My 4th and final review of Buddhist caves/grottos on the UNESCO list in China has reached Yungang near Datong (ref reviews of Mogao, Longmen and Dazu).

This too was visited by me as early as 1978. However for some reason or another it has registered less in my mind than Longmen, visited just a few days earlier. Perhaps the novelty of looking at Buddhist statues had worn off or perhaps I was still recovering from having, earlier that morning, visited the “Anti-Nuclear Tunnels” at a cake factory in Datong! There we had been told that Mao Tse Tung had said in his teachings on preparation for war and natural disasters “Dig tunnels deep, stock greens (vegetables?) everywhere and never seek hegemony” (there is no answer to that!). So the 335 workers in the factory had spent 4 years working in their spare time without payment to dig 1500 metres of tunnel. These they showed us with understandable pride. They had created kitchens, dormitories, meeting rooms and a “cleaning room” for nuclear, chemical and biological agents - and still had plans for more!! Somehow the futility of this human endeavour cast a shadow on the results, albeit more beautiful, resulting from effort, but possibly equally futile, spent carving out and painting over 50000 Buddha statues in nearby cliffs at Yungang!! There our guide had told us that the temples were the result of the “Exploiting classes of former rulers who used Buddhism to imprison people’s minds” - but this seemed to apply similarly to what had been going on at the Cake Factory in relation to the Communist leaders!

Nevertheless I did note in my diary that the temple had “magnificent wall paintings and statues” (photo) – but you will have to decide yourself whether the sight of thousands of Buddha statues is worth the c 7hr trip out to Datong from Beijing! At that time Datong was a very grimy industrial city and the following day we were treated to a trip down a coal mine. Coincidentally “The Economist” of May 13 2005 contains a review of present day Datong. It appears that the very same coal mine we visited 27 years ago has started taking tourists as visitors in the hope of tapping into the large numbers who go to see Yungang!

If you do go please try to find out what has happed to the tunnels at the cake factory. Perhaps they too should be inscribed on the UNESCO list as they could be said to meet eg criteria ci, ciii and civ!! There are certainly many less worthy/amazing structures on the list.