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China 2001 Trip
by Scott Phillips
The Following is a collection of emails sent to friends and students during
my last trip to China.Hi Everybody,
This is the first installment of my 2001 trip to China. This will be a
short one because I've just finally got my list together and I've been
on line for an hour now.
I bought a Chinese Cell Phone today! The negotiations were Herculean.
My language skills aren't so good so when a new friend here at Beijing
Tech University offered to come along I said great. 8 People ended up
tagging along for entertainment’s sake. It took a couple of hours,
We went to two different stores, there are probably thousands of cell
phone stores here, and hundreds of different models. Cell Phones work
better in China than in the US because they have a better "system",
I don't quite understand it, but I just called someone in the north west
part of Tibet and it was crystal clear. Anyway...The first phone we managed
to negotiate and pay for, wasn't actually in stock, so I had to get my
money back...something like India, where there are many different types
of retail 'components' which don't overlap. At the next store, after all
the negotiations of features, pre-paid inserts, batteries and charging
methods...I bought it...and then they said I had to be Chinese to get
a phone number. The store people wanted one of my friends to show ID so
the number would be in one of their names...I insisted they photocopy
my passport and for some reason that worked...I actually don't know what
happened. Then they said that the 240 Yuan worth of insertable prepaid
calls which I had already paid for, was only worth 100 Yuan, the other
140 Yuan was for the number itself!!! The Qi of the particular numbers...like
it has an auspicious 'ring'...go figure... We went out for tea afterwards.
I have been having a good time going into the parks early in the morning
and doing gongfu/martial-arts with the locals...a few times it has turned
into a game where I show a "form" then I get to pick someone
else to show, than they pick someone...it's a great way to start the day.
Basket Ball is big here too...Michael Jordan is a hero...all ages play
together...they never seem to call 'walking' or "traveling"...it
is a real group bonding thing...
Breakfast here is great...Millet Porridge or Warm thick soy milk, or Huntun
soup (Chaos Soup also known as wanton in the south) Pork Buns, tea boiled
eggs...everyone eats all meals at the same time. I've slept through lunch
(it's really hot here) a few times and by 1:30 the restaurants are almost
empty.... Doing things in China is about doing things together. --Scott
PS a note for my students: everybody walks, stands, and rides bicycles
with their elbows out!
PPS: With the metaphor of the "Great Leap Forward" being such
a colossal failure...everyone here takes small, slow and easy steps...no
one is in a hurry! Hi EVERYBODY,
For those of you who don't know, I'm in Beijing. I've been hired by a
company that does trips in Asia mostly for teenagers called Where There
Be Dragons. We have ten students and three leaders in our group but I
went over early so none of them will be here until July 12th. I met the
other two leaders Amy and Frances and they are both fluent in Chinese,
they are lots of fun...I'm going to be the slow one on this trip.
Being alone here is sometimes difficult but I've noticed that if I just
stop and sit down, most of the time someone will come over and ask me
what I'm doing. I continue to be amazed at how thoroughly inclusive the
people here can be...they really like to do everything together. In America
if you play chess in the park, people may come and watch, but here, if
you pull out a Chinese chess set everybody swarms around. They all get
in really close and talk boisterously about the next best move(s) the
only people not playing both sides of the board are the two people playing.
You wouldn't even have to know how to play...to play against the best
players! For America's, this would be frustrating and inconclusive because
the person who wins may have just had better advise. The 'bystanders'
will actually pick up or move the pieces and have arguments with each
other...while the 'players' look on.
I just played a grueling game of basketball with a bunch college students
and teenagers...not having played seriously in 20 years...I think I brought
my team down to defeat...this was an evening game, with NBA like rules.
The morning games have a lot more older people...sometimes 20 people under
one net (no net actually) those games are following some pattern...but
it doesn't actually look like a game with 2 sides.
