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 揂nti-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 揇ig 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 揷leaning 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 揈xploiting classes of former rulers who used Buddhism to imprison people抯 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 搈agnificent 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 揟he 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.
Date posted: June 2005
这是个英国人写云冈石窟的，大体意思我明白，我只是不明白他把蛋糕厂大写是什么意思？？？有特殊含义吗？？有些乱码，不影响故事大概，讲究着看吧。
如果涉及敏感名词，希望用英文，中文估计要被删了。谢谢，满意的话加分，50以上，不想看到那些用工具翻译出来的白痴译文，所以这样子。
我完全没有那个意思，希望一楼以下的人不要多想。50分如果少了，我可以再加的，只是我的分数不多，不可能让所有人满意。
还有一楼的，你资料上说你已经工作了，不明白你为什么还要这么幼稚？没有一点男人该有的气度，sounds like son of bitch！你年长我几岁，我本应该对你尊重的，可是你没有给我一个尊重你的理由，nothing short of idiocy！