Dongyue Temple

Lonely Planet review

The morbid Taoist shrine of Dongyue Temple is an unsettling albeit fascinating experience. With its roots poking deep into the Yuan dynasty, what's above ground level has been revived with care and investment. Dedicated to Tài Shān, the most easterly of the five Taoist peaks of China, Dongyue Temple is an active place of worship where Taoist monks attend to a world entirely at odds with the surrounding glass and steel high rises.

Note the temple's fabulous páifāng (memorial archway) lying to the south, divorced from its shrine by the intervention of Chaoyangmenwai Dajie.

Stepping through the entrance pops you into a Taoist Hades, where tormented spirits reflect on their wrong-doing and elusive atonement. Take your pick: you can muse on life's finalities in the Life and Death Department or the Final Indictment Department. Or get spooked at the Department for Wandering Ghosts or the Department for Implementing 15 Kinds of Violent Death.

It's not all doom and gloom: the luckless can check in at the Department for Increasing Good Fortune and Longevity, while the infirm can seek a cure at the Deep-Rooted Disease Department. English explanations detail each department's function.

Visit during festival time, especially during the Chinese New Year and the Mid-Autumn festival, and you'll see the temple at its most vibrant.