Quanzhou Rocks!

One of the more frequent questions I get these days is, "what are you researching?" So, in order to spare myself the agony of trying to explain a very loosely outlined project to the interested (more likely polite) party, I have started telling people that I spend my days measuring lots of very old rocks. Quanzhou is full of rocks. Rich in granite, to be precise. It is one of the only places in China where there is such prolific use of stone in architecture and sculpture. Take for example, this Yuan dynasty Buddha triad that is carved into the side of one of the nearby mountains.

I went to this quarry about 15km outside the city the other day. The quarry has been in use for many hundreds, possibly thousands of years. You can see from the way that stone is hewn out of the mountainside what a labor intensive process this is. The minuscule blue dot in the lower left is a car, to give you some sense of the scale and magnitude of the excavation.

Rocks are then transported to carving centers. Carving is an extremely labor intensive and dangerous process; sparks flying, poisonous dust floating about and being inhaled, sharp, whirring pointed objects. It is rather unpleasant work.

All of this effort goes into producing merchandise like the sculpture below for the eager (?) clientele--many of whom are American, I've been told. There are yards filled with 25 foot tall bodhisattvas and Donald Ducks. I am simply stunned by the price of kitsch. When you think about it, how much more luxurious can you get than having a 5 ton million year old piece of rock from another continent shipped to your door? One day this pig will be mine.