Tea at the Hermitage

Hi again! So a couple of days ago (yes, I’m very behind on blog updates) our research group (which, by the way, consists of myself, two other Davidson students Brian and Zach, and our professor Dr. Lye) went to visit a Chinese Buddhist monastery/temple in Penang. I always expected the first monastery I would ever see would be two things: really really old and really really big. This was neither of these things. It was clearly recently built and of modest size (which makes sense as it is inside a pretty large city) and even though it wasn’t what I expected, it was still beautiful and awesome to experience.

The Monastery/Temple in Penang

Apparently, Dr. Lye knew the abbot in some capacity and so we got to meet him and sat down for tea and then had an AMAZING lunch. Because it’s a Buddhist temple/monastery all of the food is vegetarian and being a vegetarian has never been easier. Apparently the Chinese version of vegetarian includes vegetarian chicken, pork, beef, and seafood made from soy-based products that taste just like the real thing and are healthier for you. If only it was that easy to be vegetarian in America! After lunch I also got to sample one of the fruits Malaysia is known for, Durian or “the King of Fruits.” I usually consider myself an adventurous eater, but Durian is one weird fruit. First of all, when you open a Durian the only way to describe the smell is “musty.” Yes, musty. It’s also creamy and gooey…not like a usual fruit. So I tried my best to pretend it was delicious and then ate two bowls of plain rice porridge to get the taste out of my mouth. I will probably not be trying Durian again during my stay here.

Anyway, after lunch, we were invited to go to the monastery’s hermitage or retreat near the top of one of Penang’s mountains. Obviously, we accepted and drove up this tiny and somewhat treacherous mountain trail where Zach thought it would be a good idea to stick our really expensive camera out the car window to take “action shots” of Penang as we ascended the mountain. Luckily, the camera survived and so did we. Looking around at the hermitage, I was really impressed. The scenery was just awesome. A National Geographic photographer would have had a field day. I can’t even really describe it so here are a couple pictures.

Once I stopped being completely dumbfounded, I followed the group through the hermitage buildings, which were filled with tons of amazing relics, statues, and other really valuable items (most of which were donated). Here's a picture to give you an idea.

After that we sat down to have tea, which I really enjoyed. I always knew I liked tea, being from the South and all, but the tea here is incredible. The tea was apparently quite expensive (and was also donated to the hermitage) and the taste reflected that. I had a lot of oolong tea as well as green tea. In case you were wondering, green tea is much better here than it’s canned American counterpart. The discussion was also very interesting. I sat next to a female accountant student and we talked a lot about the differences between growing up and going to college in America and in Malaysia. I also tried to listen to what the abbot was saying, but that proved difficult as a monk decided to start using his weed-whacker next to where we were sitting. However, the abbot was an extremely humble, modest man and I was very impressed with what little I could hear. This was definitely one of the coolest things I've ever done.

Next post will be about the super cool cave temples at Ipoh. I'll probably post it in a couple of hours just because I'm so behind on posts...