Brief Notes on a Trip to Shanxi

After coming back from Shanxi, I rested for a day (mainly catching up on a week’s worth of cartoons…), then spent a day and a half busily occupied, and only now have I begun to jot down a few things.

But once I picked up the pen, I still didn’t know where to begin. After all, I’m not good at writing travel notes, and this trip to Shanxi didn’t bring me much in the way of harvest either, so I can only give a chronological account in the form of a流水账.

June 30, departure:

Because I had exams on the 27th and 28th, and was rushing to finish a paper on the 29th, although I successfully turned in the last paper of the semester by the time we gathered on the morning of the 30th, that whole string of busyness meant I hadn’t bothered to pack for the Shanxi trip. Fortunately my mother happened to be in Beijing recently as well, so I left the packing to her completely, while I only had to make sure I brought my camera and three idle books. In the end, I discovered that the clothes my mother prepared for me were far too many, so much so that I brought even more stuff than the girls, while some of the boys were done with just a single backpack. It turned out that seventy percent of the clothes I brought were never used…

My three bags, big, medium, and small, were first held up by Lao Yang as a negative example. He said that when traveling it’s best to bring only one bag, for ease of management and carrying. But in fact, even if I had brought fewer things, I would still have to bring three bags—the three bags each have a clearly defined role. The biggest travel bag or suitcase is the “supply train,” used to store changes of clothes and other cheap, bulky burdensome stuff, and once one arrives somewhere it’s usually just dumped in the hotel and ignored; the medium bag serves as the mobile reserve, usually a backpack, and when setting out it is generally packed with little or nothing, or with snacks or drinks that will be used up quickly, as well as a few books (life without books nearby is terrifying). And if, during the trip, one needs to go shopping or stroll around town, it can be used to carry the spoils (how tiring it is to carry things by hand); and if one is going on a long trek in the wilderness, it can hold water, food, rain gear, and other equipment, and during breaks supplies can be swapped with the big bag at any time, allowing one to adapt flexibly; as for the small bag, it is the carry-on bag, brought with me at all times, containing nothing more than money, ID card, mobile phone, pen and paper, camera, compass, and occasionally even a book. In short, these three bags each do their own job, no more and no less.

For the various friends who might appear on the blog, let me briefly introduce the general background. This trip was nominally a department-organized social-practice field study, themed “the protection and development of traditional culture and its relationship with tourism,” but in reality it was just going out to have fun (as later events proved, it was less a tour than an accompaniment tour; more on that later). In any case, we just had to come back and write a fieldwork report. Led by Lao Yang, the group included four boys—I, Mist, Teacher Li, and Xiao Cui—and seven girls, including crq, who initiated this activity; her father is a senior official in the Shanxi Provincial Party Committee, and in fact the whole trip was led by him; as well as our class monitor and the Party branch secretary, two northeastern women, whose presence meant that even though the four of us boys were all rather disappointing, there was still someone who could hold the line a bit in front of the leaders; then there was wjy, the president of the Peking Opera and Kunqu society, who not only could drink and toast, but also had to sing little tunes for the leaders; more on that later; then there was dangdangmao, the head of the department forum version; and finally Zhu (actually a beauty) and Li, two members of the ws gang.

We spent the whole day on the train, with our main activities being: reading; secretly photographing classmates with my camera (the most classic shot during that time was Mist’s lion’s-roar-style yawn); sleeping (dozing off intermittently several times); and playing “Murder” with the classmates. Generally speaking, the essential activity for a trip away is card games, but this time almost nobody brought cards, and not many people were interested in playing, so that was that. Perhaps the types and rules of card games differ too much from region to region, and many classmates simply don’t have the tradition of playing cards… As for the game “Murder,” it also counts as a classic at class gatherings. Although the rules come in many versions, ranging from simple to complex, the simpler versions are easy to learn, and the atmosphere when playing is lively. By the way, let me note that in this murder game Mist earned the nickname “the logical positivist without logic.”

Although the train was an hour late, we still arrived in Taiyuan after eight in the evening, and crq’s parents had already been waiting there early. After getting off the train, we were picked up by the luxury van that would carry us around for the following week—not the kind used by travel agencies, but a state guest vehicle. Even the highest-ranking leaders ride in this one when they come, and the driver was called Master Ma. He won our favor later in the trip, more on that later.

