Feng Kaiping sat on the big stone in front of the temple. From 1995 to now, it has been 27 years. He is the only caregiver of Jindeng Temple . In his words, he lives a primitive life in the mountains. He still drinks the mountain spring water flowing from the cracks in the grotto in the northwest corner of Shuilu Palace. His food is mainly potatoes, which are potatoes all year round. They are also potatoes for three meals a day. Sometimes, he feels that cultural relics are more important than himself, and he would rather be the one injured. When people are injured, they can recover by taking some medicine. If cultural relics are lost, they may never be found again in their lifetime.
text | one last
editor | Zhou Wei
operation | Huiying
1
in Pingshun County, Shanxi At the junction of the southeast and Linxian County in Henan Province, there is Linlu Mountain. The Taihang Mountains rise straight up under the action of fault movement, exposing blue-gray mountain sections. The temperate monsoon comes twice a year, and shrubs and larch emerge from the rock cracks in the wind. On the 1,500-meter-high cliff to the east of Linlu Mountain, there is the Jindeng Temple. There is a cliff above and a cliff below.
Feng Kaiping was sitting on the big stone in front of the temple. From 1995 to now, it has been 27 years. He is the only caretaker of the Golden Lantern Temple. His day's work is very simple. At 7 o'clock in the morning, he opens the temple door in the heavy fog and takes out a broom to sweep the floor. When someone comes, they hand out incense, pour water, and give directions. They watch people go in and watch people come out. They have to keep an eye on them so that nothing can go wrong. If there are too many people, clean it twice. If no one was around, he would stand in a daze with his chin propped up, either staring at the stone statue or facing the cliff. At 6pm sharp, the doors are closed and locked.
In his words, he lived a primitive life in the mountains. He still drinks the mountain spring water flowing from the cracks in the grotto in the northwest corner of Shuilu Palace. Drop by drop, it mixes with rainwater and collects in a depression in the palace, forming a natural pool of several square meters. If you need water, use a bucket or basin to scoop some out. Under the influence of light and algae , the water in the pool glowed with a faint green color. Later, there were more tourists, and the pool was full of thrown coins. Some people even washed their hands and feet in it. He tried to persuade him once or twice, but found that it was of no use. Just turn a blind eye and it will pass.
Linlu Mountain, where Jindeng Temple is located, is bounded by Shanxi to the north and Henan to the south. The mountains are high and the roads are far away, and it is 25 kilometers away from the nearest Yuxiaguan Town. Before 2018, when Huahu Highway in Pingshun County had not yet been repaired, Feng Kaiping went to the town. He had to go through tunnels and rolling ridges, and walked alone among boulders thousands of meters high, which took more than two kilometers. Hour. It was extremely troublesome to go out to buy food, and besides, he was the only one in the temple, and there would be no one to look after him if he left. Most of his food was provided on the mountain.
The main food is potatoes. They are potatoes all year round. Potatoes are also included in three meals a day. "Every day I open my eyes, I eat potatoes, and I eat them for more than 20 years." In the 1990s, living conditions were not good and they could not afford rice and noodles, so they had to grow their own grain and vegetables. He used to grow Chinese cabbage near the temple, but it was all eaten up by rabbits and pheasants. The plants were not enough for them to eat. Only the potatoes buried in the ground survived.
Sometimes the potato slices are fried, sometimes they are simply boiled with the skin on, peeled and eaten, as long as it fills the stomach. The potatoes had been stored for a long time, and green sprouts sprouted out. He couldn't think too much about it. Even after pulling out the sprouts, it was still a good potato. "There were no vegetables in the past. What would I eat if I didn't eat this?" At that time, the most delicious food was the steamed buns offered by pilgrims. When they were hard and yellow, the skin was torn open, and the inside still tasted like rice noodles. Until the highway was opened a few years ago, conditions improved, and rice, noodles, and steamed buns were all transported in bags by truck. But Feng Kaiping's habit of eating potatoes has remained until now, "from three meals a day to one meal a day."
What a person still needs to endure is the long dark night. Before 2008, there was no electricity in Jindeng Temple, so Feng Kaiping carried a kerosene lamp for lighting. He lay on his bed early at night and could clearly hear the sound of wind, birds, frogs, and even mosquitoes flying wherever he went.At first, he couldn't sleep. He was alone in the whole mountain. "It was so quiet at night." Later, he asked someone to buy a radio to listen to national events, and then there was a little voice.
