Forbidden City

对不起，我不写，我们很忙和没有时间。  现在汉语棵很蛮。
（Duibuqi, wo bu xiexia, women hen mang he mei you shijian.  Xianzai hanyu ke hen man.）
(Sorry, I haven't been writing, we're very busy and have no time.  Right now Chinese class is very rough/difficult.)

Sorry I've not posted in so long.  We've been very busy, Chinese classes have been accelerating and becoming more difficult, though we're all still doing fine, we just have to put more time into studying.  On top of which we are enjoying ourselves with frequent adventures out in Beijing.  One such adventure, taken as part of our Cultural History class with Dr. Clark, was a trip to the Forbidden City, the seat of Chinese imperial power during the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties, from the fourteenth through twentieth centuries. 

The forbidden city was fascinating.  Like many aspects of Chinese culture, it was highly organized, with every building designed functionally and architecturally to serve and represent its purpose.  Everything down to the shape of roofs communicated something about the building's importance and function.  Also fascinating was, again, the vast number of tourists wanting to see an artifact of Imperial China.

The first photo depicts Tiananmen (天安门）（Heavenly Peace Gate), the main entrance to the Forbidden City, through which the Emperor would go out of the city and officials would go in, though officials were only allowed to use the left and right entrances, as the center entrance was reserved for the Emperor.  This was also where the emperor would address the people, and where the Qing emperor proclaimed his succession to the seat of imperial power and his taking of the "Mandate of Heaven" after the fall of the Qing Dynasty. This was also where Mao Zedong proclaimed the beginning of the People's Republic of China.  The gate has been affixed with a portrait of Mao, flanked by quotes from his famous declaration, and the seal of the Communist Party.

The second photo depicts the throne of Emperor Qianlong, an Emperor of the Qing dynasty, where he and his successors would hold court.  Though the throne room was closed to the public, people were allowed to look in over the tops of the gate at the throne.  This was by far the most popular item in the forbidden city, as hundreds of tourists fought for good position to take photographs of the throne.  I managed to get a picture by holding my camera over my head.  It was very interesting to see the near obsessive desire to photograph the throne, which only a very few people, only court officials and imperial eunuchs and concubines, would ever see during the Imperial City. 

The third photo is of an old Chinese water clock, the traditional time-keeping device in China before Mateo Ricci brought clocks and clockmaking to the Qing Emperors in the 15th century.  The water clock was located at the entrance to the "Hall of Clocks" where many of the fantastic clocks, either gifts from Jesuit missionaries or created by imperial clock makers in later years, were displayed. 

The final photo depicts the view of the entire forbidden city as seen from Jingshan, a mountain built over the rubble of the Mongolian Yuan forbidden city.  We climbed Jingshan, which was a profound experience.  We were walking on one of the most potentially archeologically valuable sites in the world, one which may never be exhumed due to Jingshan Mountain's own history as a Buddhist Site in the Forbidden City and as the place where the last Ming emperor hanged himself in despair as the Manchurians prepared to invade Beijing.

That is all for now.  I have many more photos of the forbidden city, and a lot more I could say about it, but I need to study for my next class.  再见！（Zaijian/See you Again!) 

The Great Wall

 So this Saturday we went out on another adventure to the Great Wall, and while there are still a few locations from the Study Tour that I need to blog about I figured I would do the next entry on the Great Wall, while it is still fresh in my mind.  The section of the Great Wall, which is actually called the "Long Wall" in Chinese, was one which has not been heavily repaired and is not frequented by tourists, as it lies about two hours outside of Beijing and is only accessible by car or bus.  We were accompanied on our trip by Dr. Lucas, one of Dr. Clark's colleagues who has lived in China for 20 years and works at Minzu as a coordinator for American international students.  Dr. Lucas is giving supplementary lectures on Modern China for our classes with Dr. Clark, and will also be taking us on a four-day hiking trip through some villages in Shanxi province later this month.  He is visible on the left of the first picture above.

