Tongzhou & The Lama Temple
I have not posted in a while because I am having trouble logging on to blogger.com again. China may be blocking me again, or maybe my internet is just acting finicky again - a lot has happened since my last blog posting...
Took another marathon bike ride to Tongzhuo last Sunday, October 29th, to go touring with Cici, a random friend I made while getting lost last time I headed out that way. She's a lot of fun to hang out with. Like most Chinese students, she has learned a lot of English, but has little casual conversational practice with "native" English speakers. I think my Texan accent throws her off also. Some things are lost in translation, but we talked about a wide range of subjects: family, work, history, and politics, etc.
Took another marathon bike ride to Tongzhuo last Sunday, October 29th, to go touring with Cici, a random friend I made while getting lost last time I headed out that way. She's a lot of fun to hang out with. Like most Chinese students, she has learned a lot of English, but has little casual conversational practice with "native" English speakers. I think my Texan accent throws her off also. Some things are lost in translation, but we talked about a wide range of subjects: family, work, history, and politics, etc.
Last Sunday we spent the afternoon seeing the sights around the town, the coolest of which was the Lama temple. Some of Cici
's explanation was lost in translation, but I gathered that a Dali-Lama died there and they built a large tower in his honor with a big stone statue inside and hundreds of thousands of bells under the eaves of the roof. The structure was interesting, and observing the superstitious rituals associated with it was even more fascinating.
Most Chinese I have run across profess to be atheist, but they are still very, very superstitious. There are lucky days, lucky names, lucky foods, lucky numbers, lucky stars (though probably fewer in smoggy Beijing than in other parts of China) and lucky rituals. One of these rituals revolves around the Lama tower.
A pious pilgrim may have all of his (or her) wishes granted if they circle the tower and bow eight times (kinda wish getting that new Beemer was really that easy.) It seems strange to me that everyone does it, but so few claim to believe in a God.
Religion was one subject which Cici did not have an ounce of vocabulary for. She did not even understand the English words "religion," "Christian," "Bible," or "Jesus."
On the whole, we had a fabulous time! Cici treated me to dinner at a we went to dinner at a Chinese restaurant. The food was good, but this 20 Quai all-you-can-eat seafood meal turned into a 120 US$ nightmare the following morning...
's explanation was lost in translation, but I gathered that a Dali-Lama died there and they built a large tower in his honor with a big stone statue inside and hundreds of thousands of bells under the eaves of the roof. The structure was interesting, and observing the superstitious rituals associated with it was even more fascinating.Most Chinese I have run across profess to be atheist, but they are still very, very superstitious. There are lucky days, lucky names, lucky foods, lucky numbers, lucky stars (though probably fewer in smoggy Beijing than in other parts of China) and lucky rituals. One of these rituals revolves around the Lama tower.
A pious pilgrim may have all of his (or her) wishes granted if they circle the tower and bow eight times (kinda wish getting that new Beemer was really that easy.) It seems strange to me that everyone does it, but so few claim to believe in a God.Religion was one subject which Cici did not have an ounce of vocabulary for. She did not even understand the English words "religion," "Christian," "Bible," or "Jesus."
On the whole, we had a fabulous time! Cici treated me to dinner at a we went to dinner at a Chinese restaurant. The food was good, but this 20 Quai all-you-can-eat seafood meal turned into a 120 US$ nightmare the following morning...
posted by Nathan @ 12:04 AM
1 comments
1 Comments:
Here's something I found about the temple. Maybe this person, Yongzheng, is there and not the Dali Lama. That really did get lost in translation!
Lama Temple Beijing, or Palace of Peace and Harmony, a renowned lama temple of the Yellow Hat Sect of Lamaism.
Building work on the Yonghegong Temple started in 1694 during the Qing Dynasty. It originally served as an official residence for court eunuchs. It was then converted into the court of the Prince Yong (Yin Zhen), a son of the Kangxi Emperor and himself the future Yongzheng Emperor. After Yongzheng's ascension to the throne in 1722, half of the building was converted into a lamasery, a monastery for monks of Tibetan Buddhism. The other half remained an imperial palace.
After Yongzheng's death in 1735, his coffin was placed in the temple. The Qianlong Emperor, Yongzheng's successor, gave the temple imperial status signified by having its turquoise tiles replaced with yellow tiles which were reserved for the emperor. Subsequently, the monastery became a residence for large numbers of Tibetan Buddhist monks from Mongolia and Tibet, and so the Yonghe Lamasery became the national centre of Lama administration.
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