10 Biggest Statues In The World - Part 1

I don’t know about you but I am afraid of statues. Seriously, big humanoid statues creep me out. Sure, I wouldn’t be scared of an enormous statue of Hello Kitty, but when it looks like a human, it definitely scares me. Those are perhaps some childhood issues that went unresolved. Anyway, here are some of the world’s biggest statues.

1. Spring Temple Buddha - This one is actually the biggest statue in the world and it’s about 153 meters. It’s located in Lushan County, Henan, China. You have to climb 365 stairs to reach it, representing the days in a year. The road is also divided into 12 parts. The plans for this statue were announced soon after the blowing up of the Bamiyan Buddhas by the Taliban in Afghanistan, an act condemned by China. 

2. Laykyun Setkyar is the second tallest statue in the world. It has 116 meters and it’s located in the village of Khatakan Taung, near Monywa, Myanmar.  It even has its own facebook page. LoL

This very colorful statue (statues?) was completed on February 21, 2008.

This one has a backdoor...literally...

Photo source.  

3. Ushiku Daibutsu located in Ushiku, Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan has 120 meters and it contains a nice museum inside. It was built to commemorate the birth of Shinran (a Japanese Buddhist monk ), founder of the True Pure Land School of Buddhism or Jōdo Shinshū, the most widely practiced branch of Buddhism in Japan.

4. Nanshan Haishang Guanyin and Emperors Yan and Huang  (yes, there are two statues on the 4th place, I don’t find it fair for the other statues to let China take all the places) 

Guan Yin of the South Sea of Sanya is another statue from China (they definitely love making statues apparently). This statue represents Avalokiteśvara, which is a bodhisattva that embodies the compassion of all Buddhas. It is 108 meters high and it took 6 years to build. It is situated in the province Hainan, China.

Emperors Yan and Huang statues are 106 meters high and they depict the Chinese emperors, Yan Di and Huag Di. Their construction laster 20 years and the statues are located in Zhengzhou, Henan province, People’s Republic of China.

Photos http://english.cri.cn/3126/2007/04/19/272@217925.htm

http://picasaweb.google.com/107332824503991507026/WorldSTallestStatues

5. Sendai Daikannon is on 5th place. It has 100 meters and depicts the the Japanese Buddhist Bodhisattva Kannon.

6. Again, China is on the 6th place with the Guishan Guanyin of the Thousand Hands and Eyes, made out of bronze, 99 meters high. Located in Weishan, Changsha, Hunan, People's Republic of China.

Photo http://picasaweb.google.com/107332824503991507026/WorldSTallestStatues#5582819208706194642

7. Peter the Great Statue

People find this statue ugly but I think is nice, a little big but nice. It was voted the tenth ugliest building in the world by Virtual Tourist and it was included on the world’s ugliest statues by Foreign Policy. It’s made of bronze, steel and cooper and it’s about 98 meters high. 

I still can’t find something wrong with this statue; yeah, it’s big but it’s quite impressive and nice. Well, perhaps the color is not that amazing.

8. Great Buddha of Thailand – yep, another Buddha, but this one comes from Thailand. A 92 meters high and 63 meters wide, this statue is the tallest in Thailand and the ninth tallest in the world.

9. Grand Buddha at Ling Shan

 Again, we have China with another impressive statue of Buddha, which is located in  Wuxi, Jiangsu Province, People's Republic of China. 

It is 88 meters high and it’s made of bronze.

10. Kannon in Ashibetsu in Japan is the last one in the first part of my article. This beautiful white statue symbolizes the Buddhist deity Kannon. We talked about Kannon it’s the same as the one on entry 5.  

Kannon is a bodhisattva that is associated with compassion and it’s also known as Guanyin. 

All photos taken from wikipedia.org unless specified otherwise. 

Retired Husband Syndrome - A woman's full time job

Retired husband syndrome is a psychosomatic stress related illness that occurs in Japan.  This illness seems to affect women of ages 50 to 65 as soon as their husbands reach retirement. It is also one of the causes for divorce in Japan among older couples.

Source

With a husband that is mostly busy at work, the Japanese woman has a lot of time on her hands and becomes dependent on certain activities. He might start complaining about different things but the wife will tolerate such behavior as she knows his presence at home is short. However, when husbands retire, their whole personality is revealed and they can become too irritating for their wives, who are used to spending their free time away from them. Also, a lot of Japanese husbands help little around the house and having one who stays at home all the time means more cleaning.

A woman declares that her husband takes over her domicile and wants to cook or direct the way she cooks; he either leaves a lot of dishes or he fries everything too much.

The cracking of eggs is something else. Crushing them with his hands (as presumably he has seen some chef do it) always results in picking out egg shell from the food while we attempt to eat it, or throwing the whole dammed thing away.

Women begin to show a pattern of symptoms and this led Dr. Nobuo Kirokawa to identify and coin the term retired husband syndrome. The symptoms are: depression, skin rash, asthma, ulcers, and high blood pressure.

Source

We should understand that Japanese society demands that the husband does well in his career so he spends little time with his wife and kids. They will also have a hard time interacting after he is retired because they are not used with that level of social intimacy. Men socialize with the work colleagues and women with their friends, so their activities together are very few.

It seems that almost 60% of the wives of retired men suffer from retired husband syndrome. There are also support groups that help Japanese men to be independent, stop demanding so much from their wives and communicate with them.