Lina in China

The earthquacke of Mai 2008 in the Sichuan province of China also partly destroyed the famous Qiqushan-Temple on the Qiqushan mountain in Zitong, Sichuan, China.

The temple of Zitong is in the official list of China’s historical monuments in Sichuan. During the earthquacke in Mai 2008 in the Mianyang are of the Sichuan province of China Zitong was badly hit by the earthquacke. Some halls of the Qiqushan-Temple got partly destroyed by the earthquacke.

In September 2008 when I visited the temple on Mt. Qiqu (Qiqushan) much repair was taking place. But in some halls rubble of ancient stones from collapsed ancient stone walls could still be seen.

Wooden hall of the Kuixing God, not destroyed

The Hall of the Kuixing God is very famous and ancient. It is three stories high and was build on 46 wooden pillars. It is 33 meters high.

The Kuixing god is the god of students and pupils in the Buddhist belief. Even today school students still go to pray in the Hall of the Kuixing God before exams. This historic room was luckily survived the earthquake almost undamaged. This is probably due to the fact that it was build in the historical way as a wooden structure. Wood proved to be more flexible when hit by an earthquake then stone.

Zitong temple earthquacke destruction

The Qiqushan-Temple lies in an ancient Cypress wood containing more then 20 000 ancient cypresses. The temple was build during the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties. It contains 23 halls covering more then 13 000 square meters.

1996 the Qiqushan-Temple was asses to the list of Chinese national important historical sites.

During the earthquake several of the halls got partly destroyed. When we visited the temple repair had began but in places walls had collapsed stone railings broken and only the most ancient wooden halls had survived almost undamaged.

Introducing young Chinese to „spin-the-bottle“

The Chinese play a very complicated dice game: Each person has 5 dices, there is some lying about what you have and in the end the winner gets to ask the looser a question. As I did not get the game I suggested to play spin-the-bottle”. In spin-the-bottle you spin a bottle and the one it points on is either asked a question or must do something.

Young Chinese are drinking a lot of beer but concerning everything around men and women they are pretty shy. They found the game very interesting. We asked things like “when did you get your first kiss”, “about witch girl in the room you have fantasies” and let the looser act like a monkey, let the guys wear lipstick and first hand kisses where exchanged, then kisses on the cheek and the highest was that I (female) had to kiss another girl on the corner of the mouth. I hit back by letting the guy who had given me that core by letting him kiss another guy.

One of the most famous Sichuan foods is the Hot Pot. In general Europeans should be warned that at times Sichuan foods are so hot (spicy) that they can make you cry.

The hotpot is not unlike the European fondue. Since little children and people with stomach trouble (and some tourists like me) can’t eat so hot the Hot Pot has two seconds. In one there is a red broth witch is unbelievable hot, in the other there is non-spiced broth. I usually stick with the baby-version of the hot-pot ;-).

Then the food comes in, in our case we decided for a meat hot pot as I don’t like fish so much. So they brought different types of meat: Beef, Pork, Whatever, Beef stomach, some intestines of a small animal, some filled noodles and Chinese meatballs. All are thrown by the Chinese Service women into the Hot Pot. Only exception are the small animal intestines witch should not be cooked long. The intestines are served on a plate and you grab them with your chopsticks and hold them in the hot pot for like 30 seconds. Luckily I got away with saying: “These have never been my favourite food and the meatballs are so good…”

They also served pumpkin cakes that were very good. The good thing about cakes and sweets in China is, that sweets in China are not too sweet, they are even less sweetened that German sweets.

When the meat was done we started eating by fishing meat and noodles by chopsticks or a little net from the Hot Pot. You have to be lucky to catch something that is done and that you like. If you catch something you don’t like or just spices you drop it.

The meet is then dunked in a mixture of sesame oil, balsamic (or similar) vinegar, herbs and garlic.

When you believe you can eat no more the vegetables come. Now you can fish for mushrooms, Chinese cabbage and others. So vegetarians have to be patient and whoever intends to eat some veggies in the Sichuan Hot Pot should leave some space for them in the stomach.

In the evening after eating interesting Sichuan food (made me cry) we decided (they decided and I accepted whatever the plan is) to take a walk and then go to disco. In the Centre of Mianyang there is a large place with a small temple or large shrine (not sure some said it was a temple, some said it was not).

On the place a western standard rhythms were played and the Chinese, mostly senior citizens, some younger and some children danced a mixture of western standard and Chinese Folk-dances.

There were several women, each owning a Hocker offering massage for 6 Yuan (60 eurocents!!). The massage takes about half an hour. Now you can guess what they are earning.

I was invited by my laughing Chinese friends for such a massage. As all Chinese massages it was quite tough – almost brutal. Chinese massage takes you to the border. The massage goes on until you think you can take it no more and usually the masseur is skilful enough to stop in just that moment. If not better stop them.

Wellness in China is not comparable to wellness in Germany. Chinese wellness is massage and massage is brutal.

She started by massaging my head and face. She was very gentle with my eyes but the rest was tough! She banged my head in massaging until I wondered weather this will improve my ability to think or the opposite.

She massaged my back, my arms, my hands and fingers. She was pulling and twisting each finger until they cracked. The Chinese woman pulled and twisted my arms, massaged my shoulders until I had to shout. Chinese Wellness… She banged on my back until I almost tipped over. She massaged my legs, my feet.

All the while a Chinese Group of spectators (mostly farmers visiting Mianyang Centre) gathered watching me watching them. Of course they are used to seeing Chinese Massage. But they are not used to seeing it performed on a western girl. Yes they had never seen a western woman (or man) before I was told.

The Chinese Wellness feeling of my massage was a little spoiled by the fact that I began to feel like a zoo animal as more and more people gathered to watch me. My Chinese friends all the while almost laughed tears and took pictures. Luckily the Chinese Sichuan Farmers owned neither cameras nor cell phones with camera and so they took no pictures…

In the end I was happy when the public wellness massage was over…