While "random photos from around Asia" might not be the greatest blog title this is in essence what these are. I quite like the photo of the Beijing Bird's Nest Stadium and the tourist with the drone from Laos. Overall I think I am most happy with this set of photos. I guess with travel I saw new places so consequently the photos of those places are new. In Shanghai I often did just my daily life or saw the same things several times.
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On our last day in Xiamen we were all woken up at the bright and early 6:00AM to visit the last three things we didn't see in the city: a Buddhist temple, a fort, and a former fishing village turned shopping center. I actually don't have much to say on anything since we spent so little time in each location. What I can say is that the Buddhist temples in other parts of China were nicer than the one in Xiamen simply because they had less people. The fort is a fort, it had big guns pointed at the Nationalist (I guess now Democratic Progressive after their last election) "Republic of China" occupying Taiwan; we only spent like 20 minutes there so I think we actually spent more time driving to and from the fort than we did in the fort. Finally we went to an old fishing village that is now a shopping center, I had coffee and tasted a Taiwanese shaved ice. Diplomatic abnormalities and political conflict are no reason why we can't enjoy a shaved ice every once in a while, right? We had lunch at a distinctively Chinese barn of a sea food restaurant that was actually pretty good. I guess I got the fish I wanted but I could have used a Sedrin (the local Xiamen beer). We were then taken to the train station for our six hour trip back to Shanghai. We made it back pretty late so my friends and I got a roast meat sandwich from less sketchy roast meat guy.
On my second day in Xiamen, my group of ECNU international students was taken three hours away form Xiamen to visit the home of the Hakka People (客家民族), one of China's 56 ethnic groups. The particular Hakka community we visited, the Fujian Tulou Earthen Buildings site, is one of China's many UNESCO World Heritage Sites. We did have some delays in getting there though; one of the roads was ripped up for construction so it took us about half an hour just to pass that small stretch of street, eventually though we did make it to the site. The Tulou buildings are Earthen buildings built to protect the Hakka people from the roving bandits and wild animals that were common in the mountains of Imperial China. Each Hakka clan would have their own Tulou building that house all the essentials for relatively comfortable living at the time, such as water wells and Buddhist temples. Since most bandits just wanted to get the booty quickly and leave, they were unwilling to besiege the fortified Tulou buildings. The site was interesting I guess, I got a lot of good photos and the Fujian Tulou buildings were defiantly neat but I don't know if it was worth the six hours on the bus there and back to see them. Walking around the site, it was clear that many other people weren't willing to make the drive. While the buildings are a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a China National Tourism Authority AAAAA Tourist Site, for China there were hardly any people there. It felt like Zhangjiajie got more tourists in the off season than the Fujian Tulou did in far better weather. If you compare the Fujian Tulou to the number of tourists China's really famous world heritage sites get, like the Forbidden City of Beijing or the Terracotta Army of Xi'an, the Fujian Tulou felt down right abandon. For both lunch and dinner I had Hakka food. The Hakka were traditionally an agrarian people and their salty vegetable biased foods reflect this. I wasn't super into our lunch, I guess we went to a touristy restaurant that knew none of us would ever come back there for the food. Dinner was actually really good, the local Hakka restaurant in Xiamen proper was tasty and seemed thrilled to have such a large group of foreign customers. The food served for both lunch and dinner weren't pretty, I can't picture the Great Qing Emperor digging down on a plate of the tofu we had for lunch or the eggplant we had for dinner. It was all filling though which is what you want after a long day in the field. All in all, I guess I am glad I went if for no other reason than I can say I did.
