A day on Putuoshan
This last Sunday Mary and I went with a young English teacher from the school, whose English name is Jessie, Chinese name Zhen Cong something, to the island of Putuoshan. Putuoshan is a famous island in the Zhoushan archipelago, because it has many Buddhist temples and one of the four holy Buddhist mountains in China.
We left at 7 am and took a taxi half an hour east to the port of Shenjiamen. On the way we passed an area called Lincheng where the Chinese government has decided to build an entirely new city to be the capital of Zhoushan City ("cities" in China are regional governments containing districts, which are like counties ... Zhoushan is a city and Dinghai is a district and also the urban area where I live) replacing Dinghai. They are taking a large formerly agricultural plain near the ocean and building huge 25-story hotels and office buildings, and rows of apartment buildings and mansions. It's hard to see it being a liveable city, but they are certainly building the big buildings quickly. Apparently our school will move to Lincheng sometime in the next 10 years. Thank goodness it's still in Dinghai. Jessie said that Dinghai is too crowded and built up for the government to do the kind of development that it wants to do, and besides the government makes a lot of money off of big construction projects. And apparently the Chinese economy can accomodate the creation of a brand new city.
We then pulled into Shenjiamen, a grimy and glitzy port city that they call Little Shanghai apparently, because it's more modern than Dinghai. It has a great seaside street that wraps along the waterfront with seafood restaurants and views out at the fishing boats. We caught a small fast ferry to Putuoshan here. The ferry went out and under the fairly new bridge to Zhu Jia Jian, and arrived at Putuoshan in half an hour.
Once on the island we walked or rode buses between a whole series of Buddhist sites, from a huge statue of the goddess Guanyin, to a temple where she landed when she jumped onto the island from a nearby island, to the largest temple complex on the island. Jessie had been to these places before and kept us moving along. At the large temple complex, at the foot of the holy mountain, we ate a lunch of the vegetarian food the monks eat, a tasty cabbage stew, soup, and rice. We then climbed the steep stone steps to the top of the mountain, where Jessie had never been before. We hung out in a temple on the top for a while and then wandered down the mountain the wrong way, on an access road that wound around the back side of the mountain. That was actually my favorite part of the day ... the road gave us nice views out over the water and that shore of the island, it was quiet, and we ended up walking all the way from the top of the mountain to the port where we caught the ferry back to Shenjiamen.
We had another smooth ferry ride back to Shenjiamen - the boat pulled off the dock about ten seconds after we boarded - and an interesting bus ride that dropped us off right by our apartment complex in Dinghai. So we were home before 4 pm, and I had a well-deserved nap!
Jessie's traveling style was definitely rushed, and didn't allow us to hang around soaking up the sights in the Buddhists temple, but he'd been to these places many times and his commentary on things more than made up for the rush. He's an interesting person and speaks about Chinese society much more readily than other people we've interacted with. I learned a lot from him about such things as the new capital at Lincheng, interactions he's had with foreigners, how he feels about Buddhism as a non-believer in a largely Buddhist society, and marriage in China - he and his girlfriend are planning their marriage for next year. Hopefully we'll get out to do more hikes and travelling with him in the future.
We left at 7 am and took a taxi half an hour east to the port of Shenjiamen. On the way we passed an area called Lincheng where the Chinese government has decided to build an entirely new city to be the capital of Zhoushan City ("cities" in China are regional governments containing districts, which are like counties ... Zhoushan is a city and Dinghai is a district and also the urban area where I live) replacing Dinghai. They are taking a large formerly agricultural plain near the ocean and building huge 25-story hotels and office buildings, and rows of apartment buildings and mansions. It's hard to see it being a liveable city, but they are certainly building the big buildings quickly. Apparently our school will move to Lincheng sometime in the next 10 years. Thank goodness it's still in Dinghai. Jessie said that Dinghai is too crowded and built up for the government to do the kind of development that it wants to do, and besides the government makes a lot of money off of big construction projects. And apparently the Chinese economy can accomodate the creation of a brand new city.
We then pulled into Shenjiamen, a grimy and glitzy port city that they call Little Shanghai apparently, because it's more modern than Dinghai. It has a great seaside street that wraps along the waterfront with seafood restaurants and views out at the fishing boats. We caught a small fast ferry to Putuoshan here. The ferry went out and under the fairly new bridge to Zhu Jia Jian, and arrived at Putuoshan in half an hour.
Once on the island we walked or rode buses between a whole series of Buddhist sites, from a huge statue of the goddess Guanyin, to a temple where she landed when she jumped onto the island from a nearby island, to the largest temple complex on the island. Jessie had been to these places before and kept us moving along. At the large temple complex, at the foot of the holy mountain, we ate a lunch of the vegetarian food the monks eat, a tasty cabbage stew, soup, and rice. We then climbed the steep stone steps to the top of the mountain, where Jessie had never been before. We hung out in a temple on the top for a while and then wandered down the mountain the wrong way, on an access road that wound around the back side of the mountain. That was actually my favorite part of the day ... the road gave us nice views out over the water and that shore of the island, it was quiet, and we ended up walking all the way from the top of the mountain to the port where we caught the ferry back to Shenjiamen.
We had another smooth ferry ride back to Shenjiamen - the boat pulled off the dock about ten seconds after we boarded - and an interesting bus ride that dropped us off right by our apartment complex in Dinghai. So we were home before 4 pm, and I had a well-deserved nap!
Jessie's traveling style was definitely rushed, and didn't allow us to hang around soaking up the sights in the Buddhists temple, but he'd been to these places many times and his commentary on things more than made up for the rush. He's an interesting person and speaks about Chinese society much more readily than other people we've interacted with. I learned a lot from him about such things as the new capital at Lincheng, interactions he's had with foreigners, how he feels about Buddhism as a non-believer in a largely Buddhist society, and marriage in China - he and his girlfriend are planning their marriage for next year. Hopefully we'll get out to do more hikes and travelling with him in the future.
posted by Tyler C-R at 9:45 PM
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