竹炉山房

昨日下午忽然收到一封来自CNN Travel的邮件，说：

Dear Synyan,

My name is L****. I’m a freelance associate producer for CNN Travel. I noticed your image of the Lingshan Grand Buddha on Wikicommons, which led me to your blog. I was wondering if you would allow us to use your image to publish with a story I’m working on about China building more Buddhas to attract tourists. Any images used will be credit to you, or your blog if you prefer. If we have your permission to use an image, would you be able to send some hi-res photos of the Grand Buddha?

Please let me know as soon as you can. Thank you so much for your time! I hope to hear back from you soon.

Best regards,

L****

—

Freelance Associate Producer

CNN Travel

应该是在Wikicommons转载的2009年新年拜佛时写的《祥符寺灵山大佛》吸引了CNN的producer吧。读完邮件觉得，虽然是友情赞助，但是能登上CNN也算是种对独立博客精神的肯定吧？何况无锡的灵山大佛的确是很吸引国外游客的，为家乡免费宣传一下也挺好。于是很快的将原图发了过去，晚上又继续往来几封邮件，解释了图片的意义，并附了另外的两张供CNN挑选。

今天一天大雨。在外风风火火的聚会聊天……回到家，想到明天的上班便有种壮士一去兮不复还的感觉，很僵化的打开电脑，跳出L小姐的来信，说：

Hi John,

We ended up sticking to images of the Buddha. I really appreciate your help and sense of urgency with the images! Thank you so much! I’m sending you our home page and hopefully by the time you see it, you can still see your image as our Hero (lead big image/story on our home page). But just in case, I’ve attached a screenshot for you.

http://travel.cnn.com/

Thanks again!!

Best,

L****

于是跑去CNN Travel首页看了一下，居然真的就在首页挂着，本博链接也在图片的右上角用黑色字体“COURTESY TRAVEL.SYNYAN.NET”标了。

点进去可以看到CNN对中国造佛像吸引旅游者的详细报道，图片里也都标了作者的名字或博客地址，我的这张放在了首页。

其实我不完全同意CNN的观点，但我捍卫其发表观点的权利。

China builds bigger Buddhas to entice tourists

By Laura Ma, for CNN

February 6, 2014 — Updated 0837 GMT (1637 HKT)

(CNN) — Travelers who get kicks out of posing with huge Buddha statues have 10 more reasons to head to China this year.

The company responsible for Hong Kong’s 34-meter-tall Tian Tan Buddha and Hainan’s 108-meter-tall Guanyin of the South Sea of Sanya statue plans to throw up 10 more huge Buddha replicas during 2014, according to the Chinese magazine New Weekly (Chinese only).

The new builds have been inspired by the success, and profits, at Lingshan Park in Wuxi, Jiangsu province, which features an 88-meter-tall Buddha statue also built by Aerosun Corporation, and drew 3.8 million visitors last year.

The statue helped earn the park more than RMB 1.2 billion ($194 million) in 2013 according to the South China Morning PostSouth China Morning Post.

Of the 408 visitors who reviewed the park on Tripadvisor.com, 205 people rated the attraction as “excellent.”

“Lingshan tourist center is a great afternoon out, sure there is a lot of captive marketing but after spending that amount of money on such a beautiful place they deserve to make a few RMB out of us,” wrote KeefieG from East London, South Africa in November.

Mr Xie X from Dobbstown was more skeptical: “This is a tourist trap if I ever saw one. I mean really, over two hundred RMB to see a statue? And not even any historical relevance,” he wrote in his review.

Other big Buddhas

The world’s tallest Buddha is also the world’s largest statue — China’s Spring Temple Buddha in Lushan County, Henan Province totals 208 meters from the base of its pedestal to the top of its head.

The world’s largest stone Buddha — the 71-meter-high Leshan Giant Buddha — can be found in Mount Emei Scenic Area, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in China’s Sichuan Province.

It was carved out of a hillside more than 1,200 year ago.

Hong Kong’s Tian Tan Buddha is a relatively diminutive 34 meters tall. Its total height would barely reach the Spring Temple Buddha’s knees.

Nevertheless, the Hong Kong tourism board estimates more than one million people visit the Buddha each year, many of whom get there via the 20-minute Ngong Ping cable car ride.

回到大标题，我觉得能登上CNN Travel的首页是对独立博客的肯定。好吧好吧，我知道你们想说什么，退一步说，再不济也是对摄影技术的肯定吧？

所以，各位独立博主都要继续写呀，不然不热闹好玩嘛。那些时不时小灰暗、嚷着要关站的博主全都蹲小角落反省去！