Yesterday, my Chinese Civilization class took a field trip to the Shanghai Museum located at People’s Square. Most Chinese provinces (including provincial level cities like Shanghai and Beijing) have very impressive museums. Shanghai’s Museum is one of the more impressive of the bunch though. Furthermore, it is relatively easy to get in and it’s free so all the better. Getting there was no problem, each of us was able to get there on our own using the subway during morning rush hour. I did get a bit lost after I was let out since the subway exit I wanted to use was closed. I actually went to the Shanghai Museum once before with my Mom, but we were only able to do the top three floors. This time I got to do the final, first, floor and got to go over some of my professor’s favorite items. It was cool to get basically a private tour (while the class has about 17 students, only 8 of us were on the trip) of the museum with a top academic. My favorite pieces are still the camel ceramics, the camels are just so expressive you really get the sense for how little they actually want to be doing anything. My class and I also got to see the bronzes and sculpture exhibits on the first floor. The Shanghai Museum probably has the best collection of ancient Chinese bronzes on Earth. The exhibit takes up half of the first floor and includes countless bronze bells, food vessels, wine vessels, and some weapons. The sculpture exhibit felt kind of like the museums of South East Asia (Vietnam and Thailand mostly, particularly the National Gallery in Hanoi and the little museum at the Temple of the Jade Buddha in Chiang Rai) with the large number of old Buddhist sculptures. Interestingly enough, the Buddha and his close disciples are actually depicted as Indian, not Chinese. The historic Buddha was an Indian Prince before he became a religious figure so this does makes some sense. It is just interesting to compare the depictions of the Buddha as Indian in Chinese art (like he actually was) with the depictions of Jesus as European in Western art (which he wasn’t). Though, I noticed that most modern Buddhist temples tend to have a standard depiction (which does vary with Buddhist tradition somewhat) of the Buddha which doesn’t really line up with any possible human depiction. I sincerely doubt the Buddha had metallic gold spiky hair and skin (like how the Thai depict him) or had snow white skin with gold hair (like some of the Norther Thai and the Burmese depict him). While Jesus’s ethnicity does seem to change depending on the tradition creating the image, he is usually shown as at least human looking.
After the Museum, we had lunch ad LobsterXChicken that serves, unsurprisingly, lobster which they claimed was American, Hainanese chicken (海南鸡), and steak (I guess LobsterXChickenXSteak was a bit too long of a name). I previously mentioned that the small island province of Hainan is nationally known for their chicken and chicken product. I actually really liked the chicken, it was a bit plain but it had enough taste on its own that it really didn’t need much extra. The lobster half I got was alright, it was a bit small, pregnant, had a thousand island sauce, and had the small claw. I guess I can’t complain too much about 15USD lobster and chicken. Funnyly enough, the cups at LobsterXChicken said “FUCK YEAH” on them so I guess they don’t get many native English speaking customers despite trying to look American. Once we finished eating, we took a 20 minute walk to the Shanghai Confucian Temple. The Confucian Temple seems to be one of the older buildings in the city. Most of Shanghai’s historic architecture seem to be from the Century of Humiliation or relegated to the small water towns on the outskirts of the city so it was nice to see something old in the city proper. While the grounds were nice, there didn’t seem to be any worshipers, most of the people at the temple looked like tourists. I think going to temple is a tourist thing for many urban, non-religious Chinese. While there were offerings to 孔子 I didn't see anyone actually making an offering. The Temple did have an impressive collection of rocks since Confucian scholars are super into fancy rocks (my professor called the curvy rocks). I am not sure where this compulsion to collect rocks came from, but any proper Confucian Temple should have a court yard displaying their rock collection. Some of the rocks on display at the Shanghai Confucian were very nice, they had a bolder from Anhui province that they said looked like a crying dragon and tiger which must have been quite the project to get to Shanghai back in the day. I can state that classrooms now and classrooms in the 1400s are actually quite similar. There is a lectern where the teacher stands facing desks for students. The only difference was the desks were shorter since they had those Chinese kneeling chairs and all the furniture was a bit nicer than what Livingston High School or Juniata College bought for their classrooms. Overall the Temple and the Museum was a nice trip. I am a bit tired from all the walking and standing though. Warning: This blog post contains super minor spoilers from the movie Kekexili: Mountain Patrol. I don't talk about anything that happened outside the first few minutes but if you want to watch Kekexili: Mountain Patrol totally spoiler free be warned. I guess I should also put a trigger warning that I get into traditional Tibetan forms of corpus removal so if you aren't into that you might want to skip this post.
