Mooncakes and Panders

Ages ago a fallen godess sat within her mortal home. Depressed and heartbroken over her lost immortality, she sat gazing out her window, awaiting her husband's return. He would not, however, until he had found the elixer capable of returning them to the heavens. Eventually, her husband arrived home with an answer to their troubles- a pill, which if eaten in halves could restore them to their former glory. Both were ecstatic, but it was decided to put the pill aside until they were ready to leave. Soon after the girl acted with Pandora-like folly and consumed both halves by herself, her curiosity getting the best of her. Her feet lifted from the floor and she was carried away to the moon. Her husband stood watching, his arrow in hand and a face filled with agony. He could not bear to shoot her down with his deadly bow.

That girl, Chang'e, is still remembered in Ancient Chinese legend and is celebrated every year during Mid-Autumn Festival （中秋节）, September 22nd. This year a new Chang'e will be making its way to the moon, and at a much faster speed. Chang'e 2, a modern Chinese Space shuttle, departs for the moon on October 1st, 2010, China's National Day. It's mission is to conduct rudimentary surveys and aid in future missions to the moon by Chang'e 3 and 4.

I marveled at this as I made my way up Cuiping mountain for the second time, my speed reaching that of perhaps an aged and depressed English bulldog (sorry, Frank). We were celebrating Mid-Autumn festival in our own way by joining our Chinese students in another hiking trip. This time Chris and I would be ascending from the opposite side and would discover plenty of new sites (including a zoo!). It had sounded like a great idea the night before, and indeed it was, but we had forgotten an essential Mid-Autumn festival tradition-Mooncakes. By definition a mooncake can be essentially any kind of bread like cake containing meat or sweet filling within it's shell. As with many specialty cakes or bread in China we were never even remotely sure which particular ingredient we would find inside. By mid-day, however, our students had insisted that we experiment with nearly 10 or 15. Suddenly Cuiping mountain felt more like a threat than a challenge, but we were determined to make it to the summit without troubles.

It was not going to be easy. Our students and colleagues constantly challenged us to some sort of race or shortcut to the top, which generally meant a long and steep race up perilously small steps. Occasionally the longer races would lead us to some hidden terrace along the mountains paths. After one such race I found myself wandering into a courtyard of Buddhist temples, hidden atop a particularly great staircase. I was surrounded by the drifting smoke of incense and bright golden statues, casual followers prostrated themselves on the ground while the chants of devout monks sounded from an unseen room. The greatest statues were situated within their own temples, their hands carefully intertwined or extended to personify their enlightened state. My Chinese friend Alex found me sitting on a bench observing a particularly large group of small Buddha statues. "Those are the thousand Buddhas," he said. "Ancient legend hold a story for them, that they were first created by a student of a great Buddhist master. The master had told both his students that their last task was to create a great artistic masterpiece, and that the one with the most profound art would be allowed to take their place amongst the masters. They had ten years. Finally, when ten years had passed the students returned to their teacher.

'What have you created?' he asked the first. 'A giant Buddha, magnificent in size.' 'And you?' he asked to second. 'I have created one thousand Buddha's, magnificent in number.' The teacher contemplated this and then awarded the second the title of master. "A thousand is much better than just one!'

In his agony, the first student thrust himself off his giant statue, unable to bear his failure. Having heard of the suicide, the teacher visited each of their creations and was astounded at the size of the first student's Buddha. What have I done? he thought, this is truly more magnificent than one thousand small statues. But it was too late."

I sat thinking about this for a while and was a bit confused. Isn't ten thousand Buddha's also good? "Yes," he said, "but you must go to Leshan and see the giant Buddha to understand. The giant Buddha there is too big to describe." This didn't make me feel much better as I had had several opportunities to go to see this statue, it being not far from Chengdu, but had failed to do so each time.

When we eventually reached the peak of Cuiping mountain we found stone benches atop a patio, several feet before us the ground descended quickly to the city far below. Behind us, a giant pagoda extended high above the mountain, where it could be seen from any point in Yibin, a symbol of its ancient past. Normally these buildings indicated that a great burial had taken place, and that the pagoda had been set up atop the burning remains to prevent evil spirits from getting in, or out. It's place high on the mountain was also closely associated with the concept of Feng Shui, which held that the precise direction of a burial ground, and the location of the mountains, was essential for warding off spirits.

Down below, the Yangtze river could be seen navigating its way through the city. It's path cut the city in three halves- the northern shore, the city center and the Yibin college campus where I live. Great bridges allow passage from one side to the other, below them giant shipyards constantly work to despatch cargo boats to Chongqing or Shanghai, the last city along the Yantze. From my perch I gazed at the hulls of modern Chinese ships racing across the river, dwarfed sampans still drift back and forth in their wake, another small remnant of ancient China. At night both the great cargo ships and the small sampans will give off faint red or green lights to warn of their passage, illuminating the Yangtze in an almost Christmas-like glow.

We arrived at the bottom later that afternoon, tired and sweating from the intense heat. Before we completed our journey, however, I had one more chance to attempt a potentially catastrophic feat. It had been at a large pond sitting at the foot of the mountain. Although it was man made several of the locals took to using it for fishing or for relaxing by a water body. It was large enough that many different crowds were well spread out amongst the pond's bends and curves. At one point, lying back against the side of the mountain, twelve large animal statues lay personifying the twelve zodiac symbols. To my dismay my animal was not on the side of the pond's shore but lay at least a dozen feet inside the ponds circumfrence, on a small island connected only by stepping stones. Feeling lucky I made my way across the pond, carefully stepping from one stone to the next, particularly careful not to slip on the stones fully submerged underwater. Halfway to my destination, however, I felt keenly aware of how easily I had brushed off the consequences of falling headfirst into the pond. It would not have been a pretty site, and there would have been little "face" left for many months I am sure. Arriving at the island I took some brief photo's standing next to my symbol, the ox, and once satisfied made my way back. Afterwords I breathed a long and heavy sigh that I had made it unscathed. At the time I felt like master of ponds, which then seemed like a more impressive title, and I even had a photo to prove what I had done! Feeling proud and arrogant I looked at my friends camera to check if it looked even remotely as interesting as I thought. The photo had not come out.

Two weeks later I am lounging at my desk, sounds of heavy rainfall can be heard from outside. It is National Day, October 1st, and undoubtedly there are parades and celebrations all over Yibin to welcome the 61st birthday of modern China. I am delaying the inevitable amount of cleaning I must do before several of my friends arrive. National Day, the equivalent of our July 4th, means a week off from classes, and I am anxious to show friends around the city.

Switching to the main news stations I find Beijings National Day commemoration ceremony-huge, well orchestrated marches on the main square, its magnitude difficult to describe in words. Occassionally these celebrations are interrupted with pictures of Hua Mei（华美）, the baby panda (pander, if you want to use the local dialect), just born in Sichuan province. His name literally meaning China-America, and as a baby panda he gets alot of attention, not least because Sichuan has most of the world's pandas, and because their mating habits make them particularly bad breeders.

Now I must get on with my day. Though watching pandas is certainly entertaining it will not get the dishes any cleaner. I hope any of you reading this will have a happy National Day and/or enjoy whatever particular event is happening right now in the U.S.! 再见！

祝你国庆节快乐！