When we got to the Shanxi Hotel, after dropping off our luggage in our respective rooms (Mist and I naturally shared one), we went to attend css’s welcoming banquet. During the meal there was inevitably all sorts of polite exchange, and I already had some premonition at the time—about the main meals of the following week…

After dinner we didn’t do much and went to bed early. Taiyuan was only a transfer point; the next day we would go to Pingyao Ancient City.

July 9, 2007

 

A Brief Record of the Shanxi Trip — July 1, Pingyao Ancient City
Gu Chu 发表于 2007-07-10 15:01:01

July 1, Pingyao Ancient City

In the blink of an eye, Hong Kong’s return to the motherland has already reached its tenth anniversary. Time really flies. But I was too lazy to care about that. After getting up early this morning and eating breakfast—which was also a round-table meal—we got on the bus and headed to Pingyao Ancient City.

When we arrived at the ancient city, local officials were already there to receive us. We first settled into Deshengyuan Inn, and not long after putting down our things we assembled and set out. We would be staying in this inn for two days and two nights. The inn was undoubtedly the most luxurious one there, with only two floors; the second floor had a dozen or so rooms on two sides. Mist’s and my room was the third one on one side with five rooms, but the room number on the door was 836, while the neighbor seemed to be something like 829. I had no idea how they were arranged. Some auspicious stickers hung at each room’s doorway; our room actually had a big red double-happiness character, and the two happiness characters looked like a man and a woman plus two hearts. Mist shouted in utter speechlessness.

This guest room counts as one of the more comfortable standard rooms I’ve stayed in—the key thing is that the ceiling unexpectedly had a white light, so I could read; moreover, the bed was firm, so it wasn’t too stuffy and hot.

After gathering, we first followed the guide all the way to the city wall, and walked a quarter of the way around it: Pingyao Ancient City’s wall is complete, and one full circuit is about 6 kilometers.

From the city wall, one can look out over the scenery inside the city. A glance reveals mostly ordinary residences: Pingyao Ancient City is still “alive,” not a museum built on ruins. It is said that in recent years most residents have been gradually moved out, but there are still 40,000 residents inside. The remaining residents will not all be moved away, because that would deprive the ancient city of its life.

While talking with the guide on the city wall, LY had already begun to show signs of XXX, frequently asking strange questions, and in the days that followed XXX became increasingly serious…

We walked from the west gate to the north gate. The “wengcheng” here was quite interesting: after entering through the city gate, one is confronted by a wall, and then by turning a corner one reaches another gate. Between these two gates, enemy troops could be “caught like a turtle in a jar.” The stone blocks and iron spikes hung on the city wall hinted at the disaster invading troops would suffer upon entering the city. (LY’s question was: if those iron spikes fell down now and hit a tourist, what then…)

What was particularly impressive was that, in front of the city gate, we learned that just a few years earlier, this whole huge gate had been almost buried in earth; what we see now is the result of digging away several meters of soil. Truly the saying about seas turning into mulberry fields.

After leaving the city gate, we took an electric sightseeing cart to visit the Rishengchang draft bank—this kind of vehicle at tourist attractions is really annoying. Fortunately, on the street we saw many places renting bicycles, and we definitely had to rent one to have some fun.

Rishengchang has been run as the “Chinese Draft Bank Museum,” recording the glorious history of the Shanxi merchants. But I didn’t have much feeling for this attraction, so I’ll skip it; if I have a chance later, I’ll write something specifically about the Shanxi merchants.

At noon we returned to the inn for food and drink, and there was inevitably more politeness and toasting. But up to this point I still hadn’t found it too annoying, and lunch was still pleasant.

After returning to the room I slept for a while, and when we gathered in the afternoon Mist and I were actually late—yet in the earlier gatherings the two of us had always been the first out. Later it proved that the two of us were either the earliest to arrive or the latest to arrive, but altogether we were late only twice. LY said that next time if anyone was late, he wouldn’t wait. Yet how many times would he himself be late in the days to come…

In the afternoon we first visited the county government offices—since the yamen had long served as the county government’s office, it was preserved relatively well. The county government office and the escort agency we visited afterward didn’t leave much impression, so I’ll skip them. One thing worth mentioning is that during the tour we ran into a rather strange person who pulled LY into a small room and said things like “one must not harbor the intent to harm others, but one must be on guard against being harmed by others” and so on (of course I didn’t go listen). Then he took out a notebook and had LY flip through it to draw lots. LY drew good lots twice in a row, and the man then went on spouting more cryptic stuff, after which he wanted LY to pay him. LY, however, was quite straightforward and handed him 20 yuan. The other party wasn’t very pleased and said that at any rate he should have given an even amount… In the end the man finally misspoke, saying that LY ought to change a child’s name. But who knew that LY had no child, and at that point LY seemed to finally wake up and leave.

