Longevity Mountain—Table of Contents

Click here for the introduction (first post) to the Round and Square series "Longevity Mountain."

Longevity Mountain 1          Longevity Mountain 2          Longevity Mountain 3          Longevity Mountain 4 
Longevity Mountain 5          Longevity Mountain 6          Longevity Mountain 7          Longevity Mountain 8
Longevity Mountain 9          Longevity Mountain 10        Longevity Mountain 11        Longevity Mountain 12

[a] Stairway to Heaven, Mt. Tai  RL

During the last two weeks of July and into early August I will be posting segments from my project dealing with five Chinese mountains that are often referred to as "the sacred mountains of China." They represent each of the "five directions" found in early Chinese thought (think of the ones you know and then add the middle as the fifth); they have figured prominently in Chinese political culture, travel, and religion for 3,000 years. I have spent almost 400 days on the mountains, and am working on a series of books that detail the mountains and their "home" areas. Mountains were said to connect earth (thought to be "square") with heaven (thought to be "round"). The entire project is called—this may or may not surprise you—Round and Square. 

One volume is planned for each mountain, beginning with the southern peak, Mt. Heng, in Hunan province. The reasoning behind this choice of a starting place took me months to develop, but suffice it to say that these books will take the reader up and down each of the five sacred (sometimes called "Daoist") mountains and around the lunar calendar in an exploration of Chinese life and culture. As an introduction to the series, I am including an adaptation of the book proposal that I have just sent to various literary agents, and the sample table of contents (below). These will be followed by nine "scenes" from Longevity Mountain that are meant to give readers a sense of the project as a whole. Photographs used in this series were taken during my travels, unless otherwise indicated. My photos are marked "RL."

Longevity Mountain—Summer in China’s Southland

Sample Table of Contents

Introduction—Mountains of Ideas

Something as large and culturally imposing as the five sacred mountains (五嶽) needs to get up to speed, like a lumbering bus on an uphill grade. This is a strategic problem, just as it is in a novel, because the reader “needs to know” certain things to follow the narrative up and down the mountains. This opening section takes the reader through the most important background information in the form of a series of stories. The first of these traces the ritual journeys up Mt. Tai taken by a series of early emperors, among them Qinshi Huangdi (the first emperor) and Emperor Wu of Han, one of the most powerful rulers in all of Chinese history. These historical ascents allow me to introduce, even as I tell a story of travel, several key cosmological and cultural details that will enhance the reader’s own journey through the book.

[b] Granet

I next introduce the reader to some of the companions—characters, as it were—who will follow me through my own travels up and down the five mountains and around the lunar calendar. This group of French sinologists (China scholars) is centered by the figure of Marcel Granet, a scholar whose insights into Chinese social and intellectual life are still stirring for readers, seventy years after his death. One of his teachers, Edouard Chavannes, wrote a classic study of Mt. Tai (Le T’ai Chan), and Granet’s own student, Rolf Stein, wrote of the “architectural” structures of the five peaks schema in The World in Miniature. Together, these writers form a kind of band of partners as I seek to make sense of the mountains.

Finally, I conclude this section by introducing the reader to the “five phases” (sometimes called “elements”) of Chinese cosmology. This is not a tired “civilization” lecture, but rather a vibrant picture of how the world was divided into fives by early thinkers and then set in motion. Channeling this idea, one Chinese scholar has called these mountains the “marchmounts,” and the characterization is apt—the early kings marched in motion over the mounts.

[c] True forms  RL

At the heart of this idea lies the “true forms” for each mountain—a kind of magical “meta-character” that has no linguistic meaning, but contains the very nature of the mountain, so it is said, in its curving brushstrokes. This section ends with a scene, on top of Mt. Tai, in which I talk with a group of travelers who are tracing—physically tracing, with their hands—the movements around the “universe” made by the early kings, in their proper order. Starting in the upper left, they touch Mt. Tai (rub, rub) and then move on to southern Mt. Heng in the lower right (rub, rub). From there, their fingers move up to the center, Mt. Song (rub, rub), off to the lower left, tracing western Mt. Hua (rub, rub), and, finally, up to the upper left of the chart, to trace northern Mt. Heng (rub, rub). These tactile meanderings are the very path I will take (and through which I will guide the reader) in the pages that follow.

By the time this section is complete, the reader will wonder (as does almost every reader of treatments of the sacred mountains, from encyclopedia entries to guidebooks) “what about the other four peaks?”  Indeed. That is the organization I have chosen for the project. Through the lens of the second mountain—the one most closely tied to all of China’s religious traditions through the idiom of longevity (壽)—I will give the reader a feel for all of the sacred mountains. The book could stand alone as a glimpse of the five-mountain template…or become the first in a series of books covering each mountain. I prefer the latter, but my organization leaves it open.

