Shanghaied

I took a Semester at Sea tour our first day in Shanghai, a great way to see a lot of things in a short time. Packed into one day, we went to the Jade Buddhist Temple, the Yuyuan Garden, the Shanghai Museum, and an acrobatics performance, as well as lunch and dinner at fancy Chinese restaurants.  Tomorrow, I head off to X’ian, the city where the terra cotta warriors were discovered.

China is not as difficult as we were led to believe.  As in Japan, lots of the signs are in English.  Vendors on the street will take US dollars, and the places we went all take American credit cards, so we had no trouble at all spending money foolishly.  I found an American quarter on the ground, but wound up giving it away.  Our tour guide knew all the good bathrooms, with “western” toilets and toilet paper.  One more day safe from squatting.

The Jade Temple is named for two large Buddhas carved from white jade.  Chinese Buddhists worship quite a cast of characters.  Including the head guy Buddha, there are secondary Buddhas, including a woman Buddha, the four Heavenly Kings, and a whole host of Buddha’s in training, who were once people or sometimes evil spirits who have been enlightened.  In every temple, there is the Hall of the Heavenly Kings, two of them quite fierce for dispatching enemies and two very happy, representing the finer things in life.  The threshold of the temple is high, we were told, because evil spirits are always very short and this keeps them out.  We got introduced to some of the minor cast of characters, like the very bad lady who used to eat children, until the Buddhas took away her own child and she developed some empathy.  Now she is protector of the children.  (Would you trust her folks, really?  It’s not that easy to break a bad habit, especially one involving food.)

I also liked the practicality of the lady Buddha.  She is, our guide told us, the only female Buddha.  I gather she has taken this form in a genius marketing strategy to win converts.  Most of the Chinese Buddhists are women, and somewhere along the line, Buddha felt that taking the form of a woman would be helpful in reaching out to women, who had the most leisure time for coming to the temples.  As the lone gal, she is very popular and had her own building on the temple grounds.  She is also pictured with her 53 disciples, in contrast to the boys, who tend to appear alone.  So she’s a mentor, too.

You have to pay to get into Jade Temple, and you have to pay extra to see the actual jade Buddhas.  But if you pony up, you can also enjoy a convivial cup of Buddha tea as well as special shopping opportunities.

There are ten varieties of Buddha tea, good for whatever ails you.  Clean your liver, lose weight, alleviate arthritis, lower your blood pressure, cure cancer, balance your metabolism, help you sleep, boost energy, reverse constipation.  You can also drink them in combination if you have more than one issue that needs to be addressed.  We tried #2 (liver detox and weight loss), #5 (relaxation, energy, sleeping), and 2, 5, 8 in combination (add balance metabolism, constipation, indigestion).  Also available for purchase, cups to drink your tea in and pots to brew it in.

The Chinese did not get to their place in the world economy without being savvy in the ways of business.  The temple is full of opportunities to purchase souvenirs (credit cards happily accepted), to donate to the monks, or buy fortunes and blessings.  You can burn candles and incense, or throw money at receptacles placed just out of reach, much like a carnival game.  There was a fair bit of money just lying around on the ground, too.  En route to the temple, we encountered dozens of street vendors eager to sell us postcards, toys, and roller skates that light up (latest fad:  they are everywhere).

Our tour guide, Susie, brought us through the crowded streets to the Silk Works, a convenient meeting place.  The Silk Works is a display showing the life cycle of the silk worm and a large showroom of silk scarves, clothing, and bedding.  Also, a convenient meeting place.  I had just enough time to buy a silk comforter, as did several other people on our tour.  Susie is very good at her job.