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This Sunday had another cultural program in store for me. I happened to visit the Jade Buddha Monastery, getting a glimpse on this particular religion and also the rites and celebrations which are entailing the praying/wishing to Buddha.
The Jade Buddha Monastery is famous for the Jade Buddhas in it. In the reign of Emperor Guangxu of the Qing dynasty, the old Master Hui Gen from Putuo Mountain of Zhejiang Province traveled through China and paid visits to famous mountains and monasteries, as well as well-known people. He started from the Putuo Mountain, traveled through the Wutai Mountain, and the Emei Mountain, from Sichuan he entered into Tibet, then into India and some other countries for sightseeing of the Buddhist sites and relics. Finally he reached Burma. When he found Burma was rich in jade and Buddhas were carved in superb craft, a keen desire to carve jade Buddhas came over him. Then he begged for money everywhere and obtained donation from Mr. Chen Junpu, a Chinese settled in Burma of over 20,000 taels of silver. He also got the special permission from the Burmese king to dig and select jade in the mountains and hired excellent jade carvers to carve five jade Buddhas in big and small sizes, all decorated with treasured stones and big pearls. All the faces of the jade Buddhas were bright like the full moon, and everything was in perfection and solemnity. As soon as the Buddhas were carved, Master Hui Gen started his journey back. When he passed through Shanghai, he left two Buddhas for disciples to worship[...] (History)
After that Aurora and me went to the Jing’an District where we had a stroll to Jing’an Temple which currently is under construction, unfortunately. The Temple, also known as “Temple of Peace and Tranquility” is a Buddhist Temple which was rebuilt in Qing Dynasty. During the Cultural Revolution it even was converted into a plastics factory and in the 80′ies converted back into an active temple following some renovating process in 2003 (Source: Wikipedia).
We of course also had a walk through the Jing’an Park, which is just across the street. Following that we enjoyed a typical Shanghainese dinner at a classy restaurant.
So, this was mainly my update for the eventful last week. I hope you’re all fine and everthings well in hometown and Austria in general.
All the best,
Mike
…After asking Ernst to take me to Nanjing one time (if possible) enabling me to see the Viscose plant of the Lenzing Group (with high recommendations of my dad), precisely Lenzing Nanjing Fibers Co., Ldt. (LNF). He therefore called me on Tuesday evening that we’ll have a trip there from Wednesday till Friday. Actually this plant started its production last year and is a joint-venture with Nanjing Chemical Fibre Co., Ldt. in which the Lenzing holds 70%. The chinese government has set up several regulations for Foreign Direct Investments (only Joint-Ventures are allowed as a market entry mode for non-chinese companies, in which the concerned chinese company has to the hold majority of the shares, usually at least 51%) in some fields. The Viscose field, the Lenzing Group is operating in, originally wasn’t constrained by such regulations. A Joint Venture nevertheless was considered, as market knowledge and governmental application schedules were already given by the experience of the chinese JV-partner.
So we left Shanghai Wednesday afternoon, after getting our work done, with the new company car (Audi Q7 – very comfortable ;)) and of course Ernst’s personal driver, Mr. Zhao, who safely brought us to the Sofitel Hotel which is located quite in the middle of the way to Nanjing and the Viscose plant. I have to admit that I was fairly impressed by the luxurious lodging style because I haven’t had the opportunity to live that big so far.
The next day I was introduced to the staff here in Nanjing. After getting home, Ernst invited me on a golf course (9 holes) which is next to the hotel and can be played at during evening-time thanks to the floodlights (I don’t know whether I have previously mentionend that it gets dark at about 7 p.m. in this geographical area – pretty weird to me in the first days, but you get used to it. What’s next is, that the day/night-times approximately stay the same the whole year, as a result time-switches can be avoided). This created a great atmosphere as you probably can tell by the taken pictures.
Following that we went to Nanjing for having dinner at a bar called “Blue Marlin” (Source on Nanjing Now). This bar is situated at a place called 1912, which is quite similiar to the xintiandi of Shanghai – Chinese archithecture but mainly Western entertainment. Fortunately there was a live-band playing and I have to admit respectfully that these philippino-guys delivered an astonishing performance.
So the evening was mainly dedicated to white Erdinger beer, steaks, great music and getting to know the hostess of this bar. Her name’s Dia, also from the Philippines, and she happend to speak German a few words. Her official job description was “Customer Relation Manager”. With her looks and Jägermeister deliveries for us its admittedely easy to “relate” to customers ;).
On Friday we checked out of the Sofitel and went to the plant one more time. Being there I was shown around to get to know the production process. Due to knowing the plants in Austria (Lenzing, Heiligenkreuz) I’m quite familiar with that topic and not too “green” anymore.
