Though Dazu County has numerous sites of ancient Buddhist grottoes and scultpures, we went to the most famous one, basically. It’s situated along a horseshoe-shaped canyon. Here you see a view across the canyon, from one side that’s full of art, to another side. The big Buddha you’ve just seen is near the top of the canyon, on the side we are looking at from in the shot above. The big Boddhisatvas you’ll see in the next set are at the top of the horshoe (or is that the bottom?).

These three Boddhisatvas are one of the (many) highlights at Dazu. These are just a bunch more images to give you a sense of the place.

Okay, so most of the Dazu photos are about the remarkable art history lessons, and the simply stunning sculptures and other creations. But I know at least some of you want to see some shots of me and Steve (yeah, Mom, I mean you!) So here are a few — and note the one with us standing in front of the head of the giant reclining Buddha — gives you an idea how big the thing is, huh?

The round thing is the wheel showing the various fates of life. It’s held by a big demon guy, who looks pretty threatening. The other shots are both — I think, it’s been more than two weeks — from the “levels of creation” panel that you’ll see in a more complete shot shortly. One shows the Buddha, at the highest level of creation; the other shows a wise king who presumably rules over the levels of creation. I hope Professor Dobbins, who taught me Chinese Religion & Philosophy back at Oberlin, will agree when I say that I found this “wise king” concept to be rather un-Buddhist, but rather a quintessentially Chinese syncretism of Confucianism into Buddhism.

One thing that struck me at Dazu is how different the conception of Buddhism shown there is from that which many of us PC-type Americans are often attracted to. Here at Dazu, you see instead visions of sinners suffering in lower levels of creation, and indeed a whole canyon face devoted to the different levels of creation. In these three photos, you see the faces of some unhappy sinners who’ve lived the wrong kind of life, and the canyon side given over to the levels of creation diorama. I was very struck by the quality of the sculpture – note the realism in the face of the woman who’s suffering from her sinful ways.

These two shots were intended to give you a sense of scale. These are some truly big sculptures, paintings, and engravings!

Even in a place as remarkable as Dazu, those who work there must get tired occasionally. 🙂

Chongqing is situated at the juncture of the Changjiang (aka Yangzi, aka Yangtse River) with another large river coming in from the north. Steve took pleasure in noting that this makes Chongqing just about as much like his home of Pittsburgh as any other Chinese city might be — which is to say, not much! In these pics, you see him at the point, and then two shots actually taken from the ship on the morning of our departure for the cruise downriver: one shows the “point” where land and the two rivers meet, and the other shows the cable car that runs from the peninsula (central downtown Chongqing) over to the north bank of the Changjiang. There are such cable cars from downtown across both rivers.

More scenes from Chongqing: not sure what the lovely plaster-and-wood building was, but Steve and I saw it as we wandered the city. The chicken in the doorway, with clothes hanging on the line, was on one of the side stairways leading from the upper, more commercial part of the city down to the lower port area, where goods entering and leaving Chongqing by boat are warehoused and loaded onto or off ships. Steve displayed a marked fear of all chickens he saw while in China…and given that most chickens in China live, like this one, in fairly close proximity to many humans, this led on my part to occasional amusement I must admit. I certainly hope I never end up regretting my good humor on this point…

In the center of Chongqing is an old temple (sorry, forget to check before posting this but my recollection is about 1,000 years old), around which the city has grown, as you see in some of these shots. I’m particularly fond of the shot with the woman on the cell phone, next to the incense shot: it has everything in it, from the clothes hanging in the residential parts of the temple to the high-heeled woman lighting incense while chatting on her cell phone.

Chonqing is steep enough that many of the bikes and bicycle taxis that carry small loads around the streets don’t work as well here. As a result, there are tons of guys with bamboo poles and strings for carrying items, all over the place. The guys with what look like shoe boxes was walking down one spoke of a pedestrian area at roughly the center of town; the noodle vendor was hawking his wares at the park on the point.

Oops still learning how this works, so these are posting before the text for them.

My brother Steve was here for about three weeks, and just left Monday. THANKS for coming on over Steve! I’m putting these pics up right away so you can see them and remember what a great time you had. I’ve also been hearing from lots of people who’ve taken time to look at the blog lately, and I want you all to know how greatly appreciative I am: Aunt Judy who said my Bangkok photos are “gorgeous”(thanks!), Laura who wrote twice to let me know she’d been catching up, and that she loved the temple cat photo. Really, you can’t know how much it means to me that folks out there are reading these posts. Naturally I spend a bit of time to get it all together, and knowing you read it — especially when you tell me you are! — makes it a real pleasure.

As I’ve been writing this, I’ve also been listening via web to some of the news from the US. I hadn’t really thought about the fact that NJ and VA would be having gubernatorial elections, or that other places would have local issues and things. All I can really say is I’m liking what I hear. Steve’s visit pointed out to me that I have more anger and bitterness than I realized at the voters of the US, who saw fit to re-elect George Bush after he lied through his teeth in order to get us into the war in Iraq. I’m glad American voters seem to slowly be waking up from the long dream they’ve been in since 9/11, and realizing their “leaders” are leading them down a path to disaster. I just hope they remember this a year from now, and even more so three years from now, when it will really matter. Of course, I also hope there’s a good alternative available in three years also. Enough of my soapbox for now…but I remain happy I don’t have to be in the US dealing with the madness of this loserly government. 🙂

Keep your eyes on the blog — there are TONS more photos, from our cruise through the Three Gorges of the Yangtze River, and our visit to the spectacularly beautiful Wulingyuan Park in Hunan. Work’s busy after Steve’s visit, so it’s taking me a while to check out all the 212 photos I took, but soon enough a bunch (not all 212, I promise) of them will be up here. Love y’all, and thanks again, Steve and everyone!

Steve said he was glad he saw the wall first in its more natural state, not in perfect repair in the hills north of Beijing. Toward the end of his trip, he went to Badaling, where the massive HORDES of tourists are ever-present. This was a quieter, more natural way to see it, I hope.

Since Steve didn’t know, I’ll point out for all of you that the wall stretches thousands of miles, from deep inside China — well into Gansu Province — to the Atlantic coast a few hundred miles east of Beijing. And all the wall sections around Beijing seem to be incredibly steep, and to weave artistically up and over the gorgeous, steep hills of the countryside north of BJ.