A romance with stone

Finding a rhythm

As one of the younger members of the team, Xu remembers that her first assignment was a 63.9-square-meter stone staircase panel at Puren Temple, tucked away in the mountains. The panel, known as a danbi stone, was carved with two dragons playing with a pearl. Years of deterioration had left the dragons almost unrecognizable.

Three months later, when Xu and her colleagues had brought the two dragons back into view, she experienced her first real sense of accomplishment as a restorer.

The temple was not open to tourists. Only a handful of restorers and other workers were stationed there. In summer, mosquitoes swarmed through the mountains. Sometimes one would crawl near Xu's ear and she would barely notice. She was too absorbed in the work.

A worker once passed by and asked her: As a young woman spending every day alone at a temple, didn't she find it boring? "Everyone thinks differently," Xu says. "I can get close to the relics. I can turn something damaged into something whole. I think that's satisfying."

To Xu, conservation is a race against nature. Sometimes a restoration can look successful, only to begin powdering away after weeks of rain. To a visitor, the relic may appear barely repaired. But for the experts, it may have already undergone an intense rescue effort.

Yet, rain is not always the enemy.

After completing the stone conservation projects in Chengde, the team turned to paper murals inside a stupa in the Mountain Resort. Xu moved her work into the tower.

When rain fell and the wind picked up, she could hear the bells hanging from the eaves. The sound of rain mingled with the soft chime of the bells, and she felt calm.

Xu says that, in the end, the work is made up of ordinary, even mundane tasks. What matters is finding a little enjoyment in them, along with a sense of accomplishment.