Up, Down, All Around

Saturday has come and another week in China is wrapping up. Classes haven’t started yet and this has given our group lots of time to see some sights in Hangzhou. The past week we’ve been going on half-day outings to see some things around the city.

On Sunday, we went down to a crafts market where lots of Chinese handicrafts are sold. The market was a bustling place and was full of authentic antiques and some cheaper, less authentic items. The Chinese really have a lot of special traditional crafts and goods. We looked for a long time at a small shop that had paper cuts. While the name “paper cuts” doesn’t bring up very positive imagery, they really are beautiful. Paper cuts are basically designs cut out of really thin, usually red paper. The designs are more intricate than you could ever imagine cutting with a scissors. This tradition of paper cutting goes back thousands of years to the Han Dynasty and the designs are most often used as decorations around the house. The paper will be cut into Chinese designs or characters such as the one for fortune.

Some other crafts include woodcarving, silk, jewelry, fans, and paintings. The paintings are lush watercolors with village scenes or dragons or tigers. Wherever you look around the crafts market, there are a lot of colors and textures. It was really interesting to notice the change that occurred after we went to eat and came back down the street at night. There was a lot more music and lanterns and smells that came out. It’s funny how a certain place can have an entirely different personality at a different time of day.

Another highlight from the week included the Lingyin Temple. We hopped on a bus to go to this site of many Buddhist temples. We walked through lots of grottos where all different buddhas were carved into the stone. Then we walked through all the temples where more ornate shrines were built. The temples were tall and incredibly decorated. Many people seemed to be just passing through as tourists, but many others would kneel on the pillows by the shrines to pray to the Buddha. The smell of incense started to get to me after a while, but it was an interesting walk-through.

It was interesting to consider the importance of the temples to the Chinese. I couldn’t help but wonder how many looked on the temples as a historical building, a spiritual site, or simply a beautiful structure. Obviously from my standing, the building were really ornate, beautiful, and historical, but not much more. As I looked around at some of the Chinese, I couldn’t tell what they thought about it. I would imagine many to be proud to see such a cultural beauty from there country. Some might not be Buddhists at all but feel the desire to pray to the statues there out of a sudden feeling of spirituality. I’ve studied a little about Christianity in China, but not much about Buddhism so I can’t make too many guesses.

One of our last outings this week was a visit to the Tiger Spring and Pagoda of Six Harmonies. It was an interesting day. The Tiger Spring is where stories say that two tigers dug up a spring and the water that came out was the best water for a special kind of tea. After we saw that spring, some of our group decided that they wanted to go through the hills to get to the Pagoda of Six Harmonies. This meant a two-hour sweaty hike up and down and across the hills. It’s still quite warm and muggy in Hangzhou, so needless to say we were a little tired and uncomfortable. I’ve never been a big hiker so I did my best. My best including a lot of panting and sweating and occasionally dropping to sit on a flat rock. We made it however and the scenery was incredibly gorgeous as we hiked. Then we climbed to the top of the pagoda and got a 360 degree view of Hangzhou and the big river that divides the newer part of town. We were quite proud of ourselves, or at least I was, for surviving that far. Sometimes, it takes a lot of feeling awful to get to the point where you can feel good about accomplishing something. A nice view at the end doesn’t hurt. As the semester continuing to pick up speed, valleys, and hills, I hope the view at the end is a great one.