The Reclining Buddha

This is what I'd like to be doing right now, but instead I need to go pack. Tomorrow is a long day of flying, and it starts at 3:30 in the morning. Will post more photos and stories when I am home again on Saturday...

Wat Thai Temple in Bangkok

After finishing the first smaller building at Wat Thai Temple, we went around the enclosed walls and walked into the main part of the temple. There was a courtyard with one main building and a few others which were clearly just not open. Really there was only one building in this courtyard for visitors, and there were only 2 or 3 other people in the courtyard at the time we arrived.

After removing our shoes, we went into the main building and were astounded to see what had been explained to us as "the Lucky Buddha." sitting in the center of the great building. He was surrounded on all sides by huge windows and above them beautifully painted walls covered with heavenly scenes of Buddha floating in the clouds, all covered by a rich red ceiling.
There was a large platform in front of the Buddha and the floor in front of it was carpeted. As I started to take photos I found the best vantage point to be at the far end of the building by the door, kneeling directly in front of the wall. After a few photos I just sat back and leaned against the wall to relax and enjoy the quiet serenity of the temple and the Buddha. Dinah came over and we both just sat leaning against the wall for awhile talking about how amazing the place was. A couple came in while we were there and chose another wall and basically did the same thing. It was just the perfect location for this!

As we were getting ready to leave, we walked 3 times around the Buddha- it's traditional to do this, you walk only in the clockwise direction, and you circle 3 times. I am certain I'll forget this since I just learned it in November, but in Buddhism many forms of Buddhist worship happen in 3's. You bow 3 times to Buddha, you bow 3 times when making an incense offering, you offer 3 sticks of incense at a time, and this- you circle the Buddha 3 times. I had to ask several people what the significance of "3" was, and finally I had a dual answer from one person. This is what I think I rememer. First, it is meant to signify Body, mind, and soul. Second, it is meant to represent Past, present, and....hmm...something else, but it's not future. I remember thinking it odd that it did not seem to be what I expected it to be. I checked Wiki online and found their explanation to be that 3 stands for Buddha, the teachings of Buddha, and the preachers of the teachings of Buddha.

On the first time around I saw this really wonderful painting on the wall- I think this is how to know when you have reached enlightenment. When you can be at peace in the woods, even with a hungry wild tiger nawing on your shoulder, you know you have reached enlightenment.

Dina and I waiting for our Tuktuk driver to come back...
It turned out the 40 Baht Tuktuk wasn't such a great deal after all, because the Tuktuk driver then took us to 3 export centers in hopes/expectation that we would buy something. We basically went in and out quickly until we got to the 3rd one. The 3rd one was a massive jewelry store, but in the entrance they were actually cutting and polishing stones and making some pieces of jewelry. That was actually kind of fun to watch, so we watched for a little while. The most amazing thing to me were the showcases along one wall where they had masses of uncut and unpolished stones sitting in piles next to cut and polished stones. The differences were amazing. It made me think of the agates and beach glass we found at the beach a few weeks ago and wondered how amazing they could be with a bit of cutting and polishing!
After the last forced store visit, he took us to see the Giant Swing. We were rather convinced by the time we arrived that we would actually see a giant swing and personally, I was hoping for a little swing on it! But it turns out it hasn't had a swing hanging from it for quite some time. This was the point in time where we essentially told our Tuktuk driver to shove it- gave him his money and went to another temple.
The next temple we went to was right next to the Giant Swing- it was a place our Tuktuk driver tried to talk us out of (most likely because he didn't get a commission from it...)


Wat Suthot was begun by King Rama I, continued by his successor, and completed finally by King Rama III in the early to mid 1800's. It was called one of the most important temples in Bangkok by the book in our room, but never quite explained why this was so.





The interior walls to the complex were all lined with Buddhas, some covered in gold, some in black. I'm not certain, but we were guessing the color of your buddha had something to do with the financial contributions you made to the Temple.

