Hometown Trip (9) Wuxi Trip Part 2 (Picture)

> Hometown Trip (9) Wuxi Trip Part 2 (Picture) Generally speaking, Chinese people are more reserved and do not talk much when meeting strangers, let alone express their true feelings. After three days...

Generally speaking, Chinese people are more reserved and do not speak much when meeting strangers, let alone speak their true feelings. After three days of being together, the friends in the group became more familiar with each other, and the topics of conversation became much more relaxed and free. That evening, I was chatting with several Taiwanese friends from Canada. Everyone was full of praise for the architecture of Lingshan Brahma Palace. Its artistic achievements can be compared to the famous Westminster Abbey in London. However, looking at the entire layout, I always feel that it is somewhat incompatible with Buddhist concepts. In our concept, Buddhist temples are based on the concept of a round sky and a square earth, with a plane layout and deep layers. They are similar to the courtyard houses in Beijing. Today, the Lingshan Brahma Palace has a sky structure with high columns, long corridors, and gives people a similar feeling as when entering a Roman Christian church. However, the murals, patterns, and sculptures are all Buddhist characters and stories. In addition, we saw some people in yellow vests cleaning the courtyard in Lingshan, which gave us a strange feeling. After asking, we found out that they were temporary workers, not young monks from the temple. This is very different from the concept in our minds. As far as I know, for a long time in mainland China, wages and living conditions have been determined according to administrative levels, as well as housing standards. For example, scientific and technological personnel are classified as engineers - section-level treatment, senior engineers - division-level treatment, and professors - bureau-level treatment. As a result, all walks of life have been divided into levels. Therefore, there is also the phenomenon that division-level monks and bureau-level lamas can sing and become generals. Today’s monks are all bachelor-level monks who have graduated from universities. Of course, they will no longer start by cleaning courtyards! Besides, the mainland has been advocating economic benefits as the center in recent years. This idea has also penetrated into the religious field. Some temples have also implemented contracting. Refined monks have also been dragged back into the complicated world. They use incense, fortune-seeking, and tourism to improve economic benefits, disturbing the purity of Buddhism. This is a noteworthy issue. During the chat, a Taiwanese friend asked me a strange question, "Why does the Communist Party spend so much money building a giant Buddha if it doesn't believe in religion?" I was at a loss for words and didn't know where to start my answer. Suddenly, a theory from the "Political Economics" class in college jumped into my mind, that is, the relationship between the economic base and the superstructure. The economic base determines the superstructure, and the superstructure reacts on the economic base. Religion, culture, and art all belong to the category of superstructure, and the superstructure must serve the economic base. If the Communist Party wants to manage the country well, it must manage things in the superstructure such as religion, culture, and art. Building the Giant Buddha can unite the vast number of Buddhist believers, further promote cultural exchanges between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait, and achieve the goal of peaceful reunification of the motherland. I think this is why non-believers build Giant Buddhas. For dinner, we tasted the famous Wuxi short ribs. It was well-deserved, charred on the outside, tender on the inside, crispy and delicious. It is made from the spareribs from the front legs of a kind of fine-skinned white pig from Jiangnan. Nowadays, small packaged products are sold abroad, and reform and opening up have brought unlimited business opportunities to Chinese products. At the door of the hotel as you enter the restaurant, it is clearly written that Director XX is moving into a new house. The reception will be in the Plum Blossom Hall on the second floor. My first reaction was that this must be a corrupt official. When a person moves, he only invites guests to the new house to congratulate him. Why should he hold a banquet in a big hotel? There is still a little bit of the Communist Party in him, and he is a complete scum. What is strange is that the Chinese government has been promoting anti-corruption and promoting integrity, but there are still people who dare to do so. The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection can easily identify a group of corrupt officials by simply visiting a large hotel. The next morning, I visited the Yixing Zisha Ceramics Research Institute. There were many precious Zisha pots displayed in the closet. The big ones are taller than the human body, and the exquisite ones are only as big as a fingertip, with different shapes. Yixing Zisha teapot has a history of hundreds of years. It mainly contains a layer of iron-containing clay siltstone several 10 meters underground. The texture is very fine. Local people rely on the mountains to mine it, and after beating, shaping, firing and other processes, they make purple clay pots. Its appearance is elegant, its color is purple but not beautiful, and red but not red. When making tea, it does not take away the tea aroma, but absorbs the tea aroma. Many literati in the past dynasties were fascinated by it, and many poets were fascinated by it. The Ming and Qing dynasties also selected it as a tribute, and the brand they created created considerable economic benefits for the local area. This resource-based handicraft product is limited by resources. Now, we have a group of national-level art craftsmen. They use exquisite craftsmanship to create a wide range of precious purple clay artworks. I believe that it won’t be long before the price of purple clay teapots will exceed that of gasoline!

In front of the Zisha Ceramics Research Institute is a commercial street composed of many self-employed people. Here you can see the atmosphere of the old streets of Wuxi, retaining the original taste. Wuxi is famous for its clay Bodhisattva. Old men, old ladies, little dolls and other characters of various shapes and sizes made of colorful clay bodies with different looks and expressions are all placed on the street stalls. They are very cute and charming, and the price is not expensive. Everyone buys some to take home as gifts for their friends. There has also been a new development in the shape of the clay Bodhisattva. There is a kind of clay doll called "kid peeing". It is soaked in water, taken out and poured with boiling water, and it will pee on its own. It's so fun! The prototype may come from the Belgian pissing child. The game of trapping clay Buddhas in bamboo traps at street stalls still attracts many tourists. There is also the tofu puff that I loved to eat when I was playing on the street. It costs five cents a bowl, with a little dried shrimps sprinkled on top. Seaweed and sesame oil, it tastes great. On this street, I finally saw a stall selling tofu porridge. The burden has turned into a big bucket. A bowl costs two yuan. The price has increased 40 times. The taste is far inferior to that in the past. Maybe the water quality is not as pure as it used to be. The same goes for people, they become more mature as they grow older, but the innocence of their youth can never be found again. I really miss the me in my youth. (to be continued)