After a week with my $10 bicycle! It was stolen. It was worth $10 dollars
in the US too, if I bought it at a garage sale in SF I would have tried
to get it for $9. The question is why steel such a cheap used bicycle,
especially when there are literally millions of bicycles everywhere! They
tell me it is quite common, one theory is someone is taking large numbers
of them to the country side where the economy is less developed. Another
theory is that they take them from one university to the next and sell
them to new students...with the excuse that they just bought the bikes
off of students who are graduating. I almost bought another one today.
Oh yes...traffic. If you have ever been to India you know that it takes
two people to drive a car there because every interaction with another
car or an intersection is negotiated on the basis of some illusive "status."
In China everyone drives pretty slowly...if I pressed down on the peddles
of my bicycle people would wave at me to slow down. The way it works is
not by right of way rules...as far as I can tell, nobody has "right
of way" however people do drive very predictably and the cars have
no dents! It is that feeling again of we are all in this together. If
I want to turn left and there is space...I just do it and people accommodate
me. When there are enough bicycles piled up at an intersection to block
the cars...they just all creep out together and the cars stop. Sometimes
it can be a crazy mess...but much of the time it works. They are building
a lot of big roads and elevated bypasses here...I fear however, that the
cars will keep increasing.... There are probably 5 times more cars here
than when I was here in '97.
The subway here is fast, clean, and easy to understand...but getting to
and from the stops is sometimes difficult.....Buses are pretty reliable
but standing up on a crowded Chinese bus in the middle of summer takes
years off your life. I'm mostly taking air conditioned taxi's now...no
regrets.
The perfect Chinese fruit is Watermelon! Why? because you have to have
a lot of friends to eat one! The watermelons are really good and in the
afternoon everyone is either carrying one home or eating one in the park.
The peaches are really good too. And while I’m at it I guess I'll
mention the cucumbers are especially delicious.
I don't know if Emma Goldman would have approved of this revolution but
they certainly do a lot of dancing! Last night in the park there were
about 30 couples dancing to a tape deck playing Bob Marley (by the rivers
of Babylon)...ballroomish... Lots of dancing in the parks...in the morning
these old ladies do some dance in unison that really looks like taijiquan
except they bounce and sway a little to the music. ---more later, --Scott
Hi Everybody,
I've received several questions about religion which I will get around
to answering...but they aren't simple questions.
I recently visited BaiYunGuan (White Cloud Temple) it is the official
center for Religious Daoism (DaoJiao) in China. It is a training center
for Priest/Libationer/monks...there really isn't a clear English term
for it and I don't know exactly what the training is, or even if everyone
gets the same training. The contacts I was given by Luc and Steven Bokenkamp
didn't turn in to much. Luc's friends are no longer there and Steven's
friend is retired and was sick. What is accessible to the public are about
12 or so 'shrines' to popular cults (gods)...the cults which are allowed
in this type of temple all represent principles, for example: the principle
of scholarship/being a good student (WenCang) or the principle of motherhood,
or the four directions. This subject is very difficult to summarize...but
if you ask a local Chinese person about religion they will say they believe
(or don't believe) in those things...the Chinese word for believe is 'xin'
and it perhaps is closer to the English word trust. These same people
will make very little distinction between religions... Buddhism, DaoJiao,
Confucianism...and.. local cults. Knowing something about the history
of Religion is pretty rare, I haven't met anyone yet....People say to
me that they go to many temples...people who are into it go to a different
'type' to make offerings every weekend...others go a few times a year
to the ones they like...If asked people will express some preference for
Buddha or Dao...but...it is a light preference, seemingly with out much
behind it??? So Daoism or Daojiao to most Chinese is just a place to burn
incense to your favorite god...I'll leave it at that for now and try to
follow up later. Oh one more thing... Each alter in BaiyunGuan has two
vases with flower offerings which are very specific to that deity and
that time of year/place. I believe a clear historical link to the wonderfully
elaborate (sometimes starkly simple) Japanese Flower arranging tradition.
