China Day 8, The Ghost City

Monday July 4^th

We were awoken by the speaker system again this morning. Today was a lazy day cruising down the Yangtze River. After breakfast I went up to the sun deck and watched a couple of the employees do a cultural dance. They had no luck trying to get the other Chinese people up to learn it, and as the only Westerner there, there was no way I was going to volunteer. Then I went to the games room and watched a lesson on how to play Mahjong.

We sat out on the deck for awhile, until it got too hot. The temperature went up to 36 degrees and was very humid today. It is interesting to see all the new cities along the shores of the river that the government built to house the people displaced by the higher water levels caused by the dam. We heard from one guide whose family had been displaced, that they were happy about it because conditions were better and there was more opportunity for jobs and education in the new cities, rather than the farming villages.

I spent some more quiet time in my room hiding from the heat and reflecting on other trips and photos. After that I went to the tea room and spent a long time talking to a young woman named Cathy, who is an employee on the boat and made me the tea yesterday. She works in the tea room and is part of the entertainment team. She is a very good dancer and uses tea art to make excellent green tea. She was interested in my trip and wanted to see a few photos, so I showed her some Africa and Asia shots. I asked her if she had any brothers or sisters and she told me that she had one sister, who is older than her. Her parents really wanted a boy and had a second child even though it was against the rules, and they were fined 500Yuan for it. She was the result and her parents weren't happy because she was a girl. She said it took a long time before her parents learned to like her because of that. They finally approved of her when she was seven years old because they realized she studied hard and was very smart.

Late in the afternoon, we all took an excursion to the Ghost City. This a culturally significant religious site that was partially destroyed by the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960's. The government has rebuilt parts of it according to pictures and drawings from the past and they are still working on parts of it. It is located on top of a hill, called Mingshan Mountain, and well out of the way of the waters from the dam. This is kind of like a Judgement Day temple. The ghosts of the dead had to come here and pass a number of tests in order to prove their worthiness to go to Chinese Heaven or Nirvana. If they failed they went to Chinese Hell. Interestingly, if they were not worthy of either of those two places they were reincarnated into another life form, based on their past life and the results of their trials. They could come back as another person, or an animal or insect or plant, and have to work their way back up to humanity. We had a very good local guide who told us the stories and traditions of the temple and the area. We had to climb hundreds of stairs in the heat to reach all the various portions of the temple complex and I asked her if she got tired of climbing all the steps in the heat. She told me that she lives in a condo apartment on the seventh floor and that these condos never have elevators in them until then nineth floor! So, she is very used to walking up and down stairs, although she finds it hard in the heat and with all the clothes she wears to hide from the sun.

When we got back we had dinner and then had an evening to enjoy a couple of beers in the bar and playing a couple of games. Cathy was working there so I talked to her for awhile again. She is very smart and eager to learn English. Then early to bed, as we have an early morning.