They don't want, they don't want that. Because it's India, it can't happen. Otherwise, it's kind of shaped like this. This part up here is bigger. It looks like a wristband. Let's watch it like that.

[01:02]

So this trip was just for two weeks and the original idea for the trip was my wife is Chinese and so our daughters have Chinese. And my mother, my wife's mother is all Chinese. So my wife and her mother had been talking about going to China for a long time. And then they got the idea of grandmother, daughter, and granddaughter going back to China together. My daughter speaks Chinese pretty well. And my wife was born in China. She was born in Shanghai. And her mother grew up near Shanghai, and it's called Suzhou. And so they were going to go back together.

[02:04]

And at some point, the idea of me going along with it all, I was kind of interested in, you know, as in, please, I was wanting to go to China. To see it firsthand, although I'd studied it a lot. To see it close, that wanted to be. So, they didn't seem that interested in me coming. But they considered the idea and gradually thought okay about it. But then gradually they realized there were certain benefits of me coming. Like, I could carry a large industry. And that I would be a buffer between various people. Suddenly I kind of got really wanted me to come. And then her mother, my wife's mother, felt like the trip was a little too hard.

[03:04]

She's 80-something, and she's in very good health, but it's not robust. And it's kind of a hard trip, in a way. And so she decided not to go silly, just wife, daughter, and me. My wife's name, by the way, in Chinese is Ru Suh, which means like a Suh. Ru means like or as. And Suh is a musical instrument that's kind of like a cross between a zither and a koto, So that's her name. And my daughter's name is . Chinese name. Peaceful drag. So we went. We flew there. And we landed in ,, which I thought would be a very emotional experience for my wife.

[04:09]

She didn't get the emotional planning in her hometown. We couldn't really see much from there. I couldn't really see the city too much. It was kind of evening. And of course, like most Chinese cities, it lost the pollution. So I couldn't see much. I mean, we landed there and spent the night there. So I think I just might just be quick and see where we went. So let's just start fighting my time. Obviously, get up. So Shanghai means towards the sea. And it's near the sea, as you can see. And it's on a small river that goes a few miles and joins the Yangtze, just before the Yangtze goes into the East China Sea. The Yangtze kind of goes like this.

[05:10]

Then it goes into the lake. And then it goes out of the lake. Up into Tibet. So it just starts in, actually starts in Tibetan plateau, 16,000 feet down the sea level. It's one of the longest rivers in the world. $3,900 more, but it's not the longest. However, 300 million people live on the river. They don't like the cities that I live in. So it's the most populated river in the world. And so the main feature of this trip was an area It's called the Three Gorges.

[06:17]

And there's a certain place that the river cuts through the mountains very sharply and makes these very big gorges. And so you've probably seen pictures of, like, a big tiny little boat in a big river with these huge mountains going up. That's these gorges. You've probably also seen pictures, Chinese landscape pictures of these mountains going up into the clouds like forever. These little tiny little huts down there. Well, they are places like that in China. Enormous mountains. That's these gorges. And you want to go there because those gorges are the site of the biggest dam in the world. It's called the Three Gorges Dam. It's a bit dammy in the Yangtze, toward the beginning of the Gorgias, making a lake that goes about 300, 400 miles back to a city called Chongqing.

[07:30]

The trip started in Shanghai, including a few places here called Wuhang. Ever heard of Wuhan? Wuhan's a medium-sized city in China. Eight million people. And then, in Wuhan, we got on the boat. We got on the boat on the Yangtze River to our final destination, which is Tung. Tung. Tung. But who is Chongqing? Chongqing is a big city. The central part of the city is about 13 million. Shanghai is 13 million.

[08:33]

Basically, the downtown is like 13 million. Wuhan is 8 million, and Chongqing is 13 million, but the actual metropolitan area is 30 million. And so we went from Wuhan, and it took six days to go up the river to Chongqing through the corgis. And then from Chongqing, we flew to Xi'an. From Xi'an to Beijing. So that is a circuit. The twos. OK. So, yeah. Well, it kind of does, yeah. You could say that.

[09:41]

This, the name of some of the provinces I like to, this river is called, you know, a lake, one of the words for lake is Hu. So you put up Hunan. Hunan is the province south of the lake, Hunan. And then Ku Bay. Bay means north. Nan means south. Kunan is south. We think it's probably south. And Ku Bay is probably north. And it's Cetron. Where is Cetron? Cetron means four rivers. Cetron's out here. And then up here you have... So here you have... Hubei and Hunan, up there you have Honan and Hubei. Henan and Hubei.

[10:44]

You have the Yellow River up here. And then the province in the north of the Yellow River is called Hubei. The south is called Hunan. So in Shanghai, we didn't spend the time in, so we didn't see too much. We just saw the, again, you probably, many of you know the picture. There's a kind of waterfront area in Shanghai called the ,, which is a German word between government, means like the government, so the old European buildings were right on the waterfront there, so the European buildings are still there on the waterfront. And then across the waterfront of the river in Shanghai, and across from there, which a few years ago was just like kind of an open area, is now just

[11:54]

Looks like Manhattan, except bigger. Just huge, you know, huge skyscrapers going up and across from those. And then all through the rest of the city, too, just huge skyscrapers. And when we took off from Shanghai, we could see it. It was the daytime, and it was fairly clear. We could see it just incredibly immense. That's the thing. I mean, America's a big country, actually, right? But China's just so many people. It just seems much bigger, in a way, than America. Even though in areas, it's not much bigger. It seems much bigger because there's so much mass. And you feel, I mean, I feel it. just this tremendous upheaval, not upheaval, upsurge, power.

[13:00]

Whereas in America, you have this tremendous power, incredible power, and tremendous wealth. It's kind of like sitting there. It's fairly well established, even though we're still building, too. But in China, it's like the building is like, it seems like incomparably greater than here. Somebody said that Shanghai has like, I forgot what the figure was, 60% of the cranes, and I don't mean flying cranes, are in Shanghai. 60% of the world's cranes are right now in Shanghai. So you've maybe seen pictures of Hong Kong, right? Just lots of skyscrapers, right? But Hong Kong's not growing anymore. Shanghai is like, And every big city is like that, just skyscrapers, especially Shanghai. It's becoming the economic business center.