On Luc's advise, I visited a Bagua Zhang lineage Shifu (martial artist).
Sun Shifu lives in a high-rise apartment complex like everybody else and
I had an address with the building and floor numbers reversed...however
I found someone to translate for me while I was looking in the wrong building.
Sun shifu was drinking from a large bottle with a snake in it and reishi
mushrooms, wolfberries and Ginseng. My translator turned out to be faulty
so communication was difficult...for about 2 hours...I bought his VCD’s
(cheap version of DVD’s) and gave him my card.
The next day I got an email from one of his students who is American and
wanted to meet me...so....I this time I went to where Sun Shifu practices/teaches
and met with him and his students and a good translator...He is like third
generation from the founder of Bagua for any of you who know what that
means...Cheng Family Bagua...he is really good 69 years old...His senior
student/teacher is a woman and she's really good too...His students do
a form that has some pretty difficult twisting and unusual angles of the
torso spiraling from up to down and also from down to up....O.K. you need
to see it to get the Idea...but I liked it...we had a good discussion,
demo of all the different walking styles and I learned some cool stuff
form them....They take big steps and also go really low. He was "sent
down" during the Cultural revolution and one of his students told
me he cried when he talked about this time.
After practice we had a wonderful meal: Cucumbers (long small ones, slivered)
with golden needle mushrooms, Cucumbers with tofu skins, bitter melon,
and two kinds of dumplings: lamb with carrot and pork with fennel....
I got a lot of questions this time...so If I forget to answer you...write
again... ---Scott Hi Everybody,
My 8 students and the other two leaders have arrived, the 9th student
seems to have lost his passport, so he may or may not be coming on another
plane. The ratio of leaders to students means I should get plenty of time
to myself for retreat or email or following the wanderings of the dark
mare.
Amy (my co-leader) and I met with a comparative religions scholar the
night before the students arrived. His name is Wang Liuer which means
Wang 62...we asked why the funny name and he said his brother was named
61 which was a year that had some special significance to his family,
but he was just number two. He really did understand the history of religion
and we had a great talk. His specialty is Christian and Buddhist mysticism,
he presented the theory that mysticism is the source of all religions
because religion is created in relation to 'inexplicable' experiences.
I responded that that is a view from the outside and that deeply religious
people 'live their religions' in a way that makes the mystic experience
inseparable from daily life. It went something like that...anyway we really
enjoyed each other and the fish was fantastic! We also ate Deep fried
shrimp...the crunchy kind with the head and shell...not greasy...delicious.
The students are here and I started teaching them some Shaolin yesterday...at
the beginning of the warm ups two guys in their twenties with a baby came
up and joined us. In the middle an old guy came over to one of my students
and tried to help him with his leg stretch...and at the end I was having
the students hold the different stances and this middle aged guy came
over and started giving corrections and making them sink lower, or for
the one leg stances, get their knee up higher!!! He told us we could come
the next day for more training!! Everybody joins in... We went this morning
to Black bamboo park, there are a lot more people practicing there....so
many....I scouted it out last week and pushed hands with some old guys
and some young guys too...some of these young guys are big...fat even...and
they were really getting rough with each other...slapping and grunting...it
is so hot that some people have shirts off and the sweat is dripping/spraying.
Lot's of Chen style Taijiquan...I visited Tiantai Park also...even more
Chen style...Yang and Wu styles are here too 'though. The Chen style of
push hands tends to move quickly to grappling and leaning in on each other...not
the style I prefer...but there is something interesting to learn here.