In the evening we also took a detour to see the production of Pingyao’s famous lacquerware (tuicui), which really was quite a good craft. Back at the inn, css gave each of us a lacquerware jewelry box as a gift (LY’s question was: this is for girls, so boys shouldn’t take it, right). I also took it without being polite about it at all (I figured it must be worth at least one or two hundred yuan), and originally wanted to hide it myself, but when I got back my mother saw it, so I simply gave it to her instead~

Dinner was moved outdoors, and as usual there were all kinds of politeness and toasting. The four of us boys just happened all to be unable to drink, and none of us were very good at dealing with such situations, so we depended entirely on wjy, xy, and the other girls to hold things up. Still, we did manage to gulp down some alcohol. Mist seemed to be better able to drink than I was, though both at lunch and dinner he had at times drunk himself into a miserable state and fled back to the dormitory.

At night we planned to go out shopping. Naturally we would have preferred free activity, but who knew that the moment LY heard this he said we had to move together as a group, and that he was going too. Mist and I claimed illness and said we wouldn’t go. We set out only half an hour after LY and the others had left. We rented a tandem bicycle and spent half the day riding around the lively and the secluded parts of the city—during which there were two occasions when we almost ran straight into LY. Fortunately, both times we managed to avoid him in time… At that time I bought a few small things (for example, a pair of ws sunglasses and a slingshot), while Mist was contemplating buying a sword or knife, which I also had in mind. Secretly acting on our own was much more enjoyable, though it did feel a bit sorry toward our classmates.

July 10, 2007

Latest comments
  
Yiwu

2007-07-10 20:53:38 [reply]

Um~~ was it a slingshot or a bow? 
What’s WS? 
LY… is pretty cute… next life let him be reincarnated as a Daoist priest, that’d be nice~~`don’t be a mentor anymore…. what a talent“wasted.

  
Gu Chu

2007-07-10 21:18:19 http://epr.ycool.com/ [reply]

A slingshot is a slingshot, a bow is a bow. 
WS = wésuǒ. One of the common university terms…

  
Gu Chu

2007-07-10 21:59:39 http://epr.ycool.com/ [reply]

Actually, as a mentor LY is still very good…

  
Yiwu

2007-07-10 22:20:17 [reply]

I mean~ he’d be even better as a village Daoist priest~ absolutely compassionate~~

  
Yiwu

2007-07-10 22:21:46 [reply]

LY’s question was: if those iron spikes fell down now and hit a tourist, what then… 
Look at that~~~ so kind-hearted~ 
Also~ I want to know too~~~ what then?

July 2, Pingyao Ancient City, Second Day

This morning was the first discussion session arranged by css, where we listened to several officials and tourism administrators introduce some matters, and then the classmates asked some questions. I didn’t pay close attention, and I didn’t ask anything, because I really couldn’t think of anything to ask.

Later Mist and I talked about one issue: according to them, moving Pingyao residents out was not compulsory; rather, they used methods such as relocating schools and work units outside the ancient city, making life inside the ancient city inconvenient, and then, since the new buildings outside the city are after all more suitable for living than the old architecture, they induced young people to move out on their own. Mist asked whether this wasn’t a violation of human rights. At the time I said that wasn’t so bad, after all the city still retained certain necessary institutions such as hospitals, kindergartens, and post offices, and whether some institutions moved their address or not was voluntary and not unreasonable. At least formally it was still fair. But later I also thought about this issue: what I care about is not whether it is fair or unfair; the key question is, moving the middle school out of the Confucian temple, moving the government out of the county yamen—just what is this, protection of Pingyao’s culture, or destruction? Turning the Confucian temple into a tourist attraction and the county yamen into a museum or exhibition hall—does that really count as the protection of traditional culture?

In fact, the greatest characteristic of Pingyao Ancient City is that it is still alive. It is still a city with life. It is not like the fragmented and scattered ancient buildings in other modernized big cities, nor like some long-dead relic. The preciousness of Pingyao Ancient City lies in its wholeness—not only complete city walls and complete buildings, but also living residents; the life of this city has never been interrupted.

