Singapore prides itself on being an exceptionally peaceful nation, and is accepting of all religions. All religions, that is, except two—which is pretty impressive when you stop to think about how many different religions are practiced in the world. I can’t recall the name of the first one, but it is practiced in remote areas of China and condones polygamy—which is why it’s not allowed here. The second is Jehovah’s Witnesses, and I find the reasons really interesting… First, Jehovah’s Witnesses do not allow their followers to carry guns, which clashes with the decree that all male Singaporean nationals must serve in the military for at least one year. Secondly, Jehovah’s Witnesses are required to complete some form of evangelicalism, and here it is considered illegal to press your faith on someone else.
One of the most widely practiced religions here is Buddhism. May 17th was Vesak Day, which celebrates the birth of Buddha. Stepping out into the streets of Singapore on that day was surreal… the once-bustling metropolis was like a ghost town! Everyone was at temple, and the few who weren’t seemed to move at a much slower pace than usual, and act a little more thoughtfully. Why? Just as people who aren’t devout Christians still frequently celebrate Christmas, Buddhists happily encourage followers of other faiths to be a part of their way of life on Vesak Day. Their suggestion (or for me, their challenge) is to not eat meat for the entire day, and to try to be a little more aware of the life around you, from the towering trees to the tiniest ant. Also, if you can—and I’ll admit, this one’s a tough one—only allow yourself to speak, act, and think in peaceable, positive ways. Yup, even while you’re alone in your bathroom, brushing your teeth at the end of the day, don’t allow yourself to think ill of the jerk who cut you off in traffic or the woman who sneezed on your child in the grocery store.
As I thumb through tourist and expat magazines with articles about Vesak Day and how best to celebrate it, I realize there is something stunningly beautiful about Buddhism… not preaching fine points on how we can be “saved,” but simply pointing the way down a more fulfilling path while we are alive. I wasn’t able to accomplish the not-so-simple tasks outlined for Vesak Day (not that I’m surprised, since in my 32 years of life I have yet to make it through Lenten Fridays without eating pepperoni pizza or a chicken sandwich), but the day piqued my interest in a faith I know nothing about, so I booked myself on a tour of the (take a deep breath) Kong Meng San Phor Kark See Monastery. Whew! (Anyone who can say the name of the Hindi temple Sri Veeramakaliamman five times fast before I visit it this summer wins… um, let’s see… my respect and a whole bunch of bragging rights)
The Kong Meng San Phor Kark See Monastery is an entire complex (read: HUGE) of Buddhist temples that were founded back in 1920, making it the sight of some of the oldest temples in Singapore. It is surrounded on all sides by busy roads and several of the buildings are in the process of being renovated, but the sprawling estate still somehow maintains a sense of calm. The low, musical humming of passing monks has a way of drowning out the sounds of cars and tinkering hammers. Their prayers are chanted at a frequency that reverberates slightly in your chest—like the dying out of a gong that has been rung—and makes you feel… chill. The lawns are as manicured as an upscale golf course, and thousands of colorful Tibetan prayer flags are strung up between the buildings. Notice I didn’t say, “fluttering between the buildings.” It’s another brutally hot day and the flags hang completely limp. My clothes feel about five pounds heavier on me as we walk around. I’m dripping in the shade, and when I step out into the sun, the beads of sweat on my arms and forehead begin to sizzle and pop like water added to a hot skillet.
The monastery library.
The temples look inviting as we move toward them. The doors stand open, and inside it looks shady and cool. Well, the shady part is true enough. The cool part… not so much. I expected the white marble floors and pillars to have the same feel of a cathedral, but this wasn’t the case. It was still very warm and humid inside, and adding to the warmth was the glow of prayer candles and the burning of joss sticks. Joss sticks are sticks of incense and are burned in groups of three… the two outside sticks represent heaven and earth, and the stick in the middle represents man. It is the Buddhist way of saying man should not live his life entirely for this world or for the next, but that he should find a balance between the two.
A healthy balance… I like that.
Tibetan prayer flags.
The painting behind this Buddha is of a giant fig leaf.
The temples are modest places. No sleeveless shirts are allowed or shorts/skirts that come above the knee. To enter the temple, you must take off your shoes, which you do before entering anyone’s home here (god or human). People kneel on pillows on the floor, and some pray in silence while others softly chant. While each temple is vastly different in appearance, they all have a bell and a drum inside, which are rung or beat 108 times in a row to represent the 108 sins of man.
108 sins. Wow… I’m not even sure I could list the Ten Commandments right now if you asked me to.
Another drum and bell.
Prayer beads, similar to a rosary.
