Word: buddha
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...Bangkok has become a magnet for antiquities from all over Asia, where the knowledgeable shopper can find anything from genuine Burmese images of the Buddha to Tibetan monastic furniture. Of course, there are also plenty of cleverly forged fakes so, as in most Asian antiquities markets, caveat emptor. With opium habiliments, shop owners don't always deceive their customers on purpose. Many are clueless as to what is real and what is a reproduction. For instance, if an "opium pipe" has a bowl made from wood or resin or anything else that's flammable, chances are it's a very...
...molders under its cloth cover, China's Bamiyan buddha seems almost as cursed as its Afghan predecessor. But the reasons for its condition are peculiarly Chinese. Conceived of by the grandly named Sichuan Oriental Buddha Kingdom Co., the Bamiyan replica was to have been the prime exhibit in a privately owned Buddha theme park advantageously nestled in a UNESCO World Heritage Site that includes Leshan's own ancient buddha, the largest such stone statue in the world. But during the Bamiyan replica's construction, Oriental Buddha's workers allegedly destroyed dozens of the famed Mahaoya tombs, architectural marvels that date...
...very big country," laments Song Xinchao, a deputy director at the State Administration of Cultural Heritage in Beijing. "It's hard to keep track of all our ancient treasures, especially when modernization is one of our national goals." Indeed, last year in Leshan, a decidedly modern Oriental Buddha security guard told a visiting art historian not to worry about the tombs' destruction as nobody would miss musty, old burial sites anyway?especially when a fancy, new statue would draw hordes of Chinese package tourists...
...Ironically, the man who conceived of the Bamiyan replica, Oriental Buddha's chairman Liang Enming, was once a vice manager of Leshan's Cultural Relics Bureau, charged with protecting the very tombs he has allegedly wrecked. In the mid-'90s, Liang?whose handlers said he wasn't available to answer TIME's questions?left public service to head a private company and saw his chance when the Taliban eradicated their own cultural heritage. "This replica," he said at the time, "will make it possible for those who have never seen the statue to look for themselves at its great beauty...
...Leshan locals are angry not only at the destruction of their treasured tombs but also that Oriental Buddha was allowed to create a theme park on land their families had farmed for centuries. They criticize the local government and Leshan's Cultural Relics Bureau for handing over UNESCO-protected land to theme-park entrepreneurs and ignoring the placement of a huge buddha in an area famed for its tombs. Last week, Huang Quanchun watched in dismay as workers laden with trees marched by her ramshackle house next to the theme park. She and other locals claim that the trees...