Today in my Chinese Film class we watched a movie called Kekexili: Mountain Patrol about the volunteer Tibetian Mountain Patrol who, in the 1990s, patrolled the Kekexili region of Tibet to protect the endangered Tibetan antelope from poachers. The move quite successfully captures the harshness of Tibet, giving it a feel somewhere between Afghanistan, Waziristan, and Alaska during the Gold Rush. To help illustrate this point, within the first 10 minutes of the movie we witness one of the Mountain Patrol member's, who was executed by the poachers, sky burial. Tibet has historically been a hard place to dispose of corpses; most of the land is too hard and too rocky to bury a body deep enough to get rid of it. Tibet, unlike many Buddhist regions, also lacks the large amount of trees necessary to cremate bodies before the invention of (and in Tibet's case access to) modern crematory machines. While the lamas (old Tibet's priest class) and other noted figures could be cremated, it was simply not possible to cremate all the dead people. Luckily for the Tibetans, Tibet is home to a large population of griffon vultures who are more than happy to eat anything dead. While Kekexili: Mountain Patrol doesn't show the full process, it shows enough for you to get the idea of what is going on. The naked dead body is brought out to a field by a Buddhist priest, sometimes the body is broken down into smaller pieces but often the body is just left whole. Attracted to the body, vultures swoop down and eat everything except the bones. The bones are then ground down, mixed with millet and yak milk, and fed to the birds who remain after the vultures are done eating. Interestingly enough, this process is not totally unique to Tibet. Zoroastrians (a small but ancient monotheistic religious group) in modern Iran and India previously Towers of Silence to dispose of their dead. Bodies would be left in the Tower for vultures to eat. Like many Tibetans, the Zoroastrians have been having issues disposing their dead using vultures. While in Tibet modern crematories have made cremation cheaper than sky burials, Zoroastrians of Iran face various government regulations and community pressures that drove the practice into disuse. The Zoroastrians of India still sometimes use Towers of Silence to dispose of their dead but, like the Tibetans, are having issues attracting enough vultures to fully dispose of corpses since the vulture population in both places has been declining. Who knows how much longer the rite of sky burial will last for? I know I mentioned this a few times on my blog before, but we got to talking about inclusive nature of Neo-Confucianism in my Neo-Confucianism class so I decided now is as good of a time as any to do a full blog post about inclusive religions. As I have mentioned once or twice before, the big three monotheistic religions that dominate the majority of Western and Islamic civilization (Judaism, Islam, and Christianity) are what are called exclusive religions, basically they ban the faithful to practice another religion. For instance, Jew for Jesus aren’t Jews because you can’t be Jewish and integrate the Christian Jesus into your practice, it is simply un-Jewish. Many of the traditional religion like things (it’s complicated) of China, Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, the ancestors, and various other gods, don’t actually forbid the practice of other religions. My Neo-Confucianism professor mentioned that ancient Chinese officials, who worked in the Confucian Imperial Court and were required to pass a civil-service test on Confucian thought, would often integrate more Buddhist and Taoist thinking into their personal life after retirement. Servant of G-d (yes that actually is his title, it is the first step towards becoming a Catholic saint) Matteo Ricci S.J., a Jesuit missionary in China during the late 1500s, actually got in trouble with the Church in Rome when he stated that ancestor worship and the Confucianism of Confucius (Ricci is the guy who coined the term Neo-Confucianism to describe the Confucianists of his day, whom he disagreed with, and separate them from the older Confucianists, who he liked) is compatible with Catholicism. When I was reading From Emperor to Citizen by former Emperor of China and Manchukuo Puyi, he mentioned off hand the religion of the Imperial Court eunuchs, a religion based on the traditional Chinese religions but still a distinct thing with a distinct style of worship, and how the eunuchs got offended when their Japanese attempted to enforce exclusive worship of Shinto gods on the Manchukian court. From my own personal observations of Buddhist temples, this religious inclusiveness has only gotten stronger as time passed. The Chinese Buddhist temples I have visited have not only included space to worship the Buddha, they also had space to pray to Caishen (财神) the god of wealth, Guan Yu (关羽) the god of war, and Confucius himself. The monks of these temples will serve all the deities who have space in their temple. Furthermore, being an atheist is still not a good reason why you can’t participate in modern Chinese religious life; many Chinese will tell you that they are both non-religious and occasionally attend temple.