My tour guide was wonderful, but had a very strong Russian accent (I know, I was a little perplexed as well, but let’s just roll with it) and had a habit of turning her back on me and the other tour attendees midsentence, occasionally leaving us dangling as her words got lost in the humidity and echo of marble. “And the Buddhists believe you can only achieve Nibbana, or everlasting happiness, once you…” The guide’s voice trails off as she begins walking toward the next temple sight, and I turn to the woman next to me and—probably a little too frantically—ask, “Once I what? What do we have to do to achieve everlasting happiness???” So my point here is: I will abstain from going into too much detail about the Buddhist faith, as I would feel terrible if I got it wrong simply because I misunderstood my Russian guide. I’ll just stick to the basics of, “This means this and that means that.”
For instance, different nationalities have different representations of Buddha. The next time you see one, you can sound like a theological smartypants in front of your friends by knowing these little factoids… The Chinese Buddha is the one that is also known as the “Fat Buddha” or the “Happy Buddha.” The Burmese Buddhas are usually fashioned from white, Burmese marble and have a headband. The headband is most likely made of real gold. And the Thai Buddha has a crown with a spire-like point on it.
Burmese Buddha.
Most of the temples here look like traditional pagodas, which the Chinese believe have the power to turn evil into prosperity. This is why you will frequently find miniature pagodas in Chinese households or sitting on the desks of Chinese businessmen. They are extraordinary, covered in beautiful murals that tell countless stories about Buddha’s path to achieving Nibbana. What is even more impressive is that up close, you see the murals are a mosaic of tiny tiles.
There are all kinds of animals and mythical creatures surrounding the doorways and perched along the rooftops of the temples. Each of these is significant for a different reason, but the only explanations I caught were for the dragon—a fierce guardian, always positioned with its head looking back over its body in a protective stance—and the white elephant. Buddha’s mother had a dream one night she was impregnated by a white elephant, and nine months later she gave birth to Buddha while holding tight to two fig trees… you’ll see a lot of fig trees around Buddhist temples for this reason.
A lion guarding the door.
The white elephant.
This scary looking guy keeps evil spirits away.
A Burmese lion guardian.
Also dominating the facades of the buildings were swastikas. I was the only American on the tour, accompanied by twelve British women, who all looked astounded. We shifted our weight uncomfortably as our guide told us about the phoenix that was guarding one of the gates, and I’m sorry to say I have no idea what the impressive looking bird exemplifies to the Chinese because I was too busy staring at the swastikas. Okay, so it turns out these are TOTALLY different than Nazi swastikas. I kind of figured, since they’d been around since before WWII, but it still makes a person feel edgy. Here in Asia, they actually represent wheels of life. Ah yes, that’s more like it. Too bad the Nazis had to ruin the look of so many temples that are entirely devoted to peace. Stupid Hitler.
We take a bathroom break before touring the monastery’s crematorium, and this is where I had my first experience with a hole-in-the-ground toilet. I think anyone who travels to Asia needs to be able to say they squatted over a hole in a tile floor at least once… and hope they don’t get a leg cramp while doing so.
I really didn’t think it was too bad. Of course, I grew up in Colorado, where the term “Potty Grass” or “Brush Squatting” is as much a part of a girl’s vocabulary as “Keep An Eye Out For The Cairn” and “Hug A Tree.” (Please, Kristin and Ali, tell me you remember the circa 1975 Hug A Tree video we had to watch every fall in PE class!)
So the next stop on our tour is the crematorium. Three massive furnaces are roaring while the family members of the deceased wait in rows of folding chairs, staring silently at the large metal doors. Every now and then, one of them stands and makes their way to the long tables set up at one end of the building, where plates of food can be purchased as offerings to the deceased. On the farthest table, urns are waiting to have a name and picture affixed to them. All the urns are the same—simple, ceramic green squares, because Asians understand better than anyone the concept of large numbers and overpopulation. Simply put, the urns are square because they stack easier, topple less, and don’t take up as much room in the storage buildings, which is where we head next.
The preparation tables outside the crematorium.
A strange feeling comes over me as I peek inside the facility, through the crack of an open window, and find myself staring at the stoic face of a Chinese woman on the side of an urn. She’s been dead for a while… I can tell because her ashes are inside one of the older urns, with the curved sides. And as I look at her, all I can think about is the fact that she used to be alive… I know, a total duh moment, but it made me feel somewhat empty inside. Maybe it had something to do with being able to see what she looked like that did it to me—not the usual sense of detachment you get from just looking at a name chiseled into a headstone. Regardless of the reason, I found myself somehow wanting to know this total stranger. I kind of wanted to ask her what had made her laugh and cry when she was my age. I wanted to know what kinds of things she stressed out about, and whether or not they seemed completely trivial once she came face to face with her death. She was human, which most likely meant she’d fallen in love with someone at some point. She’d probably had her heart broken at some point, too. I wanted to ask her if she had children. I even found myself wondering if she shared my terrible habit of repeatedly putting something in the oven and then forgetting all about it until the smoke alarm screamed a reminder.
