Chengdu and Kangding Chistmases

I just had my first Christmas away from Home. As a child and throughout all of high school we generally would have Christmas at our house; the first sibling to wake up would then wake up everybody else and we would have a nice time of ripping wrapping paper, taking pictures, and finding, or not finding, what we were looking for. Being from a family of five children, there was generally at least one child who had very high and unmet expectations each Christmas. Sometimes it was me, sometimes it was Jim or John or Kate or Joe. This child would want a present which is great, sometimes something ineffable in its greatness, and would think "Under all of that wrapping there has got to be what I am looking for." And, despite the best motivations and Santa's best efforts, this child would not find their expectations under the tree.

This hopeful child would open his or her first present and their heart would sink a little bit. An Etch a Sketch? Really? No matter, that was a small present. There are plenty of other, bigger, nicer, shinier presents tagged with my name under that tree. I'm sure I'll find it by the end of the morning! After all wrappers had been unwrapped and all ties untied, this wretched child would sit there with a small hole in the heart. Different people react differently to this feeling; the more childish would turn sour, make a scene, and end up in their room shortly afterward. The slightly more mature would bury the feeling, smile, and say thank you for all of the presents. Very seldom would the disappointed child seek the source of their disappointment.

It is interesting to reflect on such experiences now that I have had one of my first Christmases missing such sentiments. Jen went back to the States for the Holidays but, before she left, we had a small celebration and I got to see her students put on a cute Christmas performance. There were dances and songs from other classes and Jen's students put on a radio-play adaptation of O. Henry's The Gift of the Magi. The night before Jen left we wrapped some presents for each other, placed them in a circle around some flowers, and topped the night off by going out to Wuhouci, the Tibetan part of the city, and having some Christmas tukpa (Tibetan noodles). Regardless of the fact that it was December 19th, it truly was a Chengdu Christmas.

I spent Christmas Day with new friends out here in Kangding. Two of these new friends own and run a small hostel slightly up one of the mountains. At their hostel they have a fully equipped kitchen, bar, and refrigerator and know how to use them. They threw an excellent Christmas party on Christmas Eve where I, the hostel-owning couple, a Londoner teaching English at a small college just outside the city, a Dutch woman learning traditional Chinese medicine in Nanjing, another Dutch woman who has really traveled the world, an American expatriate studying Tibetan in Chengdu, another expat married to a Tibetan nomad, as well as many local Chinese and Tibetan friends had a wonderful time. We drank hot chocolate, coffee (with or without Bailey's), chai tea, juice, liquor, wine, and a variety of beers. We ate small dishes like potato dumplings, two varieties of hummus, pita bread, and Hooter's-style chicken wings, to name a few. The language of conversation ranged from English to Chinese to Tibetan to, as was the case for many conversations, an interesting mix of the three.

Nearly all of the guests left relatively early, leaving me, the Londoner, the Dutch woman, and the owners of the house drinking and playing a funny Chinese version of hearts until the early morning. We played and conversed merrily; in the manner which all activities of Christmas should be conducted. After a few games and a few stories we began to have an intimate conversation about the nature of gender relations, of life and culture in Tibet, and of our deepest interests. I had been feeling relatively queasy all day due to a giant lunch that I ate too quickly, so I went to get my jacket and went home around one in the morning.

I woke up the next day feeling awful. My guts were bubbling, my extremities continually had chills running through them, and my body just kind of hurt. But it was Christmas Day! I had to go up and join the fun at the hostel. I walked up listening to The Tourist by Radiohead on my new, white headphones and the lyrics of "In the end, slow down" were echoing in my mind. It is a bit of a long and steep walk up to the hostel, so by the time I had made it to the first curve my head was bobbing a bit more than usual. The queasiness from the morning was only growing and I thought that maybe it would be a good idea to take the song's advice. I slowed down.

I eventually made it up to the hostel and found my friends there. They were eating a delicious breakfast of fruit and cereal and baked goods. Even though I usually love a good baked good in the morning, I could not stomach looking at them. I ate a banana and hoped for the best.

I put on a small, red-and-white, Chinese Santa hat, sat next to the Christmas tree, and spoke with a few loved ones on skype. It was good to talk to them. The hostel owners' two-year-old daughter was not feeling well that morning either, so we decided to withhold the opening of presents until a little bit later. When I was just sitting there, talking and having fun my guts did not feel so poorly. It was after that, during the Christmas dinner, when I started having some problems.