The last major site I haven't seen in Zhangjaijie was Tianmin Mountain (天门山), located a ways from my hotel in Zhangjaijie City proper. After an early morning bus ride, my met my friend of a friend from a few days ago to head on up the mountain. It seemed like the only way for tourists to get up Tianmin Mountain was by taking ether the cable car or escalator, since it was raining we took the cable car. The views of the surrounding countryside and of Zhangjiajie City were quite impressive from that hight. There is not much to say about the Mountain itself, more good hikes and impressive views. Interestingly the rain turned to snow on the Mountain and draped the surrounding mountains in a gray fog. It felt almost Kong-Fu movie esk. To amplify the Kong-Fu feel, Tianmin Mountain has a Buddhist and other Chinese deities temple. Temples in China are always a bit odd. While they have worshippers, unlike many Vietnamese temples, they don't seem to have many monks, unlike Laos and Thailand, and most of the worshippers seem to be Chinese tourists. I think a touristy thing to do in this country is go to temple. The cable car ride down was a bit freaky. The car actually stopped twice for some reason, and crawled along the rest of the time. My local friend of a friend commented that the cable cars were scarier than the glass bridge over the Zhangjaijie Grand Canyon. We then bought my bus ticket to my next stop, Fenghuang County (凤凰县), also know as Phoenix Ancient Town.
Now that I am back in China and had some time to stew I now feel like it is time for a South East Asia (Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand in my case) retrospective. The first thing I would like to note is that Thailand, particularly Bangkok, is clearly more developed than ether Vietnam or Laos. While Vietnam is trying, and to a fair degree succeeding, in becoming a developed country Laos is simply not. Chiang Rai did feel more like Hanoi in terms of development, but both cities were clearly more developed than Luang Prabang. I would also like to note that I think Luang Prabang is Laos's "model city." The problems I heard about Laos, like starvation level poverty and corruption, are not visible in Luang Prabang; this dosn't mean that these aren't issues Laos faces, it is simply that the government has put there effort into saving face in Luang Prabang for the tourists. Hanoi and all the cities in Thailand felt like better representations of their respective countries than Luang Prabang did.
It is interesting to compare temples in the three countries, since I seemed to spent most of my time in Buddhist temples. Vietnam had temples but they seemed touristy. I did end up in one temple that was actually used by real Vietnamese Buddhists and many of the restaurants had little shrines but the Buddhism was not as visible. I think Luang Prabang gets tourists by marketing itself as a Buddhist temple city. The locals are apparently religious but all the temples did feel like they were set up to handle tourists. The Thai are a remarkable religious people. All of the temples, even the touristy ones, were all used by real Thai Buddhists and basically every public building had a spirt house that people would pray and make offerings to. Another interesting comparison is the attitudes toward their colonial past. Being colonized seems like it plays a big role in the Vietnamese national identity, at least historically. Vietnam is moving past that but it is still very evident in many of the historical sites in Vietnam and I would argue in some of modern Vietnamese foreign policy. While Vietnam and Laos had the same colonizers, the French, Laos seems way more accepting of the French then the Vietnamese. For instance, many young Lao can still speak French while most young Vietnamese can't. I believe that this is because Laos was granted more self government under French administration than Vietnam was. Thailand has a totally different colonial narrative. Thailand was never actually colonized and remained independent through the Age of Imperialism. In Thailand this is attributed to the wise leadership of the House of Chakri (the family of the current Thai monarch). The depictions of The House of Chakri, in particular the late Thai King HM Bhumibol Adulyadej, and Ho Chi Minh were remarkably similar. Both are show as wise leaders who are above criticism and are loved by all. Their images can be seen around, although I saw way more of HM Bhumibol Adulyadej and even the current King HM Maha Vajiralongkorn, who is far less popular than his father, in Thailand than I did Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam. Still, Ho Chi Minh is still on all the money and he is sitting in a glass box in Hanoi (while