A reflection on the past: Big-a-buddha-a-no-no

This is a re-telling of a supposed "trip" to go see the Big Buddha.

I was invited by a relative to go see the Big Buddha. I asked if I could invite my friend from Montreal - sure, no problem. The Big Buddha is the biggest of its kind in the world (due to the Taliban blowing up the even bigger one in Afghanistan). Hey, this could be interesting, let's go.

The event became instead the "Buddhist conversion attempt" - a 6-f$#&in' hour boat trip to throw fish into the water and come back - while being brain-washed to Buddhist propaganda and requests for money. Let's just say something got misinterpreted in the translation and I either

a) misunderstood or
b) someone in the family who was NOT invited misinterpreted the event to me, likely through the broken telephone that everyone's using to make their phone calls to me.

My friend from Montreal (Lia)'s description of the day:

Along with getting us into trouble though, Doug's talented sense of humour also saved us along the way. Under the guise of going to see "Big Buddy" (the largest Buddha in the world), we ended up on a six hour religious (cult?) boat ride. 1000s of fish, 300 or so people, 6 hours, 3 women's toilets, 1.5 gwailos (foreigners), 1 yellow haired girl, and one CD fixed on repeating the 8 bar chorus, each bar's melody slightly varying from the one before in its repetition of a single word "Buddha. Buddha. Buddha. Buddha. Buddha. Buddha."

Huh? Yah, we were there and are still trying to figure it all out. In the heat.spending six hours shovelling fish onto slides.which returned them to sea. where they would have been anyway.had they not been caught..to be put into a boat.for us to "give them freedom"???????

All we could do was laugh. And keep finding sources of things to laugh at (oh there were plenty). When the boat full of fish pulled up, we had double the supply. After we had tired of "their coming to sacrifice the yellow-haired girl" jokes, Doug would rant about the persistence of the Indian Deli touts. "Here some those Indian Deli guys." and then randomly yelling to the fish handlers on the other boat "She's right here."

When the supplies of entertainment from our immediate environment seemed to dwindle we'd recite the announcement on the metro before the doors close - in 4 languages.

Doug: "Sing man cow gun say moon" (with heavy Cantonese accent)

Cousin: "[tsin bu ya kaw gin sher men]" (with perfect Mandarin accent)

Lia: "Please stand BACK, from the doors" (with heavy British accent)

All: "Bee bee be e bebebebebeb. Pshwooooh" (with perfect beep and door closing accent)

Somehow we never tired of that one.

Needless to say we went for all-you-can-eat sushi that night

Luckily me, my friend, my flask, and jokes all around made the event entertaining still. And...let's just say I have family that ain't inviting me to anything else religious.


They gave us these cards of the Buddha. "Apparently" you're not "supposed" to put them in your backpocket, especially when you sit. Who knew.



Lia and I looking smug as the group of all 1.5 people of European descent on the boat. We liked to pretend it was our yacht.



Doug: "Lia! Run! They're coming to get the 'Golden-Hair' girl!".
Well, we found it funny. You had to be there. But then you wouldn't want to.



Me looking very impressed while waiting to throw my fish into the water, giving them "freedom" after "captivity".



Me throwing my basket-o'-raw fish into the ocean. Woo hoo, does the fun ever start?



Of course Lia's having a ball. That girl could not stop throwing fish into the water.