Well i can't believe that IT's happening, but i am choosing of my own free will to get back on the road with Tiffany.... i have been invited by her to take a hard seat train for 34 hours straight down southwest to Kunming in Yunnan province, and meet back up....
My experience is that i feel entirely adrift with no clear direction, except to understand that interaction with people is of primary function in my life, and i can either wander around hoping IT will happen (which IT might!), or i can make a choiceful decision to go where the interaction is, and take IT from there.... This choice also provides travel direction at the same time, which is something i really don't have a clue about right now....
So there IT is.... May this choice direct "me" towards people and places where i may be of some little help or use.... Praises to the universe's wisdom behind my idiocy!
*Hell Is A No-Seat Train Ticket*
- (While buying food for the trip) Ok.... i think i've figured IT out.... The No-Seat Ticket on the train to Kunming (or anywhere, for that matter) is like jail! You go in, and you can't get out and are very uncomfortable for the next 34 hours! The main differences are: a) you go in willingly, b) you get to keep your stuff with you, c) you get to take whatever food you want in with you, d) when you get out, you're somewhere else! Well, i guess everyone gotta go through the trial by fire - my turn has been spun on the great wheel! Here goes nothing....
- Great! i find a little nook by a door that doesn't seem to be being used, and straightaway take up the whole floor, sitting with my pack and guitar.... i have a feeling that they are either gonna tell me that i got to stand up, or they'll let me continue sitting on the floor here because i'm white.... one or the other.... Maybe if i play some guitar, IT will ply them into pity.... :-P
- My guitar playing has attracted a new friend, "Danny" (actually Zhen Kun), with a winged basketball tattooed on his shoulder and a very familiar easy-going team-player air about him.... he speaks some english, and sits with me and asks if i like basketball; that's the right conversation-starter for me! He's 22, i'm 36, but we see eye-to-eye and have a great time getting to know each other! His friend (can't remember his name, army officer with the big-cranium-small-triangle-face with much conversation about love & marriage) and several other friendly dudes wind up joining in the conversation, with Kun and i madly translating to each other with our phones.... Soon, Wang Zheng (Wang Chung! A cool and sensitive dorky guy) and his crony-buddies come to hang out as well, a gaggle of engineering students at Hunan University finishing up a two-week internship in Zhengzhou, and we're all packed in the small metal hallway having a great time; IT's a regular party back around the comfy nook! Only one problem: the nook is comfy only as long as the train is in motion! The formerly-unused door turns out to be the MAIN door for letting people on and off the train, and the hardass brusque Trainmistress comes out of nowhere many times and slams the door open, throwing a heavy metal walkway down and yelling at the top of her lungs, at which point we all have to scramble up and plaster ourselves flat against the walls, as dozens and dozens of people with huge bags squeeze past us off and on the train.... This is not the ideal snooze-spot i had envisioned!
- After demonstrating improv on guitar, showing Kun the Moment Myspace site, and exchanging some emails, i have the happiness to note that as a result of my choices, i have gotten to meet these good folks tonight and make a new friend, have interesting conversation in which we're all learning from each other, and realize that i'm not "alone" on a mountainside somewhere.... i feel full and, uh, "useful".... the guys all express their appreciation for me and i give IT right back to them!
- Kun gets off at Wuhan, where he lives and works (although his beloved hometown is Guiyang) and now IT's the middle of the night and the nook is gone, taken up by a pack of newbies.... Now comes the standing by the sinks with literally nowhere to sit (too many people everywhere) and some blank-faced guy, who feels like he knows how to make more room for us all, picks up my pack and puts IT over one of the sinks, right in a bunch of water and spilled yuck.... i give in to his wisdom, as he smokes his cigarette in my face, and have a really sour time standing exhausted by the sinks for a while....
- After a time, i see my course clearly: the sinks in the next car over have a patch of space clear on the edge of the area, right before the proper seats begin.... i grab my pack from behind sleeping blank-man and wrestle IT over a bunch of waist-high heads through to the next car.... Sitting on my pack with my head against the wall does not turn out to be an adequate sleeping position, however, and i move on to head-on-knees position, which seems like IT might work for a while, until i lose all control and almost tumble off my pack-perch as i fall into deep sleep....
- At this point, there's nothing left to do, and i lay my pack on the floor and lie down curled up lengthwise across the sink area.... i am lying right across a two-inch raised rail on the floor, in the sink and garbage yuck, and IT is very uncomfortable, but i'm so exhausted there's nothing left to do.... i sleep somehow, while people are tripping over me and washing up over me and opening the door painfully over my toes (i am now the biggest space-taker-upper of anyone in sight).... The guy in the bathroom is hacking up loogey after loogey, so incredibly loudly that IT sounds like he's throwing up, and he won't come out, while a lady bangs and bangs on the door to encourage him outward.... This lasts until we are nearing a stop, and suddenly i sense many, many people walking all over and around me; the Trainmistress is grabbing the garbage and mucking the bathroom floor, and i have to get up....
- i now stand miserably against the sink wall, feet forced onto the rail by the amount of standing people (all smoking in my face), and try to sleep against the wall.... Between the smoke, the wrenching loogeys coming from all directions, the sign-language guy who is REALLY PISSED about something and is telling his girlfriend all about IT right in front of my face.... IT doesn't work
- i see a primo spot by the first row of seats, sort of out of the aisle, and plant my pack there.... i now re-try my head-on-knees experience, which may be worse than the first time, as my level of exhaustion increases and the night hours tick onward.... Slowly, the grey light begins to creep into the flitting trees as the sky rushes by out the windows.... And soon, despite the almost-complete lack of sleep, IT seems like IT's time to get up, because a new day has dawned....
- i see a luggage rack spot, and a plan of stashing my pack up in IT quickly forms in my bleary brain; after which, the next thing to do is to find hot water to eat my bowl of ramen noodles.... Fighting my way through the packed aisle, i track down the water spigot, and nervously fight my way back to my pack to eat, since all IT will take is one passenger's inadvertant jab to my wrist and my meal is done for.... i have to go back to the sinks to find a person-square of room to stand, next to the garbage and giant stacks of some women's box luggage, three across and two high, each of them filled with cartons of cigarettes.... i eat my noodles with visions of some unconscious passenger knocking the bowl out of my hands with their elbow and scalding hot soup flying everywhere (which fortunately does not happen).... As i finish up, a wise-looking old gent throws his half-finished cigarette, still lit, into the garbage can filled with all sorts of paper products; this prompts me to be slightly disrespectful to an older person for the first time in as long as i can remember, as i have to say to him, "Uh hey, maybe you shouldn't throw LIT CIGARETTES into the garbage, huh?" He looks at me quizzically and walks away, as one of the luggage-women closest to the sink douses the garbage with water....
- i go back and fuss with the dried peas which have opened up in the mesh-pocket of my pack, and are threatening to pour all over the heads of the seated folks underneath; as i'm doing this, several people all around me get up for departure at the next stop, and suddenly i have a seat! Like manna from heaven, and i'm so out of IT i don't even know what's what.... i just PTFO, my head on my arms on the little seat-table, and don't wake up until some guy is poking me, telling me that my peas are spilling all over people's heads as the Trainmistress moves my pack around into a position she likes better....
- Intermittent exhaustion and sleep, as noon approaches, and a different Trainmistress comes around to check my ticket.... my No-Seat Ticket! The jig is up! i mentally steel myself to head back to the sinks; but rather, she looks at my ticket and just hands IT back and walks away.... i continue to sit and watch the beautiful mountains in the mist flit by in the window.... Thank the railway-stars
- A pleasant passing afternoon, with more noodles, writing these entries, musing on the Court Cards of the Taro, having Trainmistress take a shine to me and protect me from too much scrutiny from the police officer who comes aboard to scan-check every passenger's national ID cards.... IT turns out fine, with everyone seeming pretty normalized to the whole thing without a bunch of fear, and the officer being fairly pleasant, but the vibrations of "1984" and such thoughts still go hard with me.... Anyway, he soon passes on by and Trainmistress has fun playing with my phone & solar chargie and laughing.... She wears a little silver Laughing Buddha around her neck.... In the trash, when i dump the crumbly dried peas from my pack, way deep down in the can, i see a cutoff corner of the Card of Love.... happy path this Hellride! ;-)
- Buying rice, tofu, meat :-( & veggies from cart-pushing woman in the aisle for ten qwai, in an attempt to try to give my bod some regularity and nourishment for the upcoming night of general lack of sleep and such.... IT does the trick, and i am doing okay with my purchase.... until halfway through my meal, the cartwoman comes back down again, hawking the same food for five kwai! i grumblingly decide to let IT go....
- People on the trains just throw their trash straight on the floor 'round these parts.... which requires regular sweeping of every car, under all the seats, producing unbelievable amounts of gnar every time.... Trainmistress sweeps the latest bunch of trash and crap down the aisle, and there in the middle of IT all is the Card of Obvious Answers with ITs head ripped off....
- The kid next to me with the good singing voice, Chen Ji Han, takes an interest in my Ta Luo Ka (Taro cards), so i show him and the other folks in our seats both of my decks and my journal.... They are all amusedly interested.... Ji Han asks, "What does this mean?", and i say, "i've been asking myself the same question for the past two years!"
- Passing out around 10, i keep sleeping until a loudly shouting Trainmaster wants everyone to know we are coming to a station at 2 AM.... He then proceeds to quiz me in Chinese about where i'm from, where i'm going, how laughable my lack of Chinese understanding is, how silly my hat is, which draws quite the crowd of now-awakened and amused fellow-passengers.... i blearily yet gamely play along.... Finally the Trainmaster finishes toying with me and goes on his way, and i fall back to sleeping with intermittent bouts of waking up my fallen-asleep feet and/or buttcheeks....
- 6:30 AM and i awake to Trainmistress's shrill cries of "Kunming!" With my stuff at the ready, i watch her sweep the biggest pile of garbage yet down the aisle, and am quite amused to note that there is most of an entire deck of cards someone lovingly just dumped on the floor in the middle of the giant crap-pile.... Cosmic messages down the drain! With a smiling thanks to my friendly jailmarm, i disembark for the early-morning streets of Kunming, the Springtime City of Zhongguo....
EPILOGUE: In the end, my hell-on-earth of a train ride lasted about 12 hours; the other 22 were spent in someone else's seat in relative comfort, and i better watch out, because i had such a wonderful time that i just might be tempted to take another No-Seat Ticket one of these days! (-D
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
A Pilgrimage To Song Shan
Song Shan, home of Chan Buddhism - September 1, 2011: On my walk from my hanging ground down to the Shaolin Temple, i saw a half-a-card face down on the side of the road, cleanly ripped lengthwise down the middle.... i turned IT over, and IT was the Card of Duality.... So immediately i have my koan for the day.... "What is half of duality?"
