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.

Blue Hair Buddha

Last trip this spring to New York City

I had another successful trip to New York City and unfortunately the last for this spring. I visited Ms. Zoë Woodbury High, Barnard/Columbia, the MET, a Hindu temple, and both China towns. While the entire trip was less than 48 hours it was a highly enjoyable time.

My story begins at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I was staring at a chinese style teapots behind glass thinking about current hermits in China on their quest for enlightenment and drinking tea. For those who do not know I managed to be lucky enough to get into two programs in China for this summer. First, Woodenfish, a Buddhist monastic program that will last 15 days, and second, a job teaching at an international school running a summer camp for two weeks. As part of getting credit for these opportunities my advisor assigned me readings on Chinese Buddhism. He also suggested a documentary called Amongst White Clouds, which was very good, with excellent hermit buddhists, and a rather annoying melodramatic narrator/main character. 

The movie was actually inspired by a book that I am also reading called Road to Heaven, Encounters with Chinese Hermits. It's a fascinating book following Bill Porter in the 80's through rural China on a quest to find buddhist hermits. Amongst White Clouds occurred in 2005 and was the same exact quest. As I read this book on the bus ride down I looked out the window. The bus was passing through the town of Prattsville, which last August was under five feet of water. The hight of the water was still evident on most of the house as they were missing shingles, siding, and usually much more.  There was no grass at all, only raw earth and large rocks, most of the houses were boarded up, red x's from the military where still painted across the front door of every home. It was the apocalypse -in a way, only a few towns south of Oneonta where I reside.

Halfway to New York City a very strange man sat next to me on the bus. Our conversation happened like this:

Strange man, staring at the floor definitely not talking to me or anybody else:

"I will not hurt others, I will not hurt others, I will not hurt others, I do not want to hurt others, I do not want to hurt myself, others do not want to hurt me."

I am pretending to read my book about chinese monks, and remember I cannot move as he has cornered me next to the window. He looks up at me, then at my book.

"Chinese monks, I like it. By the way, I'm not crazy or anything, I just narrate my life." He then continues to go back to his rants.

"I am going to the beach. I am going to the beach with the rest of the monks. I am going to build sandcastles all day."

He proceeded for about an hour and a half to pick out clouds he liked that were a message from a secret female deity that only he knew of.

"She makes everything, she takes so much time, thousands of hours, to make all these faces. WOW! There's an eye, there's another, the nose.... WHOA, that one looks like a puppy."

"Oh blue pyramids! Perfectly balanced they fly! HAHA! They have cloud machines, to hide them, but only she can see them."

"So many communication towers (I assume he is referring to telephone poles,) she communicates so much but nobody notices, but I do."

"Nobody knows who I am, but that's okay, I don't them to know. They don't know my past. If anybody wants to know how old I am I'll tell them I'm 28." (He looked roughly anywhere between 28-35.) 

When I finally arrived at Port Authority, Zoë was waiting for me, and happened to also have had an "interesting" conversation with another stranger while waiting for me, my impression was there was a smaller risk in her conversation.

We went to Soho and got Vietnamese sandwiches, which were cheap and delicious. We then took the 1 train all the way home to Barnard, watched Amongst White Clouds, read, made tea, and probably kept Flo up longer than she wanted to.

The next morning when we woke, we headed directly to a cafe, then went down town to get some Indian food and go to the MET. Along the way we stopped at a Yarn shop and looked at Zoë's favorite genre of magazines: Japanese Fiber Arts. After a Mysore Masala Dosa at a restaurant close to the yarn shop I went to the MET and Zoë went to an academically related meeting to discuss Tamil.

I spent several hours in the MET and took well over a hundred photos to satisfy requirements for my current ceramics class. Most of the art I wanted to see was being moved around and either not on display or on display without information in newly constructed exhibits. I spent hours just on the second floor between the Middle Eastern art exhibit and the Asian art exhibits. 

The second half of my story begins again with staring at a Chinese teapot in the MET. After thinking about Monk in China drinking tea and surviving off of dandelions, I realized NYC was an especially good spot with great memories to acquire one. My hunt for a teapot began. When I had not seen enough pottery, specifically teapots to get ideas for my own, I asked an employee of the museum where I could find more ceramics. Rather than suggesting another location within the building, she sent me three blocks away to a gallery of Japanese ceramics called Mirviss. I went to the gallery, but it was not quite what I was looking for, it was contemporary non-functional pieces of art with the exception of a few bowls that ran at $800.

That evening we rounded up five other Barnard girls (friends of Zoë,) and went to Chinatown (in Manhattan,) and met up with Isaac High and his friend Jake. The restaurant was incredibly Chinese, with the gigantic lazy susan in the middle of the table to share all the food. We ordered too much.

The next morning when we woke, we headed directly to a cafe, then took an hour long 7 train to Flushing, which I kept calling Flushings because that's what it is in the UK. When Zoë and I got off the train we were no longer in the US, we were in some strange Chinese city. I found Flushing to be incredibly authentic to a China like experience, only the smells are much stronger, the roads are no where close to the condition they were in, and no children pissing/defecating in the middle of the sidewalk. My impression of Flushing was it was mostly Chinese and Korean with a strong Indian, Tibetan, and Hispanic presence. Simply put, culturally vibrant and wonderful. Zoë and I decided we want to live there at some point, with a pug (I added that.)

After stuffing ourselves with an incredible South Indian Thali at the temple, circled Gnesh three times, then painting a (Bindi?) on each others forehead, we wandered China town looking for a teapot. Due to lack of time, we had no luck, but managed to stumble into Hong Kong Grocer which was exactly like a corporate grocery store in China without the Chinglish or live animals.

On the way back we stopped at Muji near Time Square where I found a nice Japanese teapot for $20. I got two accompanying matching cups. I inspire to be able to make teapots of this skill by the end of next semester in ceramics with clay I have made from the lake I live on.

We scurried from Muji back to Barnard to get my bag, I forgot my cellphone charger, and managed to make it to my bus in 14 minutes from Zoë dorm -a new record, without a second to spare either.

And all I can say as I write this on this semi-empty bus ride back is that it is much quieter. 

the bird hospital

while in new delhi, zoë and i went to a jain temple. it was a very mellow time of day for the temple, so there were few visitors, and i even managed to sneak some pictures of the shines. like most temples, you have to enter barefoot, and the floor was covered in rice and other offerings like flowers, an interesting sensation for your feet on the marble floor.

next to the jain temple was what really attracted zoë and me to the area: a bird hospital. people from all over new delhi, and i am guessing especially those who attend this temple, bring birds of all kinds to this hospital for treatment. they also accept rabbits. there was a mural in the hospital of all the ways birds are injured including kites, fans, cats, and dogs.






it was hard to take happy photos here.