[14:03]

And again, I apologize even for talking about China, because who am I to talk about China after being there for two weeks? But just in my opinion, it's just . The air in Shanghai was not too bad. It wasn't too bad. I didn't feel sick or anything, particularly the day I was there. We were also there in the best time of the year in terms of comfort, human comfort. Late September, early October is the most pleasant time in China. And it was pretty pleasant. aside from the pollution. But to other parts of the year, they tell you what the weather's like. And when we were there, in Shanghai, for example, I think when we landed, it was something comfortable, like 68. It was kind of hot.

[15:08]

68 is kind of hot. 68, I think, is like 18 Celsius. Is that right? Something like that is 18 Celsius in Shanghai. Anyway, in cities like Wuhan and Chongqing, Xi'an, the sunlight gets up to 40. Now, the guy says they never say 40. They never say 40 on the radio. They say 39.95. But he says it actually gets up to like 42 in the cities. And it's a humid place, too, which is incredibly hot. China's really hot and also really cold in a lot of parts of China. And some of the places where it's really hot, it's also really cold. Like, huh?

[16:09]

Yeah, sounds like here, but I mean really hot and really cold. Hotter than here, it's humid. And of course, much, much colder. Down here, it doesn't get real cold, but up in Xi'an and Beijing, it gets really cold, like, you know, Minnesota. It's much, really hot. So the weather in China, the weather conditions in China, the air in China, in the places I was, and I was there at the best time of the year, is really difficult. People are, these immense masses of people are living in, right now, Really bad air. And 1.2 billion people are living in a country that's growing like this incredibly fast, growing, and they can't drink their own water. Well, maybe you can drink it some places. Who knows? But they don't.

[17:10]

It hasn't been proclaimed as drinkable. You have to drink it out of plastic bottles like we do here, right? So when you take those plastic bottles and they pollute the country with the bottles that they're drinking, In the English-language newspaper I read, the two main agendas of the Chinese government are environmental protection and economic growth. I wonder which is first. They listed the environmental protection first, but, you know... I mean, right now they've got... Tremendous environmental damage in China. Environmental damage has been going on a long time there. Tremendous environmental damage.

[18:14]

Every day they're damaging more and more, and they want to grow more and more. So, I mean, it's just potentially a horrible situation for the planet and for the people of the planet is this country. You know, in some way, it's just like, just a terrible, terrible situation. So sad. So horrible. And then who knows what the government's doing, and how impressive it is, you know. I don't know. It's hard to evaluate, you know, exactly what's going on. Yes, sir? Yeah, I mean, many, many, many, many, many, many poor people trying to steal, obviously poor.

[19:51]

However, It does seem to be different than it has been sometimes in the past in China. There's a little difference. I felt a difference. I felt that the poor people were no longer considered inhuman and completely worthless. But I wondered, you know, You know, the beggars outside the hotels, you know, they had to keep a certain distance. But I wonder what would happen if one of those beggars came into the hotel. And they wouldn't be allowed in, of course. But, you know, beggars can't go in hotels here either. But if a beggar came into a hotel, especially, like, maybe a really, like, deformed, not just a panhandler, but a deformed, What would be the attitude of the people in the hotel? How would they feel about this person? What do they feel in their heart? This is one of us.

[20:53]

Do they feel that way? That I don't know. I don't know. I couldn't ask that question. But I saw some signs that maybe they do feel that way, that they do have this thing about, we are the people, and we care about the poor people. We are the people. I saw some signs of that. But I have no way of saying how real that is for people. But China has a history of, in a lot of places, tremendous oppression. They didn't build those, the pyramids were not built by volunteer laborers. So anyway, we were in Shanghai and I guess the most interesting thing in Shanghai for me was going to this place called Yu Gardens.

[21:57]

And it's just this, I guess, some very wealthy person had his estate right there in Shanghai some number of years ago. I don't know how many years, whether it was 100 or 200 years ago. But he has this fabulous estate with a garden all around the garden. And it's right there in the middle of the city. And you go right through slums and business areas to get to it. It's amazing. You know, there it is. And once you get inside, it's just really interesting, really beautiful. Right in the middle of... I mean, you don't have anything like that in America, or maybe in Europe they do, but you don't have anything like that. Like, when you have something really beautiful. I guess maybe you do in, like, Washington, D.C., you have, like, the capitals surrounded by slums, to some extent. But the slums aren't right next to the capitals. There's some just to go, you know, Yeah.

[22:59]

I mean, this is like poverty right around this place. You go right through it to get to this place. It's very interesting. Anyway, then we went to Wunan, over there. Wunan is one of these really hot cities. And there we went to... We got more into meeting the people and went to some museums. And didn't go to any monasteries there. Did we visit? No? Didn't go to any monasteries there? Oh, we're on a tour. We're on a tour. Tour called it. Three gorges tour. To see these gorges before they get flooded.

[24:03]

They'll still be there, but they'll be, you know, at the beginning of the Goygis, they'll have water up 500 feet, right? So they'll be 500 feet shorter, in a sense, sticking out of the water. And then the water goes back. So by the time the water reaches Chongqing, the water is the same level. So you put the dam at the place that wouldn't flood this major city. But it can bury several other cities on the way. And there's big cities on the way, but most of them are up on the cliffs, and people are moving up to the cliffs. One city is just going to be buried under water, except for this very interesting place I'll tell you about. Yes? Are they building it down, like I said, primarily for irrigation purposes, or primarily for hydroelectric? Hydroelectric. They know also along the... Well, two reasons. Hydroelectric... and to prevent flooding on the Yangtze. So the Yangtze, you know, on some basis, it floods the flatlands every so often.

[25:06]

So those two reasons are irrational. And they know the disadvantages, but they're going at it anyway. Well, they're also, of course, putting up a lot of coal from Western Palestine, and they're also building nuclear power plants all along. Yeah. They're going for broke. Well, I think part of their reason for building hydroelectric is to maybe burn less coal. Because they know that they're poisoning themselves by burning the coal, which they are. There's tremendous acid rain there. So I think they'd like to reduce their coal consumption. And this is one way to do it. Yes? They are pushing it a little bit. And, you know, somehow the Yangtze, even if it wasn't polluted, it would be brown. Because it's coming off a part of the mountains that just brings down lots of red dirt.