Chapter One—Song of the South 
The southland has always been different in China. China’s northern heartland focused on the Yellow River, but southern areas such as today’s Hunan province were seen as strange, mystical, and worrisome places occupied by dangerous tribes and confusing flora. The chapter opens with one of the most famous literary journeys in Chinese history—the Chuci (楚辭) of Qu Yuan (and others at the court of Chu). It is, both literally and figuratively, a “song of the south,” and sets the tone for the rich natural and cultural imagery that makes up this chapter. Qu Yuan then gives me the chance to connect the narrative to wider frameworks of southern influence (he is responsible, in indirect and fascinating ways, for the phenomenon of dragon boat racing and a particular kind of dumpling eaten during the fifth lunar month).

[d] Home and homage  RL

In other words, it is summer. The fifth lunar month was the appointed time for rulers negotiating the “marchmounts” to head south and climb the southern mountain. This chapter continues, in point-counterpoint fashion, to move through Chinese history in the form of anecdotes and side trips to famous locations. Among these are the Hunan Provincial Museum, where the stunningly well-preserved corpse of Lady Dai (c. 100 BCE) rests, as well as Shaoshan, Mao Zedong’s birthplace, where flocks of pilgrims tamp a daily charge to the home of a problematic, living god (of sorts). It is also the beginning of a kind of “reflexive” storytelling that continues in all of the mountain journeys. I was stunned, reacting viscerally to the weeping devotion to Mao that I saw there, and this story begins the full engagement of author and subject (being careful to let the authorial asides enhance, but not overpower, the narrative).

The chapter concludes with the bumpy, tooth-cracking bus ride through the Hunan countryside (trains are not often realistic options with the mountains, and few of the mountain towns have train stations), where I describe fields plowed with oxen, signs for air-conditioning refills and “pig-washing,” as well as the confused and terrifyingly differential speeds (from ducklings and dogs to bikes and midget-tractors to full-bore trucks) on the country roads. In short, the chapter sets the picture of China’s southland before cementing it with memorable images and historical stories that prepare the reader for the mountain city ahead.

Chapter Two—South Peak Village

After several hours on the road, the bus nears South Peak—this is the literal name for the small city at the foot of the mountain, as well as the term for “southern peak” in the five-mountain template. I let the name stand on its own, with its unintentional English similarity to a particular American animated drama. A single Chinese character begins to dot the road, and to provide the advertising “front” for a stream of roadside stands. The character is 香, and it can be translated as “fragrance” in many settings. It happens to be the first character in “Hong Kong” (香港, Fragrant Harbor). Here, though, it speaks directly to the fragrant smoke of incense, and it is the first hint the traveler has that this mountain—and the people traveling to it—are serious. Mt. Tai is a cultural icon; southern Mt. Heng is personal. And familial. All along the roads, cars stop, trunks open, and pilgrims load pile upon pile of incense sticks, fireworks, and “hell money” into their trunks, the walkways of buses, or onto the backs of motorcycles.

[e] South Peak Temple  RL

After a brief exploration of the village itself—a sleepy combination of incense retail, nondescript storefronts, and an intriguing “period village” with Qing architecture, I prepare for the main event before the mountain—the main event before every mountain—the temple. The South Peak Temple is an exercise in activity. Unlike several of the other “marchmount” temples, this one is a centerpiece of prayer, supplication, and entreaty. These are not the kind of “cultural motions” that I have come to expect on Mt. Tai or Mt. Hua—sincere though those might be. This reminds me of China’s Buddhist mountains, where patrons leave little to chance, save for praying over and divining upon it.

I take the reader from one end of the temple to the other. I do this by moving in the proper direction—architecturally and cosmologicaly—from the south gate all of the way through acres of buildings and temples and, in this case, even distinct “lanes of culture and religion.”  Through it all I am fighting traffic and a kind of religious/cultural ignorance that reflects a modern China that takes secularism seriously…except when it doesn’t (this will be another prominent theme in the book as a whole). Almost everyone enters from “the back,” and it is a little like jumping into a novel at the point where it winds down, moving on to the dénoument, and then heading through the bulk of text all of the way to Call me Ishamael. I use this chapter to introduce Chinese religious life (in past and present), and to have several lively discussions with people relaxing in the temple.

Chapter Three—Climbing Longevity Mountain

The climb begins with a hike up 198 steps (the number has nothing to do with chance, as I describe in this and many places during my mountain journeys) to a place that gives the reader a powerful sense of just what this mountain “is about” for many travelers. The Longevity Cauldron stands on a platform just outside of town, and provides a clue to why this mountain has another name (the name of the book). Southern Mt. Heng (衡山) serves well enough for geographical purposes, but almost every pilgrim will tell you that it is Longevity Mountain. The character 壽 so clearly overpowers the mountain’s proper name 衡—everywhere up and down the mountain—that there is no real comparison, and long-life dominates the supplications and prayers from the mountain base to the temple at the peak.

