kuan yin

in many ways china feels very male. workers on the street and crowds in public places are dominated by men. Buddha is very important in the Buddhist religion, but so is kuan yin. kuan yin is known as the female Buddha, and is very revered here. she is the deity you pray to when you want a husband or family. i feel especially drawn to the beliefs about her.i have been wearing my kuan yin on her red thread since i began the process of pursuing this second adoption.

yesterday was our last in fuzhou. we decided to visit the Buddhist monastery in the middle of the city, since i had missed it on the tour earlier in the week. after fortification with java we set off, catching a cab from our hotel. the cabs in fuzhou are an army of lime green jetta's , mostly of early 90's vintage. with iron bars separating you from the driver, no seat belts and no carseats it is an exercise of faith to get in and go. one good thing is that with so much traffic composed of various vehicles: cars, scooters, bikes , motorcycles, carts and buses , nothing moves very fast. i spent a lot of time with my eyes closed when traveling by cab in fuzhou. our driver to the temple was a woman- a first for me in china. she was wearing white gloves and seemed skilled behind the wheel. i was a bit nervous when i saw that it was not her picture i.d on the cab and thought "oh great- husband is sick so she is substituting..."

we arrived at the temple and began our lovely walk. there is a huge kuan yin standing serenely in a lake filled with turtles and fish. its called something like 'lake of life" and apparently most temples have them. you can see several pagodas and towers from her vista and it is a serene and peaceful place. there was a group of women monks who were praying and as we stopped to watch, they opened a bunch of cages to let loose dozens of small chirping birds, and began throwing turtles into the water. i later found out that these were bought from the market and freed as part of the Buddhist reverence for all life.

we meandered the corridors filled with monks wearing different colored robes going about their business- talking on cell phones, cleaning , cooking, doing laundry. there were many places to kneel, pray and light incense. there were quite a few other visitors enjoying the morning there as well. we came upon a traditional looking chinese family- mom, dad , grandma and one teen girl. i was surprised to hear some whining in english going on-"its so HOT here,. and there are no elevators". they actually did not turn out to be chinese, but rather americans visiting china.i suppose that is in my future times two!

i stopped to light some incense at the largest kuan yin, grateful for two beautiful daughters, asking for smooth transitions and health for hazel.

the heat had intensified during our hours there wandering so we decided to head back to the hotel. if it had been 20 degrees cooler i would have stayed there all day. as it was, even with the heat it was a tranquil morning well spent on my last day in fuzhou.