[26:09]

So it would be brown even if it wasn't polluted, but it's also polluted. And there's fish in it. People fish it and they eat it. And the fish in the river are highly valued, delicious fish. The Yellow River is yellow, more yellow than brown, because coming from a place where, I forgot, coming from, that part of China, the hills are yellow, the dirt is yellow. Most of China, the earth is red. So if you read in Chinese poetry or Zen texts, it talks about the red dust. It's a red, dusty place in the summer. Isn't this kind of a freshwater dolphin? I think you're right that there's a freshwater dolphin in the United States. They have dolphins in the United States. Overall, you know, again, this major impression I got is that, you know, here are these people, this enormous mass of people living

[27:16]

to some extent, living with a lot of energy. And life goes on in this situation, which a lot of us would probably just give up. So it's so difficult there. And it's really tough in a certain way. But at the same time, I was really happy to be there. My general feeling was I was very happy to be there. I felt like, in some sense, I felt like I was the center of the world. And maybe I feel like that about India, too. But I didn't feel like I was up in the creatures, looking down on humanity, which I sometimes feel like in America. I feel like America was kind of like living in Rome. high-tech protection all around us we're extremely wealthy consume tremendous amount of material and manage to somehow to not poison ourselves too much and people can even like protest against the poisoning we're doing so it's really i mean it's a very elevated situation in a lot of ways but when i was in china i felt like i was down

[28:36]

in the bowels. It felt good to be there in her life. Also, my wife, I think it felt really good to be there with her people, with the people who look like the Asians. 48 years since she was there. And there's something really nice about being with a lot of people who are self-reported. It's uncomfortable, but it's something really good about it. You know, for me, it felt really good. And I also thought, well, it's only been three weeks. I think she felt really good, too, being there. Although she wasn't having fun, exactly. I think she realized she was doing something really important. So then we were on this river. And we stopped going up the river. And we stopped at various places. Most of the places that we stopped, I mean, we have beggars in America, but the beggars in China are more like beggars in India.

[29:58]

They're not homeowners. at these, like, tremendously deformed, you know, you can hardly see how they can live, bodies, and they exhibit the part of them that's most deformed and most most people looking. And you reach out, you reach out. But they're not mean. They're aggressive, but not mean. And another thing I thought, especially if you go among the street vendors and things like that, people are very aggressive. They come after you. And if you actually start bargaining with them, they start slugging you and stuff. pushing me around and arguing with you. But it doesn't seem, it doesn't seem, it doesn't seem, it seems more friendly, more family. Although it's hard to think straight, you could be pushing me around.

[30:59]

Yelling at you, you know, and trying to get you to take hold of it and, you know. But that's one of those places where you can interact with people in a certain way. On the street, there's a lot of, near all the kind of tourist things, there's a lot of people on the street, many, many people on the street. And I think the funny thing about China is the street vendors, at each place, at each location, almost all the stalls are the same. I mean, in this place, all the stars would be the same. In another place, they'd be different, but they'd all be the same. In another place, they'd be different, but they'd all be the same. They sign the same things in the same way, and they have the same decoration. Rather than having, like, typically that kind of difference, a lot of places, they're all the same. Kind of a different concept. It's like, which one can yell the loudest, I guess. But it isn't like each shop has a different thing to offer.

[32:00]

It's like the whole thing is basically identical, which is just the cuticles in a lot of places. It's kind of a different concept. Yeah. All right. I guess it's like work, you know, work. Eventually somebody will drop somebody at some place who didn't. One of the places we went which will be buried, I think it's called... I need a little certificate. of having taken this trip. I think this place is called Wushan. This city is going to be very... It looks like a big city, but I guess it's not a big city. But there's this one part of the city called the Ghost City. It's up on a mountain.

[33:02]

It's a pretty big temple, and it's a temple for basically the ghosts. And that means that it's a place where people, where they have big statues. But when you see pictures of them, they look pretty tacky. When you see them actually up close, they're actually really interesting. They're very dramatic, weird kinds of like demons, big statues of various kinds of demons. And some of them are in really interesting shape, and they have like, and these are demons, you know, that inhabit various hells and hungry ghost lands. So it's about the place, it's a place to meditate on and relate to all your ancestors that have passed away. And it's sort of like, yes, you can visit all different places, unless you know where they've gone, you can visit all different places and make offerings to wherever they might be. They have all these different situations, and they have these ghost lands for people who are more like Taoists, and ghost lands for people who are more like Confucian, and ghost lands for maybe folk people, and ghost lands for Buddhists.

[34:10]

So you go to, and the tour guys, the one we had, and you went, she whispered when she told us these places, but probably she was really laughing at people, and most of the people on the tour kind of thought it was kind of funny, too. But it was just some stuff, you know, like you do bad things, and then this happens, you know? You do this kind of thing, and that happens. Just straight kind of like, what do you call it? What do you call it? Kind of fundamentalist understanding of karma that she was telling. And she was kind of making fun of it while she was telling it. But behind the fundamentalist understanding is a kind of image or a kind of fantasy, which is a metaphor for how things actually go. By actually, I mean the process of our life relates to certain kinds of fantasies and images. And if you take it literally, then it's fundamentalism, or it's kind of silly.

[35:13]

Because they're not really literal. They have to do with our imagination. They're imaginary presentations of how we try to relate to what happens in life or death. So it's kind of funny, in a way, this whole thing. But there were people there, lots of Chinese people there, who didn't think it was funny. They were actually there making offerings in these various places. very sincerely to somebody they care about. And I guess I would say just generally that there's various kinds of beliefs that are very alive in China. I don't know what they are or to what extent they are alive. But because of what's happened in China over the centuries, at some points, if you look around, you don't see any Buddhists. because Buddhism is too dangerous.

[36:17]

Like when Tung Shan was alive, actually, Tung Shan and Uncle Mi, they had a nice Buddhist life, but Tung Shan was in hiding a good share of his life because the government suppressed Buddhism. And then they took off the suppression, and here's Albany Open again. So in our lifetime, we've seen Buddhism suppressed, Confucianism suppressed, and Taoism suppressed in China. But they've sort of taken the suppression off. Now they think that these religions are actually tourist attractions, which they are. They are tourist attractions. very much so. So now the government's even giving some money to the Buddhist sanghas to build monasteries. They took over Tibet, but they're also building monasteries in Tibet. However, Christianity, they're suppressing.

