1000 Buddha Cliff (6-10)

Last week I went to the last place on my list of nearby places to visit: 1000 Buddha Cliff.

As usual when I do such trips, I went to Chengdu Thursday and stayed at a hostel so I could leave early Friday morning. On Thursday I had lunch with Sigve. He’d contacted me two weeks ago, which was nice as I’d been thinking I’d like to see him again before leaving. We had a nice lunch and chatted for a few hours. Then I went to pick up Raven’s earrings, which are beautiful. After paying the goldsmith, Wu Lin Jin invited me to have tea in her shop. There I met Mandy, who got her Master’s degree in the U.S. We also had a good time chatting. She is 29 and finally has a boyfriend, which relieves some of the pressure from her parents to get married. Her degree is in hospitality, but her father doesn’t want her to work in that business; so she doesn’t.

Friday morning I took the bus to Jiajiang, which took about two hours. 

The cliff is in a small park that also has an old temple and a few pavilions. The walk to the entrance goes through an old village street that is nice because the old buildings are old and not recreated. 

There is one temple at the other side of the cliff that is being renovated. 

A nice path through a wooded area goes up to the pavilions. 

On the way there’s a small cliff with a few carvings.

The main cliff is along the river. It has 162 niches which contain 2470 Buddhas from the Tang dynasty, which was in the 7^th to 10 centuries. 

I am always awed in the presence of things so old, especially when they are as intact as these carvings are. 

Some still have paint. Most of the niches have group gatherings. They are amazingly detailed, and some still have paint on the statues and on the ceilings. I was in awe the whole way.

Since everything is in a rather small area, it didn’t take long to walk to the temple and along the cliff. Since it was a pleasant day and the view along the river was lovely, I sat on a concrete bench and relaxed and read for an hour. Then it was time to start the return trip.

The trip back took 2.5 hours. I think there was an accident on the highway, as we were stop and go for quite a while. Once in Chengdu I followed my plan to have an ice cream milkshake and eat at the restaurant that has them.  I hadn’t done that for a long time; so I especially enjoyed the milkshake. I also went to the Western-style bakery Yang had introduced me to and bought bread, scones, and doughnuts. It was a nice outing.

School news last week: I hit the jackpot for written exams in addition to the oral ones. I have to do them for both freshmen English education and business English. That’s five classes/180 students. Grading them will take most of the last weeks. This is the first time I’ve had to do them, and I got them all at once. Oh, well.

Saturday morning Winner called to tell me she was leaving and had a gift for me. That was a surprise, as she isn’t one of the girls who has spent a lot of time with me and she only started talking to me about a month ago when she told me that she would participate in the summer work program in the U.S. 

It was even more of a surprise when I saw it—a lovely sandalwood necklace with a Buddha. Her father was with her, as he was there to drive her home; so she told me that he had bought it. I was really touched. She told me again how much she loves my class.

This was the last week of teaching, which was bittersweet. Although I’m ready to be finished in China, I have enjoyed teaching and I like the classes. Students have been telling me they’ll miss me. Most wouldn’t have me as a teacher next year, but knowing I would be here is comforting even if they don’t contact me. One girl gave me an unsigned letter telling me how much she and her classmates like me even though they are quiet and have never talked to me. One of Kasey’s students told me she’s sorry I’m leaving and thinks I’m very nice and kind. Two girls who hadn’t been to office hours discussion—one since last semester and one since last year—came because it would be their last opportunity to see me. William has told me a couple times how much he has learned about being a good teacher and that he will use my techniques when he becomes a teacher.

Velvet, who has been coming for private work on pronunciation/oral reading, gave me homemade sausage made by her grandmother. The instructions were to soak it for half an hour (I’m not sure what the purpose of that is, as it looked the same before and after soaking it. Maybe it was just to add water to the sausage.) and then boil it for about half an hour. I couldn’t tell her that I don’t eat meat; so I had a bite and then gave the rest to friends. It was sweet of her to share this special food.

We also had the last English Corner this week. The students organized games for an hour before we had a short chatting time. Several of my students formed my group and wanted to talk about my plans.