[f] 3-8 (1938) Memorial Thicket

This chapter traces my careful and methodical climb through the cultural and historical “layers” that make up this fascinating mountain. Beginning in the calm of the Valley of Buddhist Sound (the climber is never far away from the road to the summit that is clogged with cars and buses, and this reality cannot be hidden), I find my way off the beaten path, in a mountain village graveyard and dense woods, making my way back to the path and over to the Martyr’s Shrine. This is a sincere and well-preserved commemoration of the noble service of the Nationalists—yes, the Guomindang (Kuomintang)—to the cause of protecting China in the war with Japan (1937-1945). There are steles commemorating Nationalist martyrs, a recounting of the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, and a specially marked grove of pine trees dedicated to Chiang Kai-shek. There is nothing “simple” about memory and politics, and the Martyr’s Shrine allows me an opportunity to reflect on the role of luck and chance in life and history in a place—Longevity Mountain—that makes it particularly poignant. Some died early and some ruled China….and Taiwan.

The chapter concludes with a long hike—and crawl, so tight are the spaces—through the “Forest of Poetry” (詩林), which contains fifty gems of writing inscribed on rock face from the eighth century poet Li Bo to writers of the early twentieth century. It creates an opportunity to introduce poetry and the distinctive literature of stone inscriptions in the Chinese “marchmount” tradition—a theme that will be enhanced and expanded as the narrative continues.

Chapter Four—Up to South Heaven Gate

We are at mid-mountain, and people come back together from their various lines of ascent (cars, buses, hikers from various trails) into a veritable gathering of energy. I italicize the words here, because it offers the opportunity to play upon the gathering theme of Marcel Granet’s “imaginative sociology.” I have been hiking “with” my partner” Marcel…uphill for about five kilometers by now.  Responding to his teacher, Emile Durkheim, Granet postulated that moments and points of gathered energy were a key to understanding Chinese social life—all social life, really. Longevity Mountain has three such points, and two of them (including this one) are mostly “recharging” areas. People reset, eat, drink, and socialize here, and all of those activities are equally important. Meeting up with people again allows me to engage them in conversation, and several of the most memorable such “chats” in the narrative take place here (including a fascinating perspective of the pressures young college students feel, worrying about letting down their families and terrified that jobs won’t materialize). I linger in restaurants, tea houses, and monasteries, and this mid-point narrative sets the tone for the subsequent climb.

[g] Sending Brethren Auntie  RL

The ascent continues, but it is far from “one step after another.”  It is punctuated by conversations and historical asides that, steadily and in entertaining rather than didactic fashion, build deeper and deeper pictures of a three-millennium tradition in the glare of modern China. Up to the Xiayan Tea Yard and two temples specializing in 送子—“sending sons.”  We meet “Sending Sons Auntie,” and see a brisk business in child-wish supplication. We encounter donor lists posted outside temples, and the role of “conspicuous consumption” in mountain religious life. I learn about the micro-terrains for mountain tea and the best waters for brewing it, even as I am introduced to a strange kind of mid-mountain artwork.

And then, just sixty (steep, uphill) steps from South Heaven Gate, I spend thirty minutes with a vendor I have come to know well over the years. She tells me about the details of her work—and the challenges of getting family members to help transport her goods to “her spot” for retail on the big rock. Most of all, though, we talk about rock carving. Then the conversation turns to graffiti. I tell her the story behind the 1990s country hit “John Deere Green, about a young man who paints his love message on the town’s water tower.”  She is not amused, and tells me that such vandalism would not be tolerated in China. I see her point, and we finish by discussing the big difference. In China, poems are part of the mountain. There is even more to this statement than might first appear, and that sustains me (writing is more natural than cultural) as I continue to climb the five marchmounts in succession. Writing is everywhere, and it is the mountain.

Chapter Five—On Zhurong Peak

South Heaven Gate (unlike the spectacular location on Mt. Tai of the same name) is a nondescript bus stop on the Southern Mountain. It is, however, a place where people begin again to gather. Sullen silence, or in-group discussion, slowly, awkwardly, begins to turn to wider social connections. Everywhere, I begin to hear the familiar phrase laowai 老外. “Venerable outsider” is an accurate but somewhat misleading translation. The first character “old, venerable”) connotes respect. Outsider pretty well sums up the second one. I, too, am beginning to perk up and “open” myself to companionship and chatter. Laonei (老內)!, I shout, ni hao. “Venerable insider, hello!”  This always strikes people as funny—one of those rare examples when something that seems like it might be funny in translation…really is. The purpose of these chatterings is to open the narrative to the lively give and take of the climb from this point to the summit—still an hour away. People coalesce in an air of festivity, and everyone walks together in large groups.