But of course, I have no idea what the answers to any of these questions are. I don’t even know the woman’s name. It’s written in characters that are as confusing to me as the feeling I’m grappling with at the moment… it’s that same feeling you get when you stare up at the stars on a perfectly clear night and suddenly feel insignificant. This woman had a story, and in it she was the main character… just like I have and am right now in my own life. But all that is gone for her—everything that was stressful and wonderful and important and heart wrenching—and now she is just one star among millions, barely even noticeable unless someone gets a clear view of her through a small crack in an open window. Her urn shares a shelf with a hundred others, and the shelves are stacked floor to ceiling, with rows barely wide enough for a person to walk between without turning sideways. The shelf units cover the entire floor of the building, which is approximately 50-meters on a side. Add to that that the pagoda-style building is five stories tall. Oh, and there are four of them on the grounds, and this is just one temple sight among dozens on a single, relatively small island in Southeast Asia. Are you beginning to understand my vast feeling of anonymity?
The tour concludes with a stroll past the turtle pond, which is a sight to see. There are hundreds of them, of all sizes, swimming and sunning themselves and climbing on each other’s backs. Turtles are considered to be lucky here, and our guide tells us if we spot the giant turtle who generally chooses to keep himself hidden in the deeper parts of the pond, it would kind of be like winning the lottery. I lean over the side of the bridge, peer into the water on both sides, but see nothing. Actually about a hundred turtles stare back at me, wondering if I’m there to feed them, but I wouldn’t classify any of them as “giant.” Guess I’ll have to hold off on buying that Aston Martin just a little longer.
After we leave the monastery, our tour bus takes us to an area of town referred to as “funeral row.” Since the Chinese are very superstitious, none want to live in an apartment or house close to a funeral home, so they are pretty much all set up on one small street. There you can purchase a coffin, make funeral arrangements, and buy items to burn for your loved ones.
All of us got a pretty big kick out of this part of the tour… In Chinese culture, it is believed that when you die, you first go to Hell, and after a certain amount of time and after performing a certain number of deeds, you can cross over into Heaven. If they are Buddhists, there are different rebirths in Heaven and on Earth until the soul achieves true Nibbana (it’s complicated, and I’m definitely not the person to relate the information correctly). Anyway, family members who are still alive can burn money and paper replicas of everyday objects for their ancestors to use in Hell or Heaven. There are paper rice cookers and bottles of laundry detergent (apparently you can’t get out of doing chores even once you’re dead), and there are even paper dresses and houses. While we were there, they were making a scaled replica of a Mercedes to burned at a man’s funeral, because he always wanted one but could never afford it in life. By burning one for him at death, his family believes he will have a Mercedes to drive around Heaven and Hell in! So of course the tour through the shop turned into a show-and-tell among us women, seeing who could find the coolest or funniest everyday item that had been remade in paper. My favorite was the “Hell Passport Kit,” which included a first class plane ticket on Singapore Air to Hell and a Hell’s Bank Visa card to make your stay there a little more comfortable.
A paper house (in case your ancestors need a new place to stay on the "other side")
It was surreal, and I’ll admit that for a good portion of our time there, I felt like I was giggling my way through a funky Chinatown gift shop. But as we were leaving, I saw a few people sitting at tables on the sidewalk, burning Heaven Money one sheet at a time, looking both sad and respectful as they sent gifts to the deceased.
Then, of course, I felt kind of guilty. I can only imagine what these people must think of Christmas… We celebrate the birth of Jesus by shoving a fat man down a chimney. And Easter? I mean, who wouldn’t think to celebrate a person’s resurrection from the dead with a giant rabbit who hides painted eggs???
I believe there is a higher power… a universal force… a God present around us. Life is too poetic for there not to be. But I would not consider myself to be a religious person, since I haven’t practiced or truly believed in any one religion for a long time. If I was handed a microphone (or in my case, a keyboard) and asked to be a preacher for moment, I guess my message would be this: None of us know. I think a person could read the Bible or the Quran or the Torah, memorize it start to finish, and still not know all the answers. None of us truly know what God is thinking, or what the universe has planned. One day we’ll all be side by side with the nameless woman in the urn. And then we’ll know.
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