CENTURIES-OLD TEMPLE POISED TO SHOW ITS NEW FACE

Team of dedicated workers puts finishing touches on restoration work

Wanshou Temple, situated close to the Grand Canal beside the West Third Ring Road in Haidian district, Beijing, is more than 400 years old.

Appropriately, the word wanshou translates as "longevity", and is often used to bestow good wishes on the elderly.

Once an imperial venue where emperors and empress dowagers burned incense and prayed to Buddhas, by the 1980s, Wanshou Temple was dilapidated, with its roofs overgrown and weeds growing between shattered floor tiles.