Sam Poo Kong

The Sam Poo Kong temple complex is the most important site related to the Chinese presence in Indonesia. It is where Chinese Muslim explorer Admiral Zhang He (Sanbao) established a temple upon landing at Semarang in the early 1400s.

The original temple was destroyed in a landslide in 1704, with most of the current core buildings constructed in 1724, though the complex has fallen into disrepair several times since, requiring several renovations, the most recent one completed in 2005.

Sam Poo Kong is special, in my view, not only because of its remarkable fusion of Chinese and Javanese architecture, but also because it is now a place shared by peoples of various ethnicities and by Buddhists and Muslims alike.















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