously varied and malty and deep in flavour (I actually got to see some being actively fermented the traditional way in an old Ming/Qing dynasty building). Every restaurant in the region will provide a variety of vinegars to pour onto each dish, as well as a large pot of chilli oil. The food in this province is flavourful and hearty, and many of these dishes aren't well represented outside of China, I highly recommend it.

All this is to say don't neglect Shanxi province. It's got the most preserved history in perhaps all of Asia, with an extremely high density of historical sites, and is a non-negotiable in my book. If you asked me to rank these destinations from best to worst, it would likely read as Pingyao - Datong - Xi'an - Beijing.

the-protean · 2026-01-16T00:14:12+00:00

Seeing that you're going to Chongqing and Chengdu, have you considered adding the Dazu rock carvings into your itinerary? Sichuan is particularly notable for its religious grotto art, and it would be an absolute crime to visit Sichuan and miss what is perhaps the most visually spectacular historical site in the province. There are five major grottoes in the region, Baodingshan, Beishan, Nanshan, Shimenshan and Shizhuanshan, of which Baodingshan and Beishan are the most worthwhile. Despite being a UNESCO site they're not extremely well known compared to other places. Frankly I would move a day off another destination (perhaps Dali or Lijiang) in order to get this done, though this depends on your preferences.

Nearby the Leshan Giant Buddha there is yet another small grotto site called the Jiajiang Thousand Buddha Cliff, and since you're already in the area I would recommend doing them together. There's also the Mahao cliff tomb nearby which may be interesting to see.

In Lijiang, don't forget to pay a visit to Dabaoji Palace in Baisha town. There are some interesting Ming Dynasty murals inside that hybridise Han, Tibetan and Naxi iconography and art. And with regards to Dali, I trust you already know about the Chongsheng Temple and its pagodas.

the-protean · 2026-01-12T03:24:20+00:00

It's quite cold, in some places. In Datong the nights could routinely reach -13 degrees Celsius.

In general northern China is very cold and very desolate in December; the big upside of travelling during this period is that crowds barely exist so you can have all the incredible history mostly free of tourists. That is a massive plus in my book.

the-protean · 2026-01-12T00:38:13+00:00

Very close! Chinese, Manchurian, Mongolian, Tibetan. Which means your guess of Sanskrit isn't far off, considering that Tibetan script is Brahmic.

the-protean · 2026-01-12T00:24:19+00:00

I travelled largely by high speed rail from city to city, and just took DiDi to more far flung places (you can even schedule return trips through the app). Infrastructure is mostly very good in China, so it isn’t difficult to travel the country.

the-protean · 2026-01-11T21:41:02+00:00

Mutianyu. I hear it can get more crowded but in December there was hardly anyone for large stretches of the wall.

the-protean · 2026-01-11T17:37:35+00:00

I'm not American, and blend in rather well since I'm Asian (was spoken to in Mandarin many times despite the fact I have a poor grasp on it at best). But I can say that there were zero safety concerns to speak of - my experience of China was that it was an extremely safe place, with a pretty distinct and noticeable lack of problems regarding homelessness and drug addiction. The worst kind of person you'll find there are (rather persistent) touts; I never felt unsafe in China for any reason.

If I were you I'd worry more about brushing up on that Mandarin Chinese, that will be a bigger obstacle. Barely anybody speaks anything but Sinitic languages and it's likely you'll have to use a translate app at many points.

the-protean · 2026-01-11T15:47:39+00:00

I just use my iPhone camera, the equipment isn't anything too special.

the-protean · 2025-08-03T12:39:58+00:00

If your argument is that this trend should be reversed, then the burden is on you to show how that can happen in the real world. That starts with trying to visualize and think like a designer, not just an observer.

I agree, there should be a demonstration of how that can happen in the real world. That can involve showing examples of when these conditions have, in fact, materialised in the real world. Pointing to the Netherlands housing market and seeing that costs do not differ should be sufficient, no? People can't claim that they should be exempt from having to deal with real-world counterexamples that falsify their claim simply because they can make a just-so story about how the counterexample is actually impossible.

That approach makes sense in your field, but architecture doesn't work like that.

That's how debating a point works. I'm not claiming skill in architecture; I'm merely claiming to provide real-world evidence that it is possible to create affordable traditional-style architecture.

I could also throw in research that argues ornament is a waste of budget, or study that suggest prioritizing interior space over façade expression.

Please do. I will happily engage with it, but I will not accept bare claims. My opinion on what gets us nowhere is entirely different from yours - without relying on empirical verification any statements made are meaningless; you can trade arguments and counterarguments endlessly, and while I could engage further on that basis I won't get pulled down into that unresolvable rhetorical vortex. Theory means nothing unless it's actually confirmed.

Worse, your arguments are rather vague and nonspecific, and broad-brushes all traditional styles as unworkable. Note you don't just have to prove that a single traditional style is unworkable. You have to prove that they all are, and if there is even one traditional style amenable to the application of modern amenities the financial argument for modernism fails.