The Shaolin grounds are wide and sprawling, with a long history of martial monks and their Wushu training, supposedly imparted in stretching and stick-fighting forms by Bodhidharma, the 28th Patriarch of Buddhism in India, who sailed across the seas to China in order to spread a particular transmission of Buddhism which became known as Chan; the Shaolin Temple, already established as a Buddhist monastery at the time (c. 500 AD), was the spot where the sage finally came to park his bones and place the monks under his peculiar tutelage.... Many stories and legends expound the fierce persona and uncompromising teaching style of the scowling bearded monk, and the writings i have read, which were found in a sealed cave in Dunhuang and attributed to Bodhidharma himself, have profoundly affected my perceptions and understandings of my own consciousness for many years now.... IT was this connection which led me to make this pilgrimage to Song Shan, and whereas many people travel here in awe of the martial athletic prowess of the fighting monks, i have made this journey rather to see with my own eyes the cave where the Master allegedly spent nine straight years in silent meditation facing a wall, and to pay my respects to a being and a transmission, both of which have profoundly affected my own life from many generations removed and an ocean between....
My walk through the front gates soon brought me to the Shaolin Temple proper, where i hesitated in my journey with some thought about "Well, while i'm here, maybe i should check out the monastery which the Master transformed...." i approached a doorway into the temple, where a gray-suited monk sat at a table with a pen and paper, signing people through the door.... i silently indicated to him that i was interested in entering, and his response was a short "Hmmmm-mmmph!" with a flick of a finger pointing away.... Whereupon i recognized his assistance in keeping me focused, rolled right around, and continued on my original path....
Once past the temple, i continued walking past various Shaolin attractions, until finally seeing a sign indicating that the time was at hand to get on the Dharma Trail.... The path was deserted save for myself, and the solitude of my travel accentuated the solemnity of the moment for me.... The path soon forked, with no signs to indicate directionality; however, the left fork remained on ground level, and the right fork began to climb upwards.... At first, i began heading down the attractively-paved ground-level left path, but several steps brought me to the awareness that although the left path looked more inviting, ingeneral i wanted to be moving up the mountainside.... i retraced my several steps and headed upwards with the trust that this direction would bear fruit, signs or no.... And indeed, heading upwards did not let me down in my attempt to climb to Wuru Peak, as common sense might surmise....
Up and up the path led, and soon the path turned to stairs, and the stairs inevitably led to another little tourist-junk stand.... The girl and guy running the enterprise smiled and bowed to me as i approached, and i returned the bow as best i could while climbing stairs....
In the interests of taking good care of my body on this mountain pilgrimage (having learned SOMETHING from Tai Shan, i hope), i bought one of their overpriced waters to make sure my bottle was full, and an iced tea for good measure.... i sat for a bit to drink, and when i was thanking them and getting up to leave, the guy very politely motioned me back onto my little seat, whereupon he began respectfully giving me good massage on both my hands; i appreciated this gesture, and opened myself to being energetically assisted in this way.... The guy continued up my arms, to my shoulders and back, and then energized my legs, paying special attention to the knees and ankles; all in all, IT was quite refreshing for me, and well-needed.... As he finished, i began to thank him, yet before i could thank him properly, he had handed a book and a pen to me, indicating i should write my name at the bottom of a list of names, which i assumed was a log of pilgrims passing through his stand.... So i signed my name with my usual panache and was about to get up again, when he pointed out to me that there were numbers indicated after everybody's name on the list, and smilingly suggested that i come lie down on a bed in the corner of the tent and have a really in-depth back massage.... He saw me deflate from disappointment that his energy work was not freely given, and asked for 50 qwai for his trouble.... i handed him 20 and continued on up the stairs, making a mental note to not let people begin massaging me unless i become much better acquainted with them first....
As i was being massaged, i noticed a Buddhist nun walk past and up the stairs; as i began my climb, i saw her up ahead of me, slowly climbing with her stick and water bottle.... From afar, i considered her as my honorable guide up the mountain.... She sat on a little plateau-bench for a rest, and we exchanged short bows as i passed her by....
Up and up the climb twisted, the stairs now turning into cragstone paths.... The sun vanished and reappeared from behind the clouds.... And as i climbed, assuming my destination was much further ahead, around a curve i came and found the pilgrimage was at an end....
i made some perfunctory efforts to quiet my mind, standing outside the gates of the small grotto area; i waited for a passing group of teenagers to have their gawking laugh, watching me stand unmoving.... And when my inactivity was no longer amusing, and they moved on down and out of sight, the atmosphere became still and the time was at hand.... With one foot in front of the other, i raised myself over the three stairs, and through the gates i entered into the Master's porchyard....
The grotto was shaded and cool, with an altar in the middle decorated with burning incense and a couple of benches along one wall-side; across from these, the rounded open doorway into the cave ITself was dark and inscrutable.... i placed my satchel and guitar down by the benches, and prepared my offerings i had brought along for the occasion.... For the first time on my journey, i felt entirely appropriate kneeling down on the pad in front of the outside altar and performing the customary three prostrations, pressing my palms together before touching my forehead to the padding in front of my knees.... To my surprise, each time i bowed, a bell-like tone was struck from inside the darkened cave.... i finished my respects of greeting and, feeling the electricity of the moment, approached the Dharma Hole....
From just outside the doorway, i paused to observe the Master's space.... The darkness was interrupted only by several candles burning on another altar area, which presented ITself immediately inside the entrance down two stubby stairs.... The cave was small and filled with the smell of incense from among the flowers and singing-bowl on the altar, and the flickering of the candles illuminated a brown-skinned statue, sitting and staring right into my eyes over ITs bristling wooden beard.... Finally face to face with the rendered visage of a Master long gone, i had to curtail my entrancement in order to pay respect to a small gray-suited lady nun whom i realized was seated to my right on the floor next to the altar, who had been kind enough to tone the singing-bowl for my prostrations.... She returned my bow in a small terse way, and immediately went back to her muttered mantra....
The moments spent between myself and the Master's image, staring into each other's eyes, could not be measured in timeframes.... Out of space and out of time, beyond the material out of which we both were constructed, i felt contact with something from a long time ago which knew exactly why i was here, even if i did not; and with the passing of these moments, i realized that IT was time to enter the Dharma Hole, and complete the paying of respects....
Tentatively down the short steps i came, for i was embarrassed to interrupt the little nun who was very busy with her prayers, her fingers twiddling abbreviated mudras in her lap.... i reached into my pockets and disclosed the two offerings i had brought for the Master's altar: my Colored Onyx pyramid from Nederland, Colorado, which had been the mainstay power stone for my Taro table out on Pearl Street in Boulder, and lastly a set of the twenty-two Triumph Cards (Major Arcana) from a Spanish deck i had picked up in Beijing, fanned out and held together with a black paper-clamp.... i muttered an interruptive apology to the nun, and held out my personal treasures to her; her eyes widened as she saw the unexpected pair of objects before her, and she left off praying to supply me with a small white porcelain plate, upon which i placed my offerings in a symmetric manner.... She nodded to me, and placed the plate neatly upon the altar among the many flowers, candles, incense, and knicknacks....
Before the altar was another soft kneepad, and down upon this i knelt, performing another three prostrations while looking into the Master's wooden eyes each time i rose.... The nun, seated once again, struck the singing-bowl for me with each rise and fall, and the gong-like sound reverberated through the small cave....
i heard the sound of new visitors outside behind me, and knew that my time in the Master's space was coming to a close; in my last moment with the brown-skinned statue, i thanked IT for helping me to understand that i am nothing.... and everything.... all at once, and that i will do whatever i can to spread this understanding and the compassion IT engenders out into the world....
i rose to my feet and bowed to the little nun lady, who nodded back before returning almost immediately to her mutterings.... i left the darkness of the Dharma Hole, smiling at the two ladies waiting on the bench outside in the light, collected my things, and returned to the world outside on the path....
Even though my pilgrimage had been fulfilled, IT seemed proper to complete the journey up the mountain to the Wuru Peak, and so i continued upward on the path, climbing until i found myself coming around the backside of the giant white statue of Bodhidharma which commands ITs presence out over the Shaolin valley.... As i passed round, i noticed a gray-suited monk asleep on the ground next to the statue's base, and took care in my steps not to wake him.... i stared up at the huge white seated figure, and realized that the pagoda a little ways west up the peak would be a much preferable place to park for a spot of reflection....
The pagoda was a wonderful spot of solitude, offering shade from the sun and spectacular views of all directions.... Sitting facing south, i prepared my materials, and taking up my faux-ancient Chinese coin, proceeded to cast for a hexagram of the I-Ching.... The coin rang out eighteen times as IT hit the stone floor, and i was led to Hexagram 26, "Great Buildup" or "The Taming Power of the Great" (depending upon which translation one might refer), pointing me towards greater humility and understanding of how my past influences my present.... i then threw the Taro, for purposes of gaining some direction, and placed the cards in the east, south, west, and north, with a significator in the middle.... They came up as: East - The High Priestess inverted, South - Justice inverted, West - Connection inverted, North - The Magician, Significator - Dominion inverted.... As everything was inverted except the Magician, i began to understand that my current solo direction is not the place where my focus needs to be right now, and allowing transformation through a course set towards more interaction with people is ultimately the point of my travelling.... My life is simply not at ITs most fruitful if i am cloistered away from the world for an overly long period of time, as i have learned many times in the past.... i sat in appreciation of this spot atop Wuru Peak, with the misty clouds passing by all around, thankful for some difficult lessons and wise guidance....
As i sat pondering these things, the sleeping monk came walking up the path towards the pagoda and addressed me, indicating that he wished me to sit and he would administer massage to my hands; i politely declined, not wanting to enter into another money situation, and indicated to him that i had no money for him.... He indicated to me that he didn't want money and that the energy exchange was from his heart, yet i still declined, and continued meditating upon my Taro throw.... He sat down, and there we sat together silently for a while.... i had a thought, and opened up a package of two sesame compressed biscuits and offered him one, which he took with thanks.... We sat and ate our dry crumbly biscuits in silence, after which he came and sat down right next to me, and continued to try to begin massaging my hands.... i again declined, insisting that i had no money for him, whereupon he repeated several times that he was a "Da Mo" monk, pointing down towards the white statue.... i indicated to him that i was also a Da Mo monk, who had come across the ocean to pay respects, and he understood and embraced me as a brother, hugging me on both the left and the right.... We bowed to each other and he took his leave, starting back down the path towards the statue; i was very happy with this exchange, feeling very connected in kinship to this weathered monk, and watched him depart with a good feeling in my heart....
Yet as soon as he was a few steps down the path, the monk stopped and came back to the pagoda; sitting next to me again, he took out a book and showed me pages of people's names with numbers after them, which was now a familiar sight for me.... He took out a pen and wrote the number "50" on his hand.... i looked at him, in wonderment that we had just had this connection and that still he wanted my dough; i declined once again, and he crossed out the "50" and wrote "30" underneath IT.... i shook my head sadly, and he seemed to finally perceive that i was not going to give him any money and that i was a hopeless mark.... He got up and went back down the path, once again out of sight behind the white statue....