Yet, looking at those glass display cases in the places transformed into “museums,” I couldn’t help feeling worried—things placed inside glass cabinets are already dead. They are nothing more than specimens, fossils, to be sighed over and played with by people. Perhaps one day in the future, the ancient city itself will become a giant museum, and even the residents who still remain will all become museum docents, souvenir sellers, or perhaps models displaying old clothing, actors reenacting ancient life, and no longer part of the ancient city. If that were so, then the life of Pingyao Ancient City would no longer continue.

After the discussion session ended, they still sat there in place chatting idly, while Mist and I left first and went back to the room (because we saw that lwz had already left). Later I saw from afar that wjy was again singing opera in the courtyard, though I don’t know whether it was of her own accord or at LY’s request…

Lunch was as usual, but because some of our classmates had felt unwell from drinking over the previous two days (including Mist and me pretending to be sick last night), css said we wouldn’t drink this time, which was rather touching.

After the meal we rented bicycles again and roamed around the streets. This time, in addition to Mist, Xiao Cui joined us as well. We rented three single-rider bikes, and I specifically asked to choose a big 28-inch one. While passing the antique street, Mist and I stopped to buy a bow and a knife, and in doing so left Xiao Cui behind (or perhaps he left us behind…).

Mist bought a broadsword, with the asking price at 450. We turned around and walked off immediately, and the owner hurriedly said, how about 100 yuan? In the end it sold for 80 yuan. Afterwards I also bought a copper bow—it looked furry and a little eerie, but as a makeshift thing it was actually quite interesting, after all in Beijing I’ve never seen anywhere selling such a thing. Later someone said it was a Mongolian bow, but that was as far from the truth as could be: a Mongolian bow is short and fierce, whereas this bow was bulky and flashy, fit only to be decorative (although the owner said it could shoot a wild boar dead within ten meters). Its style was probably some kind of ordinary recurve.

After taking the bow and knife back to the room, we went out again to continue wandering—at first we wanted to look for Xiao Cui, because Xiao Cui seemed to have said he wanted to go see the northeast corner. In short, we deviated from the main streets and bumped around aimlessly in the residential area, passing the Confucian Temple we would visit that afternoon and discovering a Christian church nearby.

In the afternoon we went to the Confucian Temple (Guan Di Temple), the City God Temple, and a Daoist temple, and none of them left much impression. I’ll skip them.

At dinner Mist and I again left early, after which the classmates collectively rented vehicles to go see the Catholic church (this should have been initiated by Li). Perhaps thinking that the two of us really were in poor health, they didn’t call us along; fortunately lwz ran over to ask to borrow our car, so we didn’t miss it.

We chatted and laughed our way to the Catholic church, only to arrive just as it was closing. Helplessly, Da Li planned to pay a visit again tomorrow morning, while the rest of us would rather just sleep in. On the way back, Mist and I again parted from the main group for a while. During that time, Mist mainly bought the mechanical pocket watch he had taken a liking to earlier. Two watches, one large and one small, were haggled down to 100 yuan. The two sides of the watch each had hemispherical glass, so one could see the gears inside, which was still rather interesting (later I discovered that this kind of watch wasn’t only in Pingyao, but was everywhere in places like Wutai Mountain as well; still, 100 yuan seemed fairly reasonable). As for me, I also bought a “cane sword”—that is, something that looks like a cane (metal) but can be drawn out into a sword—in fact it looks more like an awl, nearly square in shape.

Actually, I had also wanted to follow Mist’s example and buy a sword to play with, but after looking around I never found one I particularly liked. Like Mist, I thought it was really tacky to have something like “household-protecting treasure sword” printed on the blade. In the end I finally saw one in a shop that I liked—the proprietress mysteriously called me into the back room and took out a sword for me to look at—and at last I understood what it feels like when, the moment you draw a sword, you can sense its aura pressing in on you. That sword was plain and unadorned, and felt wonderfully good. Then I asked the price and was shocked—12,000! Of course I had no choice but to turn around and leave. Only then did I realize that with the 120 price range I could afford, there was no hope of buying anything good; in that case, better to buy something practical. So I spent 50 yuan on a cane sword, thinking it might come in handy when climbing Mt. Wutai later on (but in the end there wasn’t any mountain-climbing activity).

After wandering around for a bit, just as I was about to head back to the hotel, I ran into the main group again. Hearing that they were planning to go have some drinks, I quickly returned the bicycle and joined them.

We entered that special bar—called “Sakura” (the Japanese word for cherry blossom), while inside it mixed together styles from many countries. Dozens of national flags hung from the ceiling; the walls were covered with all sorts of English and French words, as well as portraits of Comrade Lei Feng, Che Guevara, and others; American country music was playing; and the building itself was Chinese-style. It was a complete jumble, but it didn’t look out of place at all—it was rather interesting.