When we arrived there was a prayer going on in the main temple- actually I was quite surprised to see the temple was quite full and there were even people outside praying in the slightly cooler air. Perhaps it is most important religiously, and not in the tourist way. Dinah and I went in for a few minutes to kneel in the temple and listen to the praying and chanting. When we came out we saw a few more people praying outside- this photo below was another very lucky 'shot off the hip."
I really just loved this statue because it is a huge man with little tiny wings...it made me think of the Red Bull commercials where the big guy gets tiny little wings and off he flies...I wonder if the marketing team was inspired by a trip to Wat Suthot in Bangkok??!

I was rather surprised to see this candle holder with it's 9 candles at the temple. I asked Dinah if she had any idea of the significance of 9 in Buddhism but she did not. The irony is that, aside from not having a single raised candle in the bunch, it looked very much like a Jewish Menorah. Yet another link between world beliefs and religions that makes me think they are more alike than they are different...
I truly loved this statue- he made me think of a Chinese warlord. I know that is not a very appealing description based on the reputation of Warlords in the last few hundred years in China, but I couldn't think of another way to describe him. Regardless, I just loved the shade differences in all his carvings...
Again I'm not sure for the exact reasoning why some Buddhas were covered in gold and why some were only black, but the second and third one here had their headpieces covered in gold. I'm wondering if they just slowing cover more and more in gold as the donation goes up...next is the nose, then the cheeks, then the Head...shoulders, Knees and Toes...knees and toes....
One thing I've noticed in very hot countries is time seems much slower than what we are accustomed to. I think this must be a learned behavior- if you are walking or working in excessive heat and humidity, it's easier to keep going for longer if you are doing it all a bit slower. I learned this while living in China for 3 months several years ago- spending the months of July, August and Septemeber in southern China were quite a learning experience. My eggs never once "hard boiled" on the way home from the market, but I was afraid that parts of me had! Another consequence of the heat is that people frequently take mid to late afternoon naps...in this case it was a mid morning nap...and often it is not far from where they are working.
More to come tomorrow...

Bangkok during the "winter" months

I arrived in Bangkok late late Sunday night, although officially it was super early Monday morning. As there were several people arriving at the same time, there was a car sent to pick us up, rather than taking taxis. What a surprise to get a "tricked out" van. It was a new looking van, with the craziest leather insets in all colors- it looked totally 70's, although I was assured by my colleagues from the "trendy footwear category" that this was so NOW in Thailand...what was I thinking?
I had the day off Monday, so another colleague and I did a bit of touring. While waiting for the water taxi we took a short walk around the hotel, I just loved this little path/dock...
Our first plan was to go to the Grand Palace. We took a water taxi then took the public Ferry. As we approached the Palace, a man who appeared to work for the Palace told us it was closed but would open at 1 or 2, and suggested a couple of other temples to go see in the meantime. He called a Tuktuk for us and we took our first tuktuk ride...VERY exciting!

The tuktuks were everywhere- we loved the open air and cool breeze-very fun experience! Unfotunately it turned out our tuktuk driver "took us for a ride" and besides the first very cool temple he took us to, he then took us to a few shopping places we did NOT want to go to, so we lost our excitement and enthusiasm for our tuktuk driver in a very short time. Finally after the third shopping place we ditched the tuktuk driver and went on our own to another temple.
Everywhere you could see monks walking around in beautiful orange robes
The first temple that we went to was called Wat Thai. The guy who sent us there told us it was the home of the "lucky Buddha" and how lucky we were it was open today! It is only open one day per month and today was the lucky day!
There were two main buildings- the first building had several smaller Buddhas.
When we first walked in, I saw this monk praying on platform at the back of the room. I instantly thought "what a great photo!" But quickly turned so as not to stare becuase clearly, the man was praying and not to be disturbed. I asked permission to photograph the Buddhas and did that. After a little bit, Dina came over to me and said "did you see that man over there?" and I said Yes- why? She said, He's wax! I didn't believe her, and was quite nervous to walk over and actually 'check him out'. We did and after watching for a few minutes we determined that NO, he was not actually breathing, and was most likely wax. The two monks who were in the temple didn't make a noise, but I'm sure they had plenty of jokes later! The good news though, is that since he was in fact WAX, and not a real man...I was able to get the photo after all!

