Lining the stairs leading to the Songshan Ling Yin Si on Xiangshan in western Taipei are a set of idiosyncratic — and to my mind beautifully conceived — depictions of luohan/arhats 羅漢. Walking in the opposite direction to the intended approach, we reached these before we met the algal-camouflaged lion at the entrance, and I walked over to one halfway down the group with an expression I found pleasing,
As I was taking a photo of the statue, a man called out to us. “Have you seen this one?”, he said, indicating a statue on the other side of the path. “He’s poking a chopstick into his nose”. And, sure enough, he was. And his companion to the side was sticking a chopstick in his own ear.
In fact, all of the statues had an interesting detail to warrant their scrutiny. Above are a few of them.
Ingrid says
Oh my goodness!! Their expressions are something else… That’s exactly how I would expect someone to look if they had a chopstick stuck in their ear or up their nose! Ha ha! I studied them closely to discover their idiosyncrasies. It would be fun seeing them up close