Konrad and Alexandra (pdf) - Rolf Gross

impression of being in France, it must have been the unusual multi-story stone houses.
We came across a big trough, the village laundry, deserted except for a couple, kissing
in the dark! Not far from this place, on a sandy flat next to a lake—a cinema! A humming
projector, an improvised screen, a dozen people on rickety chairs under the open sky.
We were speechless.
George discovered the restaurant. Nothing but shrimp! Mountains of red shrimp, briefly
cooked, with everything on, heads, legs, feelers, hair. George pulled off the head of
one, pried the meat out and ate it, as if he had done this all his life. Wei-ji applauded,
and I shook my head. And then it turned out that George as a child used to fish for
crayfish in the summer in the Mingrelian streams! "We ate them raw!" And why had he
made such a fuss about eating shrimp in Peking?
He laughs. "Remember, I ate them with gusto! I did not know that shrimp looked like
pink worms when one cooks them peeled. Where is the wine? They must be washed
down with a glass of wine!"
The restaurant owner sent his boy out, who returned with three bottles of a heavy
sweetish white wine. By midnight we had eaten three buckets of shrimp and drunk all
the wine.
Our visit to Putuo Shan Dao began with a tipsy night.
The morning was sunny, the world in new colors. The village did look like it was
from southern France. The lake where the films had been shown turned out to be full of
fat red and golden carps, the sacred pond of the monastery to which led a zigzag
footbridge, to confuse the ghosts who can only run straight!
A yellow-washed wall surrounded the monastery complex. The man-high
character "fo" for Buddha painted in black strokes on the wall. It consists of the sign for
"self" crossed by two vertical strokes, "the man with no self." The main meditation hall
towered, slightly elevated at the center surrounded by small buildings, living quarters, a
kitchen, prayer halls with Buddhist images. Everything very simple. Ancient Ginkgo
trees gave shade. A rain of golden leaves fell onto the cobblestones. Like in the fairy
tale I filled my pockets with the sacred gold.
From the meditation hall came the muffled booms of a heavy drum, above it the
chant of a Sutra reading. After every line the jingle of a bell. At the end of a verse a
great gong.
The monks wore ash-gray linen jackets and long pants buttoned at the bottom,
shaven heads, many young neophytes, intelligent-looking older monks.
Through a side entrance I stole into the meditation hall and surprised two novices
in an intimate conversation, gesturing hands. Startled, they dashed off. The sound of
the big drum filled the hall, resonated in my chest. Under the lowered gaze of a
colossal, seated Buddha two rows of monks recited a Sutra. Throughout the room knelt
pilgrims on small cushions. Every time the gong sounded they bowed, touching the bare
stone floor with their foreheads.
I seated myself in the farthest corner on an empty cushion and abandoned
myself to the sound of the drum and the chanting. Then I got on my knees and joined in
the bowing. I discovered that the bending down presses the air out of one’s lungs. One
has only to lose oneself entirely to this rhythm, then this becomes an effective
meditation exercise accessible to anyone. The pilgrims mechanically repeated a formula
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