The premise of the sculpture draws on an old Chinese tale titled ‘Buddha Jumps Over the Wall.’ Basically, a Buddhist monk smells some delicious soup and suddenly is overcome with a desire to sample the food. In order to get to the kitchen, he has to climb up and over a wall. The account concludes with the poet claiming that Buddha himself would have done the same thing. Capitalizing on this well-known story, in January 2015 a hot-pot restaurant in the busy shopping district of Shandong province’s capital city decided to pay for the construction of the two Buddhas. The restaurant serves a luxury dish which shares a name with the Chinese legend and consists of expensive ingredients: abalone, dried scallops, sea cucumbers, and fish maw.
Unfortunately for the owners of the restaurant, there was not much time to enjoy all the attention generated by the Buddhas. Zen Buddhists were scandalized by the sculpture and their outrage quickly made the rounds on Weibo. Within five days of their construction, the city council ordered that the two naked men be deconstructed.
Skipping ahead to the present day, two similar figures once again grace the wall and roof of the same hot-pot restaurant in Jinan City. The 2016 incarnation of the sculpture has the two men in slightly different poses, but the major difference is that these two Buddhas have hair. I don’t think, however, that hair will be enough to keep this sculpture up for long, so enjoy it while you can.
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