中文

Tree of Marriage and Pavilion of Wishes

This is a common sight not only in Jinli, but all over Chengdu and most likely all over China.  Even though most of the Chinese are not religious, but most of them do believe in the unseen, the supernatural, the higher being.  So they pray and wish a lot, but to no particular superpower being, any gods and goddess out there will be fine as long as they will answer their wishes and prayers.

So for the convenient of the Chinese, almost all the tourist spots and historical sides has one of this:  The pavilion of wishes and the tree of marriage, maybe just one of the two at some sides.

This is how it works for the pavilion of wishes – you purchase a small bag, or several small bags, depending on how many wishes you have, from the vendor (yes, they do make a lot of money by offering this feature!), write down your wish on a piece of red paper, put it in the bag, tie it well, and lastly, hang it on the tree.  By doing this, the Chinese believe your wish will come true.  It is very important to remember that you put only one wish per bag, it won’t work if you put more than one wish into the bag, not only your wish will not come true, it will backfire if your do this.  Also, equally important, the vendor will make a lot less money if people start doing this.  So for the sake of your wish and the wallet of the vendor, please remember the slogan of “one wish, one bag”.

It work the same way for the tree of marriage, but instead of writing down your wishes on the red paper, you write your name and the name of your love one on it.  Hang it on the tree and you and your love will be together and in love forever.

Also not just in love and together for a life time.  Notice the Chinese word on the stone translate into “Love bonded for three lifetime”.  So if you only want to spend one lifetime together with your love one, be sure not to use this particular tree of marriage.  This is just a joke, I hope you get it :)  Joking aside, the Chinese use this idiom to describe true love.  So naturally, a lot of the wishes that was made here are related to love and happiness.

 These are the wishing bags closeup.  They are actually very cute, colorful and beautiful.  You purchase the bags from the vendor, put your wish into the bag and hang it on the tree.  If you can ignore the commercial aspect of the whole thing, doing this is actually very meaningful and very romantic.  I am sure your love one will appreciate this and love you even more.

All the wishes and all the hope, so beautiful and so colorful, every one of this bag represents a dream, a hope, I pray that each one of this dream will come true, I pray for those whose dreams were broken, so they have the courage to stand up again, find another dream, and fight hard and bravely to make that dream come true.

 When I look all these wishing bags, I do wonder how do they hang those that were on the very top?  Especially those that were so high up on the tree.  Do they just throw it up and hope it will stick?  I think there’s a believe that the higher you can hang your wishes, the more likely  that it will come true.

There are so many bag of wishes here.  Accordingly, the most popular wishes are about love, family, education and job.  I have considered hanging one up, but I am more of a believer of life and fate is what we make it to be, we decide what our future will be.  So at the end, I did not put one up.  However, my wife did put my name and her name on the tree of marriage, so now I will be in love with her for a long long time, and we will be together for at least three lifetimes.  What?  You detect some negativity in my tone?  Nah, no such thing, I am glad I can be with her for three lifetimes :)

/Lumaca Moderno

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