[h] Carrying on  RL

One thing hampers it for me, though, and it is an opportunity to go as deeply into cross-cultural misunderstanding as I ever have seen authors of travelogues do. You see, anthropology has a long tradition of “telling awkward stories on oneself,” and I have been doing it for many miles (and pages) by this time. Here is the point, though, where I explain what it means, and I do that by telling a story—first of an early anthropologist “getting it wrong” in understanding African reasoning (and making fun of himself in the process) and then with me. Right now.

I call this section “Carrying Resentment,” and it begins with a Buddhist story on that theme. From there, though, it gets particular. We reach the point where the “chair carriers” are arrayed for the final climb up the peak. A wealthy man and two women chug past—the man, in particular, getting his money’s worth in terms of girth. I had been having a wonderful conversation with a family from Fuzhou, but I crossed the line—asking about how they feel about “people carrying people.”  Frozen looks. Icy responses. I was the Westerner asking about human rights (imagine the Chinese visitor asking about American gun culture—no matter how one might feel about guns). This incident allows me to bring the “analytical” side of the narrative to a crescendo, even as I keep moving up the mountain.

And, finally, I reach the temple on the peak. People are surprisingly cursory in their supplications, as though they have “spent” all of their religious and emotional energy at the various shrines dotting the trail up the mountain. It is cold, even in the fifth lunar month (we are near the solstice; near the end of June), but the view of the “seventy-two” peaks is beautiful. I linger, and reflect on the very cosmology of it all (even the number seventy-two is a spur for reflection, and will continue to figures prominently in the narrative).

Chapter Six—Winding Down the Mountain

It is late in the day, and what ordinarily would be a four-hour hike up the mountain has turned into a twelve-hour itinerary—making sure I “got” everything I needed, and took the time necessary for meaningful conversations. I don’t have to make it all of the way down tonight; I have other plans. I take a side path through some of the most beautiful territory I have seen on any of the sacred mountains—past flowing brooks and views of open plains far below—down to the Faguan Temple, the Buddhist outpost where I will spend the evening. It provides me with an opportunity to talk again to the head of the monastery, a person I met one day in 2008 when, having taken the side path for the first time, was lost and badly dehydrated. He helped me and told me to come back and spend some “real” time with him at the monastery, and this trip fulfills that obligation and desire. 

[i] Dusk descent  RL

In fact, I will stay through the day, and begin my long and circuitous trip down the mountain at the crack of dawn—two days after I left and three days after I arrived in South Peak. The descent takes all day. I don’t go back down the “regular” path, but instead weave to various locations on the sides of the mountain range. I visit the Nationalists’ bomb shelter, and see Chiang Kai-shek’s writing table and strategy room, beautifully preserved by the Communist inheritors of the territory. I see the great iron Buddha and complete my descent in the mountain base valley area where the popular television show Journey to the West was filmed. A classic novel (100 chapters long in its Ming dynasty format; one of the Four Masterworks of Ming Fiction) and the popular television drama (the first in a medium that would transform modern China—everyone knows every episode) are a fitting conclusion to a journey that has run the gamut from the comic and ridiculous to the gravely serious. A monkey and a monk make their way to India for sacred scriptures, and the quest theme will allow me to reflect upon my own five-mountain journey, which has just begun. That is just what Journey to the West accomplishes as a work of literature, and it is with that great work, and reflections upon travel, longevity, luck, fate, chance, and “monkey mind” that I take my last steps down the mountain and return to pack my bags for what comes next.

Conclusion

The book has been about the mountains, generally, and Longevity Mountain in particular. It has taken the reader up the slopes and through Chinese history and culture in a way that no other book on any Chinese mountain has even attempted to do. It has given as complete an answer to the question “but what does it feel like?” as ethnographically possible. But what comes next?  The next in a chain of marchmounts, and what follows (rub, rub—think back to the end of the introduction) is the center—the pivot of the four quarters. The middle of the middle, in the heart of the Yellow River Valley—the birthplace of Chinese civilization. 

We shall call it...Pivot Mountain.

Longevity Mountain 1          Longevity Mountain 2          Longevity Mountain 3          Longevity Mountain 4 
Longevity Mountain 5          Longevity Mountain 6          Longevity Mountain 7          Longevity Mountain 8
Longevity Mountain 9          Longevity Mountain 10        Longevity Mountain 11        Longevity Mountain 12

NEXT
Summer Wanderings
The first installment of nine "scenes" from the book project called Longevity Mountain.