There were several smaller Buddhas around the two big buddhas in the first building
We saw several Buddhas throughout the day who had "pieces" of gold stuck on them. I think it must be an offering to paste some gold onto the buddha. Later at the Grand Palace there were more Buddhas which were completely covered in these small gold squares, seemingly several layers thick.
This lady is not what I normally think of when I see Temple Guards, but there were several just like this, so they were sort of "miniature kindly Temple Guards". Probably not, but I like that idea anyway...
This one we walked by on the way to the main part of the temple- it was actually outside the walls of the temple and it was just a Buddha in a very small park- the park was maybe the size of a small hotel room or just smaller, and round. This tree grew out of the middle and the Buddha sat right under the tree. It was just at the intersection of a few small streets, and very out in the open. Sort of like seeing a Torah or a Bible or a cross on a street corner with the idea of "easy access for everyone who wants it"- I was thinking of it like "Religion on the street." This seems relatively common in Asia- it seems like I see small altars with Buddhas or other religious figures outside of peoples homes or just out on street corners as a very regular part of life. It seems they are even more prevelent in Thailand than in China or Vietnam. Actually our Tuktuk driver told us there are around 472 Temples in Bangkok alone, and over 300,000 in all of Thailand. I did notice that not only do you see many many more Temples, but within Temples the image of Buddhas (or Buddhisatvas?) are much more frequent than I am accustomed to seeing in Buddhist temples in China.
Inside the walls to the main part of the temple they had a few elephant statues I really loved...
Many more photos to come, but I woke up at 4 am this morning, and need to get some sleep now. Will try to post another round of photos tomorrow and more stories!

Esther's Story

Some stories deserve to the told again and again. Lately the theme of "stories" has come up in my life a few times, and it brings to mind a woman I met in China several years ago.

This is Esther's story.

I met Esther in Yangshuo China about 4 years ago. I had gone for a quick 5 day trip that I had tacked onto a work trip to Guangzhou. The flight from Guangzhou to Guilin is super easy, only about an hour, then another hour taxi ride to Yangshuo. It was my first time to Yangshuo, and I didn't know much more than what the guidebook had told me. It was a relaxing place to spend some time with lots of easy daytrips out through the karst rock formations, through the rice fields, and up to some caves.

We arrived in town and walked down the street in search of a guesthouse to stay in. after the 2nd one we looked at, I began to worry about my choice in travel partners- the friend was a vendor I work with, and she is a bit of a primadonna- someone who not only appreciates but requires the 3 and 4* hotels we stay in. We were both relieved to see the 3rd guesthouse we checked out was okay for both of us and we took a room.

I don't know when we met Esther. It was probably the first day- we arrived around noon and had plenty of time to wander around that day. I know that it seemed that she followed us for a few days at least before we agreed to hire her. Esther is what the guidebooks call a "tout". A person who follows you around with a picture book asking to be hired for the day to tour you around. I have done a little bit of backpacking, but had always avoided the "touts." After probably the second day, I thought, well, let's look at her book. She showed us these beautiful photos of rice fields, karst rock formations, bamboo rafts you could take down the river...really beautiful things to see. And for some reason, I thought, okay, let's try this. What do we have to lose? Anyway we are unlikely to find these things on our own. So, we negotiated a price and we made an appointment to meet her the next morning after breakfast.

She came to the cafe where we had been eating breakfast & we walked to go pick up the bikes she had rented. It was raining and it seemed like the further we went, the more it rained. Esther was ahead of us leading the way, and she was just pedaling along, consistently, as though it might just have been a sunny day. At one point I remember pedaling with my eyes nearly shut, the rain was so strong I could barely see through it! We went to a cave & invited her to have lunch with us at a restaurant afterwards. We rode back later in the afternoon. The rain had been so hard and we had invited another person from our guesthouse to join us, so we paid her a few dollars more than the $9 or $10 price we had agreed to for the day.

