FOREIGN RELATIONS OF BUDDHISM
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temples, they were treated with the utmost courtesy and kindness. For example, in 1850 an eminent abbot near Hangchow recommended to a missionary visitor that he use an adjoining piece of land to build a Christian church. He made the recommendation, he said, despite his experience with other missionaries who, as he gently suggested, ought to "show greater tolerance for the customs of other religions."39
Alas! tolerance was not their outstanding trait, nor was it outstanding among the foreign tourists and businessmen, who found it increasingly fashionable to regard all things Chinese as inferior and absurd → particularly the "bonzes." Since they also found that the loveliest spots in China had been utilized by the "bonzes" to build their monasteries, which were often the only places to stay on travels or holidays, the result was friction.
The chances for friction were less if all or part of a monastery at a low ebb had been rented outright, as was common in the Western hills outside Peking, at the foot of Omei Shan in Szechwan, and sometimes on the southeast coast. The few monks involved either vacated the premises entirely or moved to a rear building where, being grateful for tenants, they were ready to put up with whatever they had to.
But when foreign visitors stayed as guests at a prosperous monastery with a full complement of monks, friction was more likely. In 1924, for example, a doughty Philadelphian, Harry A. Franck, visited Omei Shan. Despite the prohibition on the import of meat, of which he was fully aware, he brought along several cans of it, as well as two live chickens for slaughter on the very top of the sacred mountain. As soon as he arrived, he began to bargain over the price of accommodations, thus degrading the monastery to the status of a hotel. (He should, of course, have waited until he was about to leave and then made an unsolicited gift.) Since he felt that he was being overcharged for the charcoal on which to cook his chickens, he took pleasure in making the abbot “lose face by coming himself late in the evening and pretending to verify the weighing."
The next day Mr. Franck professed surprise at the “half-hostile attitude towards foreigners... [of] the fat, lazy monks.” Elsewhere he calls them "cynical-looking young loafers." Yet he complains that (in spite of their laziness and cynicism) they had