The Chinese monk

It was during the Moon Festival, the streets were filled with people, when I decided to take off for a hike behind Nanputuo Temple in Xiamen in southern China and suddenly found myself lost. It was a hot and humid day. Nervous for a moment, I looked to the left and right and through the dense forest, when I suddenly heard someone's gentle footsteps walking over small fallen branches and foliage on the ground. Suddenly, a Chinese monk appeared in front of me. And although I wasn't able to explain myself to him in words, he quickly picked up from my gestures that I needed his guidance to find my way back. So, he invited me to follow him. But as we kept hiking and climbing over rocks, I realized he was lost like me. We kept on moving, stopped in between, and smiled at each other, and kept on moving, stopped in between, and smiled at each other. We then hiked around the mountain, when a young Chinese woman came across us. She spoke English and knew the way back to Nanputuo Temple. Enthusiastic to meet a Westerner, she decided to join us. Later, I found out she was a student at the university where I taught. I was glad to have an interpreter on my side, although I would have preferred to communicate directly. The monk walked ahead of us and we followed him. We started laughing joyously, as I was trying to take pictures of the monk and his feet. His gown sometimes floated in the wind among the trees and bushes, which seemed mysterious and poetic to me. When we took a rest on top of the mountain, the monk sat down cross legged and told us the story of how he had once been in love with a young woman, before he became a monk. However, the woman's mother didn't want her daughter to be with him because he was a vegetarian. Heartbroken over this, he became a monk. Years later, the mother and daughter became vegetarians themselves, so the daughter went looking for him. And when she found him, she learned that it was too late for them to rekindle their relationship because, as a monk, he could no longer be with a woman. There was a moment of silence. Before our paths split down at Nanputuo Temple, the monk offered me the opportunity to go on a journey with him to another monastery a bit further north. I kindly refused the offer, although the idea of it seemed adventurous. Before I left, he asked if I could send him copies of the photographs, but then we realized it would be difficult. He had no home or email address and was moving from monastery to monastery. Story and photos by Simone Kussatz All contents of this site (c) belong to Simone Kussatz

Abonnieren Kommentare zum Post (Atom)