White Cloud Temple

The foremost Daoist temple of the capital and a historic center of the Quanzhen school, tracing its origins to the Tang dynasty and reorganized in the thirteenth century. A sequence of courtyards holds shrine halls to Daoist deities, a hall of sixty guardian figures of the years, and the tomb hall of an influential patriarch. Worshippers rub a carved stone monkey and toss coins toward a suspended bell for luck. During the lunar new year it hosts one of the city's liveliest traditional fairs of food and folk performance.