We made another trip today. This time we ventured to some sites approximatey 150 km northwest of Xian. Actually we visited two places. The first one was Famen Temple, built during the Eastern Han dynasty in about AD 200. It has a 12-storey pagoda which collapsed in 1980's, after torrential rains had weakened it's brick structure, being afterwards restored. During the restauration, they accidentally discovered below the pagoda, in a sealed crypt (built during Tang dynasty) 4 sacred finger bones of Buddha (actually only one of them was real, the rest being just copies). These were exhibited in one of the temple's pavilions. People were piously praying in front of these finger bones (more fervently, of course, in front of the one considered to be real) which made me laugh a sarcastic laugh... It's unblievable how credulous people can be... And it's absolutely the same in our culture.
We understood from our guide that the Chinese government encourages the Buddhism (despite our belief that they were actually supressing it). Apparently the people that live in cities tend to be atheists whereas the ones that live in the rural areas tend to be belivers. The Chinese are incredibly superstitious, they have thousands of ridiculous superstitions.
The temple itself was more or less similar to the ones that we saw in Beijing. Huge Buddha statues and statues of other Buddhist deities exhibited inside pavilions, richly decorated, strange combinations of vivid colours. In my opinion, these were in rather poor taste but, again, I am probably prejudiced and may not be the most appropriate person to judge these things. It also occurs to me just now that some of our Orthodox churches are very strangely decorated too. So I just have to conclude that maybe this is the way by which religion appeals to the masses.
I have to say a few words about the toilets at these tourist attractions. Some of them are really very bad - yesterday I just gave up the idea of using such a toilet - the smell is absolutely unbearable in all of them (irrespective of how clean they may seem at a first glance) and that particular toilet literally consisted of several holes in the ground, united by a ditch with running water and divided by short walls but no doors. So, basically, everybody could see everybody! No privacy at all! While men may be used to this sort of toilet, I admit that I was really shocked on seeing it and told our guide that I would give it a miss. I have to add that, even where there are doors, something is usually broken and they don't close properly. So, upon entering such a toilet (it can happen in an international airport too!!) you can often see ladies peeing carelessly in the small cabins!! Well ... enough about the toilets.
It goes without saying that we were again stared at - furtive or direct looks, they were all equally embarrassing. But, by this time, I've got used to it so it doesn't bother me like it did at the beginning.
The second place we went to was Qian Tomb. Located some 80 km northwest of Xian, it's the joint resting place of Tang Emperor Gaozong and his wife, Empress Wu Zetian. The emperor died in AD 683 and his wife in AD 705. Very popular with Chinese tourists, we saw a few camels and horses to my utter delight. I admit I was much more interested in the animals than in the huge stones with or without Chinese characters written on them. There were several large stone sculptures of animals and officers of the imperial guard, most of them partially destroyed. The tomb itself is inside a hill and it has not been excavated so all the tourist can admire consists of these statues and some huge stone tablettes. Consequently, our visit was rather short.
The trip was good as it allowed us to see a bit of Chinese countryside. We drove through small towns and villages and were able to witness great poverty. Very sad. The thought that this is the sole reality ever known by these people saddened me greatly.
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Ever since I arrived in Xian, I have been trying to obtain an ironing board from the hotel reception. At first, after struggling hard to understand what it was that I was asking for, they told me that there was a single ironing board which had been claimed by another guest (cool, in a 4 star hotel!!) and then it turned out that they actually did not have such a thing. So, after 3 days of failed attempts, I had to give up and have the hotel laundry iron the shirts.
That's all for now ... I am hurrying to enjoy the last hours of a calm and pleasant Sunday ....
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