Around the World in 330 Days: Brian's Fulbright Journey in China and Elsewhere: Days 232-233: Temples and Grading

Monday we got up fairly early and visited a couple temples with Peter and Kerry's friend Harry, a D & D buddy of his: Harry is, in fact, the "Dungeon Master" of Kerry's group, a fact about which I gave him a little ribbing. Harry is extremely intelligent and well-educated: Bachelor's at Stanford, working on a Ph.D. at Princeton. He's in the fourth year of his program and is working on a dissertation on the relationship between the government and Protestantism in China (somewhat ironic, because he's a Conservative Jew). He does a lot of interviews in Chinese--even more impressive! All this and he's only 26.

We first walked to Sanguantang temple, our neighborhood temple, that we've been to before with Peter. Lots of people there, probably due to the Labor Day holiday. We looked around a bit and burned some incense (you pay 5 RMB to get in, and you get some incense sticks for admission). Afterwards, we had the noodles for 10 RMB: they give you a HUGE bowl of vegetables, vegetarian meatballs, and noodles. I could only eat about 2/3 of mine! We then took a taxi to Bao Hua Si (Baohua Temple). It was a tight squeeze to get us all in the cab, but we managed. When we got there, I saw a lot of beggars at the entrance. There's a huge courtyard when you walk in, and things seem pretty empty except for incense burners, but as you get further you see a lot of buildings, many of which have gorgeous gold statues, mostly Buddhas, from small to large. It was really beautiful, more opulent and large than Sanguantang. But, as Peter said, "There's more community at Sanguantang." As we left, I had a somewhat unpleasant experience: I ignored the beggars at the entrance, and one of them hit me with a stick, one of them smacked me on the leg, and then one lady came up to me and tried to take my water bottle from me. "Hey..no...," I said, resulting to English in my shock. (When I'm surprised or embarrassed I forget to speak Chinese sometimes.) "Sometimes you have to speak Chinese to them," Harry said. I know this, but I was just taken aback. Maybe I should have given them something, but I do get tired of the REALLY aggressive beggars here. They aren't mean, just extremely aggressive.

After we got home, we were tired, so we took a long nap. Too long. About three hours. Leftovers for dinner, and then I did some grading. I had a hard time sleeping due to the nap!

Tuesday not much went on except that I finished my grading and did prep for class. Unfortunately, my Century email stopped working: I can't seem to send or recieve messages. This is very frustrating. I might have to call them later to see what's going on.

Temple pics: