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page 11 . . . The 10 Courts of Hell


Now, to enter this part of the park, we had to pay a small admission fee. I don't recall, but perhaps there might also had been an age limit as to who could visit this part of the park.

The Ten Courts of Hell is a showcase of the ten levels of hell in Chinese myth/legend/belief. In each court, you'd be judged and punished according to the sins you'd committed when you were a mortal human. A lot of the punishments are just plain torture. ^_^;

This section is slightly more gory than everything else you'd seen.
You might want to skip the pics here and in the next couple of pages and head to the last page.

That sign, I do believe, reads ten courts of hell, bladibla...

You can easily figure out what to expect from the bloody faces around the sign.

More bloody faces. -_-

I am pretty sure I didn't take this picture. From the lighting of the picture, yes, I'm pretty sure I didn't take this picture.

I have no idea who these two might be. But the one on the right is what demi-humans look like (minus the facepaint).

Here's buddha with people around him. To be honest, I have no idea how many buddhas there are in Chinese legends. I tend to see a man like him (or one of those bald fat monks) and recognise him as "buddha" with no reference to any specific one.

There's the entrance to the Ten Courts of Hell display. ^_^ Those two anthropomorphic creatures are the guardians of the entrance, I think.

Yes, we're going in! Yoroshiku ne!

First thing you see is this. The judge at his table and the soul of the newly dead awaiting judgement. I think the judge should be the Jade Emperor? (King of all gods and deities, I think?)

The whole exhibition is not in open air; from the entrance, you enter what seems like a cave with these displays in the walls. The lights used on the displays are all these dark creepy colours: blue, green, red... Green is a classic Chinese horror colour. If you've seen any Chinese ghost or horror stories, the moment green light comes on the set, you should know what to expect. *grin*

Here's the same scene with the camera's flash in use. These people are crossing the silver and gold bridges, I think? They're probably those who didn't do wrong and could go ahead of the levels of hell? If you can't already tell, my Chinese myth knowledge only comes from what I see in Cantonese dramas; and I'd only watched those when I was a child.

A couple of what the torturors in hell looks like. They're not humans, of course.

A couple of poor victims. Oops. Wrong. They're supposed to deserve the punishments they get since they did wrong when they'd been alive. Wrongdoers they might be, but you kinda can't help feeling sorry for them.

No idea what's happening. But maybe one of the officials is egging on the judge? ^_^;

Here's a better pic of the scene. Or maybe he's protesting and everyone else is protesting against him? *_*

One of the torture places. The Cold Ice Pond!

And this is the something Blood Pond. I'm guessing it's boiling, since the other one's freezing.

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