After this exchange, i felt the need to cleanse my immediate area with music, and took out the guitar.... i sang Cockroach's (Dan Penta's) song "Piss Poor", with ITs chorus of "Turn away from yourself, fucker", which i hadn't done in a while, and thanked 'Roach with a shout-out over the netherwaves, saying, "i bet you never thought your song would be sung on top of a holy mountain in China!".... i continued playing, noticing that there was a little commotion down by the white statue, and observed a bunch of little kids swarming up from below the statue like ants.... Soon they were heading right up towards me, and when they arrived, they had with them a maybe-twenty-years-old kid with a phone blaring tinny pump-em-up rock music, who proceeded to punch one of the pagoda's wooden columns very hard several times and yell for the straggler kids to catch up.... i cleared away my Taro cards quickly, for within seconds the entire pagoda was taken over by fifteen kung-fu summer campers who did not know what to make of me.... i sat down and began to play along with the music on the guy's phone, doing my version of ripping on the guitar (which is very far from actually ripping and doesn't sound great on my cheesy little Traveller guitar) and they all seemed awestruck and applauded when i finished.... Encouraged, i played "Now Ain't The Time" for them, which they also seemed to love, and finished off with "Georgia On My Mind", which also seemed to make them all very happy, as they kept applauding at random points during these songs.... i hoped that my musical display would indicate to them that we were all studying things that take concentration and discipline to accomplish, but this may or may not not have been communicated....
The counsellor-kid rounded them all up and the group began down the far path, waving and yelling goodbyes to me, and i played guitar to them until they were out of sight....
i finished up my musical session with the slowest "Brokedown Palace" that i've ever played; IT was very beautiful and i hope to be able to play IT that way again for other folks sometime.... During this song, the monk (who, i had decided, was not an official monk of the temple, but rather a homeless guy dressed up as a monk, living up on the mountain) returned up the path and sat down in the pagoda; he began talking loudly to me while i was clearly involved in singing a slow and beautiful song, which i assumed was another request for money and completely ignored, focusing hard on maintaining the mood of the song.... He soon left again, and i finished with a heartfelt thank-you to Song Shan and acknowledgement of my good fortune in all of this experience....
On the way back down the path, i saw a man climbing up the stairs below.... He was carrying a stick over his shoulders, from either end of which dangled heavy cases of bottled water, big boxes full! He was headed up towards the tourist crap stands, to reload their supplies for the next wave of thirsty tourists.... Sweatily, slowly, step by step, he lifted himself and his burden up each step in the hot sun; IT was almost like an ascetic's journey up the mountain, except the conscious driving force behind his labors was money and consumerism.... However, i recognized that he would be rewarded both financially and karmatically, i suppose, because you can't carry so much water such a long way up without IT being a good deed.... i waited respectfully on a stair, as far over as i could go, as he made his slow and exhausted way past me one step at a time....
As the sun began to drift ITs way down towards the mountains, i continued my return to the world of people down the staircase, and the stairs returned once again to stone pathway....
As life would have IT, before i could take my leave of the holy mountain, i was faced with a difficult choice in a difficult situation.... As i was walking, i noticed a large wasp-looking insect (but not a wasp) flopping around on the path; upon closer inspection, i saw that a big chunk of ITs left wing was missing, and the brother-sister was hobbling pitifully, barely able to walk, and flopped over onto ITs back when IT noticed me noticing IT.... IT stayed very still, and i thought that IT might have died just then, but IT soon became clear that IT was still alive, and in a very bad way....
IT seemed to me that life had placed we two together in the same place for me to assist this poor bugger in ending ITs suffering, and i realized that i could do that by stomping IT unceremoniously into the concrete of the path.... Just thinking about doing this was very distasteful to me, and raised the question in my mind: Do i have any right to take over the part of Nature in this matter? Perhaps i have entered this situation to recognize my mandate of allowing things to take their own courses? This resonated with me, and i resolved to simply move the poor thing off the unforgiving road, to a soft vegetated spot on the side where IT could pass away in relative peace....
i accomplished this with a pair of leaves, depositing IT on a plant's wide leaf on the side of the road.... i was happy to have helped for one moment, until the insect almost immediately fell off the leaf onto the dirt below, and writhed around painfully, which caused my question to resurface: am i meant to ease ITs suffering by dispatching IT? Visions flashed through my head of myself lying incapacitated on a road somewhere bleeding to death, in severe pain, and asking a random passer-by to help me end my suffering; i was not at all sure that this is what i was hearing from this insect.... i fretted and realized i had no clear answer here, but now here i was in the middle of this situation....
i decided to pick one card to give me some guidance, and out came the Queen of Wands, which of course made me think of Tiffany.... What would Tiffany do? She would put the thing out of ITs misery, of course.... Very well, i thought, and steeled myself for this course of action....
The insect was now nestled on the dirt in a space between two rocks, just the right size for another rock to fit between.... i chose a rock of proper size, and said my apologies to my friend, along with wishes for ITs speed to the buggy afterlife.... In a solemn moment, i plunged the rock down very hard upon the poor thing, and all was still....
i got to my feet, saying my apologies, and was about to head on my way when something made me pause.... i apologized again to my friend for the disturbance, but i felt the need to lift up the rock just to make sure the deed was accomplished; i leant down and lifted the rock, and.... NO!!! The poor poor thing was not dead, but partially crushed and yet still writhing! In horror, i plunged the rock back down upon IT with a crushing blow, even harder than the first one, and lifted the rock to reveal.... that IT was still alive and moving, and damaged worse and in greater pain but still not dead!
My visions of myself dying in a road flooded back, but this time with the helpful passer-by taking out a club and brutally attacking my helpless form as the manner of dispatching me, cruelly bludgeoning me over and over as my situation went from piteous dying to horrible murder in an instant....
IT took four or five crushing blows to finally get the insect to lie still (as i was pounding IT into the soft dirt, i realized), and i was sickened and horrified by myself and my choices.... One solid foot-stomp on the concrete and this might have been all over, but my waffling and indecision were the cause of this nightmare.... Yet now IT was finished, and the brother-sister laid still finally under the killing stone....
i walked away with regret and tears in my heart, apologizing to ITs spirit and to the universe for my actions, and expressing my willingness to take on the karma for what i had just done.... i apologized over and over again, knowing that IT would do no good, but simply wanting the universe to know how sorry i was....
The lesson for me was to understand that IT is not my business to meddle in the affairs of Nature, unless i receive an UNDOUBTEDLY CLEAR message that i am to involve myself.... IT is not my right to take life from others, and i am not the right hand of Justice.... i carried this lesson down with me off the holy mountain....
As the day came to a close, and the sun sunk behind the peaks of Song Shan, i emerged through the massive front gates of the Shaolin Temple, ignoring the Bu Yao's trying to sell me on hotels for the night or rides to the Longmen Grottoes, and walked the road back towards my hanging home on the mountain.... On the way, i kept an eye out for any TOTM messages i might see along the way, to further clarify my earlier message of "half a duality", and i was not disappointed! During my walk, in order, i saw: The Card of Chaos, a whole Card of Duality, half of a Joker shortways, the Card of Balance halved with both halves sitting right next to each other, a corner of the Card of The Wild Card, and a halved Card of The Backstabber.... With a headful of new thoughts (although breaking with any adherence to the Zen tenet of "emptying the mind"), i climbed back up the hill, as the silent conversation between myself and the cards lasted long into the night....
Monday, September 5, 2011
Shanghai-jinks!
Shanghai! You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villany....
Especially with me, Tiffany, and Chris Mandel free to roam the city streets by day and night! Folsom House Does China! The Crazies are on the loose....
Little diner restaurant's menu in Shanghai:
- Fans of beef soup
- Even the pickle
- Mushrooms surface
- Wang surfaces bear
- New York small cattle
- According to the chicken thigh
- The small steamed bun
"Growing in strength has really been my biggest weakness." - Chris Mandel
"Be Yourself - Have Fun - Love Lice" - Girls's T-shirt in Shanghai Century Mall
"My GPS is 'lost and happy'" - Tiffany ;-)
On wandering through gallery after gallery in the Art District, we had the good fortune to fall into conversation with Zhang Ying Qin (Adela Zhang), as we perused her stuff in her studio space.... Adela is a very independent-minded beautiful Chinese artist girl-lady, very into yoga and Zen and abstraction in art, and we were happy when she accepted our invitation to dinner! We all became fast friends over the following week, and hung out a bunch.... Adela just doesn't quite fit in with her own culture, being far too independent and strong for the more limited roles which women are traditionally expected to take on over here in Zhongguo, and was overjoyed to have randomly fallen in with some of the spiritual counterculture hippie freaks from the US of A.... Folsom Family has officially extended overseas! Hope you come and stay in Boulder, dearie....
Bu Yao (lit. "No want"): A person who approaches you on the street, wanting to sell you something or get you to spend your money somehow
Bu Yaoing the Bu Yao's: The Bu Yao comes to Chris and i, offering lady massage, very beautiful ladies.... We say no no no, no thank you, and keep walking.... The Bu Yao continues to follow us, offering lady massage and sex, until i say, "We like men!" and Chris gives him a quick squeeze of the buttcheek.... He squeals and leaves very quickly ;-)
Another Shanghai restaurant menu:
- Spicy reserve the spear
- Sweet bean worse
- Article moss peanut
- Homely bean curd
- The moss croaker
- Pseudosciaena polyactis bean curd
- Bad fish slices
- The squirrel bass
- Sauce hairy crabs
"i don't judge.... i just make sweeping observations." - Tiffany
How do you go from shower-handles to Lancôme in two blocks? Welcome to Shanghai
Bu Yaoing the Bu Yao's: The Bu Yao walks up to me on East Nanjing Road asking if i want lady massage; i say no, i might want massage from a man.... He says he has that, whereupon i say, Well really, what i want is massage from a transvestite, someone with breasts and a penis.... He says, ladyboy! i have that too! Whereupon i say, Well really, what i'm really looking for is massage from someone with no genitals at all, flat-chested and the penis snipped away, like a Barbie or Ken doll.... He says that this is his business, and i should not waste his time, so what exactly do i want? And i say, i don't know what i want, whereupon he gives up and we part ways....
"If IT's not cute, IT's not worth my time." - Tiffany
We had an eyeball in our soup today at the Sichuan restaurant on the corner from the hostel.... A fish eyeball
The best Shanghai restaurant menu yet:
- The incense burns small lobster
- The characteristic burns lobster meter
- The sun purifies big lake brake crab
- Get rid of small lobster of head
- Overlord pig knuckles
- Open space pfiddlehead stewed meat
- The peasant family stir-fries flesh for a short time
- Twice Cooked pork with Burger King
- Zi chicken is hit by a wing
- Spiced salt blows up pig hand
- Decayed thick gravy fillet
- The little yellow croaker cooks a bean curd
- The incense burns screw
- Braise an arm pull in soy sauce
- Do the boiler bullfrog
- The tomato white potato discharges a soup for a short time
- Fry a fermented bean curd with no result
- Mushroom facecloth boiler
- Nanxiang is enveloped for a short time
Bu Yaoing the Bu Yao's: After stealing a little clear plastic disc off the end of a handrail in the snooty and overpriced but gorgeously-viewed 47th-floor Radisson Hotel Spiked Dome Lounge Bubble, i waited for just the right moment.... Once back down on Nanjing Road, the Bu Yao approaches me with the useless flashing-light shoe roller-wheels, and i hand him the useless plastic disc.... He is very surprised at this exchange, thinking the disc might be something relevant to his life, and by the time he figures out he can't use IT for anything, i have scurried away into the crowd....
