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You're more likely to pass through the area northwest of Tian'anmen than stop, as it's on the way to the deservedly popular Summer Palace. The few attractions scattered around here are small scale, but make good points to break a journey farther afield. Heading west from the south end of Beihai Park along Wenjin Dajie, you'll come to Fuchenmennei Dajie , just off Xidan Dajie, the area's shopping district. A couple of places along here make it worth a nose around. Bus #101 from the north exit of the Forbidden City, and #13 from the Yonghe Gong, traverse the street. The Guangji Si , headquarters of the China Buddhist Association, is a working Buddhist temple near its eastern end, on the north side of the road, with an important collection of painting and sculpture. There's no entrance fee and visitors are free to look around. Farther west along the street you'll come to a temple on the north side that's been converted into a school - the spirit wall now forms one side of a public lavatory - and at no. 133 is one of China's first sex shops, the Adam and Eve Health Store, where a formidable array of sex aids is sold by white-coated attendants. Farther on, the massive white dagoba of the Baita Si (daily 9am-5pm; Y10) becomes visible, rising over the rooftops of a labyrinth of hutongs; the only access is from Fuchengmennei Dajie. Shaped like an upturned bowl with an ice-cream cone on top, the 35-metre-high dagoba was built to house relics in the Yuan dynasty and designed by a Nepalese architect. The temple, currently under restoration, is worth a visit just for the collection of small Buddha statues, mostly Tibetan, housed in one hall. Another hall holds a collection of bronze lohans, including one with a beak, small bronze Buddhas and other, weirder Lamaist figures, together with silk and velvet priestly garments, which were unearthed from under the dagoba in 1978. Continue west and, just before the giant intersection with Fuchengmen Bei Dajie, you'll see Xisantiao Hutong to the north, which leads to the Former Residence of Lu Xun (Tues-Sun 9am-4pm; Y10), a large and extensively renovated courtyard house. Lu Xun (1881-1936) is widely accepted as the greatest modern Chinese writer, who gave up a promising career in medicine to write books with the aim, he declared, of curing thousands with his pithy, satirical stories. A hater of pomposity, he might feel a little uneasy in his house now, where the atmosphere is of uncritical admiration. His possessions have been preserved like relics, incidentally giving a good idea of what Chinese interiors looked like at the beginning of this century, and there's a photo exhibition of his life lauding his achievements. A good bookshop by the gate sells English translations of his work. Worth picking up is The True Story of Ah Q, regarded as Lu Xun's greatest tale, a lively, amusing read written in the plain style he favoured as an alternative to the complex classical language of the time. Set in 1911, it's the story of a worthless peasant, epitomizing what the author saw as every character flaw of the Chinese race, who stumbles from disaster to disaster, believing each one to be a triumph. He dreams of revolution and ends up being executed, having understood nothing. Not far from here, at 53 Xinjiekou Bei Dajie, on the route of bus #22 from Qianmen or #38 from the east end of Fuchingmennei Dajie, the Xu Beihong Museum (Tues-Sun 9-11am & 1.30-4.30pm; Y1) is definitely worth the diversion. It is dedicated to a contemporary of Lu Xun who did for Chinese art what Lu Xun did for literature. Son of a wandering portraitist, Xu Beihong (1895-1953) had to look after his whole family from the age of seventeen after his father died, and spent much of his early life in semi- destitution before receiving the acclaim he deserved. His extraordinary facility is well in evidence here in seven halls which display a huge collection of his work, including many of the ink paintings of horses he was most famous for, but also oil paintings in a Western style, which he produced when studying in France, and large-scale allegorical images which allude to events in China at the time. But the images it is easiest to respond to are his delightful sketches and studies, in ink and pencil, often of his son.
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