The coolest thing is that these guys are all just meeting in the park,
they are not fellow students, they come every week and share a milieu...they
get a lot of practice...for those of you who are wondering how I "did"
against the locals...I'm not telling...but they all wanted to know my
age and how long I've been practicing. There is lots of dancing in the
morning...fan dancing (to keep cool?)...ballroom...Wushu, Shaolin...weapons
everywhere...seems like half the people out in the morning have a sword
over their shoulder. The students loved that, after their training, I
was able to coax the interested watchers to show us some of their forms...Bagua
here too...more of this Cheng family style. As to questions about YiQuan...I
haven't actually seen it...I have seen some XingYi that could have been
YiQuan...If they are just standing or practicing one movement...sometimes
it is hard to tell...maybe.
New breakfasts: Black-bean Rice porridge...(good stuff, a little better
with the optional sugar and watered down a bit.) Silken Tofu with a ladle
of stock(pork?)--self seasoned with pickled turnips, cilantro, and choice
of 5 sauces...I tried the tahini-ish one......People were waiting in line
for Fry-Bread, which I haven't yet dared to try, and suddenly the propane
tank tube leading to the wok started flaming...very exciting but no bang....yet....
---I visit the Great Wall tomorrow for an overnight...outside... --Scott
Hi Everybody,
I visited a Sui (500CE) dynasty Buddhist temple built on the sight of
a (sacred?) well. The well was at the front gate and is an octagon. The
'temple' no longer has any Buddhist symbols in it, it has been converted
into a spacious garden tea house. It is in a small Hakka village about
an hour and a half ride from Chengdu by very rickety bouncy metal vibrating
bus. We (Simeng and Justin) found the site by chance after buying a very
cool bamboo baby basket backpack...which I wore all day...unlike most
packs...bamboo packs don't leave your back all sweaty! Also they are light
and strong(crash proof?) [See picture]
We also saw a lot of coffin makers...really heavy solid cedar coffins.
Any way the "tea house" had two beautiful buildings surrounded
by covered walk ways with tables all around...people relaxing and enjoying
themselves, steles on one side showed dedications going progressively
back in time. The garden was it self surrounded by a 15 foot? wall, which
I think is part of the definition of garden here. Afterwards we visited
a three story traditional house and it was marvelous. A huge open courtyard
and then a smaller inner one...great use of space and air, really usable,
rooms off to the sides and balconies above...it was built a little like
a mountain with two ridges like arms that come around to face each other,
like you are getting a big spacious hug?....some contractors and a couple
of TV announcers were there and insisted we sit down and join their lunch
already in progress...so Chinese to just decide to drag in some strangers...we
had a great time.
I'm now staying at Sichuan University. Next move uncertain...I love the
gardens 'though...If I sit alone...people usually come up and join me...If
the conversation is in Chinese I get to practice but the details are inevitably
rather simple...If the conversation is in English or mixed sometimes it
is quite good...got in a long conversation with a Chinese legal scholar
about everything under the sun. The flowers in Chengdu are beautiful...water
lilies, lotus blossoms, and a bright red and yellow flower...more about
gardens later...
Ice cream: There are so many kinds. I don't normally eat ice cream but...it's
hard to resist: Last night I had a wheat flavored pop-sickle, 12 cents.
I like the really little coconut ones, 6 cents. For 40 cents you can get
the equivalent of a Haagan Das Bar. Today I had a black bean goo covered
in vanilla ice cream dipped in white chocolate and nuttyflakes, 12 cents.
There are mung bean, black bean, red bean, and purple bean. Strawberry
with orange, chocolate with everything...I think the only one I've tried
more than once is the coconut...
--I wrote a very long message on economics a week ago, but the computer
crashed...I guess it's not my fate to write about such things...perhaps
I'll be re-inspired later. best to you all, --Scott Dear Everyone,
Censorship in China seems to include my personal website. It also includes
my father's (so I haven't been able to find out the answers to his quizzes
from Japan). It also includes the Taoist Restoration Society website....I
think what all these websites have in common is discussion of Qigong.