Bhumibol Adulyadej was also sitting in a glass box when I was in Bangkok the government had plans to cremate him soon). The reverence for Ho Chi Minh extended to Laos, who's current governement was put in place by Ho Chi Minh and the Vietnamese Communists during the Vietnam War. Ho Chi Minh seemed to pop up more randomly in Luang Prabang than he did in Hanoi actually. The relationship between Laos and Vietnam andros and Thailand is kind of odd. All three are ASEAN member states so Lao, Vietnamese, and Thai citizens can all easily travel to and work in any ASEAN member state. This seems to mean that Vietnamese and Lao citizens go to Thailand to work and not the other way around. Furthermore, while the Lao language is actually closely related to Thai (and are actually mutually intelligible) and Thailand (still called Siam thrn) even ruled over parts of Laos for a time, Laos is still closer to Vietnam. While I could go on, this post has to end somewhere and that might as well be here. If I end up feeling like I have more to say I will do a part two. I decided to combine two days of touring in Chiang Mai because my plans today all fell flat. I was going to go for a massage at the local prison vocational center thing, but they were all booked up. I had a whole selection of bad jokes prepared and everything. It is important to note that the inmates were doing actual massages, not "oil and lotion massages" from attractive Thai women who the monks would prevent from entering the Wat's because of their black micro mini skirts. The next thing I wanted to do, check out the museums, also didn't work too well since one of them was closed for renovations. I did get to see a lot of really cool temples, check out the Lanna Folk Life Center, and eat some Northern Thai food. The old parts of Chiang Mai remind me a lot of Luang Prabang, since it seems to be 50% temples and 50% tourists. Though, Chiang Mai seems to have more normal people who hold jobs outside of tourism/Buddhism. Also unlike Luang Prabang, most of the temples in Chiang Mai are free. The style of temple noticeable changed from Bangkok to Chiang Mai, I read that the northerners have their own style of temple. The Lanna Folk Center discussed it a bit. It seems like some of the natives of Northern Thailand have their own traditions and forms of ancestors worship, in addition to standard Buddhism. It is important to remember that the Buddha dosn't demand exclusive adherence like the big three monotheistic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) do. He seems cool with you worshipping other entities as long as he is in the equation somehow. Chiang Mai also had more Burmese style Buddhas than Bangkok, Chiang Rai, or Luang Prabang. The food is similar to Chiang Rai, both being northern. The biggest difference I noticed between Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai and Bangkok is that both Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai actually have more Thai food, Bangkok seems to be super into forign food. I would also like to note on food that the Cream-O company should stop knocking off Oreos and make exclusively their Choco Plus cookies because those things are wonderful. I guess even with my failures I still had fun over the last two days.
My last day in Chiang Rai was actually super rainy so I basically spent my whole day sitting in my room and eating random Thai food I acquired when I got sick of my room. Today I made it to Chiang Mai, a city with, so far, less rain. I spent most of my day on the bus so I didn't really get a great chance to look around, but I did get to see some cool temples. You know you spend a lot of time looking at temples when you can start to identify what style they are. The bus ride want bad actually. I got the mid-tier bus since the cheapest bus I think is a van and the expensive bus isn't worth it. The ride went smoothly for the most part. The "temporary bus station" is actually just a dirt field so, to no one's surprise but the guy who set up the temporary bus station, got super muddy after a two days for rain. We also were stopped by the police who were clearly looking for someone in particular so ignored us for the most part (other the the stopping our bus thing). I can actually recommend the bus, even if it takes three hours. Hopefully Chiang Mai will be a bit easier to navigate than Chiang Rai. So far it is a bit easier to get around, there is just more easy to get to stuff.
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AuthorI am a junior at Juniata College spending a year studying abroad at East China Normal University. Please feel free to join my on my journey to China and beyond. Archives
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