Linking Culture and the Environment

226 Cultural Inscriptions of Nature
time, explicitly links that past with the present by transforming Buddhism into
a modernist ideology of good health and moral well-being. The old rituals of
meditation, contemplation and reflection on the precepts of the Buddha have
been transformed into a highly orchestrated meditation, contemplation and
reflection on nature and health and their role in contemporary China.
In the context of the nature/culture relationship in protected areas,
Mt Dinghu illustrates the potency of that relationship and the impossibility
of separating the two entities if coherent meaning-making is to occur. Visitors
are told, via a very large information board at the base entrance to the mountain,
that there are five elements of Dinghu Mountain: mountain is deep; forest
is green; water is clean; air is clear and scenery is beautiful. Throughout
the areas of the Reserve that cater for tourists, nature is consciously organized
and aestheticized: the visitor has a very particular experience of nature.
At every turn, the natural world is framed by the architectonics of the site,
whether it be built structures like pavilions or texts or pathways. Small pavilions
have been built which not only frame particularly beautiful scenic prospects,
they become part of the landscape being viewed. One small pavilion
situated near the temple complex has an inscription which reads: 31
The temple on the renowned mountain
creates picturesque scenery.
The pavilion was built from the contributions of scholars in memory of their
teachers: knowledge, beauty, architecture and nature are co-joined in this place.
Another small pavilion along the pathway that approaches the waterfall is a
place where the visitor is encouraged to pause and hear the ‘music’ of the water
and another proclaims that the visitor is in a ‘unique and peaceful world’.
Other than architectural structures in the forest, the most obvious way in
which nature is aestheticized is through numerous texts which are literally
carved on to various rock-faces within the Reserve and then, in turn, melded
to the visitor’s experience as they are read during a walk. Many of these carvings
are verses of poetry while others seem to be eulogies written by earlier
visitors to the mountain. One of the poems, written by Gu Dacun, is inscribed
in the rock opposite the lower steps of the waterfall. It reads as follows:
Morning breeze lifts the spirit,
Never tired of admiring this famous mountain at all seasons.
The scenery changes like magic,
The star lake joins the mountain shade
to form one spectacular view.
One of the eulogies, written by a previous traveller, was composed to make
the writer known to other visitors and to memorialize their ‘great experience’.
The texts says:
This famous mountain looks different all the time.
Endless green trees reach the heavens while the
monastery
sweeps away worldly worries. The summer heat
disappears here and eternal peace remains.