Taishan is the most famous of China’s holy mountains (and the only one to have won a much-coveted spot on the currency, in this case decorating the 5 rmb bill). While its stone staircases are perhaps not counted among China’s most challenging — the terrifying climb to Huangshan’s Celestial Peak is hard to beat — from the town Taian and back it’s still an exhausting trek. But emperors stretching all the way back to Qin Shi Huangdi, China’s first emperor back in the 3rd century BC, have completed the climb, once believed to show that Heaven granted its favor to those who could reach the top, giving the mountain a special place in Chinese history. And so I braced my legs for the climb.
The way up is dotted with temples (both Taoist and Buddhist), and with inscriptions in the mountain left behind by rulers who have reached the top. On the way down, I stopped next to one written in what seemed to me to be particularly squiggly and illegible calligraphy, and realized that it was signed 毛泽东, Mao Zedong. Another (to me equally illegible) was signed 江泽民, Jiang Zemin – I assume Deng Xiaoping and Hu Jintao are up there somewhere as well.
Some say (perhaps jokingly) that in China’s history of rising and falling dynasties, the People’s Republic of China is simply the latest incarnation, destined like all others to rise, fall and be replaced. Dynasties usually fall when corruption becomes endemic and inequality grows to a level that is unsustainable, but also because they grow bankrupt. China’s government is far from bankrupt, so if this dynastic analysis of the rise and fall of power in China is accurate, the PRC still has some time to go. And in the meanwhile, its leaders continue to climb Taishan, prove to all that they still have the Mandate of Heaven, and leave behind inscriptions for posterity and for photo-happy tourists.
A long way left to the top
A long way back down
Money -- still bearing Mao's face -- tied to a tree near a temple as offerings
Mao's calligraphy on an inscription near the summit