Juehai Temple is one of the oldest Buddhist temples in the Jiaxing area, its history stretching back to the Tang dynasty and its current buildings dating mostly from Qing-era reconstructions. The temple sits in a quiet residential quarter of the city, and the contrast between the ceremonial gateway, incense-filled main hall, and the ordinary apartment blocks immediately outside the compound wall is characteristic of Chinese urban Buddhism — still very much alive and embedded in the neighbourhood rather than curated for tourism.
The main hall contains a large gilded Buddha flanked by bodhisattvas, and the side halls are dedicated to various protective deities with the paraphernalia of active worship: sticks of incense, offerings of fruit, red silk banners. The courtyard has several large ancient camphor trees, their trunks wrapped in protective cloth, that add a sense of age the buildings themselves cannot quite provide.