The Face of China by Emily Georgiana Kemp

Taiyüan is surrounded by a lofty wall, with a gateway at each of the four points of the compass. The Chinese always use these terms when we should use "right" and "left": they speak of the position of furniture in a room, for instance, as being north, south, east, or west, and can always tell you the relative positions of places and things in that way. It is the seat of the Government of the province, and was the first place in the Empire to have a Western university after the 1900 troubles.

The finest of all its temples -- whether Confucian, Buddhist, Mohammedan, or Taoist -- is the temple of Heaven and Hell. The entrance is magnificent in colouring, with roof and walls covered with turquoise-coloured tiles peculiar to this province, which make its temples so much more beautiful than those in the west. There are interesting but repulsive statues within, mostly depicting the torments of hell. In one temple, however, there is a deity to which childless women especially come to pray. She is a hideous figure about life size, with a gaping mouth, into which they stuff raw eggs by way of offering. On the adjoining wall is a fresco representing people receiving babies out of a cash-bag full of them, which a man carries over his shoulder.