Well, we got away with IT! Tiffany somehow (after the first night at Mingtown) convinced the staff that i checked out and went to another hostel, so for the unethical low price of 25 qwai a night, i got to sneak around for a week and never feel safe or honorable, but have a pirated roof over my head! And i guess they just stopped caring, because i'm pretty sure they knew exactly what was going on, and nothing ever happened, despite my best worrying and paranoia! When in Shanghai, i suppose.... i'm just not blackhearted enough of a scallywag, IT seems....
Words of Wisdom from Chris Mandel: "Don't trip.... just keep on with the mission." And: "The two parts of the misson are: Always see the mission through 'til the end.... and: Don't be attached to the mission."
Words of Wisdom from Adela Zhang: "Don't think.... Just live your life."
Qufu - Peaceful Home Of Kong Zi
A thought on the Han Culture: Most languages, i am under the impression, have words equating with the concepts of "Yes" and "No"; IT is interesting, actually quite telling, to me that the Han language has a DEFINITE word for no ("Bu").... but when IT comes to "Yes" - well, that's just a little more complicated!....
i confess my subjectivity, my imperfection, and my dependence.... And with this i admit a truth concerning the connection between myself and the longevity symbol Shòu, alluding to the living of a long life, my plea: Just give me a little more time! i can do better! i will do better! i know how, i know how i can! Just give me another chance! Please.... just give me some.... more....time.... Please,.... just.... a....little.... more.... time....
Our little cheap hotel in Qufu, Huachao Binguan, is so definitely a drug front! IT's run by sweet smiling ladies and a senile old man (who is probably faking his senility).... During the day, young girls push mysteriously heavy cardboard boxes from the street through the lobby and into the back; then later on in the evening, a whole bunch of people are packing and unpacking boxes in the lobby! During the afternoon, two cops hang around for no apparent reason, ending up passed out at a table in the lobby, high on their cut; and at night, the old man sleeps on a fold-out cot in the lobby to protect his investment.... There are so many kilos going in and out of this place, i just know IT.... and every time we see the old man, he smiles and waves us on in the direction we're headed; if we're going out, he waves us out the door, and if we're headed in for the night, he waves us on in! Always waving us where we're going, as if to say, "That's right, just keep on moving, nothing to see here.... Right this way...." This place is a huge racket! That's how they can afford to rent the rooms out so cheap....
On our wanderings in Qufu, we came upon a woman selling puppies and kittens on the street; she would transfer them into different cages by tossing them from their necks, and was generally quite less than compassionate to her brood.... One of her puppies was out of the cages on the ground; IT was one of the littlest brown ones and petrified of the world.... ITs fur looked bad and IT was tiny and sickly.... i pointed out to Tiffany that this one needed her cooing mothering, if only to ease ITs fear for a moment.... Within that moment while Tiffany was holding IT, the woman gave the puppy to her for free if she wanted IT, due to ITs sickly state and the fact that not only would IT not be able to be sold, but would also be dead soon if things went on as they were.... Tiffany made her decision and walked away with the puppy in her arms, and all of a sudden we had another mouth to feed! She named him Shao Bing, or "Little Round Bread", and for the next six or seven days, he was our little love-child and constant companion....
Shao Bing was shaking like a leaf at everything for the first night we had him, smuggled up in our hotel room, but soon began to vaccillate between fits of shaking fear and ecstasies of running and chewing everything in sight, all the while bucking like a miniature bronco and acting like a very brave and badass little man - something which we had never thought to see from the ball of shivering fear we'd taken in the day before! Tiffany fed him powdered baby formula and liver chunks, clearly the best meal he'd ever had since being wrenched away from the nipple a week or so earlier.... He loved his foodie and was very hungry....
He figured out how to go potty (for the most part) on the tile floor in front of the door in our hotel room, like a good boy.... He figured out how to follow us down the street on his ridiculously tiny legs as we strode on ahead like giants.... He figured out how to whine so loudly in the middle of the night, we would have to let him come sleep with us on the bed instead of in his boxie (an obvious pee/poop security risk) for fear of waking other sleepers in adjoining hotel rooms.... He figured out a lot in six days!
Tiffany had gotten a little purple handbag with see-through mesh sides, perfect for cute puppy transport, and we took him around to restaurants, Confucius' gravesite, internet cafes, rides around the city, and everyone loved him wherever we went.... Every passing day, he was becoming more and more like the hairy little baby that Tiffany and i never had, and IT was definitely a little weird....
After a few days of princely treatment, Little Bing didn't seem sick at all (except for his diarrhea, which cleared up by nixing the milk and introducing pumpkin baby food, whereupon he started pooping straight pumpkin, in one end and out the other).... IT seemed that perhaps he might live and be able to be healthy, after all! Tiffany was starting to get nervous, realizing that IT was going to be tough to travel with the little dog and that she would need to find him a good home sooner rather than later.... Suddenly, as we walked down a street (followed closely by the toylike puppy), an older lady sitting in front of a store made a happy exclamation as she saw the puppy.... When Tiffany asked her if she'd like a little dog, she responded in the affirmative, completely taking Tiffany by surprise.... After checking in for a moment about the vibe, Tiffany agreed, and handed her the little bag with Shao Bing in IT.... The lady was very excited, and thanked us as we walked away....
We got halfway up the block and stopped, for Tiffany was crying and unhappy at the very sudden loss of her beloved baby pup.... We conversed and agreed to go get his food from the room and bring IT back to the lady, in order to explain how we'd been feeding him and try to make sure she'd take good care of him.... We did this, coming back with the bags of foodstuffs and having a last cuddle-kissing session with the now-sleepy little pup in his purple bag, who had no idea that his life was about to majorly change again for the second time in a week.... The lady was really quite loving towards him, and appreciated seeing how much we loved him and how much care we wanted him to have.... Feeling consoled, Tiffany and i made our way back to the hotel, knowing that we had saved a little life and that he was much better off than when we had first met him a week earlier.... We love you Shao Bing! May your life be filled with love, fun, and lots of tasty treats....
"IT is a state of someone who, in his wanderings among the mazes of his psychic transformation, comes upon a secret happiness which reconciles him to his apparent loneliness. In communing with himself he finds not deadly boredom and melancholy but an inner partner; more than that, a relationship that seems like the happiness of a secret love...." C.G. Jung, "Collected Works"
"You can't do IT alone, but you alone can do IT."
".... As was only to be expected.... though their purses shrank, their souls gained in stature...." C.G. Jung, "Collected Works"
Tai Shan, China's Holiest Holy Mountain
Here in Tai'an, hitting the hay in the cheapest room we could possibly find in a tourist mecca like this - a super-dingy storage room with a bunkbed and some dirty-ass bordello sheets! Hey, where else ya gonna find a room for 100 qwai in this town during busy season? Tomorrow: up and at 'em to pilgrimage up the slopes of the living god Tai Shan, apparently worshipped by the Zhongguo ren (Chinese people) since before recorded history....
This is a very special trip we'll be making tomorrow, up the holiest mountain in the Taoist culture, and the messages i'm getting right now (including jacking up several key muscles in my back trying to maneuver my pack today) are telling me to SLOW DOWN and drop down into this experience.... So that's what i'm going to do.... IT definitely takes more focus to do what i'm here to do while i'm around Tiffany, and i surmise IT probably would be just as distracting no matter who i was around, if i'm not traveling solo; so perhaps this is part of the lesson involved in this part of the journey: How to do what i'm here to do, and focus the way i'm here to focus, no matter WHO i'm around, and no matter WHAT identity they might expect me to have....
A bedtime note to say: Tiffany and i are hanging in the hammocks on the slopes of Tai Shan, very nearly but not quite at the summit, after a very wonderful and intensely-tiring afternoon of ascending up the winding staircases of this place of pilgrimage....
The full moon beams yellow from a clear night-time sky, the river with ITs waterfalls whispers steadily in the distance; the mountainside is calm, and retains a presence about IT that speaks of many thousands of years in which people have shared the best of themselves here, giving what they have to offer in the climb and offering their energy up to be expanded and dispersed by the gods of the mountain, released back into the world as fortune and celebration! A cycle of honor and cooperation, highlighting the tandemic functioning between the terrestrial and the celestial.... a place for men and gods to meet and embrace! IT is an honor for me to climb these stairs upon which so many have trod, and i go to sleep in amongst the sacred forest tonight knowing that i rest in fine company throughout the human continuum.... Many thanks and great gratitude to our collective ancestors, who have watched over all our journeys and helped us all along the way....
Sunrise on Tai Shan!
.... From a hanging spot just off the main drag at the top of Tai Shan:
The Holy Mountain has officially done me in! i haven't felt this done for a looong time; everything in my body is weak and operating at half-speed no matter what i tell IT, my consciousness is beyond presence or clarity, and am hacking up gut-wrenching coughs like an eighty-year old man! i woke up coughing stuff up this morning, and i feel like my whole system is wide-open to the sickness in my lungs right now.... i only hope i don't keep coughing for the next eleven weeks again.... Spring '09 was no fun for those three months....
So yes, my mind is extremely caught up in my body's BS right now, and IT's going to take some time and composure to get back on track, i think.... Tai Shan was truly hard work for me, and i feel very good that i have given this energy to IT; although on the way up, i had to drop down into the "IT's all over" forced-march mindset that only is reservable for last resorts when things just have to be done and there's no way around them.... IT served ITs purpose, and i had as much fun with IT as possible, while enjoying lots of encouragement from many highly amused day-climbers, most of whom seemed incredulous that two foreign folks were lugging heavy camping packs up the mountain.... i must say, this pilgrimage would have been a LOT easier if IT was just me climbing without the pack; as IT is, i'm currently existing somewhere between the realms of the living and the Undead.... And still, i will drag my bones out of the hammock, and go up packless to the temples at the very tippy-tippy-top points, while Tiffany kindly hangs back with the stuff....
IT's taken us two days, maybe eight-ish hours including all the five & ten-minute breaks, to climb to the top of Tai Shan.... i was definitely not in proper camping-climbing shape on this one! IT looks like we'll be spending the night up here tonight, and concluding the trek with the downhill run tomorrow, which will make Tai Shan a three day round-trip.... wow :-o
The temple of the Jade Emperor, the everlasting monarch of heaven, sits on the highest point atop Tai Shan, in attibutes and appearences clearly much as IT has stood these five or six hundred years.... Now paired with a giant antenna overshadowing his majesty, and a quite-modern radar station right next door, the Jade Emperor appears far more quaint than imperial, ensconced in his beautiful temple where he sits unchanging through the centuries.... Yet still IT is possible to remember what is true of this mountain, and how venerable the temple remains despite the efforts of modern imposition to steal the imperial thunder! The timeless beauty of the place, and ITs unassailable meaning put ITs electromagnetic radioactive carcinogenic neighbors to shame in comparison....
