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| Summer Palace |
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| Summer Palace |
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| More Summer Palace |
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| Pretty right? |
Spring is quickly turning to summer here in Beijing and temperatures are starting to rise. The nuclear fallout has abated and by Friday it will be in the 90's and getting hotter. The humidity is thick here and the pollution even thicker. The light rain give some respite for a day, but the brown skies quickly returned. On the bad days it is not the horizon that is brown, but the entire sky. So, to celebrate the clear day and the on coming summer, we visited the Summer Palace just north and west of Beijing...well it used to north-west of Beijing. Beijing swallowed it whole some years ago and now it's just a park in the city. I won't bore you with the history because it doesn't relate well with what we understand about the world. Its weird that there is a whole world here, the other side of the world, where even the days and nights are backwards.
The Summer Palace was beautiful! They have a funny saying in Chinese when describing a place. They say 有山有水 which is funny way of saying, "This place is beautiful." I actually means, "it has mountains and water." I know a few places like that! They have another saying that is, “人山人海，” that describes how crowded places are in China. It literally means there are crowds of people so big that it seems like mountains and oceans. Both of those phrases applied to the Summer Palace--the latter one is better than the first.
It was a journey to get to the tower. We passed through a maze of squares and small palaces that had large thrones and heavy gates. Statues of angry lions and Chinese dragons were on every corner. Along the side of the lake there was a walkway nearly a half mile long with over 8,000 beams supporting the length of it. Every beam had a unique picture painted on the side depicting Chinese stories and history. All these were painted in the 1700's at the whim of the Emperor.
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| Hallway |
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| Hallway Again |
Then came the hike up to the temple. I don't know how many stairs there were, but if the Emperor was fat, he never would have made it to the top. His temple attendance probably suffered. His recommend probably expired. I'm not fat, and my legs were burning. When I entered the temple I was struck with a feeling of terror. There in front of me was a golden image, fashioned much in the same way that Nebuchadnezzar had formed his so long ago in Babylon. There were many hands, heads, and faces looming high above me, looking out over all of Beijing's 16 million people. I thought of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego. "We know our God can save us," they said, "But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up." Well, you might notice in one picture the "no photography sign." I felt ok about it because there were like 150 Chinese taking pictures too. Sometimes the Chinese crowds are helpful after all.
When I kneel tonight, I will be grateful for a God that loves me, and hears my prayers even when I am underneath a brown China sky on the other side of the world.
-Keep the Faith-
That was a really inspiring post for me, David! I love that you are able to include little spiritual messages with your China adventures. It helps me. :)
ReplyDeleteAlso, sometimes when I'm reading, I notice little things that seem like typos, but I think they are actually just you forgetting how to properly speak English. LOL I don't mean that in a bad way, so don't get all self conscious! I think it's rad. Yup, I said rad. :)
Until next time!
-Hannah Jane
Hey David,
ReplyDeleteAwesome, awesome post! What an experience! It sounds amazing! It's pretty cool that you get to experience this even though the cost is so great. Our prayers are with you! "Keep the faith"! And thanks so very much for the spiritual meanings in there too. Sounds like another mission, in a way.
Katie
Love the cultural stuff David. I'm always amazed by how people in the past have used the underlying psyche of the human condition to push people to do things (aka, big scary statues to make people religious). Keep it up man!
ReplyDeleteEvery time I read a post I'm laughing to tears then crying to tears. These blogs are my favorite part of life right now!! The boys love them, too. To see what you see, to feel what you feel - I'm sure I'm capturing only a small shot. And Lisa is right - it helps a ton that you are such an amazing writer! Lisa and I went to that movie - the avengers - you were talking about missing. :) It was awesome. Except that we had SEVERAL (9) children with us and heard only a snapshot of it. When you get back, lets plan on watching it as a family where the kids can make all the noise they want . . . :)
ReplyDeleteBecky
I member when I was in Brazil Sao Paulo the pollution was like that as well. Our white shirt collars would always come home nasty dirty. Jerom says that your pics look like from kung fu panda:) It is surely an enlightening thing when you realize how very real and very big other places are in this world! And by realize I don't mean just know about it, but experience it. Because when you experience it, that is when it become real. Maps just don't do it.
ReplyDeleteThe other day, Ralph's class performed an opera that they wrote together. During practice, Ralph would not bow at the end. He would just run off the stage. The night of the performance, he actually stood in the line to bow, but let me know that he DID NOT BOW. I asked him why he didn't want to bow. He said "Don't you remember that scripture that says not to bow down to idols. I won't bow." I got a laugh out of it. So when your picture came up, I just had to tell him. He just about freaked out.
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