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| Grandmother and grandson exploring in Arts Park |
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| Would you like to find out your BMI? |
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Street near out hotel |
It is early early-early-early morning, and I am getting ready for my class. The news on China Global TV in our hotel room is covering events in Central and South America as well as women’s issues in India. One of the things we enjoy here is that China news covers the rest of the world in greater depth than most US news stations that we watch back home.
The city is waking up and traffic sounds enter our window, as do the sounds of construction, an ever present sound morning, evening and weekends in this part of town. On my walk to the Metro, once I cross the bridge over a small creek, I pass a small arts park surrounded by high-rise apartments. It is filled with sculptures, places of water and water plants and filled with people- including grandparents, children and people walking around the circular outer path. The signs encourage people to walk briskly to improve their health, and at one point we find a sun-dial like stone pedestal for measuring your body mass. Is this a health park?? Is this an arts park?? Is this a social connection park??? Maybe all of these are part of ‘healthy living’. What a lovely thought.
So a bit of additional details of our adventures and explorations so far:
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| Langhua Temple |
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| 500 Arhats |
A few days ago we visited the Longhua Buddhist Temple in the southwest corner of Shanghai. This temple is the oldest temple in Shanghai, originally built almost 2000 years ago (in the 200's) and subsequently rebuilt many times due to fires and wars. This temple is one of the loveliest of those we have visited in Shanghai, if neglected in guidebooks. It is not as glitzy or ornate as many of the temples closer to the center of the city, but inside the compound there was a calm, peaceful and welcoming feeling. Perhaps this was partially due to the relative absence of tourists- who bring a more superficial focus as they rush from building to building snapping photos without actually taking time to pause and be present to the deeper quality of spirituality that is surrounding them. Most of those there seemed to be there to worship and pray. It was also less crowded.
The temple is dedicated to the Maitreya Buddha, who is supposed to return to the earth at some point in the future to re-teach the principles of Buddhism when they are no longer being followed. I know very little about this sect of Buddhism, but I was struck by the depth and sincerity of the people praying and lighting incense to the various figures in the different shrines. The prayer rituals also seemed more elaborate- after lighting large sticks of incense, people would bring it to their forehead and bow several times in four directions, before entering the temple buildings. In front of various god and Buddha figures, prayers were offered from a prostrated position and then money was thrown into a nearby donation box.
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| Langhua Temple- Celestial World??? |
Inside the temple were some of the most profound and beautiful figures and dioramas that I have seen here. One hall housed 500 golden Arhats (a Bhodisattva who has achieved a perfected life but chooses to return to help the others of us perfect our lives). Each figure is uniquely sculpted with different gestures and facial features. Another building had what appeared to be the cosmos or perhaps the heavens, with figures seated on outcroppings or floating on clouds. In the center a calm and reassuring figure (we could not tell if it was male or female) gazed calmly at the world- calm in a land of chaos.
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| Memorial of the Martyrs |
Next to the temple was a large Memorial to the Maryrs. Surrounded by a ring of trees ranging from areas of pine to stands of bamboo, a wide empty space with immense heroic sculptures- honoring the forgotten people of revolution, particularly those killed in 1927-28 the Nationalists (rivals to the Communist movement). Stones interspersed throughout were inscribed with calligraphic poems. Some sections had benches and cover pavilions, for people to sit and contemplate, supported by the massive calm of this memorial space. In another section, what looked like names were inscribed on a long slab of shiny black stone- reminding us of the Vietnam memorial in Washington DC. We explored, and took in the peaceful, reverent atmosphere before finding our way back to the Metro and ‘home’.
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| Martyr's Memorial |
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| On a lighter note: Cute guy at Bund on a cloudy day |
We have two more days here in Shanghai, I will be teaching both days, so might not have many entries. Meanwhile Bruce will be exploring and discovering new places to visit as well as trying to return to old familiar places (although the city is changing so quickly..it is sometimes challenging). Next stop Beijing… onward.
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