Many people, but primarily the female owner of the hostel, had been working hard all morning to prepare a grand Christmas feast. There was salad, vegetables, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, exquisite gravy, chicken breast fresh from the hostel's coop, and a great turkey purchased in and brought up from Chengdu. Great quantities of time and love had been put into this meal. I sat down and the various aromas managed to arouse hunger in my rotten innards. Failing to be totally mindful of my suffering abdomen, I filled my plate with small quantities of everything and dug in.

We had merry conversation about when we're sick whether we like to be cared for or left alone. There were responses of both varieties. Although I did not voice it, I thought that I was probably the kind that liked to be left alone. I was then asked what style of food I would eat if I could only eat one style for the rest of my life. I initially thought Mexican food because I like beans and rice and tortillas quite a bit. I began to think, though, that maybe beans and rice would get repetitive after a while, so I answered that I would eat Indian food. Indian food not only would cater to my taste for beans and rice, but also offers many other dishes which I have never even eaten before, allowing for at least a few surprises down the line.

Toward the end of dinner, I could not keep up the pace with which I had started. Most people at the table had cleared their plates and eaten their fill, but I still had half of a plate of food. I looked at it distastefully and, very slowly, took small bites out of politeness. So much time and love had been put into this food! I could not leave so much unreceived and uneaten.

Such were my thoughts when my guts grumbled and I felt a few distasteful pockets of digestive gasses come up into my mouth. I had to excuse myself. I went downstairs and tried to relax. I tried to slow down. I just needed to be alone for a moment, to take a few breaths. I just needed to be left alone. I heard some rustling upstairs and someone said that now would be a good time to open presents! Even though I was not totally ready for the task, I mustered up some strength and tried to rejoin the party unnoticed. Everybody was so busy cleaning the table, putting out presents, and gathering around the tree I was able to slip in relatively furtively.

I had brought a few gifts with me. My friend, who is a young Tibetan social entrepreneur, had made a calendar for the year 2009. He had taken many wonderful pictures of Tibet, compiled a small collection, and then printed a batch of calendars in Chengdu. He gave me four or five and I passed one along to my new friends. There was a small gift exchange too. I got a small white grenade-shaped thermos. I thought that there was something very handsome and useful about it. Finally, I got a nice bottle of wine from the foreign section of a Chengdu grocery store (the foreigner cor(i)ner, as I like to call it) and gave it to our gracious hosts.

The gift exchange ultimately took the form of Yankee Swap, reminiscent of an episode of The Office which I had seen recently. The premise of the exchange was that we would go around the circle, opening gifts one at a time. If you like your gift you can keep it and the opening would continue. If you do not like your gift, you can exchange it for one that had been previously opened. Thus went the swap.

The white thermos grenade had been traded once and ended up in the hands of a new Tibetan friend of mine. He is a nomad from Tagong, so I think it may serve him the better than it would have served the others. I got some cookies and a small hand-woven pouch filled with juniper needles. It's scent is now one of the more pleasant elements of my room in Kangding. After much opening, a few exchanges, and many laughs, we adults had finished with our presents.

Meanwhile two small children (each about two years old) had been opening presents as well. They found many prizes ranging from plastic tea sets to play dough to stuffed kitties and doggies. It was very cute to see them neatly open some presents and then tear some of the other wrappings apart. The cutest of all, though, was to see their little faces and squeals of delight.

It was about this time that we all dispersed and there was talk of baking pies for the evening. I cringed at the thought of eating and decided that it was time to go home. I told the householders that I was not feeling well, got my jacket, and was about to leave when the studier of Chinese medicine offered me some help for my ailing stomach. They were five small black pieces of chalk that she called charcoal. She said that I ought to chew and eat them all. I conceded.

Perhaps it was because of the charcoal, perhaps it was because of my final polite bites at dinner, perhaps it was just because it was time, but after my first few bites of charcoal I began to lose control. I stared at a nearly full trashcan, thinking about whether I ought to puke in it or run somewhere else. After a few mouthfuls of saliva I eventually decided to make my way into the kitchen, just in time to make it to the sink.

I was embarrassed, but the householder was calm and kind. I feebly tried to gather my senses and help clean up the mess which I had created, but I was assured that it was no problem and that I ought to just rest. Even though it meant missing out on the rest of the night's activities, I walked back down the steep hill and made it back to bed without occurrence. The rest of Christmas was very unpleasant, rolling in my bed, trying to find a position of comfort, finding one, having to get up for the bathroom, and repeating. My thoughts went back and forth between "I will feel better tomorrow," and "I should take some antibiotics."