[37:23]

And I think there are The reason why they suppress it is because Christianity presents a real threat because Christianity is fueled by, particularly fueled by, America. For example, the Mormons, Pentecostals, Seventh-day Adventists, these people are out to colonize, spiritually colonize the planet. And they're very good. The Chinese do not want them to come in there and like... So they're really suppressing Christians. But the Buddhists, they kind of aren't so worried about. So they're actually letting the Buddhists come back. And young people are actually going into the monasteries and practicing, not because the tourists are attracting, but because they want to. And some people are, as they said, some Daoists are also returning to the Daoist temples. They're also getting some government support. But they're also finding that you can't practice so well in a tourist attraction.

[38:27]

So some of them are trying to find places that aren't tourist attractions. And I'm just sort of jumping around here, but Xi'an, which is the fourth great city in the United States, Xi'an is what used to be called Chang'an. Chang'an was happily loved. Tongans, right? Chang'an is capital during the Golden Age of Zen. Now, Chang'an means eternal peace. Xi'an means western peace. But I heard this story about Xi'an. I'll tell you that story later. I'll tell you a bit. You don't talk to me. So Xi'an is, I think, I would say, every city you go to, this tourist guy says, we have, they don't say China's the best country.

[39:30]

They don't say that. This tourist guy did not say that. They say, this city's the best city in China. This is the most interesting city. But sometimes even after they tell you it's the most interesting city, they say this has the most terrible weather. Anyway, beyond, they say, and then also each one says, we have a very long history. And that's really true almost in every city in China. These cities, almost all these cities have history well over 2,000 years. All these cities I just mentioned. And Chang'e and Xi'an has history well over 6,000 years. It wasn't Chang'e, it wasn't Xi'an or Chang'an then, but they have right outside the gates of the city, they have like A little museum, not a big museum, that has a village there that's been there for 6,500 years. It started there. And a highly developed, not civilization, but culture there at that time.

[40:36]

And there was a nature at that time. I tried to find out who they thought dug the ditches and built the buildings. And I guess most of the tour guides thought that the men dug the ditches. But the women sort of ran the society. And from ancient times, I guess all over the world, one of the things that people do to sort of show that they're great is when they're buried, how much stuff goes in their grave, right? Their grave monuments is one of the ways they try to show how great they were. And for that culture, the women had more and better stuff in their graves than the men did. Almost always it's the other way around. In later parts of history, starting around 3,000 years, the men start having more stuff in their graves, including their wives. Or at least, if you think of their wife, their servants.

[41:39]

So anyway, in Xi'an, which was the capital of China for 11 dynasties. And some of these dynasties lasted for 200 years, right? So for 11 dynasties, that was the capital of China. I mean, if they unearthed and put museums on top of all the major archaeological sites, everybody had to move out of Xi'an. And not just out of Xi'an, but the whole metropolitan area. People had to move to other provinces. The whole area is just honeycombed with imperial tombs. All around the city. Not in the city. The city itself is an archaeological thing. But just all around, for miles and miles, all around the city, I'll tell you more about that, but I just want to tell you this, is that Chang'an is a city I studied some because it's kind of interesting because it's easy to understand because Chang'an maybe, it was built on a flat plain, you know, there's mountains around it, but it has a flat plain.

[42:51]

It was built in a rectangular shape, and right down the center of it was, you know, the imperial buildings and so on. The whole city was built in that grid, and they had a wall around it. in the Tang Dynasty before. But after many wars and so on, the walls got smaller. So the wall that's around the city now, there is now a city wall that goes all the way around. It's a beautiful city wall. By the north gate to the wall, there, at least a few years ago, there was a Buddhist temple. And it was a Zen temple. And up until a few years ago, there was a factory in the courtyard of this temple. And then again, the government, for some reason, had took the factory down, and the monks didn't have the factory in the middle of the temple.

[43:52]

But the temple's still a wreck. And they leave it a wreck so the tourists won't come. And this guy who was looking around for hermits, he said, do you know any place where I can meet hermits? And the abbot of the Suzanne Temple, right outside the city gates of Xi'an, in the middle of this big city, said, we're all hermits here. So again, right in the middle of that big urban sprawl is this little Zen temple that you probably would feel uncomfortable going into because it looked like just a wreck. Maybe there are things like that in China. And again, I've heard optimistically right at the beginning of the trip that you've probably seen this. In the morning, starting around 6 o'clock in large numbers, you go out to someplace where there's some open space and you find people doing exercises.

[44:57]

So in Xi'an, I went out early in the morning to look for the people. And I went to the place where they usually do it. There's the moat around the gate, water moat. And then there's a space between the moat and the gate, between the wall, city wall. All around the city wall, there's a little green swamp or cement swamp between the moat and the wall. And in that space, people exercise all the way around the city various ways. So I went there early in the morning. And on the way there, on the streets you go in, you have to go over a little bridge to go over the moat to get to the wall. This is like 6 in the morning on the bridge. The bridge is full of vendors of various kinds. So you go to these heavy vendors, and people are selling breakfast food, clothing.

[46:00]

And people drive up in trucks with microphones, selling some stuff from who knows where. And people are on the street, not hurting each other, but violently arguing about something. Here and there, big, intense arguments. I don't know what it is, but a very animated situation. Early in the morning, they're on the bridges going over the mouth to the city wall. And then you go through that. You can go a little further around the other side of the city wall. The outside of the wall, but past the vendors. For example, I went to the left. And first I come to ladies practicing fan dance. You know, big bands and dancing with them. And then a little bit beyond the ladies practicing fan dance is, you know, Chinese ladies dancing. aerobics, you know, with jazzercise. Okay? A small group, you know. Then beyond that is a large group of people practicing cha-cha-cha.

[47:05]

Chinese cha, you know, in Chinese, except, not Chinese, it was in English, it was in English, you see, you like my cha-cha-cha, and lots of people, mostly women, doing cha-cha-cha. Usually it's like a big bank of women. You're like, I don't know how many women. Some large number of women and then a few couples. Male, female couples. And a big group of women just practicing their cha-cha-cha. And beyond that is Tai Chi. And beyond that, Kung Fu. You know? And I just... That's just in a few feet, you know? That's like in a less, I would say, in about 100 feet, all this is happening. Okay? Who knows the rest? You know, 14 miles, 14 miles around the city. And the people are mostly older people, you know? By older, I mean like, I would say, 30s to 70s, or 30s to 100, whatever. Anyway, not young people. It starts around 6.