Any information on Falungong is definitely banned. I suspect there is
some kind of software that searches for key words. In conversations with
University professors and students, including a wonderful professor of
comparative law, it has become clear that people who show any interest
in Daoism, Buddhism, Islam or Catholicism, or Protestantism (the five
official religions), are jeopardizing their careers. This includes government
workers or employees, party members, students, professors, many office
workers (part Gov. part private) and military. The groups that are exempt
from this rule are pick-up labor, farmers, entrepreneurs, and retail workers.
The reason for this is that Marx-Mao-Deng theory is inconsistent with
belief in religious things...if you don't fully take on the theory of
Marx-Mao-Deng, you will fail to act in a way which is constant with the
theory/consciousness-- and that is an exclusive closed system. All students
must take and pass exams on the theories and ideas of these three men.
The numbers I hear for Daoshi (priest/monks) in all of china are 40,000.
Almost all of those are QuanZhen Monks in "Temples". There are
3,000 in temples in Sichuan, but the official registered number is less.
The Zhengyi tradition (which I am part of) live at home and marry. The
scholars around here are giving me evasive answers when I ask, but it
seems that there are Zhengyi Priests in Sichuan. They live in the absolute
poorest regions of farmland and are known to all the locals, but none
of the locals will say anything about it. The priests all have "day-jobs"
and travel to do ritual when they are requested. One of the scholars I
spoke with, Zhang Qing, said that they know this from anthropology-field
work, but (if I understood him correctly) the Daoshi move location-- so
the ones they knew about are no longer locatable. I have also heard that
there are Zhengyi ritual experts teaching at Baiyun guan in Beijing and
perhaps a few other places...but the categories Quanzhen and Zhengyi seem
to be existing officially in Quanzhen mode, i.e. monastic.
Today I visited HemingShan, which means red-headed crane mountain. It
is the place ZhangDaoling went on retreat and first gained a following,
it is being called the birth place of Daoism. The mountain is in DaYi
county and has 24 cavities, which correspond to the 24 festivals, and
72 caves which contain the 72 climates, including the Cave where Zhangtianshi
went on retreat. The many buildings associated with Daoism in the area
were all completely destroyed during the cultural revolution, including
a Han Dynasty building which had been rebuilt many times over the last
2000 years, (I saw a photo). The buildings that are there now are not
really of note, but the mountain is beautiful: Every available space is
covered in corn and plum trees, both of which are being harvested now.
The plums are delicious...I saw very dark red, bright yellow, and iridescent
blue butterflies...cool mushrooms too. There are a few small meadows and
small forested areas as well. The oldest Daoshi there wrote out some calligraphy
for me and we drank tea. He wrote: Dao Fa Zi Ran, The mechanism of Dao
is spontaneously natural? great to watch him write.
Other highlights: I managed to pay for the taxi ride of two female University
Students who were helping me find my way in the rain....and after that
they went nuts doing and paying for everything for me, they took me to
Sanxingdui (archeology site) bought me Knife cut noodles, the mother and
father of one of the women drove us all around in their Cherokee...Hot
Pot for Dinner (which I really didn't like, pig brain!)...They wanted
to have him drive me home (3 hours round trip?) but I managed to get away
with a free bus ride and some snacks....Everyone seems to want to marry
me to a Sichuan women...people peek over my shoulder while I'm on the
Internet and ask if I have a girl friend.... Given this drive to spread
the Sichuan Genes, it is astounding that there are still ethnically unique
communities to the west and south.
