New city!

Managed to get lost twice in one day - once in the woods and once in the city. The latter was near my hotel, where I foolishly went out without a map to what turned out to be a theme park-sized shopping district around the Confuicus Temple. The former was on Zhongshan or Purple Mountain, to the east of the city, where I naively tried walking from one tourist destination (Sun Yat Sen Mausoleum Scenic Area) to another (Linggu Temple Scenic Area). But now that I'm safe and sound back in my Ibis hotel I'm rather glad about both experiences. Who would have thought one could get lost in nature in a city of 6.5 million?

Nanjingward

Tomorrow morning I'm taking the bullet train to Nanjing - 300 km from Hongqiao Station in a little over an hour. But I went to the station today to get my ticket (for security reasons foreigners need to present a passport at the station the first time they travel on the rails), and a good thing it was, too. The station is vast and even at low-traffic times full of people; signs, while plentiful, aren't very helpful. (This picture is just of the lower level, connecting to the subway; in its several hundred meters I couldn't find even one map.) Now I know (I think!) how to get to my platform. See you tomorrow in Nanjing - fingers crossed!

Veggie view

I've been sticking close to Fudan the last few days (on Sunday I depart for my first trip outside Shanghai, 4 days in nearby Nanjing) so here's an unglamorous picture of the east 食堂 dining hall. It's the only one with a vegetarian vendor, and the folks at left here are politely queuing for it. At least from here the other lines look mobbed like a train station.

 

It seemed gauche to take a picture of my tray, so here, instead, is dinner chez moi. I'm making my way through the veggies at the market. These particular greens are a trifle bitter; the thing on the right (I've no idea of its name or genre), first encountered in the 食堂, is a new favortite. Guilin sauce is a killer. And for dessert, half a 柚子 shaddock!

From China Daily, Chinese popular religion comes to Hollywood!

見山 畫城

Today was the first day since I've been in Shanghai that the Air Quality Index hit the purple Very Unhealthy level; I'm sure I wasn't the only one dreaming of mountain air. Next month, when the air gets really bad, I am definitely heading for the hills. In the meantime I'm looking forward to the exhibition "Seeing the Mountain, Painting the City 見山‧畫城"

 

which opens a week from today in the Xuhui Art Museum. It features paintings by Benoît Vermander and photography by Liang Zhun. Benoît happens to be the most helpful of my Fudan hosts and his collaborator Liang Zhun the one who's helping me with my Chinese. I've seen his studio, and her photography books. A mountain outing with friends!

The cat's dao, or Free and useless at Fudan II

Sat in on a lecture course on Pre-Qin Political Philosophy today, part of the EMA (English language MA) program in Chinese Philosophy and Culture. One of the texts discussed was Analects 18.6:

Chang Ju and Jie Ni were ploughing the field side by side. When Confucius passed their way, he had Zilu go ask them where the river crossing was. Chang Ju said, Who is holding the reins to the carriage? Zilu said, It is Kong Qiu. He said, Kong Qiu of Lu? Yes, he said. Chang Ju said, Then he knows where the crossing is. Zilu now asked Jie Ni. Jie Ni said, Who are you? He said, I am Zhong You. Jie Ni said, The disciple of Kong Qiu of Lu? Yes, he replied. He said, Flowing on and on, such is all under heaven. With whom can you change it? Now, wouldn't it be far better to follow a gentleman who flees from the world than one who flees from this man or that man? He then went on covering the seed without stopping. Zilu went to report to him, and the Master, perturbed, said, Flocking together with birds and beasts is impossible. If I were not to associate with followers of men, with whom would I associate? If the Way prevailed under heaven, I, Qiu, would not be concerned with changing it. (trans. in Daniel K. Gardner, The Four Books: The Basic Teachings of the Later Confucian Tradition)

Chang Ju and Jie Ni are representative of the recluses who mock Confucius for not fleeing the human world (while subtly undermining themselves in one way or another). One can understand the impulse to leave human society, the professor observed, and mentioned a bumper sticker he saw in the US, The more people I get to know the more I love my dog. But can human beings live among animals without losing their humanity, their humaneness? The class had a sprawly, earnest discussion. One student insisted that dogs are social animals, too.