One of the beautiful experiences of my life, sitting in contemplation and gratitude upon a giant old rock a little ways past the "Danger - no farther" sign out on the easternmost point of Tai Shan's summit.... Alone upon the ancient boulder, with the eastern sky shrouded in clouds and mists lit from behind by the setting sun behind me.... Looking out east towards my homeland, far across the sea, smiling in fond remembrance and thanking the world for my presence here in China.... Thanking the four directions for travels still to come!....
i took out the Taro cards, feeling the time was right to pick one, and as i began to shuffle them, up popped The Fool, which i had apparently put in there backwards after the last time i was meditating upon him....Sticking out so, and so important to my understanding of my self and these journeys, IT seemed perfect, and so i let him sit atop the pile without picking another.... Turning the deck over to glance at the bottom card, there shone The Star, upright and assuring the wisdom and guidance all around! So with The Fool on one side and The Star on the other, i placed the cards back in their bag, and reflected upon the perfection of these moments upon the eastern peak where tomorrow, the sun may shine through on ITs rise above the mountain mists.... while i return to the hanging spot to retire underneath the brilliant full moon....
But as the moon rose over the curling temple rooftops, we found that we had to take just one covert activity before bedtime.... Earlier, we had noticed a walled-off and overgrown staircase leading down a cliffside to a small cave entrance, and wondered what could be down there that could be so off limits? The smallness and inaccessibility of the cave proved too piquant a mystery for us to ignore, and so IT was that we stole under the cover of night down through the underbrush, with only the moon lighting our way....
The suspense was tantalizing as we approached a barred cage door, locking in the darkness inside.... what would we see? We turned on our flashlights, and illuminated a stout mustached and smiling golden deity statue, sitting on a simple square seat amongst trash and construction refuse.... His cell was small, perhaps 5'x5', and locked away behind the bars of the cell door.... His smile seemed quite content with his perpetual imprisonment in his cell of solitary confinement, and we felt fortunate to have an audience, however brief, with the one thing on Tai Shan that no one (to look at the overgrowth over the staircase) was supposed to see.... We silently thanked him and made our way back to the moonlit hammocks to bed down for the night....
- Well, my experience on Tai Shan has left me with one to grow on.... After having been awake most of the night listening to the very loud all-night partying and merry-making of the throngs of overnight visitors, i blearily greeted the morning and ITs beautiful sunrise with a 100.2° fever, gurgling coughloads of loose sputum.... Tiffany pronounced me in no shape to be subjecting myself to the pounding descent down the mountain, and so IT was that my illness forced us to take the combination of cable car and bus down to the base of Tai Shan.... i feel somewhat unfulfilled, understanding that i let myself down on my personal quest to summit and return from the holy mountain on foot; and yet i must understand this experience as a lesson and reminder that improper care and lack of preventative action where my bodily health is concerned will prevent me from fulfilling my intended actions.... so help a brotha out! Take good care and assist the flow of everything as a result! Now, off to Qufu, to recover and muse upon the silent but sage advice the world so freely offers....
This is a very special trip we'll be making tomorrow, up the holiest mountain in the Taoist culture, and the messages i'm getting right now (including jacking up several key muscles in my back trying to maneuver my pack today) are telling me to SLOW DOWN and drop down into this experience.... So that's what i'm going to do.... IT definitely takes more focus to do what i'm here to do while i'm around Tiffany, and i surmise IT probably would be just as distracting no matter who i was around, if i'm not traveling solo; so perhaps this is part of the lesson involved in this part of the journey: How to do what i'm here to do, and focus the way i'm here to focus, no matter WHO i'm around, and no matter WHAT identity they might expect me to have....
A bedtime note to say: Tiffany and i are hanging in the hammocks on the slopes of Tai Shan, very nearly but not quite at the summit, after a very wonderful and intensely-tiring afternoon of ascending up the winding staircases of this place of pilgrimage....
The full moon beams yellow from a clear night-time sky, the river with ITs waterfalls whispers steadily in the distance; the mountainside is calm, and retains a presence about IT that speaks of many thousands of years in which people have shared the best of themselves here, giving what they have to offer in the climb and offering their energy up to be expanded and dispersed by the gods of the mountain, released back into the world as fortune and celebration! A cycle of honor and cooperation, highlighting the tandemic functioning between the terrestrial and the celestial.... a place for men and gods to meet and embrace! IT is an honor for me to climb these stairs upon which so many have trod, and i go to sleep in amongst the sacred forest tonight knowing that i rest in fine company throughout the human continuum.... Many thanks and great gratitude to our collective ancestors, who have watched over all our journeys and helped us all along the way....
Sunrise on Tai Shan!
.... From a hanging spot just off the main drag at the top of Tai Shan:
The Holy Mountain has officially done me in! i haven't felt this done for a looong time; everything in my body is weak and operating at half-speed no matter what i tell IT, my consciousness is beyond presence or clarity, and am hacking up gut-wrenching coughs like an eighty-year old man! i woke up coughing stuff up this morning, and i feel like my whole system is wide-open to the sickness in my lungs right now.... i only hope i don't keep coughing for the next eleven weeks again.... Spring '09 was no fun for those three months....
So yes, my mind is extremely caught up in my body's BS right now, and IT's going to take some time and composure to get back on track, i think.... Tai Shan was truly hard work for me, and i feel very good that i have given this energy to IT; although on the way up, i had to drop down into the "IT's all over" forced-march mindset that only is reservable for last resorts when things just have to be done and there's no way around them.... IT served ITs purpose, and i had as much fun with IT as possible, while enjoying lots of encouragement from many highly amused day-climbers, most of whom seemed incredulous that two foreign folks were lugging heavy camping packs up the mountain.... i must say, this pilgrimage would have been a LOT easier if IT was just me climbing without the pack; as IT is, i'm currently existing somewhere between the realms of the living and the Undead.... And still, i will drag my bones out of the hammock, and go up packless to the temples at the very tippy-tippy-top points, while Tiffany kindly hangs back with the stuff....
IT's taken us two days, maybe eight-ish hours including all the five & ten-minute breaks, to climb to the top of Tai Shan.... i was definitely not in proper camping-climbing shape on this one! IT looks like we'll be spending the night up here tonight, and concluding the trek with the downhill run tomorrow, which will make Tai Shan a three day round-trip.... wow :-o
The temple of the Jade Emperor, the everlasting monarch of heaven, sits on the highest point atop Tai Shan, in attibutes and appearences clearly much as IT has stood these five or six hundred years.... Now paired with a giant antenna overshadowing his majesty, and a quite-modern radar station right next door, the Jade Emperor appears far more quaint than imperial, ensconced in his beautiful temple where he sits unchanging through the centuries.... Yet still IT is possible to remember what is true of this mountain, and how venerable the temple remains despite the efforts of modern imposition to steal the imperial thunder! The timeless beauty of the place, and ITs unassailable meaning put ITs electromagnetic radioactive carcinogenic neighbors to shame in comparison....
One of the beautiful experiences of my life, sitting in contemplation and gratitude upon a giant old rock a little ways past the "Danger - no farther" sign out on the easternmost point of Tai Shan's summit.... Alone upon the ancient boulder, with the eastern sky shrouded in clouds and mists lit from behind by the setting sun behind me.... Looking out east towards my homeland, far across the sea, smiling in fond remembrance and thanking the world for my presence here in China.... Thanking the four directions for travels still to come!....
i took out the Taro cards, feeling the time was right to pick one, and as i began to shuffle them, up popped The Fool, which i had apparently put in there backwards after the last time i was meditating upon him....Sticking out so, and so important to my understanding of my self and these journeys, IT seemed perfect, and so i let him sit atop the pile without picking another.... Turning the deck over to glance at the bottom card, there shone The Star, upright and assuring the wisdom and guidance all around! So with The Fool on one side and The Star on the other, i placed the cards back in their bag, and reflected upon the perfection of these moments upon the eastern peak where tomorrow, the sun may shine through on ITs rise above the mountain mists.... while i return to the hanging spot to retire underneath the brilliant full moon....
But as the moon rose over the curling temple rooftops, we found that we had to take just one covert activity before bedtime.... Earlier, we had noticed a walled-off and overgrown staircase leading down a cliffside to a small cave entrance, and wondered what could be down there that could be so off limits? The smallness and inaccessibility of the cave proved too piquant a mystery for us to ignore, and so IT was that we stole under the cover of night down through the underbrush, with only the moon lighting our way....
The suspense was tantalizing as we approached a barred cage door, locking in the darkness inside.... what would we see? We turned on our flashlights, and illuminated a stout mustached and smiling golden deity statue, sitting on a simple square seat amongst trash and construction refuse.... His cell was small, perhaps 5'x5', and locked away behind the bars of the cell door.... His smile seemed quite content with his perpetual imprisonment in his cell of solitary confinement, and we felt fortunate to have an audience, however brief, with the one thing on Tai Shan that no one (to look at the overgrowth over the staircase) was supposed to see.... We silently thanked him and made our way back to the moonlit hammocks to bed down for the night....
- Well, my experience on Tai Shan has left me with one to grow on.... After having been awake most of the night listening to the very loud all-night partying and merry-making of the throngs of overnight visitors, i blearily greeted the morning and ITs beautiful sunrise with a 100.2° fever, gurgling coughloads of loose sputum.... Tiffany pronounced me in no shape to be subjecting myself to the pounding descent down the mountain, and so IT was that my illness forced us to take the combination of cable car and bus down to the base of Tai Shan.... i feel somewhat unfulfilled, understanding that i let myself down on my personal quest to summit and return from the holy mountain on foot; and yet i must understand this experience as a lesson and reminder that improper care and lack of preventative action where my bodily health is concerned will prevent me from fulfilling my intended actions.... so help a brotha out! Take good care and assist the flow of everything as a result! Now, off to Qufu, to recover and muse upon the silent but sage advice the world so freely offers....
Yuenmen Shan And The Giant "Shou"
"Ho!" laughed the sage, "you stand at my door, prancing and wheedling for me to come out and teach you the art of patience! How absurd!"
***
Just found out about the largest "Shòu" in China, carved into a mountainside near here, and am determined to go and see IT with my own two eyes! Call IT a personal pilgrimage of sorts.... ;-)
***
So! August 4, 2011, i came from across the world to climb Yuenmen Shan, the "Gateway To The Clouds" - the mountain whereupon was hewn the empire's largest "shòu", completed on 9/9/1569 in honor of a prince's birthday, connoting a wish for the prince to live longer than Yuenmen Shan ITself....
