After I finished Chinese class today, I felt like I just had to get out of town. With the ongoing job hunt, I’ve spent so much time in front of my computer recently that my eyes are really hurting a lot. I needed the opportunity to focus far away!
So, I hopped on a bus and headed out to the Fragant Hills park to the west of Beijing. I went there once before, in October, with some of the other Tsinghua exchange students. That was when the leaves changed colour, and it’s a very popular destination – so as I blogged at the time, there were enormous crowds! Today, it was quite the opposite – very few people, with warm sunshine, the frozen lakes beginning to melt, and the smell of firs and cypresses in the air. It was lovely.
I spent most of my time in the Azure Clouds Temple. I visited it last time, but at the end of the day, when I was tired and pressed for time. I missed a lot on that occasion!
One thing that I really enjoyed was the hall of the 500 arhats. An arhat is a term referring to an enlightened student of the Buddha (Wikipedia article). The hall has 500 gilded statues of the arhats. According to the sign outside, it was built in the 13th year of the Emperor Qianlong’s reign, ie 1748. Each statue is 1.5m tall.
The amazing thing is that each statue is totally individual. They include young, middle-aged, old, and ancient. Fat, thin, and emaciated. Most are clean shaven, but a number have beards. Some wear hats; a couple still have their hair, not shaven heads. Some are meditating, others are sitting in detachment but most are engaged in what’s plainly lively conversation. Some are drinking from cups, some are playing instruments (flute, cymbals), and one is giving another a piggyback. And almost all of them are smiling or laughing. It’s a total constrast to the severe, serious figures I’m accustomed to seeing in religious contexts in the West. Bearing inmind that these statues are intended to represent the personal students of the Buddha, what better way to express that enlightenment is a happy state, free from attachment and suffering 
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