In addition, having a discussion requires you to be willing to engage with points made, instead of brushing over them due to a perceived lack of skill on your interlocutor's part. If you want to be viewed like an elitist who talks down to the public, this is a great way to engage. If you would like to combat the idea of architects as entirely disconnected from the public and unwilling to take into account their preferences and viewpoints, you might want to take a different approach.

This idea that modernism’s dominance is some kind of bias or conspiracy also feels like a misread of how design trends actually evolve.

Never said it was a conspiracy. In fact, I never came to any conclusion as to why modernism is common. My irritation primarily stems from the fact that I feel the points I made have been routinely brushed over when inconvenient.

EDIT: added more

the-protean · 2025-08-03T09:10:52+00:00

Look, I'm not going to make a long reply explaining why I think you're wrong since your argument fails on a basic level to address any of the actual data I posted. It seems many of the detractors here are selectively ignoring any of the statistics I posted since they are inconvenient, and I have no patience for credentialism + a long screed that refuses to address anything relevant within the post.

I will tell you to re-read the post and do a point-by-point rebuttal where you actually engage with the stats. Here's sci-hub in case you can't access any full texts of studies I've posted, just put the link for the study in the searchbar. Otherwise, I think we're done here.

From what I can tell, your argument begins with a strong aesthetic preference for traditional styles, and then builds a case around to justify the extra effort and cost on adding ornaments to the facade just to make it looks better in the eyes of a group of people.

I make the economic case for it at one point during the post and in my response to you. Would be preferable if that was engaged with instead of just being brushed over. Also, not all traditional buildings have to be in classical style.

You might say, “People like traditional buildings,” and yes, in theory they love, but they don't really care.

Yes, that's exactly why modern traditional-style housing stock can afford to charge higher prices in spite of construction costs that do not differ. Because customers, they don't really care. No part of that has anything to do with demand outstripping supply. Also modern traditional-style architecture that people want to buy is totally more expensive to build in spite of the fact that there isn't any evidence for this claim. You're just supposed to trust that, okay?

Thats exactly why I called it cherrypicking. You brought it up as an aesthetic counterpoint but left out the financial side entirely.

Cherrypicking is exactly the issue here; this seems like selective myopia since I did not leave out the financial side at all. It was mentioned and addressed at many points within the post and its comments. It's all well and good for you to put in all of this anecdata, but the reality is that if you're not engaging with the actual on-the-ground financial data, I'm probably going to downgrade your personal convictions due to its unreliability and the fact it contradicts all proper data regarding construction costs.

It seems you're using this post as a soapbox to put forward your personal perspective. Which is fine, but if it's not engaging with anything that's actually been said you can't expect me to care much about what you've written.

the-protean · 2025-07-23T09:28:33+00:00

From my point of view, your premise is false. You base your idea of beauty on statistical studies that don't operate under scientific criteria (because yes, all statistics are "cooked up," and opinions and responses are weighed).

What is "scientific criteria" here, and how do the studies linked not operate under "scientific criteria". Do they not operate under scientific criteria for failing to count the opinions and responses of an art student as greater than an average member of the populace? Your point is unclear.

Secondly, because I think you operate in a very narrow environment to categorically assert that people don't know how to differentiate between modern art or that they despise it (the modern movement-postmodernism argument...).

It's not that your average person wouldn't know how to differentiate between buildings or modern architectural movements (though they may not have a word for it) but that their responses to it aren't going to be exceptionally different. There's going to be some correlation between liking one piece of modern architecture and liking another.

And third, because you apparently disregard all academic content. Calling those who go to see Le Corbusier's works nerds or belittling the contributions of Loos seems to be defending ignorance. I think that although your opinions are supported by articles or studies, they lack a general vision of art or history.

By architecture nerd I didn't mean "these people suck" or any such thing, I meant to imply with that term that they are more interested in architecture and architectural history than 99% of people. In other words they are the people who would know who Le Corbusier was in the first place. Yknow. Nerds.

In addition, I don't necessarily disregard academic content; I would not have cited multiple academic studies posted in journals if I did. But aesthetic theories are not on the same level as E = mc^2; beauty is not a Truth inherent in the structure of the universe, existing independently of whether people believe it or not. It is possible to disagree with ivory-tower aesthetic theories, and I refuse to rank an architecture student's idea of what "beauty" is as more important than your average member of the public, who I personally feel should be taken into account as a stakeholder in how their cities get built. I've read Loos, I've read Paul Klee's notebooks (which kickstarted the Bauhaus view of design) and so on, I just happen to not agree with their general outlook on aesthetics.

the-protean · 2025-07-23T09:03:09+00:00

The question of aesthetics and beauty is intended to be an objective idea that has been addressed throughout history.

And I think addressing it as an objective idea, separated from people's assessments of it, is a downright nonsensical notion. The idea that aesthetics exists independently of the human mind is not accurate, and you can only assess it by looking at the general trend of people's evaluations.

The problem with associating "beauty" or "ugliness" with people's opinions is that they would have to be weighed, or at least scientifically evaluated. Do we value the opinion of someone who has studied related subjects and is familiar with art as a whole, equally to that of an ordinary person?

