Tian Tan Buddha

This guide to the Tian Tan Buddha above Po Lin Monastery traces a vow monks made in 1973, after visiting the Great Buddha of Kamakura in Japan, to build one of their own that was bigger. It follows the unlikely engineering team recruited two decades later to cast the bronze shell, and the choice to orient the finished statue north, toward mainland China. Listen for why the completion date was picked to match a date in Buddhist tradition.