Cultural Activities

Hangzhou is home to several museums, including the Zhejiang Provincial Museum, which is located on the site of the former residence of the Qianlong emperor on the island Solitary Hill. There are also several specialty museums for ancient coins, colophon seals, kilns, and even a museum for scissors, in addition to a few national-level museums, like the Chinese Silk Museum and the Chinese Tea Museum.

Hangzhou is renowned for its fine silk, and for its prized West Lake Dragon Well tea, the most fragrant and expensive of all Chinese green teas, which is cultivated in the mountains near the lake and picked by migrant farmers from Jiangxi and Anhui in April and October. The top grade of this tea, called mingqian, is harvested before Pure Brightness (a Chinese agricultural calendar solar term equivalent to April 5) and is literally more precious than pure gold. In fact, on April 11, 2005, the Zhejiang Auction House sold 100 grams for a record high of CNY 45,000 (about USD 5,437 for just 3.5 ounces). Friends World students in the spring will have the opportunity to hike through the tea fields and visit the home of farmers who will teach you how to process this precious commodity for market. The Chinese Traditional Medicine Museum, located in an exquisite 19th ct. apothecary, is the only museum of its kind in China. Nearby, in the charming village of Tongli, is the Ancient Chinese Sex Culture Museum. The only private museum of its kind in China, it was founded by the sexologist, Liu Dalin, and is a popular destination for students interested in the history of Chinese sexuality. Hangzhou is also home to the China Academy of Art. Founded by Cai Yuanpei in 1928 along the banks of West Lake, it is the oldest comprehensive institute for the study of fine arts in China. Adjoining Zhejiang University is one of China's largest botanical gardens, a sprawling estate over 230 hectares planted with over 3,400 species, including a sequoia pine presented by Richard Nixon during his 1972 presidential visit to China. Other nearby natural parks include: the Hangzhou Flower Nursery and the Xixi Wetlands.

Hangzhou offers over forty cultural sites of interest around West Lake, some of enormous historical significance and many walking distance from the university. In the hills just across from the China Center, for example, is Baopu Abbey, where the 4th ct. Daoist alchemist Ge Hong allegedly practiced mixing his elixirs of immortality. Numinous Retreat Monastery (Lingyin Si 灵隐寺), a pleasant walk from our campus and one of the largest monastic complexes in China, was first established by the Buddhist monk Hui Li in the 4th ct. upon his return from India. He named the hill at its entrance "Peak Flying from Afar" for its resemblance to a similar one he had seen while in India. Some 470 stone carvings, several in pristine condition date from the 10th to 14th centuries, still adorn its rock face and grottoes. Just beyond this large monastic complex, and lying along the same creek, is the Dharma Mirror at San Tianzhu (San Tianzhu Fajing Si 三天竺法镜寺), a local Buddhist nunnery with architecture and trees dating back to the Qing dynasty. If you continue further up the narrow road you come to Dharma Purity Monastery at Madhyadesa (中天竺法净寺), which is the location of the Buddhist Studies Society and is where some Friends World students have taught English to monks. Even farther up the creek is Dharma Joy Monastery at Upper India (Shang Tianzhu Faxi Si 上天竺法喜寺). Here city officials and emperors once propitiated a miraculous Buddhist statue of the White-robed Guanyin to avert natural disasters since the 10th ct. In fact it was in this region and around this time that the once male, Indian bodhisattva transformed into her Chinese and female form.

Many of the sites around the lake are associated with famous personages, some historical, others fictional, and one so colorful that his life inspired popular vernacular fiction and theater for centuries after, not to mention contemporary comics, a television series, and a spate of movies. His name is Ji Gong, but he is sometimes referred to affectionately by his followers as Crazy Ji. This Song dynasty monk from Hangzhou is famous for his generosity to the poor and infamous for his antinomian antics and flagrant disregard for social decorum and monastic rules, especially those against drinking wine and eating meat. Several religious sites in Hangzhou bare his mention: Lingyin Monastery (where he was ordained), Jingci Monastery (where he died), and Mount Hupao (believed since the 16th ct. to be where his relics are interred), in addition to any number of small temples located throughout the area that enshrine his grinning visage and lay claim to some event in the life of this still popular saint.

The China Center will provide all Friends World students holding Zhejiang University student cards with a Hangzhou Park Card, which provides free and unlimited access to the Peak Flying from Afar, Yue Fei Ancestral Temple, Six Harmonies Pagoda, City God Pavilion, Jade Emperor Mountain, Wansong Confucian Academy, King Qian Ancestral Temple, Hangzhou Stone Stele Forest, Tiger Spring, Yellow Dragon Grotto, the Botanical Gardens, and the Hangzhou Zoo, to name just a few. In addition spring semester students will also receive a Hangzhou Buddhist Monastery Card, with the same access to Lingyin, Jingci, Fayin, Fajing, Faxi and Fuguang monasteries. Note that most of the parks in Hangzhou, such as the botanical garden and the flower nursery, are free to the public before 9:00 A.M. and after 5:00 P.M.

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