Lama temple and Dong Miao

Our last day in Beijing, we woke up late, but again were woken up around 6:15 by people yelling in the main area of the hotel. There is absolutely no sense of common courtesy here (although I did have one guy let me go ahead of him this very night at the train station, so let’s just say it’s really rare.) We got off at the Lama Temple station, walked out, and looked around for several minutes trying to find it to no avail. Then we started going back towards the subway and realized that the map we had been standing at looking for it was in the shadow of one of the towers for the temple. Hah. We proceeded to walk along the outside for several hundred meters as the main entrance is actually along the west side and we had come out along the north. The Lama temple is the largest temple complex remaining in China, and is devoted to Tibetan Buddhism (after the Qing emperors brought back Buddhism, they often invited Buddhist scholars to Beijing, this temple was converted to a Lamasary in 1744 after one such visit. There were lots of smaller temples within the complex, and it was really interesting to see people praying, considering the official stance of China is that everyone is atheist. It was also nice to smell lots of the incense they were burning at the altars, although some places inside didn’t allow them to burn it, so several times we caught the priests working there carrying out armfuls of incense and setting it into the lighting pits to let it burn. There was also an exhibition set near the back that had tons of very interesting gold/copper/silver/bronze statues that were all very intricate. Unfortunately, it left us with a lot of questions about Buddhist art. The best part though was the 55 ft. tall Buddha carving made from a single block of sandalwood. The entry way into the temple it’s in has a low entrance and ceiling and you can just see the feet as your eyes adjust; by the time you realize how big the base of this thing is, you’re walking in and the room opens up and lets you look all the way to the ceiling. It’s simply magnificent.
Afterwards we spent some time attempting to find Kong Miao, or Confucius temple- the largest for him outside of his hometown (so important it’s the special religious building for Confucianism in Civilization 4!) The place was located very close to the Lama temple and off a neat little shopping street, and was pleasantly calm inside. It also had nearly 200 large stone stelae that had the names of those who passed the (ridiculously difficult) imperial service examination that was held every three years. There weren’t too many names on them. :-P The area was neat to see although wasn’t particularly outstanding in any way. If anything, the best part was the exhibit on Confucius inside. Now, I will preface this by saying that Confucius was pretty much one of the most influential philosophers of all time and instrumental to creating Chinese and therefore Asian culture as we know it. In fact, he even coined the golden rule; 500 years before the birth of Christ. Nevertheless, this exhibit was over and above in its regard for Confucius and the claims about him. To name a few:
• Confucius was a democrat
• The modern educational pedagogy is based on Confucius’ teachings
• Japan and Korea’s culture stems solely from Confucianism
• Confucius was responsible for the industrial revolution, French revolution, and the enlightenment period
• Confucius founded the first public school ever. (this may be true)
• Confucius was the first human to harness fire, driving away the darkness so mankind could finally step into the light. (Ok, I made this one up)
Basically, Confucius was responsible for pretty much any major invention and important advance in human history; ever. The exhibit ended with pretty much any little thing that was related to Confucius in any way being mentioned in the news in the last 30 years, as if the exhibit designer had realized he didn’t have enough to fill the rest of the exhibit and spent the last night before the project was due frantically searching for information on the internet. There were whole 10ft long, 6ft high displays devoted to such trivial things as ‘Former Reagan aide mentions Confucius in speech’ or something to that effect. Or Nobel scientists say that we must look back to Confucius for the 21st century; in fact, I think that article was mentioned twice. Also, Confucius was ranked as the 5th most influential person in history in some book written in what appeared to be 1955 judging by the cover of the book they had scanned for the exhibit. Pretty bleary stuff.
After Kong Miao, we made our way back to our hotel for the last time. We got our suitcases which we had left there, thanked Jessie, the English speaking lady who had helped us out with everything and left. We stopped one last time for the absolutely delicious sweet and sour pork and then made our way to the military museum stop. We noticed that there were several other people with their suitcases, so we had a good feeling that we were on the right track. We then walked to Beijing West station to catch our train to Xi’an. It was a decent walk and was a bit chilly out, but nothing terrible. Once at the station, we had to only wait about 20 minutes before we boarded the train. We noticed that the original train we had wanted to take to Xi’an, but didn’t because we were told it didn’t have sleeping cars, was scheduled to leave later that night and we seriously doubted that a train leaving that late didn’t have them, but oh well. We had wanted it because the ‘Z’ class overnight trains are of better quality. The room we had had four bunks in it and was pretty small. We had opted for the upper bunks because it was cheaper. We kinda regretted the decision (and will be on the lower bunks to Shanghai) but it wasn’t terrible. It’s just that there was a small foothold and that was it to get up. We shared our cabin with an old husband and wife couple who were pretty cute (according to Bethany, who thinks anyone over the age of 60 is just adorable). The train ride wasn’t particularly bad, our beds had nice comforters, but it had a really loud speaker that we were able to block pretty well with our luggage. I slept pretty well, but Bethany had some problems because of the train being really loud and squeaky.