Twelve years ago in 1999, a random vision during zazen inspired one of the most painful experiences i have ever voluntarily undertook, and i was permanently inked with the Chinese longevity character "shòu" in the middle of my chest.... i had no idea of ITs actual meaning at the time, thinking IT to be "good life" or something of the sort, and upon the kind illumination of a calligrapher lady in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC, my relationship to this concept began a long, and perhaps fruitful relationship.... Since that time, i have gone through a great deal of introspection and personal clarification about what IT means to live a long life! The initial questions about the contraposed desirability of living a short yet happy life, and a long but dreary life, were answered in my unwavering inability to understand why one couldn't just have a long AND happy life and skip the drama.... My sights have been set for that relative course ever since!
Further questioning has raised increasing awareness of just how much energy is expended upon fruitless labors and flavorful-yet-toxic experiences; i have had to take a slow, hard, long look at all of my personal day-to-day actions and inactions, in a system-wide attempt to uncover exactly where i am self-shortening my life, and if i am indeed doing anything at all to lengthen my years! Of course, the relative futility of focusing on "time" must be taken into account during the process, yet the process ITself has thrown me into facing the difficulties of being embodied, moving through the physical temporal plane, and how to interact with IT in a manner which may be generally understood as "intelligent".... A lot of my choices made under the auspices of "self-medication", or even "self-care", have had to be given either the ol' heave-ho or the ol' overhaul, and my daily dietary and exercise experiences are still sorely lacking to this day....
And so, the "shòu" began slowly reorganizing my life through increasing my attentions to my own details, combined with the exercise of meditation in the slowing down of the body and perceptions in order to better observe the dynamics involved; of course, the cultural background of the character was immediately piquant, and my interest was raised in the longstanding fascination in China with living a long life.... My initial meandering researches brought me into contact with several books on Traditional Chinese Medicine, covering the systems of meridians and qi, and the medical and longevitinous arts of Qigong and Taiji, as well as various methods of massage and sexual stimulation to induce health and long lifespan.... These works were easily cross-referenced with my studies in Vajrayana and Zen Buddhism, and i found to my surprise that the First Patriarch of Ch'an, the hoary and brute Brahmin known as Bodhidharma, had attributed to him a collection of these Chinese systems (i later learned that these were debunked as the work of a 17th-century Buddhist monk of Shaolin).... The seed had been planted, and my interest in both the Chinese culture of the ancient ways and how much of IT remains in China's contemporary technocrazed society began to grow....
My obsession with playing music professionally has prevented me from thinking seriously about world travel for over a decade, all the while imagining that travel would be facilitated by creating a professional touring band.... Twelve years later, with no tour schedule in sight, not to mention the lack of a functional musical project succeeding numerous aborted efforts, semi-functional groupings and unacclaimed shenanigans, the possibility of travel suddenly became very real; and six months of night-shift work and diligent saving later, i was fortunate enough to be holding a tourist visa glued into my passport, and be on a large airplane bound for the land of the Emperors, good-hearted earthy folk, and cheap crap that breaks after a few uses.... CHINA!
After two weeks in Beijing, and some vague plans of traveling to see archaeological sites and climb holy mountains, the concrete immediate plan became a trip to the Qingdao seashore with Qingwei and Li Jun to visit Huabao, and have a little reunion for the intrepid traveling three (Qingwei, Huabao, and Tiffany).... After which, the next plan became to go to Qingwei's home village near Qingzhou and hang out with his family for a few days, and then back to Qingdao to go hang out with Huabao's family for a few days.... So!
This is all to say that i might never have heard about Yuenmen Shan during my entire stay in China, except that we were taken to the Qingzhou History Museum by our kind hosts, and during our rounds of useful education about the province and ancient history of China, Qingwei pointed out a photo on one of the exhibit walls, showing a large red "shòu" on a mountainside, knowing that i would be particularly interested.... i was immediately struck, and upon my voicing my desire to go to see the giant carving in person, was suitably amazed to hear him say that IT was quite nearby! i asked if we might go there, and to my further amazement, he said sure!
And so, two mornings later, on a beautiful hot day where the sun actually poked through the perpetual veil of smog, we and the whole Huang clan were bundled up into the vehicles and driven off into the nearby countryside to the tranquil slopes of Yuenmen Shan, to sweatily climb the winding stairs, the ladies fanning themselves with the long park-ticket stubs the whole way up....
A short time-out at the half-way temple of the God of Longevity provided much-needed shade, rest, views of the sprawling land, and an opportunity for me to do homage in my own way to the face of the concept which has been so useful for so long to so many.... The statue of the god was calm and slightly smiling, yet with an air of seriousness about him - almost like a very kindly pirate! His companion statues, one on either side, were far more jolly: a smiling fellow with a scroll, keeper of the law perhaps, and an old man leaning on a staff, holding a crane, and laughing at the world.... i bowed three times, thanking everything for being so helpful, and asking for the opportunity for me to be helpful as well....
The final push up to the destination was more stairs and hot and sweatiness, and IT was interesting to note that although generally, i would have assumed that i would be making this pilgrimage alone, the reality was that i had an escort of six other folks (Qingwei & Li Jun, Tiffany, Qingwei's Mom, Zhì Mîn and Liu Fan) with me.... A turn around a bend, and then we were there! Big as life and twice as real.... i said hello to this big rock, carved just like me and i just like IT; thanked IT, put my hands in ITs big holes and touched IT, loved on IT, took some pictures with IT, said a fond "zai jian" to IT, and took my leave to head up to the summit with the rest of the folks....
i do not know what this meeting truly means, but IT is a major point of refueling in some way, and IT represents a fullfillment of some sort of bargain made without realizing IT back those twelve years ago.... a smaller cycle within the bigger cycles has closed ITs circuit.... my mark came home, back to a home i never knew IT had....
The winding road upon which "shòu" has led me never seems to lend a glimpse of the road ahead; rather, ITs turns and switchbacks only show the road RIGHT NOW, and keep me indelibly attentive to my self-handling on each particular curve as IT springs into view.... Unlearning all my habits - year by year, day by day, minute by minute, at times seemingly incapable of change - involves processes which have seemed imperceptible, or even non-existent; yet consistent points of note and import distinguish themselves often enough that i no longer doubt my (dreadfully slow) evolution towards a more highly developed "me"! The nature of meditation, observation, and release of attachment have been the most useful practical tools in my kit bag of Self, and all of these are, for me, united under a banner bearing this special concept of longevity and signified by this character of the ancient Chinese script.... i must look back on the road travelled - so far! - with gratitude towards the innumerable gifts that i have been given, and hope that i may be dedicated enough to become one who may pass these gifts on to others! Often i tell curious folks, who wonder what exactly is going on with me and my little shadow, that every time i see IT, IT reminds me to breathe very deeply and very slowly....
Xī Hóng Shì And The Bucket
Xī Hóng Shì And The Bucket
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Xī Hóng Shì was wandering through the shady forest one hot summer's day, long ago in Guizhou province in old, old China....
He wandered here and there, so thirsty from the hot day, but he couldn't find any brooks or streams to drink some cooling water from! So imagine his happiness when he came across an old well close to Yixian village! He clapped his hands and ran over to pull up some cool well water....
Yet as soon as he drew near, he heard small sobbing cries coming from down inside the well! And to his great surprise, when he looked down the well, he saw a small boy of Yixian village that had fallen down into the well! Xī Hóng Shì cried out, "Don't worry, little one! i'll get you up and home again! Just grab on to the bucket and i'll pull you up!"
And that is just what Xī Hóng Shì did.... He cranked the bucket up, turn after turn, and soon the little boy popped up at the top, crying and sitting in the bucket! Xī Hóng Shì whooped with delight, and helped the little boy back onto the ground; holding his hand, he took the little boy back to his home in Yixian village....
The boy's family was overjoyed to see their little child, and shook Xī Hóng Shì's hand many times.... When he told them the story of bringing the little boy up in the bucket, the family insisted on being taken to the well in the woods to see this bucket for themselves....
When they all arrived at the woodland well outside of Yixian village, the little boy's father let out a big whoop, and the little boy's mother cried tears of joy, and the little boy's brothers and sisters all raised a happy clamor! They took the bucket from the well and raised IT on their shoulders, and the whole family carried the bucket back to the village square, shouting cries of joy the whole way....
Once in town, they paraded the bucket through the village streets, telling the story of how the bucket saved the boy from drowning in the woodland well.... The village elders came out and gave thanks to the bucket, and all the people of the village touched the bucket reverently as IT passed by.... Xī Hóng Shì followed behind, happy but uncertain of why his name was not being mentioned in the story, and why the village elders were not thanking him....
Finally, an official event was organized in the village square, and the whole village turned out for speeches about the heroic bucket and ITs brave actions that day! The bucket was awarded Yixian village's highest honor, and many wishes were bestowed upon IT for a long and prosperous usefulness.... Xī Hóng Shì sulked by the side of the village square with his arms crossed and a big frown on his face, as the people of Yixian village lit fireworks and brought out table after table of delicious food and drink, all dedicated to the brave bucket and the little boy IT had saved....
In the end, the bucket was covered in bronze by the village metalsmith, and awarded to the little boy's family in memory of the great event.... The bronzed bucket found a place of honor in the family's house, to be used at the most important and splendid occasions; and when not in special use, IT would hold the ashes of the family's ancestors and would be venerated daily by the father and mother, and the little boy and all his brothers and sisters....
No one ever had a second thought about grumpy Xī Hóng Shì, who went back through the hot muggy woods to his own home, pouting and grumbling the whole way about the foolish folk of Yixian village....
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Xī Hóng Shì was wandering through the shady forest one hot summer's day, long ago in Guizhou province in old, old China....
He wandered here and there, so thirsty from the hot day, but he couldn't find any brooks or streams to drink some cooling water from! So imagine his happiness when he came across an old well close to Yixian village! He clapped his hands and ran over to pull up some cool well water....
Yet as soon as he drew near, he heard small sobbing cries coming from down inside the well! And to his great surprise, when he looked down the well, he saw a small boy of Yixian village that had fallen down into the well! Xī Hóng Shì cried out, "Don't worry, little one! i'll get you up and home again! Just grab on to the bucket and i'll pull you up!"
And that is just what Xī Hóng Shì did.... He cranked the bucket up, turn after turn, and soon the little boy popped up at the top, crying and sitting in the bucket! Xī Hóng Shì whooped with delight, and helped the little boy back onto the ground; holding his hand, he took the little boy back to his home in Yixian village....
The boy's family was overjoyed to see their little child, and shook Xī Hóng Shì's hand many times.... When he told them the story of bringing the little boy up in the bucket, the family insisted on being taken to the well in the woods to see this bucket for themselves....
When they all arrived at the woodland well outside of Yixian village, the little boy's father let out a big whoop, and the little boy's mother cried tears of joy, and the little boy's brothers and sisters all raised a happy clamor! They took the bucket from the well and raised IT on their shoulders, and the whole family carried the bucket back to the village square, shouting cries of joy the whole way....
Once in town, they paraded the bucket through the village streets, telling the story of how the bucket saved the boy from drowning in the woodland well.... The village elders came out and gave thanks to the bucket, and all the people of the village touched the bucket reverently as IT passed by.... Xī Hóng Shì followed behind, happy but uncertain of why his name was not being mentioned in the story, and why the village elders were not thanking him....
