After six weeks of near non-stop study, I finished midterms and boarded a train to Chengdu, the capital of the Sichuan province located in China’s mid-West. Before I left, I was in the midst of an existential crisis – likely the result of High Fidelity, academically-induced stress, and a certain self-awareness that comes from meeting new people. The trip provided me an opportunity to write letters to friends and ponder my place in the world, leaving me rejuvenated and (somewhat) prepared to face the tedium of endlessly studying Chinese characters.

Sichuan was gorgeous. I spent little of my seven days in Chengdu, instead spending three days traveling to and climbing the sacred Buddhist Mt. Emei and another day at the equally sacred, yet Taoist Mt. Qingcheng. Fortunately, I took a lot of pictures, so reading this post can be more of an act of perception than imagination.


The twenty-six hour train ride was gorgeous, as we traversed most of middle China. On trains in China (or at least our hard sleepers), everyone goes to sleep and wakes up at the same time, which is enforced through an abrupt lights-off policy. The next day, my cabin's television started squaking - advertisements for Yahoo! and Chinese propaganda videos loudly indicated that it was time to wake up. My anger and confusion immediately gave way to awe when I looked outside to realize that we were traveling through a beautiful mountain pass.


A few hours later, we descended and the snowy mining (?) towns became farms dotted with yellow flowers, a cash crop used for the production of canola oil. The riverside houses managed stepped farms that have likely not changed for the past millenia. Occasionally, the skeleton of an abandoned factory stood atop a hill in the middle of a field of yellow flowers, a monument to the decline of rural industry since Mao's successors focused on more lucrative and practical urban-coastal development.




The pastoral settings contrasted sharply to Chengdu, the buzzing capital of Sichuan which is almost indiscernable from Beijing. Granted, Chengdu is not yet as developed as Beijing - the pollution isn't as awful and there are few foreigners. However, Chengdu is on the rise and is looking to the West for its inspiration - economic (Chengdu is aiming to become the center of China's biotech development) and aesthetic. Close to our hotel was an outdoor mall with stores ranging from American "lifestyle" brand Polo Ralph Lauren to high-end European designers such as Dior. If the mere existence of these shops is not enough of a testament of the influence and admiration of the West, the statues of white American shoppers surely is. At the mouth of the kilometer-long outdoor mall are about eight statues of fashionably-dressed, good-looking, tall, white people all posing as if they, too, are crusing the same shops that the Chinese are frequenting. The people of Chengdu believed that these statues were previously a good photo opportunity - at least two people were always for pictures with the statues (read: idols). However, when actual white people, too, were posing with the statues, it was such a sight as to attract the attention of well over fifty gawkers, all curiously comparing the statues to the real thing.


Perhaps the reason why most foreigners travel to the somewhat remote Chengdu is the Panda, China's docile, amicable national animal and "ambassador to the world." The various signposts and videos indicated why the Panda, despite a lack of natural predators, is still facing extinction - they are terribly evolved animals. They are only capable of processing 20% of what they consume and their layers of fat prevent them from realizing that they are pregnant, so when they finally give birth, they are confused at the sudden appearance of a squaking, hairless infant and swat at it with their enormous paws (which sport an underutilized thumb). Regardless of these sad realities concerning the Panda's ability to survive as a species, Lizzie has convinced me through impassioned arguments that enormous rescources should be spent in order to maintain this important part of China's ecosystem, as they are incredibly cute.

This is part of the head of the Leshan Grand Buddha, which was built in 734(!) and has been the world's largest Buddha since the destruction of the Buddhas in Afghanistan by the Taliban. While the pure scale of a project of this size is staggering, it perhaps more interesting to note that Buddhism was not yet a deeply entrenched institution, as it had migrated into China less than one hundred years earlier. However, its egalitarianism greatly conflicted with imperial power, so the construction of the Leshan Grand Buddha could be considered an act of protest from an upstart religious perspective. However, I'm very shaky on my facts here, so I wouldn't quote me on this one.

This is a picture taken from one of the gorgeous buildings constructed on Mt. Leshan, which are numerous as the many pilgrims to the Buddha throughout the ages helped to develop the mountain.









The climb up Mt. Emei, another sacred Buddhist mountain, was easily the highlight of my trip to Sichuan. The mountain is 3099 meters tall and the hike featured stream-side hikes through lush valleys, monkey-infested bridge-cities that looked like the Ewok villiage, no-visibility trudges through clouds, and finally ice-glazed trees. However, one thing was constant throughout the entire hike - stairs. Unlike America, trails are not composed of switchbacks, but rather seemingly endless stone staircases. The amount of labor required to construct these stairs is unthinkable, as hiking up the stairs was both discouraging and terrible on my knees - doing it with a slab of stone strapped to my back seems impossible. However, the stairs had the benefit of allowing me to focus on the scenery and the age-indicating plates tied to some of the older trees, one of which was over 1000 years old.


I like this picture.


















I spent the night at a monastary, which marks perhaps the coldest night of my life to date. However, the warm vegetarian food the monks provided was excellent and the mountain-side building was quiet, peaceful and meditative. I'm sorry to be so obtuse, but it was strange how closely this building matched my image of a Chinese mountain-side monastary. When I woke up, all of the clouds that I had been hiking through during the afternoon had frozen and latched on to the trees and ground, providing everything with an icy glaze. The clouds in the lower altitudes did not freeze, which resulted in the cloud-sea phenomenon from the first picture in this post.


I also like this picture.

















At the peak of the mountain is a very dramatic reward for the hike, a 70 meter tall brass Buddha riding three three-tusked elephants. The Golden Summit was traditionally an important part of a pilgrimage. Also pictured are the classmates that hiked with me and more stairs.













The next day, I went to the sacred Taoist Qingcheng mountain, which was also beautiful, but was not as great a story. So, I will save time in order to begin studying and just post the pictures.












































When I returned to Beijing, I went to a Chinese roller disco.