We ordered some drinks, mostly cocktails. Mist and I each ordered a soft drink first, and then without any warning I treated Mist to two cocktails—one called something like tea, and the other a Blue Hawaii, which was better. I also tasted a few sips of each. It was my first time in a bar, my first time drinking cocktails, and it felt pretty good. Drinking a bit more in that atmosphere was pleasant too, and cocktails are much tastier than beer.

July 10, 2007

 

Latest Comments
  
Yiwu

2007-07-10 21:59:17 [Reply]

First time I’ve heard of a cane sword.

  
Ceiling

2007-07-12 22:41:08 Anonymous 58.63.145.1 [Reply]

Little Gu! About those so-called claims of traditional cultural preservation in Pingyao, they’re really big-handed, special-handed nonsense! I wrote about it on my blog too.

  
Gu Chen

2007-07-12 23:43:08 http://epr.ycool.com/ [Reply]

By the way, after testing it with a magnet at home, the so-called copper bow’s exposed parts really are copper, while the furry part is iron……

  
Yiwu

2007-07-13 00:59:24 [Reply]

Iron? Furry???

  
Gu Chen

2007-07-13 09:52:27 http://epr.ycool.com/ [Reply]

Bow and knife:  
http://foto.yculblog.com/epr/DSCF0497a.jpg

Brief Notes on the Shanxi Trip—July 3, Qiao Family Compound, Chang Family Compound
Gu Chen 发表于 2007-07-10 22:37:15

July 3, Qiao Family Compound, Chang Family Compound

We left Pingyao early in the morning, visited the Qiao Family Compound in the morning and the Chang Family Compound in the afternoon—the Qiao Family Compound is quite small, while the Chang Family Compound is astonishingly large (and therefore, in fact, is not called a compound but an estate). But I have no interest in places like this—not as good as watching a costume drama—so I’ll skip it.

We had lunch at the township government office. The food was fairly ordinary, though the final item, some kind of dough spread on leaves, was rather distinctive; still, it didn’t seem popular, and even after three huge platters were served, the students barely finished half a small platter. The main memories worth mentioning from that day were the classic gossip photo of Li and Xiao Cui that I secretly took at lunch, and the cute image of LY blowing a dandelion that I photographed in the afternoon.

In the evening we returned to the Shanxi Hotel in Taiyuan, which served as the transfer stop from Pingyao to Mt. Wutai. Dinner was extremely luxurious: we drank the finest Fenjiu, and a pastry chef also gave a live demonstration of making Shanxi noodles. CSS mentioned a rather interesting piece of advice: if students want to go abroad, they might as well learn a trade like knife-cut noodles, get a chef’s certificate, and then it would be easy to find a part-time job in a Chinese restaurant overseas that is both easy and profitable. If you don’t have a skill, then all you can do is wash dishes and do other miserable, exhausting, poorly paid work. It really did sound quite reasonable; one must admit that their social experience is indeed quite useful.

July 10, 2007

Brief Notes on the Shanxi Trip—July 4, Mt. Wutai
Gu Chen 发表于 2007-07-11 10:51:07

July 4, Mt. Wutai

CRQ (CSS’s daughter) said that because in just over a week she would be going back to school with us for the summer term, she wanted to stay with her mother for these two days, and besides, she had already been to Mt. Wutai, so she stayed in Taiyuan for the next few days.

When we arrived at Mt. Wutai, we stayed in a three-star hotel. The room facilities were quite good (though still not enough lighting), and there was even a computer! Using the computer here was in theory supposed to cost money, but we discovered that it was actually running Meiping Security Guard, and you could crack it simply by starting in debug mode or by quickly opening Task Manager and killing the process when entering XP. So we were able to go online for free, and the speed was pretty fast too. Over these two days Mist mostly used the computer, while I watched a few episodes of anime; in the spare time I read in the toilet (only the toilet had a sufficiently bright white light—this is the case in most hotels).

We arrived at “Taihuai Town,” that is, the little town embraced by the five terraces, and in the end we did not visit even one of Mt. Wutai’s terraces; we only visited a few easily accessible temples.

Both the morning and the afternoon were spent touring temples. I no longer even remember which temples we visited. I think the one in the morning was a lamasery, and the murals were rather interesting.