Finally, an official event was organized in the village square, and the whole village turned out for speeches about the heroic bucket and ITs brave actions that day! The bucket was awarded Yixian village's highest honor, and many wishes were bestowed upon IT for a long and prosperous usefulness.... Xī Hóng Shì sulked by the side of the village square with his arms crossed and a big frown on his face, as the people of Yixian village lit fireworks and brought out table after table of delicious food and drink, all dedicated to the brave bucket and the little boy IT had saved....
In the end, the bucket was covered in bronze by the village metalsmith, and awarded to the little boy's family in memory of the great event.... The bronzed bucket found a place of honor in the family's house, to be used at the most important and splendid occasions; and when not in special use, IT would hold the ashes of the family's ancestors and would be venerated daily by the father and mother, and the little boy and all his brothers and sisters....
No one ever had a second thought about grumpy Xī Hóng Shì, who went back through the hot muggy woods to his own home, pouting and grumbling the whole way about the foolish folk of Yixian village....
.... And Beyond To Little Dongdezhung
What prevents me from changing? Why do i experience this inertia, stemming from my own self? IT seems like i love myself and wish me nothing less than the best kindness and wonderfulness possible, and yet i continue to lust after ice cream and ding dongs, and barely ever stretch.... the last time i ran around the block was probably out of necessity (and clearly i don't even remember when that was), and the last time i played basketball was probably a pickup game of one-on-one with Danielle Dennis three years ago.... i must delve ever closer to this issue, and i truly find IT so difficult while in close quarters with Tiffany, for i am simply consistently distracted from my self.... Possibly this may be wisdom in disguise, yet i cannot yet understand IT.... i am working on giving my complete trust over to IT, the trust that whatever is happening around me is exactly what needs to occur right at this very moment.... IT is okay so far, and i am encouraged....
First Slow Train experience, from Qingzhou to Qingdao: IT seems like an inopportune time to sweep the train car in the middle of the ride between stations, when everyone is jam-packed in and standing in the aisles; the train-sweeping guy has a giant pile of people's trash containing everything from cig butts to eggshells, and is pushing IT with his little broom down the center aisle while accruing from under the seats as he goes.... People grudgingly shift around as he unflinchingly sweeps a path right on through.... ***** Now they just came through and took away the emergency hammers that you use to break the glass if shit goes down.... why? Why did they take away the emergency hammers? There's nothing going on and everything is completely normal.... except that.... that's kind of weird.... maybe a little too weird....
Just on the what-if's tip: Tiffany and i, in following through on the plan of going to Huabao's family's house for a couple of days outside of Jiāonán, have made the knowledgeable decision to weather out a potentially-Class-9 hurricane with the family, coming straight for us off the coast of Qingdao.... What could go wrong? This particular monstrous typhoon (táifēng) is supposedly the worst that the area has seen in 60 years, and we definitely had the chance to choose to get on a train and head out of ITs way.... We chose to hunker down out of a desire to pursue close connection with the people of this land; Huabao's family are farmers, out in a very rural area lying a good half-hour bus ride from the urban sprawl of Jiāonán.... They have five pigs, five chickens, a duck, at least three big fat spiders, corn, squash, beans, wood-fired wok ovens, a bed heated by the vent-heat from the oven, a solar hot-water heater on the roof, and are surrounded by simple farming folk in a small village community, which is in turn surrounded by a lot of farmland in every direction.... This sort of environment is slow, earth-based, very friendly, and just the atmosphere that Tiffany and i both love to be in....
So you can understand our decision to follow through with our plan, i hope.... Yes, we could have done the safe and (some might say) intelligent thing, and tell them we would come to visit another day, when the weather was more forgiving.... But instead, we chose to accept the Liu family's hospitality of not only staying with them in their newly-built home (a solid concrete structure surpassing the old brick-and-mud house which Tiffany recalls), but also of sharing with them the experience of living through a giant force of nature, as families here have done for generations, and continued to survive.... IT is a gift, and i have chosen to treat IT as such....
i have no way at the moment to electronically preserve this writing; i have high hopes of coming out successfully on the other side of this venture, and posting this on my travelblog - once i have found a way to access the blogspot.com site that China's government has unfortunately seen fit to block from public use! Until then, i put my trust in the General Powers That Be to keep us all safe from harm here in the Liu family's little village, some 4 km removed from the oceanside and halfway between Jiāonán and Rizhao, and that general health and prosperity continue to be known by all the kind folks around these parts and down all other roads....
6 AM on the nose, 8/7/11 and the first drops of rain fall in a small burst, accompanied by a small cooling gust of wind.... both water and wind quickly pass by....
2:42 PM, the forecast has been updated to the beginning of the rain tonight, the brunt of the storm by tomorrow morning; the day so far is hot, muggy, and and shifts between sunny and overcast....
Tiffany points out that while people scramble around with storm windows at home and fret up a storm (so to speak) in similar situations, no one around here seems overly concerned and life is quite normal and peaceful in the village; even Huabao, who is usually very worried about her and is the first to voice caution, has a fairly laissaiz-faire attitude about us staying here and the whole thing ingeneral.... i get the sense that things will be fine....
6:12 PM, big rain has just started, just as i am waking up from my dreams about the alien syndicate filming in multiple locations which we had to visit to free captive children
10:48 PM, still dry out there.... big rain was for like ten minutes, Huabao called hours ago and said the forecast has updated and the storm will be moving away to the northeast and almost entirely skipping our area! We're supposed to have hard rain all day and night tomorrow, but not straight hurricane-status.... i will take this as a lesson to not get my britches all up in a bunch about things which haven't happened yet :-P
7:10 AM, 8/8/11 - IT is sunny and hot, with not a drop of rain in sight here in the village....
2:06 PM, now hammock-hanging (for the first time in China!) between trees by the lazy river right outside the village, very comfy and gently rocked by the small breezes.... This is not the hurricane experience i was envisioning
10:49 PM, all right, i'm stopping this narrative now because there is absolutely no hurricane whatsoever coming to our area! Zhā yôu!
Well, Five days in Huabao's village of Dongdezhung, frequently punctuated by tons of yummy food force-fed to us by Huabao's mother.... Tiffany drooling over the villager's intelligent farming techniques, me getting sick as a dog for a day spitting water out my butt.... We have been very warmly welcomed here and IT has been a wonderful experience! Moving on to Tai Shan and getting ready to ascend one of the holiest mountains in all of the land....
i just found someone's hair in my Chinese snacky-food baked crunchy corn-pops cake
i just realized, upon my delight in seeing clouds and some blue sky for the third time in a month now, that i really generally take the open clear sky for granted! Large sections of China (apparently) only see gray smog-covered skies, day after day, and that has definitely been our experience this past month.... i must learn to appreciate and love the clear sky more than i have previously known how....
First Slow Train experience, from Qingzhou to Qingdao: IT seems like an inopportune time to sweep the train car in the middle of the ride between stations, when everyone is jam-packed in and standing in the aisles; the train-sweeping guy has a giant pile of people's trash containing everything from cig butts to eggshells, and is pushing IT with his little broom down the center aisle while accruing from under the seats as he goes.... People grudgingly shift around as he unflinchingly sweeps a path right on through.... ***** Now they just came through and took away the emergency hammers that you use to break the glass if shit goes down.... why? Why did they take away the emergency hammers? There's nothing going on and everything is completely normal.... except that.... that's kind of weird.... maybe a little too weird....
Just on the what-if's tip: Tiffany and i, in following through on the plan of going to Huabao's family's house for a couple of days outside of Jiāonán, have made the knowledgeable decision to weather out a potentially-Class-9 hurricane with the family, coming straight for us off the coast of Qingdao.... What could go wrong? This particular monstrous typhoon (táifēng) is supposedly the worst that the area has seen in 60 years, and we definitely had the chance to choose to get on a train and head out of ITs way.... We chose to hunker down out of a desire to pursue close connection with the people of this land; Huabao's family are farmers, out in a very rural area lying a good half-hour bus ride from the urban sprawl of Jiāonán.... They have five pigs, five chickens, a duck, at least three big fat spiders, corn, squash, beans, wood-fired wok ovens, a bed heated by the vent-heat from the oven, a solar hot-water heater on the roof, and are surrounded by simple farming folk in a small village community, which is in turn surrounded by a lot of farmland in every direction.... This sort of environment is slow, earth-based, very friendly, and just the atmosphere that Tiffany and i both love to be in....
So you can understand our decision to follow through with our plan, i hope.... Yes, we could have done the safe and (some might say) intelligent thing, and tell them we would come to visit another day, when the weather was more forgiving.... But instead, we chose to accept the Liu family's hospitality of not only staying with them in their newly-built home (a solid concrete structure surpassing the old brick-and-mud house which Tiffany recalls), but also of sharing with them the experience of living through a giant force of nature, as families here have done for generations, and continued to survive.... IT is a gift, and i have chosen to treat IT as such....
i have no way at the moment to electronically preserve this writing; i have high hopes of coming out successfully on the other side of this venture, and posting this on my travelblog - once i have found a way to access the blogspot.com site that China's government has unfortunately seen fit to block from public use! Until then, i put my trust in the General Powers That Be to keep us all safe from harm here in the Liu family's little village, some 4 km removed from the oceanside and halfway between Jiāonán and Rizhao, and that general health and prosperity continue to be known by all the kind folks around these parts and down all other roads....
6 AM on the nose, 8/7/11 and the first drops of rain fall in a small burst, accompanied by a small cooling gust of wind.... both water and wind quickly pass by....
2:42 PM, the forecast has been updated to the beginning of the rain tonight, the brunt of the storm by tomorrow morning; the day so far is hot, muggy, and and shifts between sunny and overcast....
Tiffany points out that while people scramble around with storm windows at home and fret up a storm (so to speak) in similar situations, no one around here seems overly concerned and life is quite normal and peaceful in the village; even Huabao, who is usually very worried about her and is the first to voice caution, has a fairly laissaiz-faire attitude about us staying here and the whole thing ingeneral.... i get the sense that things will be fine....
6:12 PM, big rain has just started, just as i am waking up from my dreams about the alien syndicate filming in multiple locations which we had to visit to free captive children
10:48 PM, still dry out there.... big rain was for like ten minutes, Huabao called hours ago and said the forecast has updated and the storm will be moving away to the northeast and almost entirely skipping our area! We're supposed to have hard rain all day and night tomorrow, but not straight hurricane-status.... i will take this as a lesson to not get my britches all up in a bunch about things which haven't happened yet :-P
7:10 AM, 8/8/11 - IT is sunny and hot, with not a drop of rain in sight here in the village....
2:06 PM, now hammock-hanging (for the first time in China!) between trees by the lazy river right outside the village, very comfy and gently rocked by the small breezes.... This is not the hurricane experience i was envisioning
10:49 PM, all right, i'm stopping this narrative now because there is absolutely no hurricane whatsoever coming to our area! Zhā yôu!