I asked the professor afterward about the feral but friendly cats who live at the entrance to Guanghua West Tower, the building where the class takes place. I've often seen a driven Fudan student break her earnest stride for a moment of tender torpor stroking one of the cats, before ruefully dutifully heading off to class. He was delighted that I mentioned it: turns out the picture on his WeChat page is of one of the cats (the golden one), which in the winter sometimes lies in the middle of the entrance, supremely insouciant, oblivious to the busy scholars walking around it. Do all Confucians have Daoist fantasies?

Sites for sore eyes

Once upon a rather long time ago I wanted to grow up and work for UNESCO. (Then President Reagan withdrew US funding for it, and I had to make other plans!) UNESCO's back on my radar because of the World Heritage Site list. One of my New School colleagues has written a fascinating account of the ambiguities of what he calls "hybrid heritage" - sites which have both cultural and natural significance - and he's just joined the team for our continuing work on religion and environment in the Himalaya. The focus of the new phase, you'll recall, is Mount Kailash - for which a World Heritage status is apparently soon to be requested and will doubtless be conferred. I need to learn more about the issues! But today I heard a rumor that UNESCO heritage listing was being sought for temple fairs like the one I recently had the chance to attend in Jinze. "Living heritage" is another frought and fascinating category, and its interaction with Chinese government categories of valuable folk tradition (not religion, mind you) is intriguing too. Fun fun!

Data

They say all politics is local. The same goes for religion, too, as is made clear by these itineraries of the City God procession in Shanghai in November 1919 and 1920 and April 1924 and 1936. (Look closely and you'll see dotted blue lines along with the red. The red were the day procession, taking the god out of his temple; the blue the evening procession returning to it.) Every step of the way had to be decided. By whom? How? With reference to what needs, precedents, patterns, payments, contingencies, opportunities, godly directives? Religion lives!

YU Zhejun, "Volksreligion im Spiegel der Zivilgesellschaftstheorie: Gottbegrüßungsprozession in Shanghai während der Republikzeit,"

PhD dissertation Leipzig, 2010, 256-8, 263

Blow me down!

Today was the first day in Shanghai that I needed a sweater, delicious! A wonderful gusty wind has been blowing since last night, making short shrift of this row of bicycles parked in front of the Guanghua Building.

Unaffected were these impounded or abandoned bikes I happened on this afternoon next to the East Gate; it would take a tornado to untangle them. I'm still disovering new things every day - around the corner from the cycle cemetery is a tiny coffee stand with espresso!

Yufo

Some pics from yesterday's expedition to the 玉佛禅寺 Yufo Temple, known also as the "Jade Temple" because of a large jade Buddha it received from Burma in the 19th century.

Before we go in perhaps you'd like to pick up one of these mongo incense towers for sale outside?

First view

Some people suddenly appear bearing bags of offerings to be burnt.

Some monks make some monky sounds as a tour operator ignores them.

Their offering made, the bag people have left their offerings aflame while another woman continues burning spirit money sheet by sheet.

Devotion in one of the side rooms selling every kind of Buddhist thing.

 

Ancestral hall

Carving in the special hall for the Jade Buddha

Buddhist information

 

Buddhas in the main hall

The monks assemble for a brief sutra recitation

Someone's offering candles

 

My souvenir: instant "auspicious noodles" 消除安全隐患保护性修缮工程开工典礼 the consumption of which evidently constitutes a ceremony to start eliminating hidden safety risks and do protective good works

More offerings for sale on the road in front of the temple.