The next day was sunny and beautiful, and we decided to spend part of the afternoon sitting at a street cafe and reading books. Shortly after we sat down, we saw Esther come by, so we called out to her to come join us and we bought her a drink. She had just gotten back from giving a tour, and looked a little hot and flustered. We asked about the daughter she had mentioned the day before.

Now we are finally up to Esther's story. (no one ever said my stories were short!)

Ester looked at us a little in surprise and said, 'daughter? I have 3 daughters." wow, we said, 3 daughters? she said, "well, I had 5 daughters, but I have 3 daughters."
"Where are your other two daughters?"
"I don't know, maybe dead, maybe adopted, maybe in another country. I don't know. the first one my husband took and left."
I had a difficult time understanding the second one, but either her husband took the baby because it was small and it was going to die, or it was small so it did die and he took it, or it was small and he took it and it probably died. The fact is, baby #2 was also just *gone*, and gone by her husbands hands.
We pressed her more and she told us she hated her husband, but now he is 70 and he does not work, so she cannot divorce him...no one to take care of him. She said, I'm 45, he is a mean mean man. such an awful man. So mean to me, but now I cannot divorce him. We asked, 'why is he so much older?" she said, "no choice. my parents killed in the cultural revolution. My mother work in hospital, deliver babies. My father teacher at the university. When I was 6 years old, my parents killed. My father killed. my mother go crazy and die. we had 6 kids, the youngest one 10 months old, the oldest one 11 years old, on the streets with no parents and no food. We had to beg for food, but no food because everyone was poor, everyone hungry. So many years begging on the streets, begging for food, eating grass and garbage. I no learn to write. I can't read or write." "wait but you have these books you showed us, that everyone has written comments in about how wonderful your tours are" "yes- my daugthers read to me- they tell me what they say. They write the country on the top of page so I meet someone I can find the country and they read. some people last year want to buy my books. I tell them no- they want to give me a lot of money, but I tell them no, these are so important to me" Later when it came time for her to marry, she had few options- a woman with no family to arrange a marriage for her is in a bad place, which is why she married a man 25 years older than herself.

We asked about how she had 3 girls, and all of her girls were under 20- so how could she have 3 kids? The one child policy has been in place in China since the early 80's. She told us only the first daughter could go to school for free. the other two she had to pay a lot of money so they could go to school. One was 19, one 17, one 15. The elementary school was not expensive, but high school translated to about $1000 US dollars per year per daughter. She said she worked every day of the year, no holiday, so she could pay for her daugthers to go to school because "I no want them not read like me." She had these books that were full of glowing reports of how wonderful her tours were and how well she took care of people, but she could not read anything but the few countries names her daugthers wrote on the top of the page, she could identify France, USA, Germany, China, and I think Japan. and knew nearly nothing else. But those books are one of the most valuable things in the world to her, despite this.

The stories of the babies being left are not uncommon. In Pearl S. Buck's novel "The Good Earth" about a chinese farming couple written in the 30's, the wife refers to daughters born as "slaves" and frequently they were not even given names.

