Lost on Planet China - J. Maarten Troost [73]
Yes, I was.
In the years to come, tales would be told in the squid community of the epic carnage that occurred one dark and stormy night in a restaurant on an island in the East China Sea. Among the squid, it was said that this monster, this laowai from the West, found it difficult, initially, to eat them. His first victim, little Jimmy, squirmed out of his grasp and leapt back into the bowl, and there he remained for a long while as the laowai considered his course. But determination overtook him, and after little Jimmy had been disposed of—the cruel decapitation, the torturous peeling of skin, the body dipped in vinegar—the remaining squid were quickly subjected to a gluttonous blood-lust. The laowai decided that he liked his squid fresh, and methodically, efficiently, mechanically, he emptied the bowl, until finally nothing remained but a pile of squid heads with wet, black eyes staring blankly up at him. He then sat there contentedly picking his teeth with a toothpick, satisfied to have crossed this culinary Rubicon.
The new day began with sheets of rain and tempestuous winds. A squall had descended upon us. But this was fine. I like weather. I am intrigued by weather. Across the narrow road from my hotel were a few small shops where I bought an umbrella and an orange plastic anti-rain sheet that I draped over myself.
I had come to Putuoshan because, even after the beaches of Qingdao, I had been overcome by a serious case of urban fatigue and an island somewhere off the Yangtze delta in the East China Sea had seemed like an excellent cure. Putuoshan is a very small island; I could walk from end to end in an hour or two. But it is not an island for speed walking. It is an island for lingering. There are pagodas and gardens and warrens of alleys where shops sell dried fish and the joss sticks, or incense, that burn inside every temple. And there is greenery. Eighty percent of the island is forested, a verdant tangle composed of 1,800 ancient trees, including camphor trees, which are special, though I’m not entirely sure why.
It is said that in the year A.D. 916 a very naughty Japanese monk sought to steal a statue of Guanyin, the bodhisattva of compassion, from the Chinese mainland and abscond with it back to Japan. It’s endless, really, the mischief of the Japanese in China. Guanyin, however, did not wish to go to Japan. And so when storms terrorized the young monk as he sailed back home, she appeared to him in a dream and informed him that if he would just leave the statue on Putuoshan he might live to see another day. Otherwise, it was Davy Jones’s locker for him.
Putuoshan thus became an important sight for those of the Buddhist persuasion, and its most prominent landmark is a hundred-foot golden statue of Guanyin built in 1998 that overlooks the harbor. Indeed, the summit of Mt. Putuoshan, a small hill really, is considered to be one of the four sacred mountains in Buddhism (not to be confused with the five sacred mountains of Taoism, such as Tai Shan). Over the years, the island acquired a strong monastic tradition, and there are several prominent temples such as the Puji Temple, which is where I soon found myself, drenched despite the anti-rain gear. Inside was a large golden Buddha. They are the friendliest-looking deities I know of, Buddhas—there is just something about the big potbelly that encourages levity. You cannot imagine them smiting an idolater with a lightning bolt. Inside, monks and worshipers lit joss sticks and did their devotions. Two mothers stood nearby, teaching their slit-pants-wearing youngsters how to bow and pray.
Buddhism, I was pleased to learn, was enjoying somewhat of a revival in China. It had long been present in China, of course. The first Buddhist missionaries arrived in the first century, and with time Buddhism developed a sizable presence, particularly as it evolved to include facets of homegrown Confucianism and Taoism.