Liaoyang White Pagoda

The Liaoyang White Pagoda stands seventy meters above the plains of Liaoning, the tallest ancient brick monument in Northeast China. Its octagonal, thirteen-story frame is coated in white lime, a pale beacon that has anchored this landscape since the Liao Dynasty.

Look closely at the base. The massive stone platform supports a Sumeru pedestal carved with lions playing with balls. Above them, high-relief brick sculptures depict seated Buddhas flanked by standing attendants and flying apsaras. The builders used large, grooved bricks stamped with wheat-leaf patterns, a signature of Liao craftsmanship. They embedded seven copper mirrors on each of the eight sides to catch the afternoon sun, casting flashes of light across the valley.

Human hands have repeatedly reshaped and defended this tower. In the twelfth century, Emperor Shizong of the Jin Dynasty may have commissioned a predecessor to this structure as a shrine for his mother, Dowager Empress Zhenyi, who took vows as a Buddhist nun in Liaoyang. Centuries later, during the Ming Dynasty, repair crews climbed the dizzying heights to mend the spire, leaving behind four copper plates detailing their labors. These plates remained hidden beneath the iron shaft until workers recovered them in 1990.

The pagoda has survived both natural and human violence. In 1900, during the Boxer Rebellion, Russian forces burned the surrounding Guangyou Temple to the ground, leaving this brick tower standing alone in the ashes. In 1908, Japanese forces enclosed the isolated structure within Baita Park. The metal spheres on the spire still bear over four hundred holes from gunfire, physical scars of twentieth-century conflicts. The engineering proved resilient. When a magnitude 7.3 earthquake struck nearby Haicheng in 1975, the pagoda withstood the shaking without structural failure.

Today, the iron wind chimes hanging from the eaves still ring in the wind. Eight heavy iron chains stretch from the top of the nine-meter-tall spire to the roof corners, anchoring the structure against the northern gales. Visitors walking through Baita Park can hear the same metallic chime that travelers heard a thousand years ago, a persistent voice from a monument that refused to fall.