Mist and I neither burn incense nor worship the Buddha, and Yali and Xiao Cui seemed uninterested as well. The other classmates and LY would sometimes circle the pagoda three times as instructed by the guide, and sometimes burn incense and worship the Buddha; that too was rather amusing. CSS of course emphasized that it is better to believe rather than not believe, and was very devout. CSS said that the richer the place, the more believers there are, and the higher the officials, the more believers there are—this does make sense. As for Chinese folk belief, if I get the chance I’ll discuss it in a separate essay.

The way LY muttered to himself while turning the prayer wheel was rather cute. The pronunciation of the Six-Character Great Bright Mantra is: om ma ni pad me hum. I often recite it for fun in daily life, but ask me to chant it while circling a prayer wheel and I won’t do it~ By the way, I noticed that many lamas circle the prayer wheel briskly instead of turning it by hand; I wonder why.

Today’s main meal was still a banquet, but LY actually declared: students do not drink alcohol; there are rules at school, and students cannot drink. That really moved me a little. But later on he still became more and more fz……

During the meal (I think it was on this day, though I’m not entirely sure), LY brought up how students lacked physical stamina, whereas he and CSS were in better shape: for example, yesterday evening in Taiyuan the two of them even went out shopping and walked a long way, but the classmates all said they were tired and didn’t go out. We listened in silence, and Master Ma spoke up for us: the key isn’t that our stamina is poor, but that we can’t walk together with them!

Hearing Master Ma speak on our behalf, of course we were deeply moved and applauded in unison. But LY was still explaining: yet CRQ didn’t go shopping either—she should be able to walk together with her father…… Master Ma said, after all, there is a generation gap.

Then the topic gradually and unfortunately shifted toward young people being immature and lacking social experience, and LY greatly praised CSS’s lecturing.

(By the way, LY said propolis is honey plus ejiao. Propolis, royal jelly, honey…… pollen!?)

There was free time in the evening. Master Ma suggested taking us to climb a hill to see Nanshan Temple. Five girls and I went; Mist actually wanted to play on the computer and refused to go, while lwz and the others seemed to have been sent out by LY to wander around the Ming-Qing Old Street.

We climbed a little hill, so this time we finally also climbed a mountain…… Nanshan Temple has not been developed and utilized; it is a desolate, run-down place overgrown with weeds. Listening to Master Ma chat about this and that in front of the temple gate was quite interesting.

July 11, 2007

Brief Notes on the Shanxi Trip—July 5, Mt. Wutai, Day Two
Gu Chen 发表于 2007-07-11 11:26:20

July 5, Mt. Wutai, Day Two

We got up before 6 a.m. and followed LY and the others to burn the first incense of the day. I had burned incense before too, but one good thing about Mt. Wutai is that you can take three sticks of incense for free at the temple gate, instead of having to fork out a huge pile of cash to buy incense. However, as usual I did not burn incense, because Mist and Yali also did not burn any. If everyone else had been burning incense, I wouldn’t have minded bowing a little, but since there were already people watching, I didn’t join in the excitement either.

But we were pulled into a “ritual activity,” and under those circumstances I also had no choice but to kneel and kowtow together with everyone. The old abbot bestowed sacred water on us, told us to drink a little and smear a little on our foreheads, and I did as told, feeling that the water was clearly something like Master Kong green tea. Then the old abbot gave each of us a blessed amulet (and also gave LY a blessed Buddha statue). Mist asked me what “consecration” meant; actually, it just means the old monk chants spells at it for a few days, putting “spiritual power” into it.

The rest of the daytime was still spent visiting various temples, nothing of interest, so I’ll skip it.

The more unusual thing was that in the evening we visited a women’s Buddhist academy. The academy was founded by an elder from Yanjing University, and it was quite large with strict discipline. This was not originally a tourist spot, but we went in anyway. Out of respect for the practitioners here, I did not secretly take photos inside the grounds……

CSS said that the female nuns who have renounced the world here are irresponsible people, mostly because of romantic setbacks and the like, and LY naturally agreed as well. This is indeed a fact: Buddhism speaks of the six roots being pure and clear, which means cutting off worldly “responsibility”; as for setbacks in love and life, if they become the opportunity for complete awakening, then there is nothing objectionable about that. It is those people who so despise monks and nuns and know nothing of the Dharma, yet comfort themselves with “if the heart is sincere, it will be efficacious,” thinking that burning a few sticks of incense is enough to express devotion—truly absurd and laughable. For them, burning incense and worshipping the Buddha is nothing more than self-deception and an escape from freedom; what right do they have to mock the masters who practice with sincere devotion?