Accompanying him are thirty-seven Buddhist niches and more than five hundred Buddha statues in fourteen caves in the temple. The Jindeng Temple Grottoes were carved in the Northern Zhou Dynasty. After more than a hundred years of expansion by the four emperors of Ming Zhengde, Jiajing, Longqing and Wanli, they have stone Buddhas, relief murals, tablets and stone pagodas. It is known as the end of Chinese grotto art. At present, the Jindeng Temple Grottoes have been selected into the sixth batch of national protected cultural relics and are listed as key cultural relics protection units in Shanxi Province.
While walking around with a broom, a tourist asked Feng Kaiping about the origin of the Buddha statues in Jindeng Temple. He pointed to the stone tablet in front of the temple and asked him to read it carefully. If it hadn't been written on the tablet, he could only shake his head, "Even cultural relic experts may not be able to tell. How can I tell?" He only knew that the Golden Lantern Temple originated from the legendary golden lantern that floated in and stayed bright all night long. He only knew that his mission was to guard the cultural relics at all times, and to "serve Amitabha well." That was enough.
▲ overlooking the Golden Light Temple. Picture / Provided by interviewee
2
36 years ago, Feng Kaiping had never been to Jindeng Temple. He was born in 1959. He started playing a small role in a theater troupe at the age of 13. He would wake up when the rooster crows and the dog would bark when he went to sleep. He never thought about anything other than work.
In 1995, the Pingshun County Cultural Bureau dispatched Feng Kaiping to take care of the Golden Lantern Temple. Before that, Jindeng Temple had been taken care of by a local old man. He never married and stayed on the mountain until he was more than 70 years old, until he died of a sudden cerebral infarction.
Before leaving, Feng Kaiping had a fierce quarrel with his family. He already had three children at that time, the oldest was 8 years old, and the youngest was only 1 and a half years old. Jindeng Temple was 60 kilometers away from the county town of Pingshun, , where he was located. His wife was so angry that she threw the child into his arms. "Just go and endure hardship", he said and slammed the door and left.
On the day of departure, Li Yinsheng, then director of the Cultural Bureau of Pingshun County, personally drove Feng Kaiping to Yuxiaguan Town at the foot of the mountain. The car had difficulty moving forward and stopped. Looking up, he saw steep stone walls and endless mountains as far as the eye could see. He stood on the gravel road and watched the car disappear. He picked up the sack containing his bedding, clothes, towels and a washbasin and walked into the mountains.
With no water, no food, and no electricity, Feng Kaiping had already prepared in his heart, but he didn't expect that the thieves would come so quickly.
One day in 1996, at around 6 o'clock in the evening, two women hurried to Jindeng Temple, brought two sticks of incense, knelt down to burn incense and worship Buddha. It was getting late at that time, and the pilgrim asked to stay overnight. Feng Kaiping agreed and cooked a pot of porridge for dinner.
Feng Kaiping was accompanied by two local villagers at that time. Worried that one person would not be able to provide adequate care, he hired two caretakers with money from temple incense at a cost of 8 yuan a day. In the evening, Feng Kaiping drank porridge and lay in bed. In the first half of the night, his heart was burning and he felt dizzy and nauseated. In the second half of the night, he fell asleep again and slept until dawn. The next day, I went to open the door as usual. When I got to the door, I found that the lock that had been left last night had been picked open, and the two pilgrims were missing.
He felt as if someone had poured cold water on him, and his "bones were cold." He rushed back and patted his companion's door, only to find out that two villagers had the same symptoms last night, "It's over, the porridge was drugged." The three of them hurried back to the main hall and found that the three Buddha reliefs had been dug away, leaving only a few huge imprints. Feng Kaiping was anxious to call the police, but there were no landlines or mobile phones in the temple at that time. He ran 25 kilometers all the way to the Yuxiaguan Town Police Station to report the case.
After staying in the mountain for a long time, Feng Kaiping could intuitively feel something strange about the visitors. Jindeng Temple is located in a remote place. In the past, pilgrims were mainly elderly people with devout faith. They would not forget to bring incense, yellow paper and offerings when they went up the mountain. They usually went down the mountain in the afternoon.