Other High lights, I met a Daoshi at YangQinggong who took me to an inner
courtyard and played the jin for me...it was amazing... ---Scott Hi Everybody,
I've settled in to Language classes here in Chengdu. There are some really
huge cities in the world, Lagos, San Paulo, Tokyo...and then there are
some very big ones, London, New York, Mexico City...but China must have
100 or more cities of this size. Great quote...I went out to visit an
archaeology site and this college student said to me, "welcome to
the small town of Guang Han" Oh, I said, how many people? "Oh,
only five million." However, despite size and urbanization, I must
admit China is lacking in Cosmopolitanism...granted it was closed to outsiders
for a long time...but there maybe some real resistance to Cosmopolitanism
in the social structure. I think it is often the case that Western analysts
give 'credit' to the government for things which actually have there basis
in Chinese social structures. There is a real conceptualization of the
world outside China as really different than the world inside China. Nationalism
is very strong here...the common history which the Chinese have been telling
about themselves includes many foreign invasions...which always end in
the invaders becoming more Chinese...rather then say...more Tibetan, or
more Mongolian..... People don't really believe me when I tell them that
everyone I know in San Francisco is good with Chopsticks. Despite the
numbers of people, the focus is very local, and travel is still pretty
rare. The bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Serbia is universally considered
to have been intentional, and almost no body thinks that the downed U.S.
spy plane should have been given back.
There are a lot of students in this Internet center playing video "death"
games, it is noisy and smoky most of the time...but they are nice and
they always bring me a cup of cool filtered water to drink.
I had a great conversation today with Louise, who is a friend of Elena's--
who I met at the Daoist conference in Seattle. Louise is an anthropologist
who studies the contemporary movement of rural people into Chengdu...but
she has opinions on everything. We drank great tea in the fantastic bamboo
garden which is five minutes from my room... we ate white peaches, sunflower
seeds, and sesame snacks...everything gets dropped or flicked on the ground....while
we watch the giant lotus leaves and pink and white blossoms sway in the
breeze.
She pointed out that Falun Gong was really unique in that it had no official
connection to the government. There are lots of qigong organizations,
and lots of individual teachers, but nothing else like Falungong...she
agreed with me that it is/was a real challenge to the government. She
said that people here have so little experience with "religion"
that they can be easily drawn into cults of all sorts.
I really have to watch my tenancy to view things romantically. I presumed
that Daoists in China would now be interested in recovering something
of what was lost in the turmoil of the last century...but really they
have just started up again from right where they are. Twice a month Qing
Yang Gong(the city temple) has a trance-medium come in and dance and go
into trance....I hear that it is heavily attended....QingChengShan is
a gongfu school for Children in the Summer, they challenged EMeiShan to
a competition this August. The little students there practice chanting
the Daodejing at night. They gave me a warm reception...and made me demonstrate
my gongfu, they really liked the 8 immortals sword, I was a little surprised
to see people smoking cigarettes.
I watched a ritual in the morning.... Some tourist or perhaps a community
representative...ran in near the end, spoke with one of the 9 Daoshi,(six
were in yellow vestments and faced the alter the whole time, playing music
and chanting) and I thought she told him to get lost but he ran back a
minute later with about 10 pages of text,(the Daoshi had just offered
some blank paper to the alter and then set it on fire and took it outside
the ritual room...) they then offered and burned the text that he brought.
I didn't stay for the whole thing, but it ended with a huge round of fire
crackers which were answered from the temple to the east a few minutes
later, and from the west a few minutes after that.
As far as I can tell Daoist sights are heavily focused on tourist, perhaps
they view tourism as a national cult which needs to be "managed"-to
see to it that it doesn't get out of control?.
Ordination of Daoshi takes 10 years and includes a full 2 year retreat
in the mountains, I think most study Taijiquan, the study of more gongfu
is an option, everyone practices neidan (meditation practices) in separate
small rooms, but all in the same hall?, the study of ritual may be optional?
the curriculum seems flexible...I'm left uncertain about lots of things.
The Chairperson of QingYanggong told me that the Daughter of the Brother
of the TianShi (the lineage decedent of the founder of religious Daoism)
is living in Hawaii. Having read her website...I told him that I thought
she was a little crazy...but he seemed convinced otherwise. I don't know
what to think. I'm going with my Chinese teacher to an Yi (ethnic) Village
in the southwest for a few days...there is some kind of fire festival
there...After that I will fly to Hong Kong for a few days and then home...I
return on August 20th. --Scott Hi Everybody,
I'm leaving for Hong Kong tomorrow, two days, and then home...it's been
a long trip...but not long enough to actually figure out what's going
on here. I went to the area around Xi Chang for a week with my language
teacher and her girlfriend, who is also a language teacher. I told them
I would be to embarrassed to go if they tried to pay for everything, so
they came up with the brilliant solution that we would each give 500 Yuan,
and we would share the money, and split up what ever was left in the end.