Well, Five days in Huabao's village of Dongdezhung, frequently punctuated by tons of yummy food force-fed to us by Huabao's mother.... Tiffany drooling over the villager's intelligent farming techniques, me getting sick as a dog for a day spitting water out my butt.... We have been very warmly welcomed here and IT has been a wonderful experience! Moving on to Tai Shan and getting ready to ascend one of the holiest mountains in all of the land....
i just found someone's hair in my Chinese snacky-food baked crunchy corn-pops cake
i just realized, upon my delight in seeing clouds and some blue sky for the third time in a month now, that i really generally take the open clear sky for granted! Large sections of China (apparently) only see gray smog-covered skies, day after day, and that has definitely been our experience this past month.... i must learn to appreciate and love the clear sky more than i have previously known how....
From Beijing To Qingdao And Beyond....
Today at Yonghegong Lamasery in Beijing, the Chinese government's proof of their official loving and tolerant attitude towards Tibetan Buddhism, i saw possibly the biggest statue i have ever seen (outside of Lady Liberty in the NYC harbor) - an 18-meter-tall statue of the Matreiya Buddha, carved out of a single trunk-block of a gargantuan white sandalwood tree.... The statue is actually 26 meters in all, but has eight meters unseen beneath the floor level, making IT the Guiness Book Of World Records' pick for "Biggest Buddha Statue carved out of a single block of wood" in the world.... IT was truly awe-striking, and as i stared up at ITs giant intensity, i realized that all the thoughts running through my mind were of size comparisons between the size of the statue and Godzilla, or Galactus, or King Kong, or the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.... IT took me a couple of minutes to realize that the only things i've been programmed to think about when i see something this big are movies and comic books, and i have serious trouble keeping my mind present when all i can think about is fantasy giants from the silver screen or my childhood comics....
*****
A warm and hospitable few days with Qingwei's family in his hometown of Xi Xia Luo, a village in the town of Huanglou, near Qingzhou City, former capital of one of China's nine original prefectures and now one of the main flower-growing cities for all of China.... Despite their somewhat decrepit and well-lived in surroundings, his family has multiple cars and motorbikes, wifi, a shipbuilding business in his uncle's large backyard, and flower-growing/selling, plus land rental for other flower-growers.... Downer aspects (for me) were mainly surrounding the birds in the cages, which definitely seemed like they would have preferred to be free, and their little redhair floppy-ear dog, perpetually short-chained in a corner of the yard with no interaction at all in the three days we spent there.... He seemed intereseted and excited to meet me when i first saw him, but they warned me away from him, saying that he might bite me.... i think i'd be a little crazy too if someone chained me by my neck for my entire life in the corner of a yard and never hung out with me....! Nevertheless, they treated us with great kindness and hospitality, providing us four sumptuous restaurant meals where we were stuffed to bursting in addition to homemade breakfasts and lunch which were additionally bomb.... Their large family-reunion meal the night before we left was a straight-up feast, with two tables laden with delicious plates of foods for twenty-plus hungry mouths.... We have not been allowed to contribute for anything except our train tickets, and our hostel room for a night, and IT has been an honor to be received this way by folks i have never met before now.... i was more than happy to give a few guitar and music lessons to two eager young girls of the family, as some way to convey my gratitude to the family - very fun to slip into the role of gruff old grump of an ancient master-teacher with the two laughing kids, who were very happy to bang around on the guitar and sing out of key, and then actually took the ancient master seriously when he said, "You will both be at my door at six in the morning, doing jumping jacks and calisthenics and t'ai chi until seven o'clock, when we will begin the lessons!" And so at seven-thirty the next morning, here they are (having arrived bright and early at six!), sneaking into the sleeping ancient master's room, chirping "Shu fu! Shu fu! Get up! Get up now!" when the ancient master has only gotten four or five hours of sleep himself and is feeling particularly grumpy, especially with eager little girls who didn't get the joke the first time....
- IT is widely said: "The sages can smell the difference between disaster and triumph." - Me ;-)
i continue to struggle with my perception of inhumanity; last night on CCTV, i saw a bit on an old Japanese fishing-and-sushiman, in which he, a perfectly genteel old chap, cut into a live fish and chopped IT up, as well as picking up a living crayfish and pulling ITs arms off, popping IT all open and displaying the tender meat in ITs tail.... i cannot accept this as compassionate behavior at this stage of my existence, IT horrifies me and makes me feel sad and ill at ease....
Qingwei's big loud violent-play cousin, driving us in his nice car to the nice restaurant for a giant family-reunion feast, pops out a box from under the seat which he hooks into his car's components.... Suddenly, we're hearing police sirens, and as we start looking around, we realize that IT's us! We are now blaring five or six different kinds of police horns and sirens from outside of the vehicle, at typically piercing volumes.... IT becomes clear as we continue that he has this device for the purpose of being able to drive really fast down sidestreets and make people get out of his way from a long ways away.... We pause to reflect on how illegal this would be back in the states, and how much hot water dude would get in for impersonating a police officer, and then we let IT go and give in to the weirdness of the moment.... Interestingly enough, no one driving their little electric bikes or walking by the side of the road even bats an eye when we pass on by; cop or no cop, none of them seem to give a rat's ass and none of them get out of the way or even alter course in the slightest as we sail on by, screeching our fake police wailings in a real-time live adolescent Chinese testosterone fantasy....
Gotta love the urinal at the restaurant in Qingzhou where the pipe going down to the floor doesn't actually fit in the hole at the bottom of the urinal, so when you stand there and pee, you just start kind of drizzling down onto your toes.... just a little bit
*****
A warm and hospitable few days with Qingwei's family in his hometown of Xi Xia Luo, a village in the town of Huanglou, near Qingzhou City, former capital of one of China's nine original prefectures and now one of the main flower-growing cities for all of China.... Despite their somewhat decrepit and well-lived in surroundings, his family has multiple cars and motorbikes, wifi, a shipbuilding business in his uncle's large backyard, and flower-growing/selling, plus land rental for other flower-growers.... Downer aspects (for me) were mainly surrounding the birds in the cages, which definitely seemed like they would have preferred to be free, and their little redhair floppy-ear dog, perpetually short-chained in a corner of the yard with no interaction at all in the three days we spent there.... He seemed intereseted and excited to meet me when i first saw him, but they warned me away from him, saying that he might bite me.... i think i'd be a little crazy too if someone chained me by my neck for my entire life in the corner of a yard and never hung out with me....! Nevertheless, they treated us with great kindness and hospitality, providing us four sumptuous restaurant meals where we were stuffed to bursting in addition to homemade breakfasts and lunch which were additionally bomb.... Their large family-reunion meal the night before we left was a straight-up feast, with two tables laden with delicious plates of foods for twenty-plus hungry mouths.... We have not been allowed to contribute for anything except our train tickets, and our hostel room for a night, and IT has been an honor to be received this way by folks i have never met before now.... i was more than happy to give a few guitar and music lessons to two eager young girls of the family, as some way to convey my gratitude to the family - very fun to slip into the role of gruff old grump of an ancient master-teacher with the two laughing kids, who were very happy to bang around on the guitar and sing out of key, and then actually took the ancient master seriously when he said, "You will both be at my door at six in the morning, doing jumping jacks and calisthenics and t'ai chi until seven o'clock, when we will begin the lessons!" And so at seven-thirty the next morning, here they are (having arrived bright and early at six!), sneaking into the sleeping ancient master's room, chirping "Shu fu! Shu fu! Get up! Get up now!" when the ancient master has only gotten four or five hours of sleep himself and is feeling particularly grumpy, especially with eager little girls who didn't get the joke the first time....
- IT is widely said: "The sages can smell the difference between disaster and triumph." - Me ;-)
i continue to struggle with my perception of inhumanity; last night on CCTV, i saw a bit on an old Japanese fishing-and-sushiman, in which he, a perfectly genteel old chap, cut into a live fish and chopped IT up, as well as picking up a living crayfish and pulling ITs arms off, popping IT all open and displaying the tender meat in ITs tail.... i cannot accept this as compassionate behavior at this stage of my existence, IT horrifies me and makes me feel sad and ill at ease....
Qingwei's big loud violent-play cousin, driving us in his nice car to the nice restaurant for a giant family-reunion feast, pops out a box from under the seat which he hooks into his car's components.... Suddenly, we're hearing police sirens, and as we start looking around, we realize that IT's us! We are now blaring five or six different kinds of police horns and sirens from outside of the vehicle, at typically piercing volumes.... IT becomes clear as we continue that he has this device for the purpose of being able to drive really fast down sidestreets and make people get out of his way from a long ways away.... We pause to reflect on how illegal this would be back in the states, and how much hot water dude would get in for impersonating a police officer, and then we let IT go and give in to the weirdness of the moment.... Interestingly enough, no one driving their little electric bikes or walking by the side of the road even bats an eye when we pass on by; cop or no cop, none of them seem to give a rat's ass and none of them get out of the way or even alter course in the slightest as we sail on by, screeching our fake police wailings in a real-time live adolescent Chinese testosterone fantasy....
Gotta love the urinal at the restaurant in Qingzhou where the pipe going down to the floor doesn't actually fit in the hole at the bottom of the urinal, so when you stand there and pee, you just start kind of drizzling down onto your toes.... just a little bit
Some Thoughts On China
Thoughts on China so far:
- Men with shirts rolled up above their porky bellies
- Many, many, many different People Types
- People speaking far more loudly than strictly necessary for the distance between them
- Pirate Driving (lines on the road are more like guidelines than what you might call actual rules)
- Strong women, thick and sturdy get-shit-done'rs
- No sun and no blue sky and no individual fluffy clouds; almost every day is the same gray overcast sky, whether IT be nasty soul-eating smog or just misty cloud-cover is sometimes unintelligable, and always interchangeable
- The amazing overwhelming amount of English words on clothing; there is maybe a 98:2 ratio of English to Chinese characters that adorns EVERYONE'S clothes, most of which the average person apparently does not understand the meaning, so everyone walks around in ignorance of what they are advertising on their bodies.... A prime example (courtesy Chris Mandel) would be the innocent pre-teen girl wearing the t-shirt which proclaims her to be "Jailbait In Training"
- Men with shirts rolled up above their porky bellies
- Many, many, many different People Types
- People speaking far more loudly than strictly necessary for the distance between them
- Pirate Driving (lines on the road are more like guidelines than what you might call actual rules)
- Strong women, thick and sturdy get-shit-done'rs
- No sun and no blue sky and no individual fluffy clouds; almost every day is the same gray overcast sky, whether IT be nasty soul-eating smog or just misty cloud-cover is sometimes unintelligable, and always interchangeable
- The amazing overwhelming amount of English words on clothing; there is maybe a 98:2 ratio of English to Chinese characters that adorns EVERYONE'S clothes, most of which the average person apparently does not understand the meaning, so everyone walks around in ignorance of what they are advertising on their bodies.... A prime example (courtesy Chris Mandel) would be the innocent pre-teen girl wearing the t-shirt which proclaims her to be "Jailbait In Training"
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