雍和宫－Lama Temple

A couple weeks ago, I had the pleasure of visiting a Buddhist Temple.  The thing that I liked about it so much was seeing people who were just like me practicing their religion.  I took a world religion class when I was at BYU–Idaho and we spent a good amount of time on Buddhism.  Buddhism is a very diverse religion, it is dominant in Asia, but lately, in Western civilizations more people have been practicing it.  The reason that it appeals to so many people is that it is a very accepting religion.   All people are welcome and to practice it however they see fit.

During my visit, it was interesting to see how other people worshipping.  It was very peaceful there.  The Lama temple is a Mahayana Tibetan Buddhist Temple.  Although it’s a high tourist attraction, there are still monks that live there; It still serves as a place for them to be educated.  After walking through the main gates and visiting some of the different shrines, I had a distinctly peaceful feeling.  There was a certain reverence that you could feel at the Temple.  While I was there, I had a discussion with my friend about some things we noticed.

For example, burning incense is a tradition within Buddhism because people believe the smoke brings their prayers up the heaven so that the Gods can hear them.  Many people were burning incense; that was no surprise.  The interesting thing is that for the different statues of Gods, some people had different amounts.  Some people burned small incense sticks and others burned larger ones; some had three sticks while others had many more.  Another observation is the way that different people bowed to the statues.  Outside some of the temples, all people kneel in different ways.  Some kneel and put their forehead on the ground, others hold incense between their fingers and bow.  All people were different and did things a different way, but in the end they all came together and were there for the same person. 

 (This is the courtyard)

(This is us at the front gate)

Symbolism

Symbolism is one of the things that I feel is very prominent in Chinese culture and architecture.  Both the writing and speaking systems are the epitome of symbolism.  Every word is a picture; and every stroke or dot in a character has a purpose.  If one detail is changed, the entire character can mean something different.  Similar to the characters, the speaking system contains symbolism.  Every word has a ‘tone,’ and a pronunciation that can change the meaning completely.  The Chinese have also produced homonyms and the entire attitude about a certain word has been changed.  The word nine in Mandarin Chinese is also is associated with heaven, and has become a lucky number to the people.  In the third section of the Temple of Heaven, there is a single circle, encircled in outside rings.  All rings are divided into nine or multiples of nine.  The architecture is designed as my friend says, “with intent.” Just like with the characters, everything has a purpose.  In all parts of the Temple of Heaven and the Summer palace, there is a theme that is extended to both places.

An overwhelming amount of red, and the theme of the earth reaching heaven symbolized by the colors.  The boxes represent earth, and the circle represents heaven.  The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests and the Circular Mound Altar circular, but interestingly, inside the buildings, there are square beams that form circles.  The earth—a square—can never become a circle.  Thus representing the mingling but complete difference between heaven and earth.  We didn’t get to see all of the Temple of Heaven, or the Summer Palace, because they’re huge.  It’s kind of like Temple Square, you can’t see it all in one day.  But it was still really cool to look around.  The paint has sustained wear and tear, but the PRC (People’s Republic of China) has repainted it every so often.  It still maintains its cultural significance and number symbolism.  If you ever go to the Temple of Heaven, there is a lot of things that have particular numbers that symbolize many things.  Not just with the homonyms, but also Christian religious significance.  Just keep an open mind. 

 (Here's the 9 of us all standing on the circular mound altar)

'The' Wall

Now I realize that the Great Wall was a really great thing.  All these people spent as much time as it took for the world to begin.  But until you step on the wall and take a look at the mountain ranges surrounding it, you cannot truly say that it is great.  We stayed at this little hostel three hours outside of Beijing.  And by hostel, I mean someone family’s house that we paid to stay at and eat their food.  The family was very simple; they had a house and a farm.  They grew everything they ate—including the meat—except for maybe the rice (because everyone knows rice destroys fields).  The food was simply spectacular, I’ve never felt better in my life after eating.  Okay fine, maybe I was a little too full, but it gave me so much energy.  It was all very traditional and home cooked, extremely tasty. 

 (This was our dinner the night we stayed at the hostel) 

So, moving on.  Obviously the Great Wall is really old, like 7^th century old.  But a lot of places are restored, the spot I’ve heard the most about is called MuTianWu, and is quite touristy.  Word on the street is that there are vendors everywhere and it’s completely restored.  I’ve never been there, at least not yet.  I will be going with my school though.  The section that our little group of BYUI people went to is called JianKou.  And is beautiful, including the landscape and the complete feeling of nature (even though we’re still in a village); also, you can breath there.  After arriving and dropping out stuff, we headed straight up to the Wall.  It was about a 45 minute hike up, and unfortunately, at first it was really foggy.

This part of the wall is still completely in ruins; not a vendor or drink stand to be seen.  But that’s the way we like it, it was like visiting a real historical site, because you know, we actually were.  You have a sense of awe for it.  So due to the fog, and being up on the Great Wall of China, we walked around and explored for a little.  We were able to go into some of the watchtowers and climb on different parts.  Another thing I observed is that when I think of the Great Wall, I usually think of that one part in the Disney movie Mulan.  At the beginning the guard is walking on top of the wall, and the path is incredibly smooth; like you could pull an old fashioned cart over it.  However, that is not the case for this part of the wall.  Something that has constantly remained with me is that the entire Great Wall of China should probably be renamed the Great Wall of Stairs; because that’s all it is. 

                         (In this picture I'm standing                     (Aaron is doing some serious free

                               on a watch tower)                          climbing, don't worry he was being safe)

(This was our view the entire 4 hour morning hike)

Being a hiker is all fun and games until someone falls off the Great Wall… Just kidding, we might have been doing quite a bit of free climbing, but we all got back safe and sound.  This was the first time we went up, and it was around 2pm.  The next morning we left at 5:45am and it was nice and clear.  We spent about 6 hours traveling along the wall and exploring.  It was really cool to walk along the wall, it was kind of like walking through a forest, except there was the side of the wall right next to you.

I almost didn’t want to get up, but I’m so glad I did, going in the morning was definitely a good decision.  We did a lot more exploring and went a lot further, there was so much to see, and an endless amount of guard towers.  If we had more time, we probably would have gone further.  Every time we came to a tower, there would always be another high, bigger, one to get to.  The term, “just one more,” is appropriate here.

(We used our grappling hook skills to get down there)