ADVENTURE #78 — HONG KONG — MONKEYS OF LION ROCK

This adventure was all over the map:  I visited a temple, went through the cave of hell, passed through a deserted mausoleum, saw a cat that reminded me of Jing Jing, saw lots of monkeys, some kind of weather or radio station, there was a helicopter pad, rain, oh yeah, and I got to scope out the scary multi-pitch rock routes on Hong Kong’s famous Lion Rock.

It is true, as the famous philosopher Justin Timberlake said in his recent film:  “You can do alot in a day.”  So it is.

I’ll start at the beginning.

I had seen Lion Rock many times from the distance, a towering cliff over Kowloon shaped, depending on your vantage point, like a crouching lion.  But I had never been there.  Consulting my hiking map, I decided which district MTR station was closest and decided I would walk up into the hills from there, a strategy that always works in my experience.  During my multi-kilometer ramble through urban Hong Kong in search of the trailhead, however, I stumbled upon a curious place.

THE WORST TEMPLE

I stumbled back upon a temple I’d visited during my study abroad in Hong Kong.  I enjoy the Kowloon-side Wong Tai Sin Temple, probably because of the giant zodiac-animal sculptures, where they are all cast in humanoid form with various robes and implements.  THIS temple (not sure of the name) is my least favorite of any I’ve visited in Asia.  It is home to a rocky man-made cave (probably concrete) filled with glass cases containing large dioramas of what I believe is Diyu, which you may read more about if you wish.  Whether there are 8, 10, or 18 hells in this place and all the other details are mix-matched depending on the period religion, folk beliefs, and other random whims of human ignorance.  In short, it is a cavernous maze of varying degrees of gruesome torture for deceased sinners.  Minotaurs in robes and various servant, manager, and king torturers lurk here.  I took no pictures of anything in this cave, because the images are so graphic and so disturbing as to leave one feeling sick.  It is a place, as I was told by some HK friends, designed to scare people into living good lives out of fear of afterlife torment.

It is my belief, based on my not-inconsiderable experience, that in religion we very often find humanity at its worst.  Nothing I’ve seen in the natural world has given me cause to believe that nature, or ANY higher being responsible for it, could conceive of anything like a hell.  No, on the contrary, the notion of hell reeks of human creation.  It bears all the unmistakable signs of something only a human being could dream up, as does torture itself.  It is almost comical how man’s attempt to lift himself to a higher moral standard is really just more human folly resulting in an ever-deepening pit of human stupidity.  Would-be goodie-goodies find themselves instead to be the creators of sculptures of torture, inventors of fear, and speakers of falsehood.  They fill man’s minds with cruelty and wincing at imagined suffering.  Instead of worshiping something holy, they worship minotaur kings of hell, because they submit to the fear of them; they advertise to me what their gods are really like.

AN ASIDE:  BRAD’S RANT ON “ABOMINATIONS”

In Brad’s worldview, this place is truly an abomination.  The religion of this temple is probably attempting to prevent the so-called abominations of an earthly life (which are probably good things like sex, rebellion against your mortal king/emperor, congress of the same gender, whatever.  But in-so-doing they have committed the real abomination, and have placed on the good, green earth a spot of darkness and fear.

I may not like religion very much, but I’m gonna give credit where credit is due — in the Bible, the word is usually used of dietary restrictions in the Old Testament (not really an issue anymore), improper sacrifice (ditto), and pagan gods that demanded human sacrifice (I agree this is an abomination).  Deuteronomy 22:5 is rather comical, as it says cross-dressing is an abomination.  Really?  An abomination?  Somehow I don’t think human sacrifice can be compared to cross-dressing in severity.  There are also two Old Testament verses that I’m aware of that say “lying with a male as with a woman” is an abomination.  Note that it says nothing about the lesbians . … … GIGGIDY!

