Fengdu Ghost City



When traveling the Three Gorges of Yangtze River, if you start from Chongqing, then the first scenic spot
you encounter is Fengdu - a ghost town between county of Zhong and Peling. It is a little graceful town lying
at the foothill of the mountains and right by the river.

Legends said that Ming Mountain is one of the 72 graveyards for Taoism. Tao believes when people die,
their spirits will gather there (also called "spirit world"). All the temples on the hill were built at Western Jin
period (265 ~ 420A.D.) and rebuilt in Ming and Ch'ing Dynasty (1386 ~ 1911A.D.).

It got its reputation as the "Ghost City" in the Eastern Han Dynasty. Two officials from the imperial court:
Wang Fangping and Yin Changsheng, got bored with the political life in the court and came to Mt. Minshan outside Fengdu City to practice Taoist
teachings. Both of them later became immortals by carrying out self-cultivation. When combined together, their surnames Yin and Wang, sound
very much like "King of Hell" in Chinese. Hence the people began to call Fengdu the "Ghost City".

Fengdu is the only ghost city in China. The temples are all over the mountain with many statues. In the "spirit world", there are series of super
beings in the temples. They all have its own responsibility, they guard the spirit world.

To Chinese, the social structure in the hell is exactly like that in this world. In hell, a sprit would go through a whole and complete bureaucracy to
get the final sentence. The pure spirits would be rewarded and the sinful ones would be severely tortures. Different tortures would be given to
different sins.

The days, from March 3 to 15th of the lunar month, are Fengdu peoples' lively temple fair days. During the days, there will be a lot of interesting
"spirit shows" in the streets attracting many tourists and believers.

Today, the town is thronged with more tourists who come to visit temples and shrines dedicated to the
gods of the underworld. Landmarks here bore horrific names - Last Glance at Home Tower, Nothing-
to-be-done Bridge and Ghost Torturing Pass - the three check-ups on dead ghosts who wanted to
enter the nether world.