They of course would hold the money...so it would seem as if they were
paying for everything. We did this but, in reality, we didn't get to pay
for anything because we were met at the station by one of their students
who lives down there. His father and brother are Policemen and we got
taken everywhere in a Mitsubishi SUV with a siren on top...the father
seemed to have unlimited use of the car... easily lent the Keys to his
sons...the brother was sometimes in uniform but the father wasn't.
We went to a mountain where a "Daoist Saint" once went on retreat.
Actually he was a Buddhist when he went there, but then became a "Xian"...granting
wishes and doing magical feats to improve the lives of the locals. Buddhists
later took over the area and Built a temple which includes an alter for
granting wishes which is the seat of this local god ("Daoist Saint").
Most of the people living in the temple/monastery were part of the Yi
ethnic group, and they seemed to all be elderly, men and women. I had
to be careful not to point to something I liked because it would likely
be packaged up and handed to me by my hosts.
The next day we went to see a satellite launching and building station...(really
high on my interest list <sarcastic>) all they did was take pictures...and
I was in most of them...and it was hot and clear...so I'm sure I look
sun-burnt. But then, I guess because I was with the police, they took
us to see a top secret experiment! They took us to see some rice being
grown in samples of soil from the moon, in special low gravity containers!
They say they can produce 5 crops a year. Traveling around the countryside
you see that every inch is planted...we went through this river valley
which seemed to be all cannonball sized large rocks, but every inch of
it was planted, rice, corn, squash, everything. The rocks were just piled
up everywhere to make fences, building foundations, and just piles. Anyway,
don't be surprised when you hear that the Chinese are growing rice on
the moon. We visited a big lake, which was developed on all sides...lot's
of Chinese tourists come here, but it is hard to see the appeal...it is
hot and exposed, little shade...mainly people come to play mahjong...which
they do all over Sichuan all the time anyway?
We also visited another "Daoist" mountain...There were two Daoists
there but the alter was to the god of being a good student-- Wen Cheng?
The other "temples' on the mountain were all Buddha's and Bodhisatvas.
This is really the popular religion of China that has always been here...for
people to ask for wishes to be granted, dreams fulfilled. Now instead
of Kowtowing, half the people take pictures...the cult of photography
we will call it.
After a few days of, this they took us to stay at the village farm where
about 40 family members still live. The building was really cool, mud
brick, one of the uncles is a carpenter so the wood work was well done.
The Pig room is also the poop room...and there are chickens and ducks
and turkeys and goats.... They killed two goats for the many feasts we
had to celebrate our arrival. So now to food. The first time they fed
me...I tasted everything...and everything was very hot and spicy... I
think the coolest dish was a bowl full of fresh stir-fried ginger. After
that I tried being discreet; to eat just a little of what ever seemed
to have less spice...but they would just put things in my bowl. So I had
to explain that I really couldn't eat anything "La" or "Hua"
(hot and Spicy), it was really getting painful...it got to the point where
I would sit down to eat and realize that my mouth, nose, and eyelids were
still burning from the last meal. After a while I started to think the
plain rice was spicy...perhaps they have been here so long the soil itself
is spicy.
