The monk's tale

For more than 25 years, Virginia Stibbs Anami has been building bridges across cultures and tonight she's talking at Beijing's Garden Bookstore. The author of 2 books about the capital's ancient trees, more recently she's completed a third – the topic of tonight's talk.

"First of all thank you all for coming tonight to hear about a Japanese monk from the 9th century who travelled here to China."

Jikaku Daishi, or Monk Ennin, travelled to China in the year 838 during the Tang Dynasty. According to Anami "The magnificence of Tang had a strong impact on Japan, with new knowledge and art forms coming on the coattails of Buddhism". A vital link in the transmission of this heritage was the monk Ennin who kept a detailed diary of his 9 years in China; a precious almost daily log compiled in four scrolls of 70 000 Chinese characters.

After a quarter of a century Anami finally replicated his journey in 2007 and her current book, "Following the tracks of Ennin's 9th century journey", details this quest.

"People are finding that there is something within this topic of Ennin that resonates today.

"He became a kind of symbol of China-Japan relations because he was one of the first kind of international Japanese who lived in China and was given a lot of help by the Chinese people to stay here during these nine years. So it's a wonderful story of helping each other at that time. And Ennin's story actually involves the Korean people too because there were a lot of Korean monks, Shida, at that time, living on the coastal towns of China and they gave as foreigners living in China, they gave Ennin a lot of assistance and they actually helped him to get a boat to go home – so it was the three countries involved in that”

Such benefits were mutual for as Anami explains four years after arriving in China the Great Anti-Buddhist Persecution erupted under the Emperor Wuzong.

"And how did he help China – he helped China because that was at the time of the Buddhist repression and the Chinese people from high up to lowly people asked him "Please take Buddhism back to Japan and keep it alive until we can practice it here again so there was a kind of mutual help in all of this and I thought he was a good example of friendship between neighbors at that time that should be emulated."

For Anami, Ennin's flame also became a personal journey and over the years she was to replicate not only the monk's footsteps but also his benevolence.

"I'm supporting an orphan village in Shaanxi province outside of Datong and actually I am going there tomorrow. There are over 200 children and I think about 80 families are sharing the burden of 200 children. That are not there children, they have their children too. And I was so impressed I wanted to do something. And if I could do something I didn't want to give money, that doesn't go with me so I started buying medicines and buying toys and books. And we were able to get the Japanese government to give some money for a clinic there and so the clinic has been built."

After her presentation Virginia Stibbs Anami is embraced by an assortment of nationalities and age groups. Her story, like the story of Monk Ennin provides a working model for all those idealistic souls who strive to tread a peaceful path across time and location.

For more information, click on http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2009-06/03/content_7965949.htm