[48:13]

And not much cars at that time. There's cars, but not too many. Then I went back with my tour group at about 9 to climb up on the wall. And that whole vendor scene was completely gone. and the dancers were completely gone, and the vegetable market was completely gone, and then there was just lots of trucks and stuff. Now, then the traffic was there. Traffic just came, just... And now the streets could hardly get across the street because there's so many cars. Totally just... And it's amazing, but it's... So I led into that because part of what I heard is that if you go to these places, you see some of these places, you see a large group of people practicing some kind of martial arts or something. And there's usually a teacher there. And what I heard is that those teachers all have teachers, but their teachers are not out. Teachers of the teachers are not out in the street. Teachers of the teachers are back at their apartment or whatever.

[49:17]

and then those teachers go study with their teachers. So there are some number of people, I don't know what the number is, whether it's 66 or a million, but lots of old teachers back, you know, hidden someplace in all these cities where lots of people are going to study to try to bring some spiritual energy into this very difficult situation of how do you take care of 1.2 billion people. How do you get people to live in a situation like that? But anyway, my favorite city was Xi'an, the whole capital. Xi'an is a place where they have the Terracotta Army, the Terracotta Warriors Army. You heard about that? Yeah. In terms of Chinese history, they often start in terms of dynasties, like big, powerful families that are dominant.

[50:27]

First, there was, I believe, the Xia dynasty. And this means, by dynasty, it means in an important family that had the holdings and records and artifacts and that was the dominant force in the country at a certain period of time. This starting like 2,000 years ago, 4,000 years ago. And then after the Shah comes the Sons. and that takes you up to 221 B.C. Between the Zhou and 221 B.C. is a period called the Warring States. 221 B.C. is the time of the first real emperor of China. And this guy's name was Mr. Chin.

[51:43]

Usually not, the Chinese do it like this. This is the first real emperor of China. This is the first dynasty that basically had conquered all of China. Over 500 years, the Chin family had gradually been conquering all of China. So this dynasty was, if you look at the shape and maps of the Qin Dynasty, it's an area of land that is, you know, looks like China, kind of, like what you think of China. Doesn't look like a little, if you look at early maps of China, they have these empty, these dynasties that had small little sections of what you call China now. But this Qin Dynasty looks like this. Anyway, the heir of this 500-year period of acquisition was so-and-so Chu.

[52:51]

And this guy was, well, he was like, so I want to say about people like that, you know, it's like, Chinese history has created some people which are like us, but just blown. It's like the Chinese civilization has produced these oversized creatures, like we did in the West, who made certain people, like the pharaohs the Roman emperors, certain people get really, really, somehow represent all of our grand hopes or something. We let them all, we let some people act out for us. We go along with people getting really, really, really, really huge and big and powerful. So this guy got really powerful. And then, not only that, but not only we let people get like that, but then we go to China and we look at what they did and we come back and tell people about it.

[54:00]

So in some ways, I feel funny talking about it, but it's kind of a warning about something about human history, that such a person occurred in history, such an emperor occurred. What he did was, he did a couple of things. One is, he had this thing called the Great Wall built. It's one of the things he did. That was one of his ideas. I'll talk about that in a minute. And he also had this tomb built. And he also had a palace built. And the way he did that was, like the pharaohs, he'd pull men off the farm, take them away from their family, and let whatever happened to their family happen. Take one of the main people from the family, pull them off the farm, take them away from his family, and make them work on building walls, palaces, or tombs. So this guy built a tomb.

[55:05]

Now, the Terracotta Army, I don't know if you can get this, but Xi'an's over here, right? So here's Xi'an. And outside Xi'an is this area. In the middle, sort of in the middle of this area, I don't know if you can see, but there's this big mound in the middle of the area, which is, it doesn't look terribly huge. Maybe, I don't know, 100 feet tall or something. And it's nearly 200 feet wide and 200 by 100, 100 feet tall. That's his tomb. The Terracotta Army is like over here. And this whole thing is this thing. Stuff buried in this whole area. Now, what did they find in the Terracotta Harmony is this huge, huge thing.

[56:11]

They have three huge museums on top of this little corner of this tomb. The mound part where he's sitting is enormous, and they haven't even touched that. But under the ground all around here is just incredible. And so the terracotta, Ami, you've seen those things? Well, they have these, they're life-size. We don't know exactly, but anyway, it looks like, they don't really know, right? But maybe the Chinese people were bigger then than they are now, because they don't seem life-size, but they're kind of big guys. like they tend to be mostly over six feet tall. And they're full-sized terracotta sculptures. And every one is different. Every face is different. And every posture is slightly different. In this one little corner, there's 8,000.

[57:16]

8,000 sculptures, full-sized sculptures, and they were painted. Huh? What? And horses, and horses, and weapons, and carriages. Huh? But what happened was, after his, this guy, Mr. Chin, when he died, his successors weren't imbued with the same whatever. They couldn't keep it up. But also, what he did aggravated the people so much. Because, you know, we don't know how many million, million people he took to build his tomb. But he took a lot of people, and he upset millions of people to do his building projects. So then there was a big revolt after that. His dynasty, from the time he became emperor, only last year, 15, he was... He was emperor for 37 years, but only lasted 15 years after he died.

[58:19]

And then what they did was they went into his tomb. So these guys are standing under the ground. They're standing up this army, which is only a small part of it. And then they're standing in these corridors, which have pillars along and piled floors and a ceiling, big beam ceiling, like beams like this. over the ceiling, and they came in, they burned the beams, pulled them up, and they smashed the whole army. So when they found this, the whole army was smashed. So they didn't last for 2,000 years. They were smashed 15 years after he died. Now, what's China doing? They're putting all those back together. So not only did this guy... have this done. And it's immense scale. But now the Chinese people are rebuilding as a, as, so we can, we, so actually some of it is not just tourists, but so that we and the Chinese people can see what human beings have done.

