Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Non-Fiction 2018 | Page 12
Many people misunderstood silk production started in China and ended in India. In fact, silk went
on and on its journey to the west, to Europe and to America. Silk was even produced in Brazil, and it was
one of the top five countries in silk manufacturing.
My mother was surprised about what I had found, then showed me another picture. In the picture,
she is wide awake with her hair blown up by the wind. The background has some gullies of red sandstones.
My mother exclaimed, “It’s the most challenging stop along this trip. The temperature could reach up to
seventy degrees Celsius! It’s Flaming Mountains at Turpan.” Flaming Mountains, that led me to think of the
Chinese novel “Xiyouji”. The author imagined a huge leaf fan for Sun Wukong to put out the heat. Why
was Xuanzang so tough to walk through the Silk Road? I have much interest to search for more information
about Xuanzang.
Xuanzang was a buddhist monk who was born in 602 C.E. He was only twenty seven when he
started his journey to the west. It took him over sixteen years to go to India and back to China. He strongly
believed that he had a mission to go there. He was often starving and freezing. It was really hard to survive,
so he exchanged things he brought from Chang’an for shelter, clothes and food. He would not give up his
mission no matter how hard the journey was. With his determination, he had arrived at Nalanda of India.
There he studied hard, discussed openly with other monks and visited some sites associated with the life of
the Indian God “Hanuman”. The drawing of Hanuman was with a monkey head on a body similar to a
human body. Maybe the character of the Monkey King “Sun Wukong” was created because of Hanuman.
Xuanzang had brought back five hundred and twenty cases of Buddhist scriptures, and together
with other monks, they had translated the religious text into Chinese.
Although I still do not understand the religion of Buddhism, I really admire the courage Xuanzang
had in facing all difficulties and his strong belief in himself to complete the mission. Our lives are for finding
the unknown. We need to concentrate on what we want to do, follow our dreams.
To add new pages to my mother’s album, I would like to continue the journey to the west which
is not limited to one direction.