Visiting temples in China: Buddhist, Taoist and Confucian, and how to behave in each

Every Chinese city on our routes has temples, and most visitors walk through them as scenery: red walls, curved roofs, a big gold figure, smoke. Knowing a little about what you are looking at, and how to behave, turns them from scenery into the places where Chinese life still has a visible spiritual layer. This guide covers the three traditions, the etiquette, and the temples we think are worth a specific visit.

Three traditions, one courtyard

Chinese religion was never exclusive; the same family might pray at all three, and some temples blend them. The visual clues:

• Buddhist temples (si, 寺): a gate hall with four fierce Heavenly Kings, a laughing Maitreya Buddha facing the entrance, then a main hall with a gold Buddha (or three), monks in grey or saffron, chanting, and the smell of sandalwood incense. Tibetan Buddhist temples (like Beijing’s Lama Temple) add prayer wheels, colourful thangka paintings and Mongolian-script signs.
• Taoist temples (guan or gong, 观/宫): figures of Taoist deities and immortals, often with long beards and swords, the yin-yang symbol and the eight trigrams, priests in black with topknots, and fortune-telling by bamboo sticks. Shanghai’s City God Temple and Beijing’s White Cloud Temple are the examples on our routes.
• Confucian temples (wen miao, 文庙): no deities to speak of, but tablets, a hall honouring Confucius and his disciples, stone steles recording scholars, cypress trees and a calm that the others lack; a place of study and civic ritual rather than prayer. Beijing’s, next to the Lama Temple, and Nanjing’s Fuzimiao, now a shopping district around the temple, are the ones you will meet.

Ancestral halls, city god temples, and the small shrines in shops and restaurants (a red altar with oranges and a figure of Guan Yu or the god of wealth) are the folk layer underneath all three.

Incense and offerings

In the first courtyard of most temples is a large bronze burner; worshippers buy incense at the gate (or receive free sticks at temples that have banned sales, which many now have for fire safety), light it, hold it at forehead height, bow three times toward the main hall, and plant it in the burner. Visitors are welcome to do the same and equally welcome not to; nobody minds a respectful onlooker. If you do: three sticks, lit together, bowed, planted upright; do not blow out the flame, wave it out. Donations go in the boxes, usually by QR code now; small notes are fine; nothing is required.

Etiquette

• Dress modestly: shoulders and knees covered, hats off inside halls. Temples are relaxed about shorts in summer but the monks notice; a light scarf covers a lot.
• Thresholds. Step over the raised wooden threshold of a hall, never on it; it is both a rule and a superstition.
• Direction. Walk clockwise around halls and stupas where there is a circuit; enter by the side doors of a hall, not the central one, which is for the abbot.
• Photography. Courtyards and exteriors, yes; inside halls, often no (look for the sign, and never with flash); people praying, never without asking; monks, ask. The Lama Temple and many Buddhist halls prohibit photos of the figures.
• Noise and phones. Lower your voice; phones on silent; no eating in the halls.
• Feet. Do not point the soles of your feet at a figure when sitting; do not touch the figures or the offerings.
• Fortune sticks. At Taoist temples you can shake a tube of numbered sticks, take the one that falls, and have a slip read by the attendant for a small fee; a guide translates, and it is an entertainment rather than a commitment.
• Children are welcome everywhere and the monks are kind to them; keep them off the thresholds and away from the candles.

Temple food

Big Buddhist temples run vegetarian restaurants, often excellent and inventive (mock meats, mushroom dishes, noodles), cheap, and open to everyone: Shanghai’s Jade Buddha Temple and Longhua Temple, Beijing’s Lama Temple quarter, Hangzhou’s Lingyin, and Chengdu’s Wenshu Monastery, which is one of the best vegetarian meals in China. The food guide notes them for vegetarian travellers. Many temples also sell their own tea and incense.

Temple fairs

At Chinese New Year the big temples host fairs with performers, snacks, crafts and crowds in a good mood, the Beijing ones at Ditan and Longtan above all; the Chinese New Year guide covers them. On the first and fifteenth of each lunar month the temples are busy with worshippers, which is the best time to see them alive and the worst for quiet.

The temples on our routes

• Shanghai: the Jade Buddha Temple in Putuo, with its two white jade Buddhas from Burma and a good restaurant; Longhua Temple in the south, the oldest, with a pagoda and a spring fair; the City God Temple beside Yu Garden, Taoist, loud, and part of the old-town visit; Jing’an Temple, gold-roofed among the office towers, best seen from outside and visited for the contrast.
• Beijing: the Lama Temple (Yonghegong), the great Tibetan Buddhist temple, and the Confucius Temple across the lane, as the Beijing beyond the big three guide describes; the White Cloud Temple for Taoism; Fayuan Temple for lilacs and quiet; and the Temple of Heaven, which is an imperial altar rather than a temple and belongs to the three-day plan.
• Suzhou and Hangzhou: Suzhou’s Hanshan Temple, famous from a Tang poem for its midnight bell; Hangzhou’s Lingyin Temple, one of the greatest in China, in the Hangzhou guide.
• Xi’an: the Great Mosque, a 1,300-year-old mosque built entirely in Chinese architectural style in the Muslim Quarter, open to visitors outside prayer times, and the Buddhist Big Wild Goose Pagoda; the Xi’an guide places both.
• Guangzhou: the Temple of the Six Banyan Trees and Guangxiao Temple, both in the Guangzhou guide.

Churches and mosques

Shanghai and Beijing have working Catholic and Protestant churches with services in Chinese and some in English (Shanghai’s Xujiahui Cathedral and the Community Church on Hengshan Road; Beijing’s Wangfujing and Xishiku cathedrals), open to visitors and congregants alike. Mosques serve the Hui Muslim communities in every city, with Xi’an’s the most visited; dress and conduct follow the usual rules. The Shanghai second-visit guide covers the city’s Jewish history and the Ohel Moshe synagogue museum.

With a guide

A temple with a guide takes twice as long and means ten times as much: which figure is which, what the chanting is, why the roof ridge has those animals, who the people praying are praying for. On our tours the Jade Buddha Temple and the Lama Temple are on the itinerary, and the day guide bookings add Longhua or Hanshan for guests who ask; the vegetarian lunch afterwards is usually the quiet meal of the trip.