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
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