By the Skin Of My Teeth

Yesterday was a visit to the Bailin Zen Buddhist Temple, much visited in this country. Its former Abbott testified at the UN against, surprisingly, Falun Gong. Its current Abbott who is a former Tianamen Square student leader, granted me an audience arranged by my hosts for the day. The Abbott speaks fluent English, is only 38 and studied at the country's second ranked university in Beijing. It was a fine twenty minutes. Zemin, the recently retired Communist leader, had been at the temple and his photos adorned the walls. Afterwards my hosts and I were invited to eat lunch with the monks. I have been eating way beyond my limit so this looked like a chance for a parsimonious meal. Wrong again bucko. The rules are silence at the meal and push forward one of two bowls if wanting a refill. Great, no pushing forward rice or veggie bowl for me. Would you know it, my dish was piled higher than people closest to me and I was given an unsolicitted refill from a monk who emptied his cauldron. To top it off the noodles, which come at the end, were boiling hot. Being a slow eater at the best of times and having been requested to leave nothing uneaten I knew I had to make post haste. The monks were ravenous and I had a hard job. Of course they all finished well ahead and only the dishwashers noises drowned my slurps. Fortunately I just got in under the wire for the signal for the procession out. I was nearly out on my ear the first day in the order!