Coming out of China - Part 1

The 10 days in China came and went by so very quickly with my spartling Chinese.  It was quite an eye opening trip as it was not as bad as what I heard about.  It was pleasant to note that the 4 main places I went to were rather clean - Xiamen, Nanjing, Shanghai and Putuo-shan.  

I had only 3 complaints - the heat, the open spitting and the loud noise levels (the Chinese tend to speak very loudly like they are arguing, and they tend to honk when they drive).

There were maple trees everywhere, lining the streets of all these cities, mixed with ginkgo, pine and willow trees.  I could tell by the look of the trees that most of them were more than 50 years old.  The maple trees were just starting to turn gold.

Hardly any land was wasted, either used for development, housing or agriculture.  There were vegetable and rice farms everywhere, even in Nanjing and Shanghai where there were vacant land.

Xiamen is reported to be the cleanest city in China.  One can hardly find trash anywhere.  Shops open from 9 am to 10.30 at night.  If there are customers, they stay open till 11 or 12.  They are very accommodating.

The day we arrived at Xiamen, we immediately departed for Fujian Nan'an, a small town 1.5 hours drive from Xiamen to visit the town god's temple.  Nan'an is Fujian's stone city.  There were so many stone factories around the city with many heavy vehicles loaded with stone plying the roads, resulting in dusty and badly damaged roads.

We made our prayer offerings at the temple dedicated to Chen Hwang (Emperor of Hades) and his generals Ah Pek and Ji Pek.  This temple, we were told was built in the 1700's for Nan'an's army.  After paying our respects, we were invited to drink Chinese tea by the caretaker of the temple who has worked there since he was a boy.  We then made our way back to Xiamen and checked into our hotel, freshened up, proceeded to dinner and all had a foot massage to wind down the long day.

Day 2 was spent going to Anxi, tea city of the Fujian Province.  The road there was partly dusty but not as dirty as the road to Nan'an.  We passed many tea plantations and discovered that the famous Tikuanyin tea originated here and a park is dedicated to the legendary founder.   More about the story later.  There were padi fields and vegetable farms intermingled with tea.  There were also lots of bamboo growing along the rivers.  Yes, Anxi is also famous for its bamboo products.

We visited 2 temples here, got lost along the way because the taxi driver did not know the way.  The 2 temples were Chien Sui Yen (Clear Water Stone temple) and Anxi Chen Hwang Miau (town god temple dedicated to the Emperor of Hades).

On Day 3, we made our way into the inner city of Yongning, just outside of Xiamen.  We visited 2 temples, the older Stone Lion City God Temple and the newer Yongning's town god temple, both dedicated to the Emperor of Hades.  The Stone Lion City God Temple dates back to 300 AD.  

Although the people here visit temples all the time to pray, these temples were located in the more notorious parts of town, our van having to go through narrow roads passing by local wet markets lining the narrow streets with motorbike taxis and beggars galore.  We were advised to take care as the bikers just rode the streets like they owned it, and the beggars, they come out of thin air, asking for alms just outside the temples.

That was 3 solid days of visiting 5 temples, which were mainly dedicated to the Emperor of Hades but some of them had branched out to include Buddhism.  The last temple we visited also had a pure Tao section where a Sifu teaching Tao sits.