The Great Wall was a sight to behold, snaking along the mountaintops, visible as a jagged gray line from the road. The day was shrouded in mist, which lent the wall a mysterious air even before we climbed it.  Dr. Lucas challenged us to reach the end of this section of the wall, which he claimed would take almost three hours to reach and return from, exactly the amount of time we would be spending at the wall.  Tom, Andrew, Erik, and I took on the challenge, and set off.

We climbed an uncountable number of steps, at first either well-maintained sections of stone stair work dating back to probably the Ming or at least the Qing dynasty, or wooden stairs put in place where the stairs were in disrepair.  As we progressed further, the wall stretching out before us began to take on a green tint as the wooden replacement stairs disappeared and the entire surface of the wall gave way to a ruinous pseudo-jungle scape.  What tiles there were lay broken and disconnected, and we walked on a surface of earth and rock, foliage grazing our legs.  Trees that must have been fifty years old or more grew on top of the wall.  At times the wall was visible as nothing more than a line of stone to our right and a line of stone to our left, its middle collapsed and overgrown.  At times we balance-beamed across sections of wall less than a foot thick.

At the end of the wall lay a guard tower and a drop-off.  With some time left to explore, Tom took the guard tower stairs out into the jungle, wherein the mist was so thick I could barely make him out ten feet in front of me.  We also climbed the guard tower itself, and Andrew took our picture.

Visiting the Great Wall was a truly fantastic experience, my first with real ancient ruins.  I enjoyed it immensely.

P.S.: Dr. Clark's 13-part television series "The Saints of China: Martyrs of the Middle Kingdom (hosted by Dr. Anthony E. Clark)," will begin airing this week.  It can be watched online at http://www.ewtn.com/.

Wuyie and Jinghai Temples

Wuyie and Jinghai temples were two very similar cites, notable for very different reasons, but their appeal was not in their appearance, which was rather standard for Wutai temples and visible in the first image which is of the entrance to Jinghai, but in their history and what they represent. 

Jinghai temple was fascinating for its use of Tibetan Buddhist imagery.  First, the outside of the many of the temples were decorated with painted Mandalas, representations of the cosmos from a Buddhist perspective.  One of these is pictured in the second image.  Inside one of the temples, an even more interesting Tibetan image was visible, but not able to be photographed.  To the left side of the statue in the Sakayamuni hall was painted a Yabyum Tantric Sex image, left uncensored and mostly undamaged.  This was an astonishing find, as all Yabyum images in China are supposed to be censored, and most were destroyed or damaged during the Cultural Revolution.  Yet here we found one overlooked by the Chinese government.  These images are very important to Tibetan Buddhism, and it is seen as unfortunate by Tibetan Buddhists that they are not allowed to openly display them in China, so it was very special to find one left alone.

Wuyie Temple is important for its role in the Boxer Uprising of 1900, in which the Chinese government took action against Westerners living and working in China, most notably Christian missionaries, particularly Catholics.  Wuyie Temple was one of the staging areas for this uprising, where Boxers would gather and watch Chinese Operas, writing the names of powerful spirit-characters in the operas on paper which was then burned and mixed with water, then consumed in an attempt to imbue oneself with the powers of those spirits.  After doing this, the Boxers would go out and attack Christians in nearby Taiyuan city, which was the location of the bloodiest of the Boxer massacres, an event I will talk more about when I blog about our stay in Taiyuan.

That's all for now, next up will be Twin Pagoda Temple.

Tayuan Temple

Tayuan temple, a Tibetan Buddhist temple which is home to a massive White Dagoba said to house one of the 84,000 Shahara relics of Sakayamuni, was the location of some of our most profound experiences with monks at Wutai mountain.  First, we witnessed a monk listening to an MP3 player, an incongruous picture which puzzled many of us.  Later, while we stood in a group listening to our tour guide Mary explain some aspect of the temple, a monk took a video of us on his cell phone.  We asked Dr Clark why monks would have these sorts of luxury items, and he explained that many of the monks at Wutai mountain are not, in fact, Buddhist monks but people hired by the tour organizations to perform as essentially costumed characters, like Mickey Mouse at Disney World. 

