Kali in Disguise

This morning I went to a village outside of Quanzhou. I'd read about a shrine that the people there had erected, in which an Indian sculpture of the goddess Kali is worshiped as the Buddhist Goddess Guanyin. From the available pictures, it was clear that this sculpture used to be a part of the Indian temple in Quanzhou, and I wanted to visit it on my own to get some choice shots. I was (and continue to be) so lucky that the museum director here has taken me under his wing--he asked his driver to take me there, and I would have NEVER found this place otherwise. Here we are walking into the entrance of the village, which can only be approached on foot. As I have commented elsewhere, it never ceases to astonish me what lies behind somewhat modern looking buildings in China. After walking through the gateway (pictured above in the distance), we found ourselves in the middle of a countryside with architecture from at least a hundred years back. Bison tied up in the front yards of houses, motor cars and narrow dusty streets. It was very much like being in a village in India.
This shot is taken after having entered the village: I went with the driver, a visiting professor from Tokyo University, and her research assistant.This is the unassuming shrine of "Guanyin" or the Indian goddess Kali. There was a little shop immediately opposite, and they kindly gave us the keys to open the bars of the shrine.
The goddess Kali, attended by two ladies in waiting, has been painted a brilliant gold and red in the modern era. You can also see that they have painted in the irises of her eyes. This is a great reminder that most medieval Indian temples today do not look like they did when the temples were in use; every sculpture in an active Hindu temple is painted in bright colors.
Kali holds a drum, and unidentified object, a snake, and a bell, and sits astride a defeated demon, possibly Mahisa.
I began to attract a bit of a crowd as I crouched next to the sculpture, photographing and measuring. This older gentleman seemed particularly interested in what I was doing, but could only speak in a whisper.

I started asking a lot of questions about where the sculpture was before it came to be installed in this shrine, and everyone was a bit confused, so they guided me to the house of a village elder. Thus began the insanity of translation: we have myself, who speaks minimal Mandarin, the driver who speaks Mandarin with a heavy Fujian accent, the elder who speaks minimal Mandarin with an even heavier accent, the Tokyo professor who only speaks Mandarin, and her research assistant who speaks Mandarin, Fujian dialect, and a bit of English. Communication was somewhat challenging, but I eventually learned the Kali sculpture has a really intriguing history. Our knowledge of it only goes back to the beginning of the 1960s, during Mao's Cultural Revolution. Before this time, it was installed in a small pavilion at the foot of an ancient bridge, about a kilometer away from the village. Older bridges in Fujian province were highly symbolic, and traditionally were built by Buddhist monks, hoping to gain merit in the afterlife. During the Cultural Revolution, Mao encouraged peasants to destroy anything ancient and religious, and so the Kali sculpture and bridge were disassembled and built into a large wall that surrounded the village. In the late 70s, when China was officially "opened," the villagers decided to knock down the wall. When they found the Kali sculpture, they decided that it was the Buddhist goddess Guanyin, and built a shrine for it in 1980. This information is interesting for tracking the everchanging life of this Kali statue throughout history--I wonder when it was first accepted as a Buddhist icon?

Photo of the man and woman of the house, with lots of pictures of their children and grandchildren underneath. This is pretty much what I aspire to. The man told me that his younger brother lives in San Francisco and works at the national library, but that he still can't speak English. Small world!

The beautiful doors of their home. If you'll notice, the tiny, mostly obscured little woman cut out on the door is holding the same character that is painted on the external wall. It is "fu" or fortune, doubtlessly a marker of feng shui.
And just cause, I'm showing you a picture of our lunch, which was really good. I've been eating a lot of seafood these days. The large bowls are noodle soup with squid, clams, cauliflower, fishballs, etc. I had to resist taking a picture of the carnage that ensued for the sake of politeness; but let me tell you that messy eating is customary!! By the time we were finished, the table was piled high with shells, gristle, and napkins filled with icky substances. Jia-you! By the way, while we're on the subject of blunders with food, I'll let you all know that I accidentally ordered pigs' ears in a restaurant the other day. I didn't eat them.