2/26/2010 and 2/27/2010
Once we arrived in Dali we tried to book an early AM bus to Kunming so that we’d have some time to explore Kunming despite our setbacks from issues with bus schedules to illnesses. Unfortunately the earliest bus we could get was at 7PM with a late night arrival. I was feeling slightly better and spent a lazy day walking around Dali’s old town.
While out exploring I found the Dali diocese Catholic Church. Religion in China is a tricky subject with many Christian religions having faced years of persecution and being outright banned within the country. The diocese of Dali was founded in 1927 by French missionaries. The Church was booming from 1927 until 1949 at the start of the Cultural Revolution. At this time all foreign priests and nuns were sent back home leaving many churches without direction. The Chinese government began to seize properties that were owned by religious groups. Many churches were destroyed and others were turned into anything from factories to schools. The remaining priests and nuns were often sent to labor camps for the duration of the Cultural Revolution. The Catholic Church in Dali was transformed into a primary and middle school from the 1950’s through the 1970’s until in 1985 the government returned control of the church to diocese.
After I left the church I headed to the markets to explore for various pieces of marble (bowls, vases, etc.). Dali or in Chinese 大理 is the term for marble. Dali is known throughout Asia and the world for the marble that comes from the surrounding mountains and you are able to buy almost anything you’d like made from marble at prices that would shock you (a marble bowl for less than $5).
An uneventful trip from Dali to Kunming brought us to our hostel shortly before midnight. I settled into my dorm style room and got a good night sleep. After a shower and a crumby breakfast we set off to the only site we had time to see before our flight out of town the Bamboo Temple. The temple (Budhist) was built during the Ming Dynasty and the major feature of the temple are the 75 “Surfing Buddha’s.” The Buddha’s were riding a variety of types of surf boards including mythical creatures and people.
While in the temple we were fortunate to catch a ceremony happening at the temple. Our lack of understand of Buddhism gives me little perspective to share other than what I simply saw on the surface. What I saw consisted of a lot of chanting, incense, and a monk answering his cell phone during part of the ceremony, it’s part of China and doesn’t surprise any of us that much. My impressions of the cultural norms were further reinforced when at the end of the ceremony the participants release 7 cages worth of birds from a garden atop a hill. As the birds were flying away a woman in her late 50’s turned and shot a snot rocket to the ground (but at least she did it away from the ceremony).
On our bus ride back to the hostel I was in a window seat and I saw a China Mobile sign (one of 3 authorized government owned phone companies) out the window, this sign caught my attention because something didn’t look right it took me a minute to realize that the sign didn’t actually read China Mobile but instead read “China Mobl.” The store sat on the corner of a building and instead of reducing the font size they simply removed some letters, I imagine Verizon, and AT&T will probably look to jump on this bandwagon pretty soon.
Our flight from Kunming back to Beijing was a frustrating one. After our flight was delayed for an hour and a half we boarded the plane and took off on our way to Beijing. I was in an aisle seat surrounded by some Chinese men who had been over served at the airport bar before we took off. The man behind me decided he didn’t like foreigners and continually referred to me as the “Laowai” (loosely translates as f*ing foreigner) and would kick the back of my chair. I turned around and shot him some nasty looks and said some stuff in English but my Chinese wasn’t good enough to have any type of conversation with him. When our plan finally landed he was out of his seat before the plane had even slowed down the flight attendants began yelling at him and he returned to his seat. This was my last straw because as he came to the seat he started to shake my seat, I looked at him smiled and remember the 70 lb bag I’d been carrying around the past 10 days was in the overhead bin. When the plane stopped I got out of my seat opened the overhead bin took my bag down. Once the people in front of me started to move a little I swung my bag to put it on my back knocking him into his chair. It was time to get home.
Pictures:
First two are of the Bamboo Temple
The Monument is the Peoples Monument in Dali
The last one is the Catholic Church in Dali
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