As our group of six foreign journalists (two from Germany, the others each from Japan, France, Spain, and the United States) stationed in Beijing discovered in a meeting with municipal officials before our tour, Jinci Temple in Taiyuan is the earliest architectural complex of classical ancestral temple gardens remaining in China, a complex of 97 buildings all over 300 years old in an 1.3 million square meters area (325 acres). Neither Buddhist nor Daoist, this temple complex is a place to honor ancestors.

Currently, about 1,000 people a day visit Jinci Temple, but city officials would like to see more visitors -- a lot more -- which may be accomplished if Taiyuan's efforts are successful in getting Jinci Temple recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage site. The application has been made to the State Council which next year will put forward a list of recommended sites to the United Nations. If successful, Jinci Temple will join nearby Pingyao, an ancient preserved walled-city that is attracting more and more foreign visitors as words spread about its charm, as a World Heritage site.

"Our studies show that we can accommodate some 20-30,000 tourists daily," according to the deputy director of the Taiyuan Cultural Relics Bureau. The press tour was sponsored by Information Office of the Taiyuan Municipal CPC Committee.

The press group -- including local Chinese print and broadcast media -- was guided to the heart of Jinci Temple to the Goddess Mother Hall, built over 900 years ago in the Northern Song Dynasty to honor the mother of Prince Tang Shuyu, a Western Zhou ruler. Next to the hall, a cypress tree planted in the Western Zhou Dynasty leans over the roof of the hall, one of 20 trees in the complex that are over 1,000 years old. To reach this point, we had walked up a path that leads through a Jin Dynasty wooden open-air hall constructed without nails, past four life-sized bronze statues of warriors, over an ancient bridge near an eternal spring. At the entrance of Goddess Mother Hall, spiraling carved wooden dragons coil around wooden columns that are reported to be the oldest of their kind in China.

But the real treasures of the Goddess Mother Hall lie within -- ancient murals on the walls and 42 Song Dynasty clay life-sized women of different age, rank and personality who stand ready to attend Shuyu's mother, represented by a seated statue in the center of the hall. These statues are old, fragile and beautiful -- at least to one of the press who left the group to walk slowly in front of each statue.

Later, after we had left the hall and were standing near a deep well known as the eternal spring, Niu Defeng, a reporter for the Taiyuan Daily, approached me and my interpreter, Zhang Tingting, 24, a staff member of china.org.cn, to ask me why I had taken such a careful look at each of the statues.

"The clay statues are tremendously impressive," I answered in English as Zhang translated. "I asked if the names of the artists are known but they aren't. They are just described as ?folk artisans.? In that, the work in these clay figures represent a great popular cultural history and art. They express the real life of servants in the palace while each one of the clay women has an individual personality. I value them for their artistry and their humanity."

Zhang, too, had been impressed by the Goddess Mother Hall, and as we turned to leave she said:

"You know, it's interesting," said Zhang. "My impression is that women in ancient Chinese society had a very low place in society -- but at this temple women seem to hold a very important place."

Yes, I agreed -- and was to recall Zhang's comment as along the way we continued to meet powerful images of women in Taiyuan. There were real women, like Liang Liming, the director of the Taiyuan Environmental Protection Bureau, who gave the press a briefing on advances Taiyuan has made in protecting its environment in a meeting room at the Taiyuan Steel Group, one of the largest steel manufacturers in China.

Last year, for the first time, Taiyuan moved from the bottom of the list of polluted cities in China and the city is on track this year to meet its goal of 150 days in which the air quality is no less than Class II. (Last year, the city met its goal of 120 days; the distinction of the worst polluter in China now goes to Shijiazhuang, capital of Hebei Province.)

There was also, Wang Suhong, the leader of Mayu Town in Qingxu County, a region rich in natural resources, including water. One-half of all vegetables sold in Taiyuan come from Qingxu County, and Mayu Town is the one of the important grape-growing villages in the area.

As the town?s leader, Wang is in charge of all aspects of the vineyard and wine producing as well as the coal mines where vineyard workers labor in the off-season. During the August and September, Mayu is also a tourist attraction, hosting a grape festival with some 1,000 people visiting daily.

?Please tell people about the quality of our wines,? said Wang as we gathered around in a wine-tasting party in an open pavilion overlooking vineyards stretching as far as the eye could see.

As for art and culture, other powerful images of women were found in such things as the Fenhe River, also known as the ?mother river? and is so represented by a modern statue of mother and child in the new Fenhe River Park that stretches about 4 miles through the heart of urban Taiyuan; in the unusual Buddhist image of mother and child in the Yongzuo Temple in the Twin Pagoda Park where the Guanyin or Goddess of Mercy holds a baby in her arms; in the imposing Guanyin with her 1,000 eyes at the heart of Chongshan Temple in Taiyuan City; in the huge Guanyin with 11 heads carved into Tianlong Mountains, a range just 12 miles from Jinci Temple that reach a height of 5,581 feet above sea level. There are 12 caves in the eastern peak of Tianlong and 13 caves on the western peak, but the #16 grotto with the many-head Guanyin is one of the best preserved. The caves were vandalized during the 20th Century, and some of their finest statues are now displayed in museums in foreign countries.

Photographs of the 43 clay statues in Jinci Temple are not allowed. But some of the press were soon able to catch another image of their beauty in "Elegance of Jinci" and other performances in an evening's entertainment sponsored by the municipal cultural bureau in Taiyuan's central May 1st Square. One day after our press group had enjoyed the tranquility of Jinci Temple located about 15 miles southwest of Taiyuan city proper -- we met the clay statues again in a very different guise and setting in an urban park in downtown Taiyuan. As electronic amplifiers projected music, elegant women in costumes representing the 43 clay statues of Jinci Temple appeared on a makeshift stage in the biggest urban square in Taiyuan. Walking with a grace and dignity that wowed the local crowd, the women in the "Spirit of Jinci" performance put on a modeling show dressed in Song Dynasty costumes accompanied by men standing in the background with hats designed in the shape of the Goddess Mother Hall itself. The "Elegance of Jinci" was just one of several performances that included themes in which the models paid tribute to Taiyuan. Other presentations acknowledged the importance of the railroad to the city, and the coal and steel mines, for instance.

After the performance, the press interviewed on stage some of the models -- most of them older people between the ages of 50 and 75 -- including the leader of the group, Niu Yuling, 61, who starred in the finale in a dragon gown of her own design. A former dance teacher, Niu Yuling leads a group of about 40 people and attributes modeling to helping older people maintain good health while sharing something with others.

For old people, Niu Yuling said, the legs are the first part of the body to age and working the stage through modeling helps keep them in shape.

?The eyes also are very important when performing," said Niu Yuling. "Younger people express the natural beauty of their bodies when modeling; we express an inner beauty and spirit."

(By Sara Grimes with Zhang Tingting, china.org.cn, June 17, 2002)