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| Mystical mists at Shitou Shan |
“I'll
show you the red light district” says Richie and we enter the area
of dark alleys to see the pulse of Taipei at midnight. The alleys
behind the ancient Buddhist temple are full of people despite the
late hour. The temple itself is closed at night, gates locked, but a
few streets away restaurants are open, crowds of people move here and
there. The smell of turtle soup fills the air, live turtles heaped in
huge jars move slowly waiting for their heads to be sliced off,
apparently terrapin blood is an aphrodisiac, couples wait for their
turn to have a glass of dark red liquid, the head of each terrapin is
nailed to the board with one knife, another knife slices through the
neck and blood is pored to two glasses. Supposedly erection after it
is like an axe, I was told by a Chinese man. Only two restaurants
serving terrapin blood are open, long queues of couples waiting in
from of them.
“Follow
me” says Richie and we enter a maze of very narrow alleys. Here, in
the orange light of lamps in red painted doorways of mysterious
establishments we pass pretty girls, really beautiful Chinese faces,
teenagers. In the narrow alleys the smell is even stronger but here
it is not turtle soup but sweat and something else. We walk quickly,
the alleys are so narrow that we almost touch those girls, I can see
their faces close up. Men in suits and ties move in the other
direction. We leave this place and go back to the street with the
terrapins. There are some girls waiting on street corners there but
they are not so young and not so beautiful.
“I
felt strange vibes among those brothels, something like a pain”, I
say.
“You
are right” says Richie, “I also felt someone might knife me at
any moment.” With a feeling of some moral superiority I think that
this is not what I meant.
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| Thousand plastic Boddhisattvas |
To think that only the other day I went to the
sacred mountain of Shitou Shan where the Taiwanese Buddhists make
pilgrimages to soak in the atmosphere of holiness. I stayed in a
nunnery where the shaven bald but very beautiful and presumably
virtuous girls chant sutras before dawn. They recite fragments of the
Lotus Sutra to the fast rhythm of the wooden fish (a musical
instrument). Later, after dawn, for an hour they prostrate before the
alter of Amida vvveeeerrryyy sssslllooowwwlllyyy as if they were in a
slowed down movie and equally slowly they chant “Nnnaaammmooo
Aaammmiiitttooofffooo” which means “Praise to the Limitless
Light”. All this is done early morning amid the smoke of incense
when the sun rays cross the hall at angles. Although on that day
there was not much sunlight as the whole mountain was covered in fog
and I could not see the way from one temple to another. I walked
along those footpaths wet with dew among bamboo groves not knowing
where I was going and things suddenly emerged in front of me. For
example a crowd of plastic white Bodhisattvas, all identical, or a
deserted temple, or a temple not quite deserted, where somebody who
spoke English could explain what was going on there. There are many
monasteries on Shitou Shan. They are not old like the ancient temples
on the holy mountains of mainland China, here they are all new, built
of concrete after the last war. Pilgrims come here anyway and the
monks and nuns live off what the pilgrims give them. They don't go
out to beg, in China this custom is not practised although in other
Buddhist countries it is considered important. The Buddhist don't
teach a doctrine but “a way” or practice; the first step on the
way “from the burning house to the footpath wet with dew” (to use
an image taken from the Lotus Sutra) is selfless giving. It is also
important that the monks learn humility and don't consider themselves
better than other people; if they only eat what other people give
them, there is a chance that they actually see it.
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| One of the temples at Shitou Shan |
Around midday the fog began to disperse. I was leaning on the stone
railing of one of the temples and looked at the a pagoda emerging
from the fog on the ridge across the valley. The fog was being blown
away, the bamboos around the temple dripped with dew, big drops fell
on moss below. A car drove up the valley, a taxi from Taipei, it
stopped on a small car park in front of the temple and two tourists
got out of it. They looked like well-off Americans, an expensive
camera dangling on the belly, heavy make-up that tried to cover
wrinkles – this sort of thing. They looked around the temple while
I stood there leaning against the railings and watched them full of
critical thoughts about rich American tourists and the way they
travel around the world. Then they started walking along the stony
path towards the next temple, they passed me but they didn't look at
me – a long-haired hippy – with criticism, on the contrary, they
gave me a friendly smile and said “Hello”. They walked a few
steps and then stopped, talked for a bit and the lady turned back and
came again to me. She took a 1000 Taiwanese dollar bill out of her
wallet and said with trembling voice.
“I
am sure you don't have much money, I have a lot of them, please
accept this little gift from me.”
“No.
no” I protested, “I'll manage, I didn't ask for anything, did I?”
“Doesn't
matter, I am sure you'll find use for it. Please accept it. I went to
church yesterday and experienced something very important. I would
like to give you something.”
I didn't know what to say. Should I keep on refusing? Dew was
dripping from bamboo leaves and the path in front of us was wet
indeed.
You will find this story, and many others, in my book "ASK A GLOBETROTTER".