Shortly after the drugging incident, it was another evening, and four young men visited the Golden Lantern Temple with empty hands.As soon as several people arrived, Feng Kaiping became vigilant. At that time, he had only one caregiver by his side, and they were closely followed by four men. The leading man stared at the Buddha statues closely, looking at them one by one. Feng Kaiping was so nervous that he breathed heavily.
The other party suddenly said: "Will this Buddha statue move?"
"How can the Buddha statue move? This is a useless question." Now that Feng Kaiping thought about it, he only thought it was a code. At that time, he said "I don't know" to the man. The man quickly turned around, grabbed his neck, and his companions put him down, took out a thin hemp rope from his trouser pocket, and tied his hands and feet. Feng Kaiping couldn't move and opened his mouth to scream. The men picked up dirty rags from the temple and stuffed them into his mouth. During the struggle, a man stabbed him with a dagger, causing his waist to bleed.
He was thrown into the kitchen, and another villager guard was locked in the side room. It wasn't until more than an hour later that there was no movement in the Water and Land Palace. Feng Kaiping noticed the saw placed in the corner of the kitchen. He put his hands and feet behind his back and tried to cut the hemp rope on the saw. But when he exerted force, his hands and feet, which had been bound for a long time, cramped violently due to lack of blood circulation. The pain caused him to roll in the kitchen, "like a donkey rolling."
When the rope was untied, he rolled and climbed to the main hall. Perhaps due to the lack of tools of those people, no cultural relics were lost in Jindeng Temple, but they used stones to smash some reliefs beyond recognition. Due to the lack of surveillance technology at the time, the matter could only be left alone.
After the successive thefts occurred, all the former caregivers left and returned home to farm. The villagers spread the word, and no one dared to come back to guard the ancient temple with Feng Kaiping. "I'm scared too, but there will be no one left if I leave."
After Feng Kaiping was left alone, he felt more and more worried about taking care of cultural relics. "For a while, I was afraid of young people when I saw them." Sometimes, he feels that cultural relics are more important than himself, and he would rather be the one injured. When people are injured, they can recover by taking some medicine. If cultural relics are lost, they may never be found again in their lifetime.
▲ The sunrise seen by Feng Kaiping at Jindeng Temple. Picture / Provided by interviewee
In addition to the risk of theft, non-human weathering, moisture, and natural disasters are also intruding on the Golden Lantern Temple. In the second half of 2021, heavy rainfall continued in the Central Plains, and a severe flood disaster broke out in Shanxi, affecting 1.7571 million people in 11 cities and 76 counties (cities, districts) in the province. Jindeng Temple is at a higher altitude. During that month, Feng Kaiping witnessed the floods at the foot of the mountain. The floods swallowed up the plains, crops and villages. There was more and more rain on the mountain, until later, water seeped through the cracks in the grotto day and night, and he had to use a washbasin to scoop out the overflowing rainwater from the water and land hall pool. The entire Jindeng Temple was seriously affected by dampness, and the stone Buddha statues were so wet that they turned black. Feng Kaiping was so anxious that he could only find a dry rag and wipe it over and over again.
In fact, in the vast land of Sanjin, there are more than 50,000 immovable cultural relics such as Jindeng Temple alone. The 2021 Shanxi floods caused a total of more than 1,700 cultural relics to be in varying degrees of danger. . What happened to cultural relics in Shanxi aroused the entire society's attention to the rescue and restoration of cultural relics at that time, and the charity team of Station B was also one of them.
When Bilibili’s charity team contacted Feng Kaiping and offered to help protect local cultural relics, Shanxi’s multi-day heavy rain had just passed, and he was worried about power outages. The circuit in the temple was completely damaged. At first it was crackling and flashing with fire, but later it simply broke down. Feng Kaiping returned to his old life of kerosene lamps.
3
The circuit was quickly repaired, but mobile phone signal is still the biggest problem at Jindeng Temple. Until now, to answer a phone call, Feng Kaiping had to walk from inside the temple to the outside and hold up his phone to find a signal.
went to Jindeng Temple, and it was a luxury to hope to go home from now on. To go home, you have to walk to Yuxiaguan Town before you can take a bus. It takes a whole day to go back and forth. Since he couldn't live without people in the temple, Feng Kaiping rarely went home, and his mobile phone became his only means of contacting his family.