At the Buddhist academy we received two books, one about moral self-cultivation and the other the famous Report by a Scientist Studying Buddhist Scriptures, of which I already had another edition. The young monk said that if you don’t believe in Buddhism, then you shouldn’t take them, because if you do take them home you must respect them properly, not contaminate them, not bring them into the toilet, and so on. But I still took them, because I would still properly put these two books away; Mist did not take them, but LY insisted that Mist take the Report by a Scientist Studying Buddhist Scriptures, saying that since it is a research article, even if you don’t believe in Buddhism you can still take it home and study it. Mist had no choice but to take it.

Dinner in the evening was our last meal at the Mt. Wutai hotel. The food here was good, but after several meals it was all monotonously repetitive—over and over it was just these few kinds of noodles, and my stomach was getting uncomfortable…… This meal again had alcohol, and LY also required the students to “perform a program” — the first to be singled out was naturally wjy, and then lwz pushed me forward and taught me to sing a section of a Buddhist scripture, so I sang half a verse of the Sanskrit Heart Sutra. After that the students took turns in succession.

Finally LY sang “My Chinese Heart,” and we were seeing LY’s singing voice for the first time. But this time, because LY forgot the lyrics badly and because he didn’t sing for very long, we didn’t yet have a particularly deep impression. LY finally proposed that we sing again tomorrow on the bus; more on that later.

July 11, 2007

 

Latest Comments
  
zw

2007-07-12 11:52:12 Anonymous 124.17.17.164 [Reply]

I feel like you guys just ate noodles and drank wine the whole trip.

  
Gu Chen

2007-07-12 20:49:56 http://epr.ycool.com/ [Reply]

That’s really how it was…… I didn’t have much of a feeling about the temples or compounds. In Pingyao Ancient City, besides wandering around the antique street, there wasn’t much to feel either. It was mainly eating noodles and drinking wine, plus taking photos~~

  
Ceiling

2007-07-12 23:02:43 Anonymous 58.63.145.1 [Reply]

So-called social practice, then. It certainly has nothing much to do with looking at historical sites……

July 6, Return Journey

This morning was a discussion session, held around a very, very large round table. I still did not ask any questions or speak—although LY was sitting next to me, repeatedly urging me to speak. Mist seemed to be the first to ask a question, saying whether the noise of tourism had a major impact on the monks’ practice. The old monk said that practice mainly depends on the inner heart and so on, and LY and the others added things like “the truly hidden person hides in the bustle,” but to my mind these statements are somewhat self-deceptive; perhaps a genuine master of the Way would have the ability to practice in such a noisy place, but I think most of the monks here do not possess that level of cultivation.

At noon we had the chance to eat a vegetarian meal together with the monks and lay practitioners. We didn’t know the dining rules in advance, and managed, trembling with nervousness, to get through one meal. Only when leaving did the other three boys fail to follow the line and instead cut through the middle, and as a result a young monk called them back and made them walk through it again.

We took the bus and left Mt. Wutai. LY insisted on taking a group photo at the gate and even brought out that tattered “Philosophy Department” flag, taking one photo inside and outside the archway. After that we drove all the way back to Taiyuan.

On the road back to Taiyuan, most of the classmates wanted to nap a little, but LY, as originally planned, was going to show off his singing voice. There was a microphone on the bus, the amplification worked well, and it could ensure that every classmate heard clearly—hell……

The first thing I thought of was Takeo in Doraemon—especially fond of singing, always insisting that other people listen to him sing, yet singing in a way that is “suffocating”…… I always thought that kind of situation was fictional, after all it’s just a manga—how could there really be someone that awful? ZW was already quite formidable: he sang completely off-key, but it was still somewhat tolerable, and someone who sang like that shouldn’t be out dragging people around to listen with him either…… But reality proved there is always a higher mountain beyond the mountain; one really has to服……

Since it was still early, we first drove around “Yingze Avenue” casually, and in the end stopped by the river for a while. Feeling the breeze was rather nice, and during that time I caught a funny photo of Mist laughing heartily, with Yali beside him looking especially distinctive~

