I can still remember walking the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem with Fu Kai Wen during the start of the intifada, Christmas 1987. This way of sorrows in a tragic land was littered with trinket shops advertising trips to the site of the burning bush, a variety of baptismals on the Sea of Galilee, how to walk on the waters of the black sea and tour the traitorous seven Gardens of Gethsemane – did Judas throw himself off Masada, how did they find the shed in Nazareth, what really went on in Bethlehem?
In translation and transliteration, he said: “This is religion.”
I wondered whether or not sarcasm travelled between languages and cultures, so….
“But you said that, when a Daoist comes down from the mountain to hide in the city, that the world is in turmoil.”
“Yes, I did.”
“So why are we climbing up such a sad hill?”
“Because it is here and we are copying the mistakes of emperors.”
“Are you being mysteriously oriental about the destruction of Wu Dang?”
“It was destroyed – so, how can it exist? There are no mysteries.”
“So, are Shanghai temples and religions also disgusting?”
“Yes. All emperors, east or west, destroy faiths in Warring States.”
“So, I’m not going to get a ‘road to Damascus’ in Shanghai?”
“Don’t know – I think that there is only one path but the dumplings are good and you can feel guilty about the Opium Wars and The Bund.”
“Is that an invite?”
“No – you will need a lot of white spirit and empty cups.”
Twenty years later, I did see my Taiji brother, in Shanghai, and we shared dumplings and did a lot of ganbei. The religions and temples are all new but tolerated because they possess a certain unthreatening beauty for emperors.
During the chaos of the May Festival, 2007, I found solace in a Daoist nunnery and an empty catholic church.
And now, in this new year of the Water Tiger, I write this in honour and gratitude to my dear departed friend, Fu Kai Wen (he fell off a cliff on 4th October 2020 on the island of Syros).
