A Path wet with Dew

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.

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.

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".