At last we arrived at some four-star hotel and first sat in an extremely, extremely, extremely huge lounge. After sitting for a while, LY was ready to begin the summary of this social practice trip: mostly talking about how the students lacked social experience and how worthwhile it was to listen to CSS’s lecturing, and CSS also repeated the whole thing once more. As he got into it, LY began to cite negative examples among the students—first he mentioned a student who hadn’t participated in the activities (Yi Ge), saying that he had many strengths but not enough approachability, and that it was not easy for others to get close to him, and so on. I held back and did not respond; but who would have thought he would then bring me up next, saying that I did have quite good approachability, but “an insufficient estimate of the complexity of society,” and so on. I finally couldn’t hold back and argued with him on the spot—

Once upon a time, when LY was telling the whole class about future plans and choices and such, he once mentioned that he was somewhat dissatisfied with lwz, because lwz seemed too mature, too realistic, while I was better, and a bit like him: both of us were idealists. At the time I immediately took issue with him, saying that this society was still very realistic; once one had reached university, many issues had to be taken into account, including future employment, income, and so on. But now LY has turned around and criticized me for underestimating the complexity of society—why is that?

After hearing this, LY could only say: I do recognize the complexity of society, but I haven’t reflected that in my actions. I did not continue to respond either—after all, if I really did reflect it in my actions, then I would truly have become a completely worldly realist. Then what, exactly, is the “idealism” LY was talking about? Does he mean that one should surrender to the secular both in understanding and in action? If so, where on earth can so-called “idealism” still exist? Only in words and in writing?

Afterward, css continued his instruction, saying that one must pay attention to the occasion when doing things, for example, if one has objections to a superior, one may offer suggestions in private, but absolutely must not confront them head-on in a meeting. Of course, this was obviously aimed at my conduct just now.

Once again it was Master Ma who rescued us—after he applauded and shouted approval, he suggested taking us out onto the streets for a stroll.

Taiyuan’s commercial streets were really nothing special, not much to see at all, and before long it began to drizzle, so we went back to eat dinner. At least, the sermon was finally over.

In fact, if my friends were going to become civil servants, or wanted to become cadres, seek promotion, and the like, I too would warn them about the complexity of society and the importance of etiquette and rules. But does everyone really have to pursue the same things? Although I inevitably look down somewhat on such worldly people, I do not reject them; on the contrary, I often find them familiar and close. css’s sermon was exactly the same as my father’s—how could it not feel familiar to me? But just as I do not wish to impose my own life philosophy on others (I truly do not want everyone else to accept my ideas; I would much rather my ideas remain unique, and at most I hope that one or two people whom I identify with can also identify with me—that would already satisfy me completely), if others want to impose their own ideas on me, I always have to defend myself.

The evening banquet was held at an extraordinarily, extraordinarily, extraordinarily huge round table; I would probably have had to climb onto the table itself in order to reach the center. The dishes were first portioned out by the waiters and then placed directly in front of each person. This time there was, at last, not too much lecturing. Instead, each of us was asked to write some words of thanks to css in a small notebook. My classmates all wrote at great length, and when it came around to me I had no choice but to squeeze out the words as hard as I could, roughly mentioning things like how everyone has to go through youth, how the road of life must always be explored by oneself, and so on. I wonder whether my terrible handwriting (css repeatedly stressed the importance of practicing calligraphy) and Mist’s message, written like an oath to join the Party (“not to disappoint… will certainly devote myself to the socialist cause…” and so on), might have driven css mad. Fortunately, when I looked through the others, it seemed that the rest of the classmates had all written quite well.

Train tickets were really tight. Even with css’s ability, it was difficult to get twelve tickets on the same train. There were two tickets that were separate, boarding twenty minutes earlier than the others and arriving two hours later. Mist and I took them voluntarily—because we figured that our “dangerous weapon” of luggage probably had to be checked. In the end, however, thanks to css taking us into the VIP waiting room, where luggage inspection was relatively lax, the two of us actually managed to sneak our bags through without even having them go through the X-ray scanner. Trembling with fear all the way, we somehow made it through, and returned safely to Beijing.

That concludes this brief record of the Shanxi trip; in a few days I’ll write the practical report.

July 11, 2007

Latest Comments
  
zw

2007-07-12 11:48:23 Anonymous 124.17.17.164 [Reply]

I think LY is always finding some excuse to bring the two of us up. But I’m very relieved—at last I know there’s someone out there who’s even less able than I am to stand singing.

  
mist

2007-07-29 10:59:28 Anonymous 124.17.16.85 [Reply]

Hahahahahaha 
I’m a person of meager talent; there’s already not much brocade left in my belly~ 
Also, I’m indebted to you for taking care of me on this Shanxi trip. There were some situations I had never experienced before, so I didn’t end up making a fool of myself. Thanks

Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.

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