The Art of Finger-Painting

September 9, 2007

Greetings again from China! I hope this past week was more eventful for you than it was for me. I didn't have as much time to explore as I was busy going through a week of intense Chinese language "boot camp." It lasted three and a half hours a day, and usually after that I wasn't in the mood to go outside. I spent most of my time in my room giving my brain a rest and trying to process everything. Although I've taken a year of Mandarin, I pretty much forgot everything over the summer. My Chinese is severely lacking, particularly when it comes to reading and writing. I can understand it fairly well, and speak the basics without too much trouble (though my grammar needs a lot of work), but when it comes to those weird-looking characters, I'm pretty far behind. There are so many to memorize, they all just blur together. And starting this week, I won't be getting a whole lot of English translations on my assignments. I foresee a lot of hours spent looking up what characters mean in the near future. Yay.

I did go out on Saturday to visit a traditional Chinese "hutong." It's an old type of house that used to be fairly common decades ago. The one we visited was more than a hundred years old. Most of them have been torn down to make way for more "modern" buildings and businesses. The only reason this one was preserved was because it was bought by a guy who is one of the most famous Beijing opera stars in history. His son owns it now, and he gave us a tour and told us a bit about it. It's laid out like the Forbidden City - each main building is separated by a small stone courtyard, which I guess is like the Chinese equivalent of a backyard. It was nothing fancy, and the accomodations were pretty simple, but I can see the appeal in keeping it preserved. It's history.

After that we went to a Buddhist temple that serves as the headquarters for the Buddhism Association of China (or something to that effect). Basically, the guys that handle all of the main Buddhist stuff in the country. A monk there gave us a tour and took us inside the temples to places where the public isn't allowed. It was pretty amazing. We saw a huge painting (14 x 7 meters) that was painted by a monk decades ago. With one finger. Yup, you read that right. He painted it all using the fourth finger of his right hand. In Buddhism, the fourth finger is supposedly symbolic of refraining from all that is worldly and secular. It took him 9 years. The painting was incredibly detailed - it definitely didn't look like finger painting. They had to hide it from the government during the Cultural Revolution (when Mao and the Red Army pretty much decided all of the old, traditional stuff should be destroyed) so it wasn't burned. It's the largest painting of its kind in the world. Unfortunately, they don't allow cameras inside the temples, so I was unable to get any photos or video.

Other that, nothing really major happened. I start real classes this week. For the next two weeks, I'll be taking a class on Chinese history and civilization for a few hours in the morning, then two more hours of Chinese language in the afternoon. However, I have Wednesdays off. Maybe I can use that time to go see some more cool places. I'm still trying to get myself organized for the semester. I've got to make a list of all the things I'd like to see and places to go before I leave. I also need to start working out what kind of interviews I'd like to get for this documentary I'm making, and start setting those up. On a random note - I've heard there are a few small movie studios around here, so I'm going to try and get a tour of one of them. Maybe I can learn something.

Don't forget: if anyone would like me to buy something for you while I'm here, I'm more than happy to do it. Things here are pretty cheap. Want a Rolex? A couple of guys bought some today for around $20-$30. Are they actual Rolexes? No, but they look exactly like the real ones (right down to the official Rolex logo) and look very durable. You can get anything here. I'm going to have to keep myself from going to the Silk Alley and the DVD shops often, or I'll be broke before long.