Temple-crazy or how I learned to love China

The first opportunity I got to see the beauty of China came at the end of our first week in Xiamen. After a week of rain, my fellow professor and I decided that rain or not, it was time to take our students out of the classroom and show them a slice of China that didn't involve campus. So on Friday afternoon, we told our students to put on their walking shoes, bring their umbrellas, and meet us in the lobby of our building. We were going to explore the temple to the north of campus, rain and wind be d%^$ed. Heck, if the rain were to let up, we might even hike up the boulder-strewn mountain behind it. The initial grumbling we heard behind us as we trekked across campus in the rain immediately subsided when we entered the temple grounds, for it was gorgeous.

As we explored the different temples and then, when the rain finally ceased, trekked up the long and soggy mountain, it was as though someone flipped a switch inside our heads. Yes, we were on a study abroad. One that involved class time and projects and deadlines. But it suddenly hit all of us: we're doing all of this in China. In China. Yes, we're taking/teaching summer school, but holy cow, we're halfway across the world. On a different continent. In China.

Suddenly all the difficulties of the previous week, the horrible rooms, the paperwork, the rain, all of it became less important as we realized we were exploring a country most people only got to dream about visiting. This feeling persisted all throughout the weekend, as we visited two other temples, a historical site across the river from Xiamen, and had lunch with a local family. All of a sudden, we started to notice the bright colors that Chinese people used in everything, from their buildings to their temples to their foods. We noticed the small little temples hidden away in the parks across Xiamen. Instead of having to scramble for the bus exit when we realized we were at our stop, we were able to recognize the name of our bus stop as it was broadcast on the bus ("xia da bai chen" for those interested). Danger became a competition ("my taxi driver didn't have his lights on last night", "yeah well mine decided to drive on the wrong side of the street"), nuisances became entertaining ("oh, it looks like we're going to play the very popular 'how many Chinese people can we squeeze on to a bus' game again"), and creepy became a source of discussion ("I think I just saw rats crawl under that dumpster", "You sure? It looked like a cat to me", "Really? No way").

Although I don't think any of us appreciated knowing there were rats living next to our building, or fearing for our life while our taxi driver tried to break all speed records getting us home, it had all slowly become part of our "normal", and no longer distracted from the beauty and riches of the country we were in. It was funny to see how everyone took to different aspects of the country. While some of our students couldn't get enough of the different skylines we saw in each city, others got a thrill out of observing how people behaved, and I became a a real lover of temples.

I always knew I had a thing for temples ever since I visited Thailand and took close to a hundred pictures of the different temples I saw. In an era where there were only 24 (or if you felt very wild and daring, 36) pictures to a roll of film, this showed true love. And it was. I loved the bright blues and whites, the golden details, and the bright red roofs. Compared to temples in neighboring countries, with their brown hues and earth tones, these were the Elvis of temples, and I loved them. I was also pretty convinced that no other temples could rival those Thai pictures of ostentation. But then I went to China, and I have to tell you that Chinese temples can definitely give their Thai counterparts a run for their money. Although not as ostentatious (there are no shiny blue tiles on the walls, for instance), Chinese temples are awash in intricate carvings and figurines, tastefully decorated in rich reds and golds, and sport colorful dragons on each of their elegant roof lines. It was, again, true love at first sight. And for me, after seeing Nanputuo temple, with its many courtyards, its red and green roofs, its golden decorations, and watching the sun come out after days of rain, I knew that there was much more to China than bugs, paperwork, and lots and lots of people.

Our excursions continued through that second week. We visited a local school, the Xiamen port authority, the local television station and newspaper, and learned how to tell pushy vendors that we were absolutely not interested. But the highlight of the tour came on the second weekend: a trip to China's naughty half-sibling: Taiwan. 

Because I'm too lazy to upload all of my pictures to flickr and create a slideshow, here's a selection of some of the temples we visited that first weekend.