[59:34]

So we can see that, you know, there is this kind of like It's just like, what can you say about that this has happened, that a person did that as a memorial to himself, and that the people supported that, and that now we want to go look at that again and sort of contemplate what that means to have that kind of power 2200 years ago. What does that mean? He also built a palace above ground. And they burned that, too. And it burned for three months. So they have some palaces there now, too. Which I told you a little bit about the place where the drones are. But that palace was, you know, incomparably vain. And he built the Great Wall, too. This guy, this guy did. But he ruined the country to build this stuff. And we're still talking about it.

[60:37]

And that one emperor, one of the emperors out of 11 dynasties that were around there. So you can imagine what kind of, what that place is like in terms of like, you know, you're walking on emperor's tomb probably everywhere you go probably. And even, and also when you drive into the airport, you see tomb after tomb after tomb. You know, they haven't even figured out how to, you know, when to access them and so on and so forth. I mean, it's kind of like they keep working as each one of, you know, in our later rebirths, we can all have like our own, you know, imperial, you know, dinnerware. What about Emperor Wolf and... That meeting was going down.

[61:42]

What was Emperor Wu? Emperor Wu was down here, south of the Yangtze. the Emperor Wu of Liang. The Liang dynasty was down here. So Bodhidharma came into the Emperor Wu's land, couldn't work at our temple, crossed the Yangtze and went north up to Shaolin. Shaolin's in sort of North China. And Shaolin now, she's still there and you can visit it. But it's mostly, what do you call it? It's mostly a martial arts building, of course. So, but the cave is still there. You can still see the cave. And, uh, so I had to put it down. Emperor Wu was not a, Emperor Wu actually was a historical figure and he was a Buddhist. So, um, What about the place that wasn't in the story on the Bible?

[63:00]

What was that? Well, Ghost Mountain, I just mentioned Ghost Mountain will be like Ghost City. They said if you come back here in a few years, it will no longer be Ghost City. It will be Ghost Island. so there's still ha it'll be above water this this uh this this temple to this part of the spirits will still be there you have to go there by boat so it'll still be there But as I said, I got off on that because you could see that the Chinese people still, it still means something to go and make offerings to deceased ancestors, even in a public place like that. And Chinese people are still interested in Buddhism. And Chinese people are still practicing all kinds of martial arts and things like that. I think that the government, this question, what does the government allow?

[64:02]

What does the government feel secure with? What does this government, and will this government be replaced by another government which will feel more secure and allow more But religions can transform societies, right? So governments are often concerned with, will the religion transform the society in a way that will threaten our values? And so, of course, if some of you went to China and somehow could stay there and you started protesting against the dam or something like that, the government might feel insecure. And they did, like, Tenement Square, right? So I went to Tenement Square. And the two guys don't talk about that day. You know? They are on Tenement Square, and there's no memorial to those people.

[65:04]

They got killed there. They don't have that memorial there. Maybe someday they will. And... The Tiananmen Square is Tiananmen, which means Heavenly Peace. It's a place where people have demonstrated when they had grievances with the government, they've demonstrated for most of this century off and on there's been demonstrations. And there's been repressions at that spot too, but the one in 1989 was the worst, the biggest suppression of all the demonstrations. And so that place is at the beginning of what's called the forbidden palace. And you have this big line of this huge imperial building. And again, a big gate. This isn't a gate around the city. There used to be a gate around Beijing. This isn't Beijing. There used to be a gate around it. And there used to be a wall around the whole city.

[66:10]

And then there was another wall inside around the imperial city. Now there's a wall around the imperial city. It tore down, the communists in 1958 tore down the Beijing city wall, with the retrospect, the regret, because again, it would be a great tourist attraction. And those walls, it was so interesting just to see a city in Europe, in Europe that almost all the walls are down. But up until 1958, Beijing had this huge wall all the way around it. And then the Imperial Wall's still there with the moat around it. And you have these big Imperial buildings and they're still there and in good condition. And it just flooded with tourists, Chinese and foreign tourists just flooding through there every day. And so I told you about that one place where I went floating and I saw those two guards and it really made me feel like

[67:17]

You know, right there in the middle of all this, various people have a chance to practice. There are chances to practice even in this hard, you know, but there are chances to practice here, there, and everywhere throughout the world. Many people have the opportunity to be present and You can watch what's happening in your own life. And to what extent that's happening in China, I don't know. Those two people didn't seem to be practicing being upright. But maybe millions of others are set in that example. Maybe they can wake the society up. But it is, in terms of like, where they're going, it's... They have food, they have clothes, and now they want more, now they want more housing, and they're gonna want cars, and... So, another thing I want to say is that in Chongqing, we went out from the city into the countryside.

[68:43]

And we were there on, I think, October 1st, which is, you know, October 1st is like, the communist country's October 1st is one of the big dates, right? October 1st. Is it October 1st in Czechoslovakia, wasn't it? The communist celebration, October 1st, October 28th? Anyway, October 1st is called People's Day. So we saw a lot of, it was a holiday. So we went out to the country that day to a Buddhist temple. Great, fantastic Buddhist temple. Also kind of underground. on the side of a cliff. And it's just like this ground, and there's this cliff. And it's a fantastic cliff painting. But on the way out there, we drove through farm country. And just beautiful farm country. Just beautiful.

[69:46]

It's gorgeous. Just people out there really doing beautiful work on the land. And there's no pollution on the land. There's no trashing. There's no garbage. No machines. You can't really use machines on rice paddies very much. You can do it a little bit, but they didn't have them. In Japan, they sometimes have push machines to do rice paddies. Everybody's out there in this gorgeous, beautiful restaurants. And then you come up to the road, and all along the road it's just total squalid. The interface between the traditional society and the modern is just a disaster zone. And people are doing things in China like they don't do anywhere else in the world anymore. China's where they make those rugs. I don't think they make Persian rugs in Persia anymore.

[70:49]

I'm not sure. I don't think they do. They make them in China. I mean, I know they make them in China. Maybe they make them in Persia. I think the Middle Eastern people are too well off with the work. It's just in China that they're doing these, you know, eight million such and such as prestige kind of rugs. And in China they do this thing called cloisonne. You know what cloisonne is? It's actually a French thing. Talk about labor intensive. This is incredible. It's incredibly labor intensive. Things they're doing there. They have people doing concentrated, devoted work on such a mass scale. And that could go this way or it could go that way. And so it's just awesome. There's a lot of awesome things happening in America, too. You know, you're like, jeez, how can we meet the challenge of the potential for good or evil is so great in this country.