Every time he answered the phone in the past, he could always hear happy news: his child was growing taller, his grades were getting better, and his wife was still in good health. At first, he believed it to be true, but later he realized that it was his wife who reported good news and not bad news.
In the first month of the month more than ten years ago, a distant relative went up the mountain to burn incense and asked about the injuries of Feng Kaiping's wife and daughter. From the other party's mouth, he learned that the bus his wife and daughter were riding had a major car accident a year ago.
At that time, he just wanted to go down the mountain immediately and go home to take care of his wife and daughter, but the Jindeng Temple could not be left unattended. It took him two full days to find a villager who was willing to take his place. The moment he returned home, Feng Kaiping burst into tears. His daughter's arm was broken and tied with a thick bandage. His wife Meng Ximei's right face was scratched by the broken glass of the car window. A total of 47 stitches were stitched on her face. There was also a piece of flesh missing from the lip. When the car accident happened, Meng Ximei's brother was anxious to call Feng Kaiping, but she stopped him: "It's almost the Chinese New Year, and he's here, who will take over? Besides, the transportation is not convenient, and others can't come, so they are still worried." Getting angry..."
The family concealed it more than once. Many years ago, his youngest son suffered from a hernia. Feng Kaiping didn't know about it until he returned home, but the child's illness was already cured. Feng Kaiping often feels that he is powerless. Because of this job, he has been criticized by others and even relatives, saying that he only cares about work and not about family. Relatives and friends are both good and bad inside and outside.”
However, in Meng Ximei’s eyes, Feng Kaiping was a good husband. She did some small business in Pingshun County, selling rice, steamed buns, cigarettes and alcohol, and her family lived in poverty. For many years at Jindeng Temple, Feng Kaiping sent all his salary to his family, leaving almost none for himself. Not long after Feng Kaiping arrived at Jindeng Temple, Meng Ximei once went up the mountain to visit her. She saw the empty temple and half a piece of leftover potatoes in the bowl. She didn't say a word, but quietly wiped away tears when she left.
From 2014 to 2017, the foothills of Linlu Mountain where Jindeng Temple is located needed to be reinforced, and a large number of workers came to the mountain. Because there were people there every day, Feng Kaiping never left the Golden Lantern Temple for three years. Sometimes, workers would cook together near the temple and invite Feng Kaiping to eat with them, but he could only pack a bowl and go back in a hurry. In the past three years, his family occasionally visited him in the mountains and brought him some rice, vegetable oil and milk powder.
But most of the time, he needs to fight loneliness. In the past 27 years, thieves, floods, and poverty have all become trivial matters. Only loneliness cannot be smoothed away by time, and the wrinkles left in my heart are getting deeper and deeper. There is a lot of fog in the mountains that lingers for a long time. The foggy days have become the days he fears the most. He can't see anything even 5 meters away. In the past, his favorite thing was to lean on the edge of the cliff and look down. If he squinted his eyes, he could see the moving vehicles on the winding road. It was the only smoke of fireworks, but it was often obscured by heavy fog.
▲ The Golden Lantern Temple shrouded in heavy fog. Picture / Provided by the interviewee
The longest period of time was that he had not seen the sun for more than 40 days, and sorrow lingered in the air like water vapor. It was not until a tourist went up the mountain and opened his mouth that he realized that he had forgotten how to speak.
"There are good and bad aspects of work. You can't just think badly, and then you won't be able to do the job." After they had been together for a long time, he had feelings for the cultural relics, but he couldn't tell what these feelings were, he just felt that the cultural relics It's like having spiritual energy. "Some people come all the way to Jindeng Temple to burn incense and worship Buddha. If there is no spiritual energy, how can they come?"
Because of the existence of spiritual energy, Feng Kaiping feels that he has dedicated half his life to cultural relics, and the cultural relics are also paying him back. In 2017, Feng Kaiping was awarded the title of "Internet Touching Person of the Year" in "China Internet Affairs·Moving 2017". In 2018, he was awarded the title of "The Sixth Changzhi City Moral Model of Dedication" and "National Advanced Worker in the Cultural Relics System". "Why do so many people across the country fall in love with me?" In Feng Kaiping's words, he wants talent but not talent, money but not money, and education but not academic qualifications. "Why, cultural relics didn't choose me."The most important thing is that during the 27 years he has been with Jindeng Temple, his family has been in good health and harmonious. "This is the biggest gift."
