无锡 (Wúxī)

First let's introduce a few characters, who are also real people. On the left in the red/pink shirt is Tenzin, a Woodenfish leader and a very kind fellow with a great sense of humor. On the right in the saffron robes is Venerable Prah, who I became good friends with over the course of the two week program. Prah and Tenzin are both studying in New Zealand, Prah is originally from the Bangkok area.

As we walked into what I later called Buddhist Disneyland I asked Venerable Prah what his impression was.

"I don't think Monks live here."

Turns out the Chinese refer to it as the Lingshan Wonderland.

Lingshan does not have much of a spiritual feeling, but it still creates a sense of awe. This place was much more designed to flash government wealth while hosting massive international Buddhist conventions, as well as become an iconic tourist destination. We participated.

You can visit the parks website here.

There was a lot of incredible art. This was part of a wall that depicted the entire life of Buddha.

This park is host to the Lingshan Great Buddha, claimed to have the largest Buddha -but so do many other places- for a reference of size the Great Buddha is 288ft. while the Statue of Liberty is 151ft. I was too tired this day to climb the steps, so I took photos from a comfortable distance.

The park also claims to have the largest bronze hand, which I believe, it's about 12 meters tall with the wrist sitting on the ground like someone is reaching out from under the earth. It's a bizarre sight.

The other unique statue was a Laughing Buddha of sorts, an incarnation Maitreya, covered in a hundred children. Buddha is roughly the size of a minivan while the kids only range is size of a gallon of milk to a watermelon. This is a common statue I have seen all over the Shanghai region and is suppose to be good for a happy and prosperous future. The children on the statue were suppose to be mischievous, so they were climbing all over Buddha, sticking their hands in his belly button and dangling from his arms.

One of the shows at the Wonderpark is "The Birth of Buddha" which happens about ever two hours at this park. Loud dramatic music plays and the fountain comes to life. Soon the Lotus opens and inside is Buddha who then get's hosed down by the dragons. There is lots of meaning in the way the water moves and the amount of jets of water. I don't mean to be too cynical.

In later research about this fountain and show, I found out that the water is supposedly very pure and the thing to do as a tourist is to drink some. I don't know how true this is, but it's an interesting idea as there is a large emphasis on purity at this specific show.

The idea of the park was to hold a temple from every major type of Buddhism. So far they have four Chinese, Tibetan, Brahman (Indian,) and South East Asia in construction. The Tibetan Temple was gorgeous, but no where close to the actual tradition, which was true for all the temples in different ways. I doubt there are any plans to build a Zen or Japanese style temple, although it does hold some sort of Zen meeting/meditation hall. Hatred towards the Japanese seems especially strong in this part of China.

Wuxi Lingshan Wonderland Tibetan Temple

The Brahman Temple was the pinacle of strange things in this Buddhist park. First of all it was unbelievabley massive.

Below is the interior of the Brahman Temple seen above.

And inside it held one of the most bizarre shows I have ever seen in my life. Below is two images of the theatre ceiling that constantly changes colors. 

The following video with terrible quality has no justice to awesomely strange 30 minute show, however it was the best one I could find. It's a relatively new show so there is not too much info on the web about it. This show really transcends words and puts most of us into some culture shock. I love it.

There was a massive international Buddhist convention of sorts at this park just a year or so ago. We met a man who bought about a hundred new audi's totally something like half a million USD, and when he went to sell them used he sold them for more than the new price because people wanted cars that had safely transported monks and nuns, it was good luck of sorts. He also bought us all lunch that day and took us to his office, I'm still not really sure what he does for work.