Anyway, for the most part, I have to say the Bible is pretty bang-on about abominations, and most especially in Proverbs:  “There are six things which the LORD hates, Yes, seven which are an abomination to Him:  Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, And hands that shed innocent blood, A heart that devises wicked plans, Feet that run rapidly to evil, A false witness who utters lies, And one who spreads strife among brothers.”  And there’s another I particularly like:  “A false balance is an abomination to the LORD, but a just weight is His delight.”  This refers to merchants cheating customers by using a false weight to slight them on the purchase of grain or some kind of food.

Okay, back to my adventure…

THE MAUSOLEUM

I went to the top of the temple, where there is a pretty nice pavilion with bonsai trees and a view over Kowloon.  Then something else caught my attention.  Friends Jade and Mandy took me years before it, and I had to go there again.

On the same street as my least favorite temple, a nondescript concrete path, winding behind an unused parking garage leads up an engineered slope and into a struggling copse growing thereon.  Within, one will find a seemingly disused and crumbling temple.  Then one wonders into a whitewash-walled 3-storey structure, silent and eerie, filled only with the echoes of one’s own footsteps and the urns of the dead.  In the center of the symmetrical halls are pots for burning incense on metal stands.  Black and white photos of the long-dead sometimes accompany their remains upon the shelves, and one is filled with sense of reverence and reflection, intensified by the utter quiet of this tucked-away ruin.

I had to smile, looking at the faces of the deceased, faces that may have feared Diyu in life, thinking their rest was rather like this place — peaceful, silent, surrounded by the woods and the wind.

Behind the mausoleum is a long steep set of stone stairs.  At the top of the stairs, a man was playing some traditional instrument.  I didn’t want to weird him out by videoing him, but you can hear his melody on the video.  Higher on a country road that serves as a pass in the mountain, I found a pavilion, a roadside tarp-covered eatery (where I bought more Pocari Sweat) and a cat that made me miss my little Jing Jing.  It was snoozing under the table I sat at, right in front of my knees.  Oh, *sniffle* Jingy loves sleeping too.

LION ROCK COUNTRY PARK

The first thing I saw were funny signs about not harassing the monkeys.  Then it was trail, trail, trail, plenty of monkeys to see, and lots of other cool sights.  Check out the photos and videos below:

Where I came out; time to catch a double-decker

The destination

Reminder that Hong Kong isn’t all city

Window to the past

Upper exit of hell

The mausoleum

D’awww, sleepy sleepy cat cat

Approaching the lion’s back

Above the skyscrapers

Kowloon

Lion Rock; you can rock climb up that face

Climbing higher than the buildings

Really fucking high

Can you imagine finishing this multi-pitch?

I clambered down these rocks, getting to utilize some hairy climbing moves

Looking back

THE PLATFORM

I did a pretty risky free climb up a fairly high part of Lion’s Rock rocky spine, and I found myself on a wide, flat platform overlooking the city on one side and the farther low country on the other.  I spent a while here meditating.  It was to be my last hike in Hong Kong for this trip, and I got to revel in the feeling that I had done quite alot up til then.  My thoughts turned to the future, as if I could see from that high court of stone over the Pacific to Taiwan, my future home.  I’d never been to Taiwan, but it promised great treasure.  A prosperous job, beaches, rock climbing, surfing, scuba diving, high alpine trails, jungle treks, river tracing, tea houses, island windsurfing, the world’s second tallest building, and the time and the environment to learn Mandarin Chinese.  And I felt the thrill that early immigrants to the United States must have felt, the thrill that the first gold-rush miners must have felt — the bright hope that a better life and gleaming treasures awaited ahead, and the determination to endure whatever hardship stood in the way to get the most out of life’s opportunities.  And I smiled in the direction of Taiwan, at my home-to-be, at the trove of adventures awaiting me there, and at the struggles — sure to come — which would make me a stronger man.

GETTING OUT

I hiked for a while yet, ending up on another single lane road that led to a helicopter pad.  I eventually popped out and caught a double-decker within seconds of seeing the roadway.  It was back to Hong Kong to prepare for departure to Taiwan, but before that happened I was to have one final and terrifying adventure.  Stay tuned for my next post.