One person, one temple, and the relationship has become deeper over the years. , Jindeng Temple is inseparable from its guardians, and the temple guardians cannot forget Jindeng Temple. On the few days when he went home, Feng Kaiping did not feel relieved. Once, he stayed at home for a week, and the second night began. , he kept dreaming about Jindeng Temple, the road to Jindeng Temple, the Buddha in Jindeng Temple, and the red gate of Jindeng Temple. He hurriedly collected his luggage and rushed up the mountain. Strangely, he returned to Jindeng Temple. That night, there was no dream.
4
Now, Feng Kaiping is 63 years old. He has become thinner and thinner. He used to be 1.72 meters tall, but now he is less than 1.70 meters tall. He is not as agile as he used to be when cleaning the temple. The time has also become longer. What used to be an hour's work now takes at least two hours.
These 63 years are just a knot in history in front of the Millennium Golden Lantern Temple. Feng Aging has caught up with him. Kaiping was afraid that it would blur the outline of the cultural relics, and the dust would fall on the Buddha statues, so he would take the trouble to wipe them off.
Now, the equipment in the temple has been upgraded, and surveillance is installed in every corner. After Feng Kaiping got up, there was one more thing. thing - look at last night's monitoring and check whether the monitoring equipment is operating normally.
After the road was repaired, more people came to and from Jindeng Temple. Feng Kaiping was busy, and some people began to recognize him, "I know you, You are that grandpa", but grandpa Feng Kaiping's memory is no longer what it used to be. The stone Buddha statues in Jindeng Temple are ever-changing and meticulous. Sometimes, after he wipes a Buddha statue once, he forgets it, and goes back and wipes it again. But only which one? The Buddha statue above was damaged, and he could still clearly remember where a stone had fallen.
▲ The Buddha statue in Jindeng Temple. Picture/Visual China
During the conversation with Feng Kaiping, the charity team of Station B learned that In Shanxi, there are many grassroots guardians like Feng Kaiping who have been committed to the daily protection of ancient buildings for a long time, especially in the three major problems of "fire prevention, theft prevention, and vandal prevention", which also made the team understand. For cultural relics, rescue restoration is not as good as daily protection, and it is better to provide those who protect cultural relics with a better working environment. Station B’s "Cultural Relics Umbrella Protector Plan" came into being.
Umbrella Holder Plan. As its name suggests, cultural relics are held up by cultural conservators to protect them; and now, Station B is holding up an umbrella for cultural relics. On June 26, B station Vice Chairman and COO Li Ni showed how the Umbrella Holder Project will be carried out in a live speech to celebrate the 13th anniversary of B station: donating 800,000 yuan to purchase cultural relics needed for protection. supplies and equipment. This plan will cover more than 2,000 cultural conservation workers in Pingyao, Xinjiang, Gaoping, etc. cities in the future.
For many years, Feng Kaiping has been hiking up and down mountains. Thorns, shrubs, and weeds have left countless wounds and calluses on his hands and feet. On rainy days, the mountain roads are slippery, and falls are common. Now, as a "cultural relic umbrella holder", Feng Kaiping will receive a cultural relic protection package from Station B containing 15 items, including jackets, rain boots, trekking poles, flashlights, gloves and other necessary supplies for daily patrols, as well as a radio Materials that can provide comfort in daily life, as well as medical supplies such as band-aids, gauze, and disinfectant alcohol.
"After looking at cultural relics for a lifetime, I can see a great deal." Now, Feng Kaiping hopes that a young person will take over. He has reached the age of retirement. But if no one comes to Jindeng Temple, he will continue to stay on the mountain "until the day he can't do anything anymore."
html It was summer in March, and Feng Kaiping went to the mountains every now and then to cut firewood for winter as usual. Firewood is relatively heavy. After two seasons of drying, on a sunny day in winter, it can be easily carried down the mountain one load at a time and piled in front of the temple gate.At that time, it will be another whole year of firewood, and another whole year of days.
▲ Feng Kaiping sat on the big stone in front of the temple. Picture / The article
provided by the interviewee is original by Daily People, and any infringement will be investigated.