Tall tales

I confessed to an American acquaintance the other day that I don't really feel like I'm in a megacity of twenty-plus million. what I see is at most New York-scaled. She wasn't convinced. But then she lives in a housing complex with ninety towers. Mine's several dozen too, come to think of it, though low-rise compared to the neighborhood I passed through on my way to the 玉佛禅寺 Yufo (Jade) Temple this afternoon.
Is it still a neighborhood, though? What would that even mean? Each of these towers contains enough people for several neighborhoods, each complex for a small city. But compared to old towns you don't see many people at all. Where do they congregate? Do they congregate?
I imagine this area used to look like this, but won't for much longer.
Now it's one big tower complex after another - here comes the next one!
Next after that might be the one emerging right next to the temple; its monster drill was taller than the temple! Will there come a day, not so far off, when Jade Temple is the only thing under twenty storeys here?

随便

Near campus some Fulbrighters and I happened on a clever shop which adapts the apparatus of Japanese 回転寿司 conveyor belt sushi for individual hot pots: plates of vegetables, noodles, tofu and skewers with all manner of mushrooms, sausage, fish cake, rice balls, other tofus, etc. glide by, from which each guest chooses for her own pot of soup, available in different spicinesses, and whose temperature can be adjusted with a little individual console. Great fun, not expensive. My life here is really flowing! I also got a student cafeteria card today, too (they said it couldn't be done, but I suppose that's how everything starts!), but I'm sure I'll be back here soon, not least when the weather gets colder.

Sternwarte

China Daily today carried an article on a new professional ethics code "to guide professors to take the right approach in their careers." The article mentions sexual harassment and profiting from plagiarism, but the list of forbidden behaviors frontloads quite different concerns.

Seven behaviors that are strictly forbidden for university instructors: 
• Harming the interests of the nation, the university or the students. 
• Making remarks or performing deeds that are against the Party's principles and policies in teaching. 
• Committing academic cheating such as plagiarizing or copying others' academic achievements; or misusing research funds or academic resources. 
• Having part-time jobs off campus that affect teaching duties on campus. 
• Playing favorites and committing irregularities in recruitment, examinations, student rewards and postgraduate recommendations. 
• Taking bribes from students or parents. 
• Sexually harassing students or having improper relations with students. 

If it's in the English edition of the China Daily ("Connecting China Connecting the World"), this is no internal document but intended for a wide audience - not just academics but their foreign interlocutors. But I'm struck also by something mentioned further down in the article:

The regulations echo the requirements President Xi Jinping issued for teachers when he visited Beijing Normal University in September, the ministry said.
The president said teachers should encourage faith and belief, have good standards and a solid base of knowledge, and be kind to students.

"Faith and belief"? What could that be about? Not religion, clearly, but what? Perhaps something like what those folks in Colorado who think the new AP History curriculum sows seeds of unpatriotic cynicism and lack of respect for authority are concerned about...?

Immortals

A visit to NYU Shanghai in Pudong gave me an excuse also to check out what might be the biggest Daoist temple in the city, Taiqinggong 太清宫 (though in some places also described as Cinciyang). It was a quite afternoon, with few worshippers - an athlete, a businessman, another young man and a young couple, though there was also a ceremony going on for a small group in the back - but the place clearly has its devotees of many kinds. I've no idea how old anything here is. As I saw it:

The view of the main gate and bell tower from the street

Operatic warriors patrol the roofs

Emperor of Eastern Sacred Mountains in first hall (top picture)

Votives to the Emperor and his attendants

 

Remains of incense sticks

Primordial Lady of Descendants, Primordial Lady of Compassionate Salvation and Primordial Lady of Midwifery and Child-Care

 

Embryo-like offerings to the Primordial LadiesMidle hall houses three huge gilt statues of Heavenly Sages

Incense before this hall has burned through the metal roof here

Heavenly Sage of Primary in the Jade Clarity, center, and the Heavenly Sage of the Tao and Virtue in the Supreme Clarity (bearded)

Buddha-like glass offerings in this hall

Temple reflection

View from second floor to the smoke-surrounded biggest hall

 

Imposing three-storey hall behind which the priests live

Priest conducting a ceremony in the largest hall, to flutes and drums

 

Pure Yang Warning Perfect Sovereign (behind glass)

Arhat-like golden Immortals in an upstairs room

Brilliantly colorfull roof ornaments

 

The friendly temple staff at your service!