This morning Aaron woke at 5 am (now that would be like Donovan to do!),but luckily went back to sleep (until 8!). After breakfast, we took a taxi (so easy to do here) to go to visit two special places. The first was Dr. Sun Yan-Sen Memorial Hall. He was the "George Washington of China" it seems. The grounds were beautiful - lots of flowers, garden areas, and we enjoyed walking around taking photos. The memorial hall is phenomenal architecture and we took many photos. We paid a few yuans to go inside the Memorial Hall. It was interesting for us to read the information about Dr. Sun Yan-Sen and walk through the museum. There is a large theatre in the middle which is absolutely beautiful. It seemed it would be a quick walk to the next site we wished to visit, The Six Banyan Tree Temple/ LiuRong Temple. It was about a 10 minute walk. I must say, I was NOT impressed with the temple. Perhaps this is after being to Lotus Mountain/Lianhua Mountain and visiting the incredible temples there. The Six Banyan Tree Temple is VERY SMALL, very touristy (restaurant inside, LOTs of tour groups - maybe due to Trade Fair). We walked around for a few minutes, took some photos, and then at the main temple, asked about having Aaron blessed by the monks - which I have heard other families have been able to do. It took quite a lot of work on Rupert's part to locate a monk. Finally, we removed our shoes, and went into the inner part of the temple, beneath a beautiful statue of Buddha, and the monk began his blessing. There was another family - Chinese with their child, also in that inner section during the blessing. I'm not sure if Aaron became scared, or really had to go to the bathroom, but he began saying he had to use the bathroom and began crying. Luckily, the monk finished his blessing, used Holy Water on Aaron, and we were able to quickly leave and get Aaron to the bathroom. When we were walking TO the Six Banyan Temple along LiuRong Road, we saw all the stores selling statues of Buddha and Guan Yin, incense, and other religious items - just as had been the case when we had driven to Lianhua Mountain. Unlike our visit to Lianhua Mountain, on the street leading to the LiuRong Temple, there were quite a few people (maybe 15-20) begging. These people all had physical deformities/birth defects; people missing limbs (and no prosthetics available here to the average person), people who were blind, people with severe birth marks, adults with cleft lips and others with club feet (never corrected as children - such a routine surgery/treatment in U.S. but again, unavailable to the average person here in China). I found this very difficult - not that people were begging - but seeing the people with birth defects (where you see no where else here in China except the orphanages). I wondered very much if these adults had lived their childhood years in orphanages, turned out of the orphanages onto the street at age 14 - which is the practice in China - the orphanages can only care for them until age 14. Maybe they were not former orphanage residents...but in any case, the deformities/birth defects I saw could have been easily fixed in the U.S. and these people could have led such a different life in the U.S. And most of all, that here in China, a person's physical disability/birth defect defines them (no access to schooling, no chance at marriage, no one to hire them....) It was just very emotional for me, thinking how different their lives could have been in a different country like the U.S. with access to medical care and laws that protect those with physical disabilities from discrimination... We easily took a taxi back to the hotel, where we are about to have lunch and put Aaron down for a nap. This afternoon we have some errands to run - photos to pick up, laundry to pick up, and just LITTLE more shopping... Love, Nicole |
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