After a few more hours of digestive movements of all varieties, I remembered back to my time in Lhasa. I had had a couple similar experiences then. At that time I was quite stoic in my approach to life, even to the point of stubbornness. I thought that I was a strong and healthy young lad and that I could bounce back from my disease with only a little time. A few gut-wrenching days later, one of my jolly Eastern-European classmates approached me. He said that I looked pale and sickly. That my cheekbones were showing and that I ought to take some medicine. I conceded, took the antibiotics, and felt better. It was a vividly potent experience for me. I learned that, although time may heal many wounds, even the young and strong ought to be careful about bowel disease.

The story Mr Jagainu s tall

This is from a piece of furniture in my room. You never know where you might find such things.

On Accomplishments

The other day I was running around with one of my good friends and we stopped by his old office. There were half-assembled tables, saw dust, and wood chips everywhere. The office would soon be turned into a "coffee bar," as they call it around here. I looked up on the wall and, written in cursive Tibetan script (ü mé; dbu med) was this phrase (rendered here in print Tibetan script (ü chen; dbu chen)):

སྒྲུབ་མ་སྒྲུབ་རང་ཡིན། འགྲུབ་མི་འགྲུབ་ལས་ཡིན།

I cannot read ü mé very well, so I had to ask my friend how to read it. He said to me "drup madrup rang yin, drup mindrup lé yin" (sgrub ma sgrub rang yin/ 'grub mi 'grub las yin/), which roughly means "whether or not you accomplish something is up to you, whether or not something is accomplished is up to karma." The concept of volition is very important in the Tibetan language. I tried to capture this nuance in the active/passive voice of my translation. It kind of reminds me of what my Dad would always say (quoting a priest named Father Quigley): "Do your best and then don't worry about it."

Although I could not conceive quite what these words mean, they did stay with me. They felt strangely appropriate in describing how I felt those days. As you may have notice from my last post, I have been trying to make a space for myself in this distant land. I've been staying with my girlfriend, at various hostels, but each time there was a sense of impermanence. I was always reluctant to unpack my bags because I knew that I would have to pack them again very soon. It is a hard feeling, or lack of feeling; to never really be at home. The closest it got was in Chengdu, when Jen and I were staying at our new place. Yet, I still had to leave.

This friend and I were both trying to accomplish somewhat complicated tasks which involved many people and many variables. He was trying to set up his new office (the one that the coffee bar had displaced) and I was trying to find a home here in Kangding. For the entire week that I have been here, whenever I would meet someone I would some how intimate that I need a place to stay. "If you know anybody with a room for rent, let me know." "Do you have time to help me find a room?" "How did he find his room?" I really was trying, but was not meeting much success on my own.

I eventually enlisted the help of the aforementioned friend. He took me to an information center, helped me talk to the portly woman who sat behind the desk, and looked at houses with me. Because I cannot speak Chinese very well, I really did need his help very much. The first attempt didn't go incredibly well. The houses were too big and too expensive. I considered renting one but then realized that I was really broke and could not come close to paying for the initial six months rent plus deposit which is standard in China. Back to the drawing board.

I then talked to another friend. He arranged for a meeting with a man who he called "the Big Boss." The Big Boss is a very successful Tibetan business man who owns a lot of property in Kangding, ranging from museums to restaurants to temples. We went to eat the restaurant which he owns and had a very nice evening. It was me, my friend, the Big Boss, and a Chinese woman who could not speak Tibetan. Thus, we were in a bit of an interesting linguistic situation. Here were two Tibetan men who could speak English decently, and Tibetan and Chinese fluently. Then there was me, a young American who can speak English fluently, Tibetan decently, and Chinese poorly. Finally, there was a young Chinese woman who could speak Chinese fluently, English poorly, and could not speak Tibetan at all.

As the night progressed, we switched languages, switched conversations, and switched rooms. We started in a comfortable meeting room, drank tea, and spoke mostly Tibetan (thus excluding the Chinese woman). We then moved to a dining room with an elaborate feast laid out for us. We turned the clear glass wheel in the center of the table and spoke mostly in Chinese (thus excluding/embarrassing me). Finally, after we had eaten our fill, we moved to the central restaurant and spoke mostly English (very slowly and clearly). The Big Boss related how lucky he is; he likes his work and can actualize his dreams. He said all of this came about due to wisdom and compassion. Buddhism is not just for monks, he said, but for everyone. He said that he used what he learned from Buddhism and treated all of his associates well and was able to succeed as a result. Other people are important, he said. I think of them as similar to my parents.

