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Higher truths
By Raymond Zhou (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-08-18 14:49
 The breathtaking sunrise over Mount Taishan. Wang Dequan Tarzan may have found his paradise in the African jungle, but he could well have felt at home in majestic Mount Taishan with its sacred temples and stone tablets. Not that 7,000 steep steps are easier to climb than treetops. You see, Tarzan in Chinese is identical to Mount Taishan, both called Taishan. I don't know who came up with the Chinese translation, but whoever did it must have conjured up the image of the archetypal feral child in the Chinese setting. "Taishan in Taishan" could be such a fitting and catchy movie title. I wonder why nobody ever thought about it. One reason could be: He wears a loincloth and bares his muscular torso. That would have made the emperors very unhappy. While peering down from the top of the 1,600-step 18 Bends, I noticed a couple of young men taking off their T-shirts and letting their perspiring bodies take in as much fresh air as possible. Then again, they were not part of an imperial entourage, just regular tourists who wanted to show off their physical stamina and possibly attract the admiring eyes of beautiful women haplessly sporting high heels. If the men had chutzpah, they could have bowed and asked: "Can I carry you up?" That might have made the ladies into instant Jane Porter fill-ins.
Before Mount Taishan was sanctified by UNESCO for its natural, cultural and ecological significance, it was endorsed by a legion of China's rulers, or those who reigned the small kingdoms that later commingled to become China. As many as 12 emperors, starting from the First Emperor of Qin, paid homage to Heaven and Earth in a ritual called "Fengshan Sacrifices". That's not including the 72 kings and emperors before Qin whose pilgrimages were only briefly noted in history books.
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