A Hike Up Emei Mountain

[the trailhead, clearly marked]

Around this time last year, I hiked Emei Mountain in Sichuan province, one of the four holy mountains in China. Over three-thousand meters of untouched natural preserve—not even the Cultural Revolution touched it—and away from any hint of the hustle and bustle of ordinary life, the mountain did have a sacred feeling. The lush, snowy silence was interrupted only by the occasional chanting and rising incense from ancient monasteries that dotted the ascent, from Crouching Tiger monastery to the one I eventually slept at Immortal Peak. After several hours of hiking, nothing tasted better than hot, fresh monastery food.

[the best meal $2 can buy]

Perhaps because of the cold weather, there was not much competition for the rooms at night. In fact, except for the few nuns and monks in the living quarters, I had the whole Immortal Peak monastery to myself at night, alone, that is, with the various gods and statues. There was no fire to heat my room, so at night they brought me an enormous thermos, triple insulated, which did the trick and lasted through the night, and even in the morning I was able to pour myself a hot cup of tea. I was also grateful for the blankets, which were as thick as the bed mattress itself.

As all the locals warned, halfway up the mountain lived a group of Tibetan Macaque monkeys. The prospect of encountering wild monkeys both delighted me but also somewhat frightened me, so I came prepared: I found a big stick, and I was not afraid to use it. As it turned out, they were smaller, cuter, and pudgier than I had imagined and only “attacked” if they saw a snack they liked. I saw one monkey snatch a sandwich straight from the hand of a 10-year-old girl, and then proceeded to munch on it in front of her, as if it was rightfully his.

The foliage, the wildlife, the emerald lakes, and the age-old monasteries all contributed to make the hike up Emei Mountain very memorable. One of the trail signs said it well: the trees and grass do “entertain you to joy and happiness.”

Snapshots Up Emei Mountain

[Who knew you could buy these?]

[I love reading these kinds of signs] [Yes, even monasteries use modern technology]

The Election in Beijing

Here is a little piece a filmmaker put together about a somewhat crazed Obama supporter during the lead up to the election.

(If you're having trouble viewing, you can go here.)

I wish I could have been in the U.S. during the run-up to the election—I would have liked to have canvassed, talked to neighbors, etc.—but I have to say that living in China during this time has given me an interesting vantage point. I hope my blog does not get censored for saying this, but Chinese people don’t have a clue about how democracy works. They’re not even cynical about it—imagine that. I was showing a Chinese roommate a video of an earlier Obama speech, and she became awestruck: you mean a politician who doesn’t bore you to tears with officious speech giving? Things work differently here. I won't go into details...

The events of the last couple weeks, indeed the last year or so, brings to mind for me a certain Leonard Cohen lyric:

"It's coming to America first / The cradle of the best and of the worst / It's here they got the range and the machinery for change / It's here they got the spiritual thirst. / It's here the family's broken and it's here the lonely say / That the heart has got to open in a fundamental way. / Democracy is coming to the USA."

Scenes From a Village South of Beijing

New Neighborhood, New View

I recently moved to a new house, in one of the older parts of town, a neighborhood of rambling alleyways and vestiges of an older, pre-modern community life. It lies just north of the Drum Tower, a gorgeous edifice and the scene of an unfortunate incident during the Olympics. Back in days of yore, before wristwatches, the Drum Tower was the city’s grandfather clock. First utilizing mechanized water clocks which would beat a gong every quarter hour, it eventually moved onto, you guessed it, drums.

[North side of the Drum Tower (no, not my new house)]

The traditional courtyard houses populate this neighborhood. It just so happens that, directly in front of my bedroom window sprouting out of one of these courtyards, stands a 300-year-old (oak?) tree, whose life has spanned two dynasties and has survived into the modern era. Wouldn’t you like to ask her about all that she has seen?

[View from my window]

Chaoyang Park and Beach Volleyball

[artificial wetlands in Chaoyang park with the city looking on]

Chaoyang Park has been a safe haven for me, a natural playground, a little piece of countryside, and a savior from the grit, grime, and concrete of the rest of the city. It’s a massive chunk of land, nearly the size of Central Park. Fortunately, too, it’s across the street from my neighborhood. Its very planned landscape is quite varied. I ignore the poor man’s Disneyland section, and usually hang around the lakes on the west and north side.

Beijing, in fact, has an amazing collection of parks. With over 1000 years of history, these places have witnessed many a ritual sacrifice from the emperors, the meeting of Kublai Kahn and Marco Polo, and Emperor Chongzhen’s hanging that ended the Ming Dynasty. Today, they play host to fan dances, gongfu and taijichuan practitioners, the foxtrot and waltz, sidewalk calligraphy, checkers, card games, and belt-busting opera choruses. In short, they are places of magic.

[taijichuan in the afternoon sunlight]

The problem with most of these parks, however, is you can’t walk in the grass! Perhaps I have simple tastes, but when I go to a park, I want old-fashioned dirt underneath my feet, not more concrete. Whereas everyone – not just staff people but everyone - seems to enforce the no grass rule in other parks, Chaoyang Park is a blessed exception. So, it is here I go for running, picnicking, the occasional soccer game, watching the birds and hearing the crickets in the summer, and sleeping. Yes, sleeping - as someone who used to live in a tree house, I often get the itch to sleep outside, and I’ve found a convenient fence to jump over at night.

So, I was kind of surprised, and delighted, to find that the Olympics Beach Volleyball would be playing in the park. I was dismayed, though, when I heard from someone who watched the Olympics in the U.S. that NBC showed beach volleyball during prime time every day. Kind of a cheap ratings ploy, no? As if there were not other Olympic sports...

On a clear day, you can see the lay of the park and its new stadium.

Poor George

A night before the Olympic games officially opened, the new American embassy officially opened, with our fearless leader George doing the honors. A friend of mine has a student who attended this ceremony. From an embassy family, he is in high school and, because of a mild form of autism, his social awareness is different than most.

As luck would have it, he was standing near the door when George entered the room. The president spotted this guy, who was dressed in a boy scout uniform, and cheerfully said, “Ah, we have a boy scout here.”

“Yes, I am. Were you in the boy scouts?”

“I was, but I stayed for just a year.”

“Just one year? Mr. President, you should be ashamed of yourself!”

At this point, George moved on, glad-handing with the more polite, if less spunkier, adults in the room.

[Nighttime shot of the new American embassy]

If you didn’t see his interview with Bob Costas, here is a person clearly beleaguered, ready to be out of office. He’s also fielding these questions about China, and pretends to be authoritative, but is as clueless about the China situation as most people (including me).