Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Temple >

Life in the mountains

Kill for Inner Peace

13:26 / 20.08.04

Hi everyone.

You don't know me, I will recognize the nicks of some of you due to the 2 months or so on off lurking I have done on this board. I spent the last two weeks on a supposedly haunted mountain, where the Chinese defeated a superior Japanese force. According to the locals, sometimes the
sounds of gunfire and artillery can still be heard. My employer blamed the wind, and nothing more, but personally I think it is the Sky Dragon that the locals also devoutly sacrifice to. I had food poisoning a couple of days ago. I was feverish, dehydrated and the antidiarrhea tablets I took(lovely chinese herbal stuff) contained nutmeg. After I swallowed a lethal dose of the stuff last year I am obviously quite sensitive to its effects. All I had to read was Sylvia Plath, Rousseau's confessions and Catch 22. I am still struggling with the aftereffects of Catch 22, a Catch 22 hangover if you like. No matter what I am talking about I try to make snappy Yossarianish comments, like sarcastic haikus. It doesn't work, the sarcasm is too obvious and I still attach to much importance to things.

Speaking of attaching importance to things.Buddhism is really pissing me off these days, so today I went to a Taoist temple(and yes I do know that in PinYin the word is Dao), It was slightly more unashamedly "givemeallyourmoney" than the Buddhist temples I have been to, but much more fun. After running around the hillside above the temple I performed the LBRP on the summit because it is the only ritual I can ever do by heart and everything else I could tihnk of would only make me look more stupid in front of 400 staring chinese
people. And yes it was nice and yes it was lovely, but so what? I didn't perform it except to do something magicky, because I felt a certain need to mark my walking up the hill behind the village church equivalent. From now on it is only shamanic bongos for me.

And at least I did get off the #$%@$% mountain!

enjoy

16:09 / 20.08.04

How did you wind up on Huang Yadong?

Where is it in China?

Charlie's Horse

18:32 / 20.08.04

The food poisoning/nutmeg experience sounds rather Heart of Darkness - Marlow with his fever dreams down the Congo, and you following suit on Huang Yadong. For some reason the story gave me images of you having food poisoning, tripping out on nutmeg, and reading Catch-22 at the same time, like some shamanic experience on fastforward.
Anything interesting arise from that, or do you count that as an example of 'those we don't speak of'?

Oh, and what grant asked.

Kill for Inner Peace

00:09 / 25.08.04

Sorry for not replying earlier, but I have not been close to a computer in the last few days.
HuangYadDong is in the Changzhi area in southern Shanxi province. It is apparently the subject of a famous chinese war film. I was on this mountain for work purposes, I work as a TEFL teacher in china, and some genius decided that having a summer school on top of a mountain was a great idea. The kids loved it, but the teachers found the isolation a bit too much to handle. I don't actually remember much of what went through my mind at all. I have found myself completely disgusted with all institutions and most people I have come into contact with since. In the last few days I have tried to stay away from people as much as I can and seeking the (relative, after all I am in China) solitude of nature and my apartment. It seems to be wearing off though, so this uncharacteristic spell of misanthropy should be over soon, and I can rejoin the world of the living once again.

09:11 / 25.08.04

Cheer up mate.

12:23 / 25.08.04

How the hell did you manage to OD on nutmeg? I've experimented a bit and you need to eat a lot to get any effect. And that taste. I'm just wondering how you were capable of eating that much?

13:00 / 25.08.04

In short minor threadrot comment to Lyke X: I've overdosed on nutmeg as well (in those distant days of poverty and youth), and I can second its total unpleasantness. For my part, I managed to get it down by
a) putting the coarse ground nutmeg into a coffee grinder.
b) grinding it to a fine snuff-like powder.
c) washing down mouthfuls of the stuff with coffee.

Revolting. I also experimented with brewing espresso-like concentrates from the snuff. Not recommended.

16:34 / 25.08.04

But that's also the good thing about nutmeg: you'll never get hooked because no one could possibly stand eating it on a regular basis.
Anyway, I'll be quiet now.

15:19 / 26.08.04

Heh -- I've been to China (but not Shanxi), and I've taken Chinese anti-diarrhea tablets (Po Chai pills), and I've had a nasty experience with nutmeg (like a 36 hour hangover). In reverse order, with a couple years in between each.

Is Yadong one of the big three mountains? I know there are three "holy" mountains, but I don't know which ones they are.

And have you felt any dragonish presences elsewhere in China?

Kill for Inner Peace

00:53 / 27.08.04

First of all, I did it by eating whole nutmegs, I was cleaning the kitchen and found this thing called nutmeg. English is not my native language so I didn't know what it was(And a few years ago, food vocabulary never having been much of a priority). I ate one, kept it in my mouth until it was soft enough to chew and found the taste...well...intriguing. I also liked the way it made my mouth go numb. So I tried another, and so on. Luckily I had had a really heavy meal before this, so it took a while for it to take effect, and by that stage I had run into a countrywoman of mine(for whom food vocabulary WAS a priority), and then I panicked in a timely fashion, and everything turned out all right. But I still like the taste of nutmeg, though.

HuangYaDong(Literally Yellow Cliff Cave) is not one of the holy Buddhist mountains and not one of the Taoist ones either. It is semifamous in China due to the film made about the battle, but that's about it. For more information, you can go here or here .

Dragonish presences are, believe it or not, quite common in China. Being born in the Year of the Dragon myself I have tried incorporating it into my teaching, as the dragon is a charismatic animal. During last spring festival I walked to the top of Shi HuangDi's tomb "to capture the dragon spirit"(and because that poor malaysian kid seemed lonely walking up there) and I have also done meditations centered on the idea of Yang(Active, Masculine) Fire. This did help with my interactions in the classroom setting, as well as helping me to understand the energy dynamics my NLP fangirl girlfriend keeps talking about in our mutual feedback sessions. Since I was quite new to teaching, I can only say that the dragon has been a great help.