In contrast to these pseudo-monks, we had a genuine encounter with an actual Tibetan monk on pilgrimage to Wutai from Tibet, picture in the second picture.  The monk sat down beside Micheal while he wrote in his journal and started asking him questions in Chinese.  We called Dr Clark over and he translated for us.  The monk was asking us if we had ever been to India, as he had recently gone there on pilgrimage and found it to be profound and inspiring as a spiritual place.  He wrote his name in Micheal's journal, but in Tibetan, which is nearly impossible to romanize, so we still don't know how to say or write it.  I found myself later wondering how this devout Tibetan monk felt about the pseudo-monks with cell phones and MP3 players, and how his spiritual experience at Wutai contrasted with his experience in India.

The final picture is of a monk who had just finished meditating under a tree, a common practice in reference to the story of the Buddha achieving awakening while sitting under a Bodhi tree.  I took a picture because this monk seemed to exist as a sort of in-between of the very devout Tibetan monk and the fake Wutai-land monks with cell phones, as he lived on Wutai as a devout monk.  I wondered, too, how he perceived the fake monks.  This disparity between the illusion of these monasteries as active and thriving places full of devouts when in fact most are actors, and the fact that there are actual devout monks who live in and come to these places defined in many ways my experience at Tayuan.

Xiantang Temple

Next on our study tour we stopped at Xiantang Temple, the first Buddhist temple in China, dating back to the Han dynasty, and the biggest temple at Mount Wutai.  Xiantang features seven halls, three of which we visited; the Sakayamuni Hall, the Guanyin Hall, and the Manjusri Hall.  A few of us also ventured further into the temple to see the Bronze Hall, featured in the fourth picture above.  The interior of the Bronze Hall, which was as its name implies created entirely of burnished bronze, was lined with ten thousand small statues of the Buddha.  We were not able to go inside the Bronze Hall, but we could peer in through the doorway, and it was difficult for me to really take in the craftsmanship and the number of man hours it would have taken to make the inside of the Bronze Hall with pre-modern technology. 

The first picture above is not specific to Xiantang.  It shows a stone turtle, on the back of which was set a giant stone tablet which served as a label and an information sign post for visitors to the various temples on Wutai during the Qing dynasty.  The stone turtles were used as the bases for these signs because turtles are long lived, and were thought to be well suited to carrying the information on the tablets into the future.  Based on how much is still known about all the temples at Wutai, the turtles seem to have succeeded. 

The second picture is of a procession of monks which we saw walk through the courtyard of Xiantang temple, followed by a group of pilgrims carrying incense sticks.  The procession was fascinating to watch, in large part because in spite of the apparent solemnity of the occasion, some of the monks seemed only half-interested in their chanting and meditative walking.  Seeing this made me wonder whether or not the spirituality of the monks at Wutai is affected by the huge amounts of tourism on the mountain.

The third picture is of Micheal at the entrance to the Thousand Hands Guanyin Hall.  We were not allowed to take photographs inside the halls, but in taking this picture of Micheal at the entrance to this hall I managed to capture some of the statue of Guanyin within, by chance.  So now you get to enjoy my dumb-luck photography!

The fourth picture is of the bronze hall which was by far the most striking thing about Xiantang temple.  It stood at the top of a tall staircase at the very back of the temple.  The hall was made of solid bronze, as were the two pagodas in front of it.  The inner wall of the hall was covered in bronze statues of the Buddha, all of which reflected the light of a single candle stand to illuminate the entire hall.  I wish we'd been able to photograph inside the Bronze Hall, it is extremely difficult for me to try and convey what it was really like.

Next up: Tayuan Temple!

