18. General Yueh Fei

Today's first stop was Yueh Fei's tomb - a personal highlight because I am a descendant of Yueh Fei. As the bus went from our hotel to the monument, Lancie gave a presentation on the history of Yueh Fei and I payed close attention to take careful notes.

General Yueh Fei was born in 1221 during the Song dynasty to a poor family. He grew up to become a fearless general of the Song army. Another general, Han Shizhong, helped him and together they revived the faltering Song army. Although Yueh Fei and other generals commanded a successful army, they lacked power in the justice system. One infamous person who had such power was Qin Hui (also known as Qin Kwai). He made false accusations against Yueh Fei and eventually had him sent to jail and executed. Upon hearing the news, General Han Shizhong asked, "What did Yueh Fei do?" Qin Hui replied, "Mo xu you", which meant "something fairly likely".

After Emperor Xiao Zong took the throne almost 21 years after Yueh Fei's execution, he cleared him of the false charges and made him a national hero. He ordered a temple to be built by West Lake and had four iron figures kneeling in front of Yueh Fei's tomb. Two of them are Qin Hui and his wife, who planned the execution, and the other two are their "assistants", Zhang Jun and Mo Qixie. A short saying on the plaque reads: "Honored the green hill is to provide eternal resting-place for the loyal soul; Innocent is the iron used to cast the images of the hated traitorous ministers."

A fabled story says that after Yueh Fei's execution, a baker molded two pieces of dough into human shapes, standing for Qin Hui and his wife, and twisted them together into a double helix shape. He fried the twisted dough in hot oil and served it to customers who wanted to "take a bite" out of the murderous traitors. This is the purported origin of yiou tiao, or "oil sticks", a common breakfast food among the Chinese that is served with soybean milk.

In front of the main entrance is a big statue of Yueh Fei. I took a picture of that and made sure to have someone get a picture of me in front of it. Lancie originally did not know that I was a descendant of Yueh Fei and after she found out, she said I looked somewhat like him. We moved on through the temple and got to see the four iron figures and his grave, which is next to his son's. His son's name was Yueh Yun which is very similar to my name.

After Yueh Fei's temple we walked a short distance to a boat for the West Lake cruise. It was a brief half an hour cruise that took us from the dock to the middle area of West Lake and back. The main highlight of the cruise was a new pagoda that was recently built in the hills surrounding West Lake. We proceeded to travel by bus to Shanghai and eat lunch there.

Our first stop after lunch was the Jade Temple. This was an outdoor area with a few building scattered about. One building housed a standing Buddha made completely out of jade that stood about 10 feet tall. It was very delicate so all tourists had to stay within the roped off area and could not take pictures. The next building housed a sleeping Buddha, also completely made from jade. It was significantly smaller and tourists were allowed to get up close to the glass encasement.

The next stop was the Pudong Bund. There are two bunds, a dong (east) bund and a shee (west) bund. Huangpu is the name of the river so saying Pudong or Pushee was just saying what side of the river you were on. From the Pudong side you could see the Pushee skyline which contained many tall buildings and the Oriental Pearl TV tower, the third largest in the world. Each of the spheres on it houses such things as a 20-suite hotel, conference hall, and coffee bar.

From there we went on to Nanjing Road, a huge closed off road with shops on both sides. You could find almost anything there - CDs and electronics to shoes and clothes to jewelry and fine liquors. There were a few trolleys running up and down the center of the street and a McDonald's was conveniently located every eighth mile or so. After everyone met up at the bus, we went to dinner where we celebrated Eric Buchholz's birthday with a cake. It was a grand way to end a fabulous first day in the wonderful city of Shanghai.

第十八章 岳飛

作者：岳群
翻譯：時報編譯組

岳王廟

對我個人而言，今天是旅程中最重要的一天，我要去參拜祖先岳飛的墓和廟，在遊覽車上，導遊蘭西解說了有關岳飛的歷史故事。

岳飛於1221年出生在宋朝一個貧苦的家庭裡，後來成為宋朝軍隊中一位忠勇的將軍，他和另一位將軍韓世忠將宋朝的軍隊訓練成一支強勁的隊伍，但是他們在朝廷中卻沒有力量，當時有個佞臣秦檜假藉名義將岳飛將軍自前線調回並定罪入獄，韓世忠將軍問秦檜「岳飛犯了什麼罪」，他竟然回答「莫須有」，就這樣將岳飛陷害了。

岳飛死後21年，宋孝宗登基時將此案平反。宋孝宗免除了加諸在岳飛身上的莫須有罪名，追贈褒揚岳飛為民族英雄，並下令在杭州西湖旁為岳飛建廟，還在岳飛墓旁鑄了四個跪在墓前的人像，分別是秦檜、王氏夫婦和兩位協助秦檜陷害岳飛的張俊、萬俟夫婦，墓旁並有題字「青山有幸埋忠骨，白鐵無辜鑄佞臣」。還有一個傳說，當岳飛死後，有人用二條麵團交叉揉成人型代表秦檜夫婦，然後放入熱油鍋中炸後給想咬這個劊子手一口的客人食用，這就是油條的由來，油條和豆漿成為中國人最普遍的早餐食品。

岳王廟前是一尊巨大的岳飛銅像，我給岳飛像照了一張相片，再請同學幫我在岳飛像前合照一張，當導遊蘭西事後知道我是岳飛的後嗣時，她說我看起來確實有些像岳飛呢！我和同學們到廟內參觀，也看到了在岳飛墓旁的四個鐵人像，岳飛墓旁是他兒子岳雲的墓，我才發現岳雲的名字拼音和我的名字拼音很是相近。

參觀岳王廟後，我們步行到附近的西湖做半小時的遊湖，遊艇帶我們離開碼頭到湖中央，再轉回來，沿途看到西湖邊坡上有一座新建的寶塔。

中午我們坐遊覽車到了上海，午餐後是參觀玉佛寺、這是一個戶外地區，有幾個分散的建築物，其中一棟建築物內有一座站立的大佛像，大約有10尺高，全都是玉雕成的，因為太精緻了，所有的遊客都祇能站在繩子的外圍參觀，同時也不准照像，隔鄰的建築物內則有一座臥佛，同樣也是玉雕，相較起來小多了，這座臥佛遊客就可以靠邊欣賞雕琢的功夫。

接下來是到浦東遊覽，(以黃浦江為界，有浦東和浦西之分)，由浦東江邊可以看到浦西的高樓大廈和世界排名第三的東方明珠電視塔，球形結構的電視塔內部有一個20間套房的旅館，會議廳和咖啡廳等。

由浦東我們到了南京路，一個兩邊都有商號的大型路邊市場，由錄音帶、電子產品到衣服、鞋子、珠寶、酒等應有盡有。街上還有電車往返，而且大約每隔八哩路就有一間麥當勞快餐店，很是方便。今天是Eric Buchholz的生日，晚餐後大家以生日蛋糕為他慶生。

這是我們在這座繁華亮麗城市「上海」過的精彩一天。