[72:00]

And it just seems like in China, the potential for good and evil is just that much more. Because every person on this planet has that potential. So when you have more people, you have more possibility for it to go one way or the other. And so it's very sobering. It was a sobering experience. It wasn't an intoxicating experience to go to China. It was sobering. But as I said, in a way, good sobering, because I felt like I actually saw, if I saw India and Africa and Brazil, I guess then, maybe Russian, I mean, I saw India, Africa, New Zealand, I feel like they're in a scene, in terms of this humanity of this planet, I mean, I've seen something. And I'd like to go back to China. I liked it there.

[73:04]

I liked being in a place, again, that was, that could be, that where so much bad is going on, something big could happen. And I'd like to know, I'd be happy to find some way, maybe there's some way, you know, that American Buddhists could infiltrate or, I don't know what, you know, bring another perspective to the situation. I don't know what, you know. It's not like outside trouble, where they're like, well, let's see, I don't know. Right. They call it Tibet. They say Tibet. They don't say whatever. They don't call it China. They call it Tibet. And they didn't people always weren't talking about any problems with the government.

[74:07]

But they talked pretty freely. I mean, it comes down to criticizing the government, but they seem to be talking fairly freely. But then again, I guess They're kind of... They're fluent in what you can talk about at a given time, so they learn, we can talk about this, and you may talk to me about that. And it's an area over there they can talk about, but they know they don't talk about it, so you don't feel awkward about sitting where the talk is. They seem fairly relaxed and... and alive, you know. So it's a communist country, right? And I don't know exactly, but there's lots and lots of really, really rich people there. For a long time, it was okay to be kind of a rich family.

[75:11]

If you look up in the mountains, you can see big, nice farmhouses which must be farmers' houses because they don't have roads up in those mountains. So some farmers are, for some time, it's been okay to be fairly well-to-do as a farmer. But now people are, there's lots of really rich people in China. They say that. So it's a communist country that has lots of really rich people. And even in The street vendors, I don't know where that money goes, whether they have like welfare, and then any money they can make, or whether the government owns their stall, but they don't act like they're working for the government somehow. They don't feel like, well, I'm just gonna get paid a salary here, that's why I'm gonna buy something. They're really out there trying to sell you. I mean, there's more wholeheartedly than most. As a matter of fact, they do have government stalls. And in government stories, they say that prices are fair and you can't really bargain in the government stores.

[76:20]

So these people are in a communist country, but they're individual entrepreneurs and they cheat. And they lie. And they pull fast ones on you. And this guy who wrote this travel log, he says, one of the basic things about Chinese people is they think they can fool foreigners. And one of the things about most foreigners is they think Chinese can fool them. So these people, I don't know if they live in a communist country, but they're out there to make a buck for themselves. And when you go in a government store, they really do just sort of help you. But on the street, they like... So... I don't know exactly what the actual situation is. Another thing I thought was interesting to me was most pictures I've seen in China up until recently, everybody's walking around in Mao jackets, right? These blue Mao jackets. Nobody's wearing Mao jackets except really poor people.

[77:27]

of the country. But basically in the city, everybody's wearing Western clothes, partly because they make the Western clothes, right? So they're all wearing, they're either wearing brand new Western clothes, or they're wearing seconds. But nobody's wearing Mao. It's very colorful, and that's all gone, that uniform thing. Except among some older people like me. I bought a Chinese suit. Well, I just wore black. No, I just wore black. The people in the tour gradually found out that I was not just a Buddhist, but I was a Buddhist priest and lit a temple. And then gradually we visited places the tour guides would learn, and then the tour guides would tell. So it gradually became known, but they didn't know it first. .

[78:33]

I think the Chinese people feel bad about it. They feel bad about it. But I think they think, you know, I don't know what they think, but it seems like what I heard is the government's been thinking about this project for about 60 years. 60 years ago they had the idea for this. And so they didn't think about it for a long time. And so they finally decided to go ahead. They know that there's lots of problems, but they're doing it. And I think they're somewhat sad about it. To some extent, I think they like their landscape. I don't know if they like it as much as we do. But from ancient times, it's a Chinese tradition to love nature, right? But it's also, in the old days, the same in Japan. In the old days, you could just throw your garbage out the window, right? And it would just be gobbled up by nature.

[79:58]

But nowadays, so we have, in the West, in America, we have a shorter tradition of throwing garbage out the window than nature. So in some ways, it's easier for us to change and stop doing that. So if they're having a hard time getting a grip on this and not trashing the environment... So I don't know, it's a land of... of such immensity and such variety that it's hard to say much, except that the water is undrinkable. hygiene level is not good, and the air is bad, and it looks like it might get worse before it gets better. And all these people, and also Chinese people love to have kids. especially poor people who have to have kids. And so it's very hard to keep them to one child per family. And in the countryside, you get a second chance if the first one's a girl.

[81:03]

So now, as you know, most of Manhattan is Chinese girls. All those girls are being adopted by rich people in Manhattan. But anyway, you can try again if you have to grow up in a farm. The population's still growing, even with its limitations. But Buddhism is coming back, in a way. People are practicing Buddhism and Taoism, apparently. There's monasteries that have lots of monks in them, young monks, that are not doing it to please the government. They're not doing it to entertain tourists. They're actually interested in Buddhism. So as it's allowed, it's coming back. Because, I mean, if I, you know, a lot of you who live in China would be just as enthusiastic about practicing as you are now. Because there, you know, suffering is so...

[82:06]

is so close at hand. At the same time, although suffering is close at hand, I'll say I felt happy there. It felt good to be there too. It's a funny thing, you know. How do you get to a happy thing in a world of suffering? How is that possible? It's real, more real. It's not all suffering. It's not all suffering, no. No. And like the last night, I checked out into it. I was trying to get sick, and I checked out of the tour thing.

