Sunday, November 6, 2011

Stories from Nanjing: Karma

I don't mind bugs.  I don't like to touch bugs.  I freak out if I think a bug will bite or sting me.  But if I am reasonably assured that the bug means me no harm, I am usually perfectly content watching it.
On Purple Gold Mountain, there are a number of big name tourist locations.  There is the Sun Yat Sen Memorial, and a UNESCO World Heritage Ming Dynasty tomb.  But after a long half day of walking, and of getting slightly lost going up and down, surrounded by seas and mountains of people (海人山人) I ended up in the area slightly to the East of the main attractions.  It was actually someplace that I had read was really worthwhile to visit but had given up on finding.  There were considerably fewer people.  And though I had wanted to see the Sun Yat Sen Memorial because of the historical significance of Sun Yat Sen, it was only when I got away from it that I started to enjoy myself.
I would have a conversation with a woman who picked up the trash around the food stands, which involved lots of writing and nodding.  People start conversations with you almost any time you are out in parks or other public areas and don't seem preoccupied with something.  It is something I like a lot more than in Japan, where people waited for some sort of formal connection to be made.
But before that, I visited a Buddhist temple there, in that Eastern part of Purple Gold Mountain.  Walking through gates to go further inside, I saw a bug on the ground flat on its back.  It was a beetle that had landed somehow and could not open its wings and fly.  I lowered my bag to it's legs and let it grab hold of it.  I walked farther inside the temple courtyard and assumed the beetle would just fly off.  It did not fly off, and when I checked fifteen minutes latter it remained firmly attached to my bag.  I adjusted my bag so that the beetle could walk onto the stone hand rail.  It crawled and climbed atop a stone lotus.  It stood there while I watched it, and until I walked away.

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