But then Esther started to talk about some people in Yangshuo. She said, "last week a woman went to the hospital to have her babies- she had twin girls. the husband went to the hospital and took them, and left them." "Left them? where?" Left them to be lost. to be gone. The police found out and arrested him. "wait, last week?" I even asked in chinese to make sure she was using the right word, yes, last week. then she told us, I see babies on the way to the market. in the lillies. "what do you mean, 'in the lillies'?" She said there was a lilly field where you could sometimes see babies left when she went to the market in the morning.
Even until that time I did not really understand the fact of abandonment of children in China. It's not always the mothers, sometimes it's the fathers, sometimes it's the grandparents. It happened to Esther, and it was happening to other families now. In 2004. And still now, in 2008. After finding out about Esther's youth, her husband, her daughters, I was even more glad we had paid her a little extra.
Later that day we saw her again and we asked if we could hire her again the next morning to take us out. She had already agreed to take some french girls out, but found us someone else. The next morning we were surprised when she came running up to us at the breakfast cafe and told us she pawned off the french girls on someone else, she could be our guide! We went & picked up bikes again and set off. One of the things we did that morning was a bamboo raft ride down the river- it was a slow float down the river. When we got to the "pushing off point" and went to buy tickets, we asked Esther to come with us. she said, no, no, I stay with the bikes." We asked her if they would be safe and instisted she let us buy a ticket for her. She said yes they would be safe and she just looked giddy all of a sudden!! We 3 walked down to the boats and when the man who pushed with the pole saw Esther coming with us, he shook his head and his finger at her and told her "no not you", and she had this BIG mischevous grin on her face and told him in Chinese while waving her ticket, 'My AMERICAN friends bought me a Ticket!!!" You could just see the gleam in her eye! She was just thrilled that this favor had been done for her and the guy had to let her on! that alone was worth triple the ticket price. that is where the dragon fly photo is from, and the photo of the rocks and bamboo over the water. Afterwards we took a little raft over to a small island- I think I sent you that photo also with the old looking houses and the lilly pads. I got a chill over me when I saw the lily field and thought of Esther walking to the market and walking by a lily field like this and seeing a baby. to this day I cannot hear the name Lily for a chinese child and not think of this image.
I can't remember if we were able to pay Esther that day- we both wanted to give her more money, but as i recall, she refused it several times saying "no, you are my friends now." I think we were finally able to pay her. But whatever it was, it wasn't enough. I wished I could have given her more. I wished I could have gotten rid of her husband and offer to host her oldest daugther for college. But we all have our limitations. and sometimes we realize that we meet people once or twice, and the impact on your life is from those few meetings. that is a lesson that my grandmother told to me many years ago, but I've only learned it in the past years since she passed away. It's a good lesson.

I don't think of this so much as a SAD story. I like to think of Esther as a strong and independent woman. I don't know why her husband didn't take the other 3 girls away when they were girls. I like to think that Esther had gotten to an age where she became a stronger person and was able to stand up to him. Maybe he just gave up on having a son. Maybe he was old enough to realize he was not going to continue working to support girls, so if she wanted girls, it meant she would have to continue working.

Regardless, She is one of the faces that often comes to mind when I think of China. Despite great great hardship that I don't think I can even begin to imagine, she is a strong and amazing woman. she has a lot of lessons to teach, and I hope other travelers get to learn them as well. And it's funny, because you would think that with a story like this, and the fact that I am adopting from china, that this would have had some bearing on my choosing China. In fact, it really did not. And I had not even contemplated adopting so soon when I heard this story. It wasn't until maybe 10 months later that I first started to think I would actually "start"- and China was not because of Esther, it was because I had been studying the language, I had traveled the country, I knew a fair amount about the culture- and I couldn't say the same about many other countries. So, China was the choice. But now, looking back at this story, it must have had some subconscious impact. I mean, I look at it now and how could it not? How could you hear a woman like Esther tell a story like this and not have it influence you in some way. Maybe Esther was the voice to get me going. I can't say. But I hope I don't ever forget her story. It's one of those that deserves to be remembered and re-told.

Chinese New Year, My Birthday, and The Coast!

Oh what a busy few weeks it's been! first was our New Year Party, then the FCC new year party the next day, then my birthday weekend the following weekend, then a new ROOF on my house! (actually there was a little overlap there...)
On February 9 we had our chinese New Year Party at Cindy's house. We cooked a LOT of food!!!

LeJin and her granddaughter Freia- She told me the fish I made was best quality, better than Chinese can cook...ooh that was a proud moment when a REAL chinese Grandma tells me such a compliment about one of my dishes!!