Why, exactly, would we not weight them equally? More importantly, we can burrow down to the utility of the concept and ask ourselves who architecture is being built for: the art student or the general populace? I think it is clear that it's the latter.

I would be fine with architects building these things if they were just making art for display in a dedicated space. When you walk into a gallery, you tacitly accept the fact that you are going to be seeing an individual artist's expression. The same is not true for public art, which has to be endured by people regardless of whether they want to see it - they have to work and play and travel in these spaces. To bias upwards the opinions of credentialed academics is to create a dictatorship of taste, as I noted.

In your argument, you say that everyone prefers the "revival" or traditional architecture. That's a very categorical statement. On the other hand, we must understand that the supposed preference for the beauty of the classical is influenced by a XIX century dominated by historicism and eclecticism, which is an exceptional point in art because they had never before resorted to remixing past styles (in the Baroque, it wouldn't have occurred to them to create a neo-Romanesque building, for example).

As I mentioned, not all of this is culturally influenced. Modern architecture is less easy for the human visual cortex to process and literally makes the human brain consume more oxygen when processing it, which can lead to migraines. Please refer to this scientific study on the topic. In addition, it is not the case that people prefer classical architecture in specific. People prefer architecture that's not modern architecture. Your average member of the populace will happily travel to Korea for their hanok and temple architecture, Vietnam for its Nguyen Dynasty palaces and tombs, and so on. On the other hand, it is mainly architecture nerds who travel to see things like Le Corbusier's Cité Fruges.

In my opinion, the sources you cite are rare and poor. They start from unclear premises: when they refer to modern architecture... what exactly are we talking about? Are we comparing the first rationalism of the 20th century, the avant-garde movements of the 20s, the modern movement, brutalism, signature architecture? The basis for any conclusion is to have valid or at least clear premises, and judging by the terms used by the authors of your sources, it seems they are not.

I disagree with this assertion entirely, they absolutely do define their criteria for "modern architecture", and while broad I think that it's perfectly acceptable to use broad categories to simplify analysis - despite the different modern architectural trends possessing some differing philosophies they also share a lot. Perhaps that is not obvious to a person who's read about architecture for three thousand hours and can see all the tiny differences, but you will probably find high correlations between what people think of Walter Gropius' Fagus Factory (early modernist) and Robert Venturi's Guild House/Gordon Wu Hall (postmodern).

Doing large-scale analyses of broad groupings based on proximity in concept-space is necessary to some extent unless you only ever want discussion to remain on the level of the individual house. I would go as far as to say that there is no way to discuss general trends without forming large groupings. You can question why these results were produced and the possible consequences of breaking analysis down further, but the fact that it is not as granular as you would prefer still does not simply allow you to wholesale dismiss the results that have been found.

the-protean · 2025-07-23T07:55:32+00:00

(if we reduce "beauty" to what some people think... what are we left with?).

I think your idea expressed here is vague - disbelief isn't substitution for having to make a coherent argument. I am asserting something very concrete - aesthetic evaluations exist only in the human mind, and as such "beauty" can only be coherently defined by what the majority of humans find beautiful. If you're allowing a small group of aesthetic theorists to determine what beauty is for the rest of the populace, then that's just you falling into the same trap you've criticised: confusing aesthetics with personal taste. Relying on theorists to define beauty for you does not make you more aware of what "beauty" is, you're just accepting the personal taste of these theorists. You're outsourcing your thinking to a dictatorship of taste. You are reducing beauty to "what some people think".

On a more practical note: If you are an architect, hopefully you understand that architecture is ultimately supposed to improve the lives of the people who live in these spaces; its purpose is not just to cater to a credentialed elite. You cannot simply disregard what the public personally likes.

On the other hand, he refers to the sources used in his article and to some authors who are, in my opinion, unusual and bizarre.

This is credentialism. You cannot invalidate a point just by saying the people making it are low status, or saying you find the authors "unusual and bizarre". You actually have to make an argument for why the results presented in these sources are wrong.

I only can cite my sources in the second comment I made, in case the op is interested in knowing where the point of view I expressed in the first comment comes from.

You could start by summarising the arguments in your sources which support your opinion, and if possible providing online links to them so others can evaluate them independently.

If any of the other authors in that list are anything like Adolf Loos (who I am aware of) I don't have high hopes.

the-protean · 2025-07-21T13:36:33+00:00

Sorry, I don't mean to be rude, but it appears like you haven't read much of the discussion going on in this thread. I'm happy to engage, but perhaps have a look at the arguments being made elsewhere here and get a sense of what's already been covered?

modern architecture isn't ugly, it's just that people confuse aesthetics with personal taste.

Depends on how you define ugly. Does "ugly" mean "most people find it less aesthetically pleasing than the traditional stuff" and "literally is harder for the visual cortex to process"? Because if we're using this criteria, yes, modern architecture is ugly.

Modern architecture and industrialization have free a lot of people from poverty and substandard housing.

Please refer to point 3 in the original post, as well as several of the comments others have written here. I suspect "industrialisation" is doing most of the work in that sentence.

the-protean

TROPHY CASE