Tour Guide Guru

We'd just got to the cruise ship late the night before after a 3-hour bus ride in the rain over roads that were, well, let's just say they were less than super highways. The morning's excursion was to Feng Du, the Ghost City.

Feng Du is on the Yangtze River in the Three Gorges area. We were supposed to have boarded the cruise ship in Chungqing (you might have heard of it as Chungking), largest city in Sichuan (aka Szechuan) province. But the river wasn't high enough to allow that, hence the bus ride.

Ironically, at Feng Du, the river is flooded because of the construction of the Three Gorges Dam downstream, and is due to be flooded more later this year. This flooding means that many of the residents of Feng Du have had to be relocated from their homes on the south bank to highrises on higher ground on the north bank.

You would think that's a good reason for Feng Du to be called the Ghost City. But it's not the reason our tour guide gives.


She boards the bus with us and speaks to us in reasonably good english. She's dressed in a ski jacket, a blouse and blue jeans. The blue jeans are highly decorated with sequins and a figure of a cloaked woman on one leg. She's maybe as much as 25 years old, and carries not the slightest hint of urban sophistication. She seems as if she could be a girl from my rural, small town home, except for the eyes and the accent.

She tells us that we are to visit the site of an old Daoist shrine, though we might have heard of it as Taoist. It was named after two government officials who became disgusted at the corruption, quit their jobs, and went to live on the mountain here. It is said that they became immortals and flew up into heaven. The name Feng Du is taken from the combination of their names.

A Buddhist temple was built here during the Tang Dynasty, perhaps 800 years ago. Of course most of the temple was destroyed in the Cultural Revolution, she tells us. But it has been rebuilt, in part by a land developer who, unfortunately, died before the project was complete. But the parts on the mountain that we are to visit, the rebuilt Buddhist temple and the Taoist temple at the top, are complete enough.

In short, the whole thing sounds to me like a tourist trap. The gift shop next to the Buddhist Temple doesn't help matters.

Feng Du, it is explained, is the place that you go to be judged when you die. If you are deemed unworthy, you are carried below the mountain for 500 years of torture at the hands of the devils there.



Soon we come to three bridges. The center brige is the bridge of judgement. If you are pure enough, you can cross it in 3 steps, and proceed onward. Otherwise, you will be pulled below the mountain by the devils beneath the bridge. The right bridge is the bridge of wealth, and the left bridge is the bridge of health. The center bridge is also the bridge of love, and crossing it with a lover will ensure the constancy of that love.

After crossing that bridge we find (next to a gift shop) a curious cone-shaped stone sunken into the ground with a large stone shaped like half a basketball next to it. Our tour guide explains to us that this is a test. Only a man who is faithful to his wife can balance the stone on the rounded top of the cone. It weighs 200 kilograms, she says.

I gave it a try, since my legs are quite strong, and I'm not quite sure that the 200 kilo figure is credible. But it is. A direct lift is not going to cut it. I figure that I must slide it somehow up, but fear of dropping it and crushing fingers and toes is definitely a factor. Eventually I give up. And then the tour guide announces that well, of course I'm faithful to my wife because I wasn't afraid to try. I'm a very sincere guy, she says.

And then she introduces a fellow that will show us how it's done. He's shorter than me, and considerably less bulky. After rolling it around, mostly for the sake of showmanship, it seems, he points the curved side toward the curved cone and tilts the flat side away from the cone, past vertical. He is on the far side of cone and he half rocks, half drags the stone up the cone. He pulls it to it's balance point in one move, curved side down. He holds it a moment to make sure, then spins it slowly as a flourish.

It is explained to us that he has a family and it's our appreciation that supports them. I show my appreciation with 40 yuan, having no idea whether that's enough. But what the heck, I've been both beaten and complimented.

To reach the Buddhist temple we must climb a flight of 33 steps. It is another test, we are told. If we can climb the steps in one breath, we will be lucky.

In front of the Buddha statue there are people praying. Incense and candles are available for a donation. Our tour was arranged via my daughters high school, and one of the students is scolded by our tour guide for not donating enough. I wander into the gift shop and think about the story where Jesus scoured the temple. Is there no such story to Buddhism or Daoism?

At last we reach the top of the mountain and the City of the Dead. This is Daoist. There are many demons and spiritual beings depicted here. The main temple houses the King of the Dead, a twenty foot high statue. Outside the temple a small stone sticks up out of the paving stones, and if you can balance on this stone on one foot, while looking into the temple where the King is, you have passed the final judgement.

Also within the temple is the King's wife. She was a mortal, like Persephone, though nobody says anything about her being rescued from the underworld or pomegranates. Women who spend time in front of her shrine are said to appear younger and more beautiful. Men linger there at their risk, since the King might become jealous.

And there is a depiction of the punishments in Hell. They seem metaphorical, in the sense that gossips have their tongues pulled out. But that's a natural consequence; since once you are known to pass lies about someone you will not be believed.

We go back down the mountain and I ponder the experience. It seems a good metaphor for personal growth. You could call it spiritual, emotional, or moral, I'm no longer sure I know the distinction. We continue growing until death. Sometimes what matters is not whether we passed or failed the test, but whether we tried. And the final test is whether we can face death without losing our balance. Maybe this isn't commercial so much as it is a different approach?

I don't want to leave you with the idea that I didn't like the experience. It was thought-provoking and engaging, even though a very different set of cultural assumptions were at work here. And I was very touched by our guide, who seemed as though she would fit right in giving tours of the local Mystery Spot or the Worlds Largest Tree.