[83:11]

The hotel also checked out. In this corner, you missed the Peking Opera. What we did instead was we went into the streets of Beijing. We crawled the streets and, you know, right down there, right near the big hotels, big Western hotels, we'd go out the street with all these little parties and vendors, you know, where you could eat. And most of you probably wouldn't dare eat at these places. But with Brucie, you know, she kind of could tell, you know, what things were edible and what things were not. So what you do is you don't eat things, if they serve things in bowls, you don't eat those things because, you know, the bowls are not clean. The stuff that's right in hot oil or something, you know, right, you know, what just comes right out of the fire, We can eat that kind of stuff. So, you know, standing there in the middle of last night, just up there in the street in the middle of Beijing, with cars storming by, you know, and just all these people milling by, eating right off the street.

[84:16]

It's a very good feeling, anyway, like, to be, you know, embracing humanity that way, and eating their food, their food. with some assistance. So it felt really good to be able to do that. If you ever had the feeling of going someplace where it looks dirty or dangerous, and then somehow you get initiated into it and you find out you can embrace it, it feels good to cross that border and embrace that life. So that was a nice way to end the trip. And also, I went to a Chinese department store. That was one of the high points for her, was to go to a Chinese department store where there's no tourists, just Chinese people.

[85:16]

It's like breaking the tourist envelope and going someplace where tourists don't know how to speak English. I got that sinker. And no bargaining. Hmm? No. But she went shopping at that place. She came and got me. And I said, let's go get it. She said, you never saw me so interested in shopping as I was in China. So I'd like to... I'd like to organize a pilgrimage to China and Tibet. I'd like to go in the silk route to those cave places, ,, places like that. And I think it might be possible to do that.

[86:20]

And some of these tours are not that expensive. Once you get to China, it's not expensive. No, well, everybody understands Mandarin. So in China, I guess, almost everybody can speak two languages. They can speak and understand Mandarin, and they can speak their local dialect. But people cannot understand each other's local dialects unless they're kind of gifted or they travel. But Russia cannot understand. Most Cantonese people, actually Cantonese people in the south, way south, like in Hong Kong, they can't understand. A lot of the people cannot understand Mandarin way down south. Most Chinese people don't understand Mandarin. but a lot of them can't understand each other if they didn't speak the local dialect.

[87:23]

It's really different. I could hear really different parts. I guess I'd have to think. I guess what I'd do is I would think of a trip, of places I would like to go, and then I would talk to a travel agent to see if they wanted to, like, Because I couldn't, like, I couldn't negotiate it myself. I'd have to have some help. But I will say this, you know, that that travel agency worked with the Chinese people, and it was extremely well organized. Everybody, you know, even exactly the people on time, they must have been there early all the time. Because whenever we got to a place, the bus was there, and the guide was there. Always. Never waited for anything. There were never any slips in the word. So I guess it's weighted.

[88:26]

Never missed. They're very well-ordered, and I always speak out. It's all the places I've learned. I'm very good at English. Jen was speaking with the guides. So I kind of would like to see what I can work out. I wish I could do it. I wish I could do it. Oh yeah, that's what I was worried about is Chinese airlines. They don't have a very good record. So the first flight was pretty good from Shanghai to Wuhan. It was pretty good. And then the boat was fine. But from Chongqing to Xi'an was... Kind of like one of these old Russian, old Russian hand-me-downs. And that was the worst plane I've ever rode in. I mean, I've ridden in little planes that were in good condition. It was really a rattle-trap thing. And I... It was... It landed, but it was really a... It didn't feel like it was going to crash.

[89:37]

It felt like the plane was going to fall apart. The wings felt okay, but just the whole fuselage, the hull of the plane was just rattling and shaking. It was all right. And then the next plane from Xi'an to Beijing was like the best, the nicest airplane, the nicest big plane I've ever ridden on. Brand new. They have Boeing They have a big bowling factory in Xi'an. So like a brand new, like the ordinary seats were like business class. Very comfortable, big seats. Very quiet and tastefully decorated. Yeah. On the boat the whole time. It's a real big boat, yeah, a real large boat.

[90:41]

The boat had 150 passengers and about 100 crew. How wide is it? The river, the Yangtze, varies, but it's often a mile wide. Good morning. Sometimes it gets narrow, and it gets narrow, and then, of course, it's got big rapids, so you have to have a powerful boat to go up, or you have to pull. There's places, you know, where they get out, and they keep, like, pulling. And there's, like, great places where that's the case, and you have these, like, grooves in the rocks where the ropes go. For more than a century, they're pulling rocks over the rocks. They boil it. They either boil it or they just boil it, you know, in large quantities at some almond factory.

[91:42]

So they drink it out of bottles or they boil it. And maybe, you know, I didn't test it, but maybe some of the lower... I don't know. But it is really a polluting environment. Also, I heard, you know, that Smoking situation is terrible in there too, but it wasn't as bad as I heard it was going to be. And they spit still. I talked to Spirit about that, you know, is there any justification in Chinese medicine that you should spit instead of, like, blow your nose? Well, blowing your nose is okay, but rather than swallow. But yeah, he said, yeah, Chinese medicine has a strong prejudice towards spit it out. Get it out of your body. Clem's bad. And so they're still into spitting, which is another way they spread disease. So you see women walking down the street, they go, and then rub their hand on a poster. This is like, you know, a decent-looking woman will do this, you know.

[92:44]

No. You can go like this. So they're into the spitting thing still. But they know that it's not cool, and they know it's not good for their health. So they're trying to do it. And like in Western hotels, nobody's spitting. So some people are getting the picture that it really is a serious thing to do, to try to learn how not to spit. And they make a lot of noise when they spit, too, for some reason. And as Thoreau says, it's a crowded country, so they don't like spit like in Wyoming. They make this big noise, and then you just sort of dribble. Close range drops. So anyway, it's... How about when you eat the crayons?

[93:51]

Well, if you were a vegetarian, you'd basically almost always have no problem in trying Like I say, you go out in the countryside, there's these gorgeous vegetable gardens. They've got the vegetables over there. So most places do serve some meat here and there in most dishes, but every meal, there was tons of great vegetables in there. And actually, one of the problems I had on the trip was that I just couldn't stand to see how many vegetables there were inside. I was eating the vegetables off various tables. I couldn't stand wasting all those great vegetables. Overrated vegetables. Yeah, but you can easily, you can be...

[94:45]

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