So a marketplace had been made from a temple. In front of the temple, however, he saw a group of elderly women gathering around something like a cushion. Several were kneeling on the ground. One was kowtowing before the cushion with bunches of burning incense in her hands and murmuring something almost inaudibly: “City God . . . protect . . . family . . . stock . . .” It was obvious that the temple was still a temple—at least to these worshippers. Appearance and reality. Some people said that sooner or later a temple would be made out of the market. Maybe this was a metaphor for commodity
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