Day 38-40 “This temple is kicking your butt, Hollie!”

Day 38-40 “This temple is kicking your butt, Hollie!” quote by Jeff

We didn’t do much on Wednesday and Thursday…mostly just swam and read. On Friday we decided to make yet another attempt to go to the Jade Buddha temple. We tried to go to the temple a couple of weeks back, but ran into obstacles each time. I don’t know why, but each time I have tried to get to this place I couldn’t make it. Last week when we tried to go to the temple we rode the subway to what appeared to be a pretty close stop, but I could tell from the map that we would need to get either under or over a major freeway. The kids and I walked around quite awhile in the blazing hot sun trying to find an underground tunnel. I stopped a woman with a child about Riley’s age thinking one of them might understand English. The daughter understood enough English to explain to me that I needed to take a bus because it was too far to walk. I realized I didn’t know how to use the bus, and even if I did I didn’t know exactly where we were headed so I thought we would take a taxi instead. I stopped three different taxis and none of them would take me to the temple. I assumed it was because it was too close, but I am not sure, none of them spoke English and made the kids and I get out of their taxi each time. I got so frustrated that we just found our way back to the subway and went home defeated.

Yesterday I came up with a different plan to make our way to the temple again. We decided to take the subway, but get off at an earlier exit, so we wouldn’t be too close, but not so far as to pay a ton for our taxi from our apartment. I guess the first exit I got off of was too close because I had three taxi drivers say they wouldn’t drive me again. I don’t know what the deal is…I thought about it later and maybe they didn’t want to drive me to a Buddhist temple. Jeff said I should have cried, but I didn’t want to cry I wanted to yell at them. Especially when one of the drivers said he would drive me and showed me on his calculator that he’d drive me for 60Yuan. I laughed when he showed me this because I knew from the distance it should be no more than 15 Yuan. He was clearly trying to take advantage of me and I wasn’t that desperate to get to the temple.

Anyone who knows me knows that I am incredibly stubborn and tenacious. I was going to figure out a plan to get to this darn temple (without being ripped off by a shady taxi driver). I didn’t care at this point what was there and if it was interesting. We were going! So back on the subway we went. I decide to get back on the subway and go several stops away and try again with another taxi. It worked; we found a nice taxi driver who would drive us. It was the craziest taxi ride. We drove down narrow streets barely missing scooters, bikes and pedestrians the entire time. I think our driver honked his horn the entire route. I figured out the system for the honking around here. Several shorts honks means I am coming up on you and watch out….one long honk means you better watch out I am going to hit you in the next second or so. The kids compared the ride to the video game Crazy Taxi. We nearly hit a child on the side of the road and the driver laughed at me when I gasped and grabbed my face. He wasn’t concerned he knew what he was doing, but as a mother I momentarily freaked out. I like these taxi rides because they usually take routes through town that I haven’t been and I get to see parts of the world that I wouldn’t normally get to see. I don’t like the driving portion, but I do like the views.

Finally at the Buddha temple! We made it!! This is one of the few active temples here in Shanghai. It is famous because it has several very large jade Buddha’s. The temple was built between 1911-1918. The centerpiece of the temple is a 1.9 meter high pale green jade Buddha; it’s one solid piece of jade. We finally caught some good karma when entering the temple. We were standing in line behind a woman who accidentally dropped money from her pocket. She didn’t realize it and I handed it back to her and tried to show her that it was her money, but it had flown out of her pocket when she pulled something else out. She seemed appreciative of my returning her money. After we bought our tickets and entered the temple I heard some one giving a tour in English. I came around the corner to find the lady I had returned the money to giving a tour to a couple of western tourists. At first we tagged along trying to be discreet, but after a while she invited us to participate in her tour. It was very interesting to listen to the history of the temple and Buddhism and how it had been changed from its origins in India to the current Chinese version. I have to admit I do not know very much about Buddhism, but it was fascinating to listen to the history. There were several statues of Buddha. In one room there were three huge Buddha’s the past, present and future. In this picture there are statues of future and present Buddha's. They are always either on top of or surrounded by Lotus flowers because they represent strength and good luck.

One interesting note is that sometimes Buddha is portrayed as a woman, but it was explained to us that that transformation occurred so women would feel more comfortable praying to him, but it is still a male.

One of the clearly more feminine statues is for women to pray for fertility (in the picture above). One of the other changes is that there are several dragons (being held in the hands of the Buddha) and in western views dragons spit fire, in Chinese culture the dragons spit water and are good. This explains the dragons on the roofs of so many buildings. Also, there is a symbol on Buddha’s chest; at first it looks like a swastika, but it turns out it is exactly the opposite in direction and beliefs surrounding it. The belief is that it brings good luck and the fact that Hitler used the opposite, very similar version was bad luck. I guess it was bad luck for a huge number of people. There were several monks wondering about during our tour. In this picture there are red ribbons tied to everything in the court yard. People write their wishes on the red ribbons. The higher the ribbon is placed the the quicker the answer will be realized.

The final part of our tour involved tea tasting.

We were instructed about the proper way to start our tea ceremony. We were advised about what the different teas would do for our health. Each tea was organic and had medicinal purposes. They didn’t have English translations because these teas are original. The leaves are collected by the monks and prepared and sold here all over the world. Apparently they are very special. We did enjoy our experience, but decided against getting hooked on this tea. Perhaps I will investigate how to get some tea when we get home.

We decided to head home. We tried to catch a taxi, but the first taxi I stopped wouldn’t take us home. I couldn’t believe it!! What is the deal with us and this temple? I think he didn’t know where our apartment was and didn’t want to take the time to figure it out.I tried to explain to him that I could call the apartment and they could give him directions, but he couldn’t be bothered. I always have the kids pile in the taxi too before they turn us down thinking that they wont kick us out, but no they yell at all of us to get out. The worst part about all this is I have NO IDEA where I am, its rush hour and I have no confidence at this point that any one is going to take us home. The second taxi that I stopped did take us home safely.

We drove through more interesting neighborhoods to get home. The one thing I have noticed over and over again in some neighborhoods is they do much of their living and life on the street. There is no privacy. On this ride home I noticed drying bras and underwear on wire hangers in the trees (at street level), there was a couple having a verbal, physical disagreement right on the street (Riley noticed this and I had to try to divert his attention), a man was brushing his teeth and spitting his toothpaste out on the street. After talking to Stephanne (My new friend who is from Missouri, but has lived her for two years now…her husband works with some of the poorer locals) she said that many people share very small homes or rooms. She said there maybe 10 plus people sharing a 10x10 foot room. They may have a couple of beds in each room, but no one has their own beds. They rotate around so that every couple of nights you have a bed to sleep in. They do not have air conditioning or heat or screens on the windows. The lack of a bed would explain why I see people constantly sleeping every where in this city. The kids and I laughed one day when we went by a local restaurant because all the workers were sleeping on all the tables when we walked by (I wouldn’t laugh now that I know the story behind it, but we didn’t know why everyone sleeps all the time then). The workers here also have amazingly long days. Once you start visiting the same places over and over you realize the same workers are there 7 days a week, from opening to closing time. I guess when you are with so many people all the time you get used to not having privacy. This would explain some of the actions I see others doing. It’s not unusual to see crying women. They just sit or walk along sobbing and I always wonder what makes them so sad that they cry out in public. We are much more private in the US, I can’t say whether it’s good or bad, but different.