So many dishes...one that most Americans would cringe at was a large plate
full of bacon...but actually there was almost no meat on the bacon...it
was just the fat strips in a big pile. There were so many people at meals
we filled two rooms...the center alter room and the one next to it. Everyone
sits on two person wooden stools at square wooden tables. There were four
massive power lines following the river down stream...one of them was
very close to the house...someone wanted to know if I thought the power
lines were beautiful? The family alter is in use and has the written characters
(no idols) of all the important officials of heaven...locals cults, Quanyin,
the god of thunder, education, wealth....The characters for heaven earth
center seat teacher are in the middle. The ancestors of the Liu Family
are thanked for their generosity on the right side of the alter. I saw
a two year old running around making the international sign for "too
hot" (waving a hand in front of the mouth), everyone just takes it
for granted that things will be really spicy. Two year olds can eat with
chop sticks...because it is O.K. to throw anything on the floor (except
a drink of booze you have just been poured, but that's another story)
and babies are allowed to get rice all over their face and run around
with their bowls. They wanted to take me out to catch some fish...I was
really at my limit of being carted around...and they weren't letting me
get out of it...by chance I said what I'd really like is a place to sit
and write. wow...that worked...they loved that...I got a room with a desk
and they lit some incense for me... and said good bye. I finally managed
to get away from this endless hospitality and good will, it wasn't easy,
but they put me on the train to EMeiShan.
I hiked from the bottom to the top in two days...a really spectacular
mountain. I spent the night in a Buddhist monastery in the clouds, I did
my qigong etc...in what must be 'the' perfect spot. One final note, since
Beijing is now the host of the Olympics I hear they are trying to get
Bus Driving added to the list of official Olympic sports...India, Nepal,
and Mexico are all said to have crack teams...the debate right now is
whether the buses should actually carry passengers during competition
and training. I saw 5 people puke on two different buses in one day, and
another from the bus in front of us. ---miss you all, --Scott Hi Everybody,
One last note about Daoism in China. I had tea and peaches with two Daoshi;
a man and a woman who are friends, about my age, and began their training’s
11 and 13 years ago. They are both pursuing doctorates in the history
of Daoist Religion at the Sichuan University. One did an Island retreat
for 2 years the other a mountain retreat. They both practice mediation
in the evening, chanting in the morning, and have studied ritual. At university
they wear their hair up, but do not wear vestments or shoes. One lives
at Qing Yang Gong (a city temple) and the other lives in a top floor apartment
on Campus, where we had tea. She had just moved in so she said she had
not set up an alter yet but planned too. They showed me a series of books
from Taiwan used for teaching ritual there, part of one of the books had
pictures of all the graduates. My hosts pointed to their friends. The
guy received a request to teach in Hawaii for a year and was considering
it. They are both brilliant gu jin players, the woman tutors at the university.
I describe all this because I have raised the question of the difference
between Daoism in America and Daoism in China. Are we the same? are we
different? It depends on how far back one stands, it depends on where
one focuses attention. Really we are human beings with real life appetites,
finding expression for those appetites differs from place to place, and
from generation to generation.... The opportunities we have for expression
of a Daoist life are different, but our situation-- that of having to
find our place in an ever changing world, in which the past may be helpful,
but by no means a chart for our futures-- is the same.
My last night in Chengdu, I came upon a fortune teller with a modest crowd...he
had the image of Zhang Daoling on a piece of paper on the ground and people
were shaking sticks out of a small box on to the paper, a form of divination.
He would then read from a little flip book. I started a little conversation
with the people there and of course got asked again: ni xin bu xin? Do
you believe or not? I answered that believing and not believing are the
same thing...to which I seemed to get general agreement if not a bit of
enthusiasm from the woman on a bicycle who had just checked on her fortune.
Walking back I was haunted by the sounds of a wrinkled couple singing
call and response with erhu accompaniment...perhaps they were blind...the
woman’s head tilted to the side, the man sat upright and played...he
had a straw hat and his bottom row of teeth were gold...people seemed
not to want to get too close to them...but they listened....they listened
to these sounds from far away and long ago.... ------By the way my classes
start on Wednesday 22nd, I will need the 21st for catching up on sleep!
I hope to see you all soon. --Scott PS I love hearing your thoughts on
these
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