Pusading Temple

The next place we visited on Study Tour was Pusading Temple, the favored temple of the emperors of the Qing dynasty.  It was built from 471 to 499 AD, repaired and renamed the Great Manjusri Temple in 1403 AD.  Pusading is notable for its yellow roofs and imperial dragon imagery, featuring the five-clawed dragon of the emperor, neither of which were allowed to be displayed anywhere but the Forbidden City and other imperial palaces.  Pusading is allowed these icons because it served as the temporary imperial palace when Qing Emperors would visit Wutai.  The yellow roofs are especially important, as the temple belongs to the Yellow Hat sect of Tibetan Buddhism, a sect which prefers  yellow roofs but were only allowed to use them with imperial permission.  Pusading is one of the few Yellow Hat temples to feature yellow roofs in China.

The first picture is of the Sakayamuni Hall at Pusading. This photo clearly shows the important yellow roofs that set Pusading apart from other Chinese temples.  The second picture is of the Pusading Incense Burner, the largest incense burner at Wutai mountain.  Interestingly, this item was only added to the temple in 2000, a gift from a Tibetan monastery.  The third photo is of a group of monks we saw sitting across from the Sakayamuni hall, talking to some pilgrims.  We also saw a Buddhist nun meditating in front of a statue in one of the smaller halls.  I have a photo where she is visible, but I am not sure it would be respectful to post it online.  The fourth picture is of the steps leading down to the road from Pusading.  In modern times, this staircase serves as Pusading's exit, though it was originally its entrance.  The glass-covered section is the Dragon Way, the steps reserved for use by the Emperor and Empress when they would visit Pusading.  The Dragon Way has been amazingly well preserved.

Another interesting thing we saw at Pusading was a statue of Manjusri covered in drapery.  Initially, this did not stand out to me, but Dr. Clark pointed out that the statue was likely originally created as a Yabyum image, a symbol of tantric sex, an important part of Tibetan Buddhism.  The Chinese Communist Party has made an effort to censor all such images in China, and this would explain why most of Manjusri's statue was covered in cloth, with only his head visible.

That's all for Pusading!

Shuzaing Temple

Here's a quick post about Shuzaing Temple, the first temple we visited on Wutaishan.  I'll do longer posts on the other temples, because many of them were a bit more interesting.  The most notable things about Shuzaing were the Great Manjusri Hall, featuring a gigantic statue of the Boddhisattva Manjusri lined in gold riding a giant blue lion, and the crowd of merchants selling incense sticks, lotus candles, prayer beads, and prayer flags as well as Buddhist trinkets in front of the temple steps.  This was my first exposure to the commercialization of Buddhism at Wutaishan, which became a rather consistent theme throughout the rest of the study tour, as well as the commercialization of other Chinese historical sites. 

The first picture is of me standing at the bus checkpoint at the entrance to Wutai mountain.  Behind me you can see the Wutai Valley, which was absolutely beautiful.  Wutai is a five-peaked mountain, with a valley between the five peaks, and a different Boddhisattva is said to dwell on each peak.  The valley, however, and therefore the area itself is thought of as the dwelling place of the Boddhisattva of Wisdom, Manjusri.  Most of the Wutai mountain temples are dedicated the Manjusri, including Shuzaing.

Shuzaing was a beautiful temple on its interior, an area we were not allowed to photograph, but in many ways it was not all that different from the other temples we visited, which were more interesting and which I will discuss more in the future. The second photo above is of the main hall exterior at Shuzaing.  On the right you can see the ritual bell.  Inside this structure was a truly massive statue of Manjusri which we were unfortunately not allowed to photograph.  It was easily fifteen feet tall, covered in gold and jade.  Absolutely magnificent.

The third picture I've posted was not at Shuzaing but at the town we stayed in that night.  The town was full of tiny shrines to all number of things.  This was one we stumbled across, dedicated to a rock.  None of us could read Chinese, so we still don't really know what was up with this shrine.  It may have been Daoist, as Daoists are more often the persons who practice worship of natural objects, and Daoism also regards Wutai mountain with special interest.

That's all for today!  We went to Karaoke tonight and I'm way tired.  It was super fun though.  Hannah, Matt, and I sang Poker Face.  Also, Eric and I sang Power by Kanye West.  Good times.