Travel is Fatal

When a Righteous Man Goes to Israel

When Israel came out of Egypt,
   Jacob from a people of foreign tongue, 
Judah became God’s sanctuary,
   Israel his dominion. (Psalm 114:1-2)

God: What are you doing now?
King Arthur: Averting our eyes, oh Lord. 
God: Well, don't. It's just like those miserable psalms, always so depressing. Now knock it off! (Monty Python)

It's been a few days since I've updated, and I extend my sincerest apologies to my devoted reader.^*As soon as we got back from Galilee, we started a morning class/afternoon excursion pattern which left little time for wrestling with wireless LANs in the computer lab. (This may or may not have been further exacerbated by the rather athletic challenge posed by the multitude of reserved books hidden in a library which hadn't been properly catalogued in years, with only an ill-loved card catalogue as our guide.)

We've spent most of the past few days exploring the older parts of Jerusalem. In two days, we hit up the holy sites of 4 major religions- Judaism, Islam, Christianity- Catholicism, and Christianity- Evangelism. The last two were especially exciting.

On Saturday morning, we went to the Garden Tomb, which is one of two sites thought to possibly be the site of Jesus' crucifixion, death, and resurrection. Apparently the land was purchased by an evangelical group who was looking for the residence of Joseph of Aramatheia, but discovered a 1st-century Jewish tomb on the property during the course of excavations and decided that since there was a kind of a skull-shaped rock nearby that the tomb was probably that of Jesus.

 
(Skull-shaped outcropping near the Garden Tomb)

 Now, I'm not saying that it's a spurious and fanciful claim that disregards the historical landscape and architecture of first century Jerusalem or anything, but one must maintain one's academically-appropriate skepticism. Still, the garden was very pretty, the tomb was cool and had clearly been used for some sort of Christian gathering early in Church history, and the endless rounds of "Our God is an Awesome God" was very uplifting and not at all annoying. Even after the 300,000^th repetition.

 
(Cross inscribed on the inside of the tomb.)

 

The next day, we headed over to the other proposed momentary-resting place of Jesus: the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. We were lucky enough to celebrate Mass in the Crusader's Chapel, which was an unforgettable experience. (I'll put up pictures as soon as I steal them from someone.) After Mass, we wandered around the church, taking in the bizarrely beautiful mix of Constantinian, Byzantine, and Crusader architecture, which was further complicated by the presence of six different Christian groups, all vying for worship/interior decorating space. It was like walking around in Gradma's Sanctified Attic of WONDER.

 
(Entrance to the tomb shows decided Greek Orthodox influence)

Oddly, although the Roman Catholics, Greek Orthodox, Syrians, Copts, Ethiopians, and Armenians all have use of the Church, it's a Muslim family in Jerusalem that holds the keys to the Church's doors. Huh.

From the Church, we walked up (and down and up and down) to the Western Wall of the Temple Mount. There, I could finally, finally see what I had waited so many years to see- the subject of Mighty Moe Roger's epic song "Blues is My Wailing Wall." (Hear the song here.) Actually, I only actually saw half of the wall, since access to it is still segregated by sex. The part I saw was incredibly impressive, though, to be honest. And the number of people who came just to touch the wall was impressive. A lovely experience, even if I couldn't quite shake the feeling that the men's side was probably cooler.

 
(Approaching the women's side)

Finally, to top off the day (kinda literally),our group headed up to the Temple Mount. Originally the site of the massive Herodian Temple, it was all destroyed by the Romans in 70CE. 600-odd years later, the Muslims under the Umayyad caliphs built the Dome of the Rock, and that's all she wrote. Although the Israelis technically control the Temple Mount, the Dome remains under Muslim administration... as evidenced by the Skank Police who refuse admittance to anyone showing knees, upper arms, or collarbones.

 
(Dome of the Rock)

  
(All of us at the Dome of the Rock. Note the girl wearing a man's shirt on the far right? One of the guys literally gave her the shirt of his back because she was dressed like a skank... er, had a slightly too-sheer sweater over her dress.) 

Well. There is much more to tell, but little time to tell it in. Tomorrow we have our final exam, this weekend we write our final papers, and then it's back to the United States on Monday. I'll try to get in one more update before we leave- maybe talk about some of the other archaeological sites at the Herodian and Caesarea Maratima (lots of rocks).

Much love from God's (really hot and very brown) sanctuary in Judah.

 

*Not a typo

**Many thanks to my comrades in studies for contributing their beautifully high-resolution pictures 

Thing That Cannot Be Hidden

“Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.”    -Buddha

Make that four things: the sun, the moon, truth, and the honking huge statue of the Amitabha Buddha on Lantau Island.

I went to the island thinking that the statue was some grand masterpiece of ancient Chinese engineering. Why, I wondered, was this 110 foot, 280 ton Buddha not listed among the wonders of the ancient world, alongside the Colossus of Rhodes and the Lighthouse at Alexandria? Looking at the picture to the right, you have to admit that it is a remarkable creation of human hands.

Sort of.

I actually found out later that is was not made by human hands, but rather by mechinized claws. The Tiantan Buddha(it's official name) was actually constructed from 1990-1993. Hardly an ancient wonder. I feel so disillusioned... though perhaps the environment around the statue should have clued me in...

Ah, well. It was a good time anyway. Getting to the statue is a bit of a trip, though. I started on a ferry from Central Hong Kong to Mui Wo on Lantau Island. Upon arrival at Mui Wo, I discovered that the only real modes of transportation on the island were the buses- which only ran once per hour. It took another 2-odd-hours to get from Mui Wo to Tai O, and from Tai O to the Po Lin Monastery near the statue. 

There were a surprising number of expats on the buses, most of them living on Lantau. One girl who worked at the local bookstore (succinctly named "Bookstore") said it was the perfect place for people who want to get away from the insanity of Hong Kong and just chill on a beach. Sitting around on a beach all day would probably drive me battier than any of the crackpots working in Hong Kong, but that's just me.

In addition to seeing the Tiantan Buddha, I was also looking forward to taking a cable car across the island; it's supposed to have some amazing views of the national parkland and the ocean. Of course, the day I choose to go to an island is the day Cyclone Soudelor decides to whistle through China's southeast, so I had to settle for the view at the top of the Buddha statue. Not bad, really.

   

                               

Margins of Society

"These political movements flourish on the margins of Turkish society because of poverty and because of the people's feeling that they are not being represented." -Orhan Pamuk

 

I don't really want this to be a political blog, but the current violence in Xinjiang is spilling over into everyday life. I've had students emailing me- asking what I think, expounding their own beliefs, and warning me against trusting "thieving liars from Xinjiang." Where is all of this hate coming from? These are students from Jilin province! I'd venture to say that most of them have never seen a Uighur in their lives! So where do they learn these horrible stereotypes?

I am definitely not pro-violence, but I can understand where many of the Uighurs are coming from. Their homes are being destroyed in the name of "progress," their cultural traditions are being ignored, they are marginalized in the government and in their own home cities, and even their religion is completely controlled by the Islamic Association of China` a nationalist, Beijing-based organization. Just go to www.chinadigitaltimes.net and click on the links to Xinjiang; you'll see that these accusations are not liberal propaganda or bleeding-heart sentimentality, but rather legitimite complaints that have been observed and recorded by dozens of news agencies from around the world.

I do not want this to be a political blog. I want a blog about my life. Sometimes, though, China makes it kind of hard to separate the two.