The Great Golden Buddha of Pu Tuo Shan

He looks like he’s had a hard life. There is no smile and no conversation. He tries to look out the window. I smear the frost with the curtain but it is so cold outside that the glass is instantly iced up again. "Kan bu chu", I say. Can’t see out. "Ah," he says, dimly realizing that I know some Chinese. We are fellow passengers on the blue bus bound to see the Great Golden Buddha of Pu Tuo Shan. They are pilgrims and I am a tourist, the only foreigner.

The bus stops mysteriously on the side of the freeway. Our tour guide wears a headset with a microphone that is connected to a large bullhorn strapped to his waist. He begins talking in amplified Mandarin and I strain to understand, but it is all lost. He might be telling us why we are stuck, or he might be giving important instructions or emergency procedures. Finally I hear "thirty-three meters tall" and I suppose he is talking about the Buddha. He talks for half an hour and that is the only phrase I understand. Eventually the bus starts again and we are on our way.

We arrive at what I wrongly imagine to be Pu Tuo Shan and descend from the bus, following our tour guide who gives careful, painfully-loud bullhorn instructions in Mandarin. I don’t understand anything. He carries a flag on a stick and we follow it through the throng. We are led into a giant corral along with at least three or four thousand of the faithful. I am still the only foreigner, and I am the one person in the whole multitude who doesn’t have a clue what the hell is going on.

Our guide passes the flag to a minion and disappears on an errand. I hear "foreigner" from nearby voices, and I say "yes, that is me." They are genuinely surprised that I know any words at all and immediately want more information. I tell them that I am married to a Chinese. "Do you also have an American wife?"

"No" I say wistfully, "One wife is almost too many." They nod in agreement and make knowing faces.

My seatmate and his spouse hover nearby. They have correctly decided that I am helpless and gently adopt me for the day. The Mrs. initially thinks that I really can speak Chinese and starts asking more complicated questions. I tire of telling her that I don’t understand and respond with whatever comes to mind, which confuses her at first, but she begins to accept it.

Our tour guide returns with handfuls of tickets. I don’t know what they’re for, but I follow the crowd and when he hands me a ticket I guard it with my life, expecting it to be very important soon. We snake into a chute, forced to single file by the narrow space. The room is enormous and full of similar chutes, all jammed with busloads of pilgrims. Our gate is thrust open and we sally from the building onto a quay where we jostle politely for seats on a large jetboat. I did not know there was going to be water, or boats. I had thought we were there already. The boat crew take my ticket.

We disembark on the real Pu Tuo Shan, which I discover is an island, and the tour begins. The Buddhists purchase bags of incense. I look for T shirts bearing the golden visage, but unaccountably none are on offer. "What a business I could do!" I imagine, seeing every possibility.

We begin climbing the long hill to see the Buddha and I catch an amazing and unexpected sight. There is a small naval base and centered in the gate is a muscular guard, dressed in black, armed with a machine gun, standing on a pedestal, and striking a most uncomfortable, but threatening pose. "This will be the photo of the trip!" I think as I capture him in the viewfinder.

"NO PHOTOS!" screams a sign just out of the frame. I expect to be arrested. The Buddhists look away and pretend not to notice my crime. They open up some range between us. I delete the image, trembling and imagining life in a labor camp. No one really knows where I am. I could just disappear.

The Buddha is the biggest statue I have ever seen. He is clad in pure gold. I calculate that Big Tex would barely reach his crotch. That image, Big Tex trying to reach the Buddha’s golden crotch and mumbling "Howdy Pardner," is so disturbing that I try to force it out of my mind but it stays put like some bad Christmas carol.

The multitude hold burning incense in clapped hands and bow. I expect to hear chanting, but they chant silently, if at all. People crowd to throw coins into giant sculptured jars, hoping for their prayers to be answered. I want to ask why it is that Buddha tells us to lose earthly desire and yet the faithful are trying to buy prayer answers with mere money. But my Chinese is not that good and I figure there must be a reason.

It is tomorrow, we are back in Ningbo, back at the Howard Johnson’s. We get a cab to the bus station for transportation to Shanghai, just a couple of hours away. I am in the tiny back seat. The taxi driver is a woman in her forties who talks loudly on her cell phone, cackling and screaming in mad laughter. My wife has a hard time getting her attention to tell her our destination.

We stop across from the bus station and I get out to retrieve the luggage from the trunk. The taxi immediately drives off with my wife still in the front seat and the trunk still closed. I run to catch it, coming up breathlessly. "You have to get in line," says the cop who is managing the cab queue where they stop. "That’s my wife!" I say "And my luggage in back!"

"Oh," he says, not surprised. Foreigners will do anything.

Biffle French is an author, photographer, wood artist and the National Rodeo Correspondent to The Loop.