Heidi had put together a couple of crafts for the kids, paper plate chinese style "tamborines" and paper bag lion puppets. The kids had tons of fun and she had a helper- Phil...unfortunately I don't have any photos of HEIDI helping the kids as I was cooking while the crafting was being done, just this one of Phil!

Bridget, Jason & Quincy came down from Seattle to celebrate Chinese New Year with us. I met Bridget and Jason two years ago at the first adoption training class I ever went to! I was scrambling to finish my paperwork and they were waiting until Bridget was 30 to turn theirs in! I knew instantly that I liked them- they are both very warm and sweet people! We caught up again this fall when they traveled to China to meet their son, Quincy, and bring him home. What a cute little bundly of energy and happiness he is! Such a sweet little boy!!!

At some point in the evening we started taking pictures of the kids, Liana came and sat on my lap and Ameline wanted to also- Dumpling was NOT TOO KEEN on my lap being taken up by others, so she wanted in too, before I knew it we had a raucious game of how many kids can pile on Kelli? Okay so *maybe*....*just maybe* I encouraged it- because as little ones came by we just grabbed them and squeezed them altogether! Kyle was standing close by and you could tell he wanted to be a part of the game, but seemed a little unsure with all the girls, but he had as big a smile on his face as any of the kids when he was pulled into the pile! Eva was only too happy to walk just close enough to be snatched up and squeezed with the rest of them.

Mary had had a class all that day and had gone to visit a friends terminally ill mother to say goodbye to her, so we were happy that she did make it in the end- regardless of a long day with a sad event, she seemed relaxed and happy to be in the chaos...

Eva with her Lion puppet...

This is the closest we came to getting all the kids in one photo- we had 13. I think they are actually all there except Olivia who is 11 I think, and determined herself too old for the kids photo...Amazingly, most of them are looking ahead and Kyle is the only one who is mostly obscured...

But fortunately we had this way cute photo of Kyle and Dumpling. Kyle is dumpling's preschool boyfriend.

Alana with a half a smile...she was being shy girl and I did manage to get one totally cute photo of her with a big smile on her face, but apparently I uploaded the wrong one! I do think this is a totally sweet photo of her though, so I left it in!
Before Kyle could leave Dumpling needed to give him a hug. Actually this was the very end of the hug. It started with a tackle that left him flat on the floor and her throwing herself at him trying to hug him. He was giggling away clearly loving it. They finally both got up and then hugged in a much more *serious* manner, all silly childish laughing gone, these are the grown up 3 year olds...(no, there is no putting down the princess flashlight, even when you are hugging your very grown up 3 year old boyfriend....)
A few weeks ago I got an email asking whether I could be abducted for my birthday for the entire weekend! Wow...I certainly said yes to that! I did get the heads up the weekend before that we were off to the coast so I could pack appropriately, then a week ago I was whisked off to the coast by the girls. Mary and I drove together, Heidi, Sharon, Cindy and Dumpling had gone out earlier.

I was surprised to see *this* waiting when I arrived!!!

Heidi made a wonderful dinner of vegetarian lasagna and french bread, and afterwards we had the cake. As I was helping get the dishes for the cake and nearly started to light the candles I was admonished for trying to do such a thing, and told to be surprised!

So....I made feeble attempts at "being surprised!"

Mind you I had moved the cake off the table for dinner myself, but I think it's pretty convincing...

German Chocolate...yum! So tasty!!! With very cool striped candles...

Cindy and Dumpling playing together the next morning...

Heidi enjoying the view off our back porch...

We went for a walk on the beach after lunch. Mary had to to to Albany for the memorial for the friend whose mother was terminally Ill, she passed away the day after Mary saw her.

It was a beautiful day at the beach-

More beach silliness...

There is just something about a jigsaw puzzle at the coast...

Dumpling tired after a long weekend....turns out it was probably the beginning of a flu sort of thing that got 4 of us....!