Two More Fake Things in China

This is fake:



Joined a local tour with my friend Siu Oi today, this was one of the photo spots underneath the Yulong Snow Mountain. It looked a bit fake to us, the steps are all similar in size, and the water is running a bit too fast for such lime formations... So we asked the guide....

And Alas! It is fake!! It's an imitation of the real thing which we later visited ourselves. They built the lime steps here to make the natural glacier river look more spectacular (without telling the tourists of course).

The real thing:




Then we wandered into this Tibetan complex inside a tourist Cutural Village. There were no tourists there, unlike the other houses, and it was set further away, so that disarmed us. A friendly Tibetan man came to talk to us, told us how this house was there before the cultural village, about how there are two living buddhas in the complex, they're in retreat 正在闭门修練, so we need to keep our voices down. When we got closer to the complex of the "living buddhas". Our "guide" said, the living buddha doesn't usually see people, but today since you've come all the way here, it's a kind of fate 缘分, you should go in and see him. We said, oh it's ok, we don't want to disturb him, and the guide said, it's ok, if the buddha said to see you, then you should go in. So out of curiosity I went in.

The "buddha" looked 20-something (ok, may be meditating has made him look younger, or may be he's just really gifted to have achieved what he's achieved at this age), then he asked me where I'm from, and asked me to silently make 3 wishes (which I did not), when he leaned forward, he faintly smelled of alcohol (may be it's just my faulty nose). Then after all the ceremonial stuff, he suggestsed I obtain 6 Tibetan flags outside, so he can pray for my wishes to come true. I walked into the adjoining room, there's a big sign that says, 30 yuan per flag. A living buddha that usually sees no one, but will see me today, a one-stop shop that leads from the buddha to the flag-selling room, a Tibetan village inside a tourist cultural village. Oh please. My "guide" said it's a real pity I'm not getting those flags.

Oh motherland.