Tree Roots

As I was writing about my visit to the tree root carving village, I spotted this place and some of the unique root formations.

These are 2 separate roots and they formed 2 Ch1nese word characters. Can you guessed what they are?
The smaller one on the left is the word 福 (happiness) and the bigger one on the right is the word 寿 (longevity). Did anyone managed to see it?

So I guess it is perfectly natural to put these two words together to form the phrase of blessing 福寿.

Question. What do you think this is? Divine message or merely a rare coincidence?

I choose to believe that it is the latter. A mere coincidence which brings me to the hoo-hah in Jurong West recently, where people found image of the Monkey God on the bark of a tree and another Hindu deity look-alike at the root of another tree.

With all due respect to the various religions, I think we are taking the Jesus-On-Toast fiasco a tad too far. It got so bad that the worshipping went deep into the night and causing traffic jams on that street, much to the displeasure of the local residents. So far, I think the person with the greatest blessing would the ice-cream man and his mobile refrigerator cart.

Qiaoyun has covered this on her blog. Click here to read all about it.

Here's the thing. People see what they want/hope/wish to see. Remember how we used to stare up at the clouds when we were kids and then starting to see familiar shapes form by the white gaseous fluff of water vapour?

Hey! Look up there! It's a bunny! It's a sheep! It's a KFC Crispy left side chicken breast with an upsized cup of rootbeer! 

Apologies if I appear to mock but isn't the Monkey God a fictional character? It would have been far more credible if you say you saw GuanYin (观音) or Ma Tsu (妈祖) but Monkey God Sun WuKong? That's a character from an old Ch1nese folklore! No?

Anyway, I shall quit my skeptic criticism here before people start pelting stones or issue a fatwa (or any other religious equivalent) on my life. It wasn't the main jist of this entry, anyway.

Instead, I saw something deeper in this and I don't like what I saw.

The massive throngs of devotees rushing to pray for blessing at such fervour is alarming. It tells of something wrong.

Don't bury your head and deny it for what I said is true. I was a regular church-going Chr1stian when I was living in Singapore and I can honestly tell you that church attendance is always fuller in times of recession and/or desperation and I am sure this is probably the same situation across all the religions.

Ahh... such is the nature of the human race.

So what can be wrong in the island that we call home? The stock index is shooting through the roof, our Gahmen are releasing positive numbers of the jobs that they have created and the impressive percentage number of our economic growth, quarter after quarter. What can be wrong?

Yet, judging from what I hear and see (from pictures), devotees are rushing to pray at a desperate fervour.

Is something wrong? Or is something going to be wrong?

Please. Go think about it.

- Voxeros

1. Chocolate gal left...

Thursday, 27 September 2007 2:47 pm

i think they just want to win toto or 4D....

2. JayWalk left...

Thursday, 27 September 2007 3:35 pm :: 

Jaschocolate: I doubt if the God(s) would grant wishes of greed.

3. barffie left...

Friday, 28 September 2007 2:34 pm

Monkey God is long seen as a diety lor.

4. JayWalk left...

Friday, 28 September 2007 2:51 pm :: 

Barffie: Which is ironic considering the fact that Sun WuKong was a character created and featured in the classical Ch1nese epic novels of 大闹天宫 and 西游记 i.e. fiction.

5. aurore left...

Sunday, 30 September 2007 8:39 am :: http://aurore.vefblog.net

c'est vraiment joli...sorry...it's wonderfull !! I like all wood kiss jaywalk

6. JayWalk left...

Sunday, 30 September 2007 10:24 am :: 

Aurore: Bon jour! Yes, I have always enjoyed the marvels of nature but are we destroying too many of nature's gift at too fast a rate in the name of "enjoyment"?

Frankly, I prefer to enjoy nature as it is i.e. a forest trail or a beach head etc.