I then related how in the big city of Chengdu, I was kind of afraid to go out and meet people. I could not speak Chinese very well, and I didn't really know how to approach people. It was this ironic situation where I was living in the biggest city of my life but feeling relatively alone. I then related how important it was for me to be brave enough to approach people. How it is hard to survive without others, without society.

The evening ended pleasantly, but I was still without a house. I made subtle, but clear, hint that I needed housing, but the Big Boss did not respond. Thus, although the evening held great conversation and camaraderie, I was still a little stressed out about my housing situation. I was really doing my best to find a place, but could not find one anywhere.

A few days later my friend, the one who was setting up his new office, called me and said he wanted to look at the information center one more time. It was in the morning, I had just taken a hot bath, put on some brand new long underwear, and was feeling fresh. I went down to meet with him and the portly information center manager and we were on our way. She showed me a small, but well located and inexpensive room. I looked around and I knew it was the one. I was elated. We went back to the office to discuss monetary matters and I was told that, instead of the initial 6-months rent, I would need to pay one whole year for this place. My heart sank a little bit. I had just paid for my new visa and was essentially broke. I couldn't pay that much right now!

We left the situation open, with my interest clear, but payment ambiguous. I met with another friend for lunch, the one who had introduced me to the Big Boss, and he said somewhat out of the blue that he could lend me some money if I needed it. I was very happy to hear this. Today I met with both friends, the portly information center manager, the new landlord, and we worked everything out. I now have a place to live in this distant land.

I did my best to accomplish what I wanted; to find a place to stay. I talked to as many people as I could and thought about it quite a bit. Ultimately, however, it was not I that found the place, nor was it I that even paid for it (yet). I could not have found this sanctuary in a land of difficulties without the help of the portly information center manager, the landlord, and especially my two good friends.

Up to Speed

I have not had a chance to write in a long time! Well, that is not entirely accurate, but I have felt a bit under the water lately. It was not until this weekend that I was to poke my head up and start swimming. Here is what has been happening.

I arrived in Chengdu two and a half months ago. I spent a solid month here, acquainting to Chengdu life. It was actually quite a smooth transition. Almost too smooth for my taste. I made many new friends, watched many movies, and went out on the weekends. My work did not change all that much; I converted academic essays and worked on computer files. I would either work at western-friendly restaurants which serve sandwiches and pizza, or at home, in a smallish but well-equipped apartment in the Meishi International School campus-compound far to the south of the city.

I would make milk tea on a gas hot plate instead of an electric stove top. I would do laundry in smaller quantities and hang it outside rather than use a dryer. I would throw frisbee in a Chinese school field surrounded by rabid children instead of on the Lawn circled by uninterested classmates. Although my surroundings were quite different, life was very comfortable and vaguely familiar. I was eager to shed these notions.

When I arrived in Dartsedo (Ch. Kangding) for the first time, I was very excited. I would be living here..! With these regal mountains! And this endless river! What a treat! I finally could speak Tibetan, too, and make many new friends. I was very excited.

I started things off, logically, by finding a place to stay. A friend of mine who had spent quite a bit of time in Kangding cryptically told me at the end of an email "Don't stay at the Black Tent." Another Tibetan friend of mine who lives in Kangding said to me "The Black Tent is the best hostel in Kangding." Thus I had received mixed reviews, but it was cheap, and I had few other options.

The first night I spent there was cold. I asked for a single room, but they didn't have any, so I had to stay in the hostel-style room. There were four beds and when I went in someone was already sleeping in one. I decided to follow in suit and do my best to stay warm. It was one of the least comfortable nights I had had in a long time.

I eventually got my own room. It was a few doors down from my hostel room, had two beds, seven lights, one light bulb, a table, some chairs. It seemed quite luxurious compared to my previous abode. The down-side was I had to go downstairs to use the public bathroom (read: porcelain holes in the ground) and public showers and whatnot. As the nights got colder, even my new single room became difficult. I had no heater and, although the blankets were quite thick, they were not long enough to cover my feet. I would begin the night with two blankets on most of my body and then a third folded around my feet. It would generally be quite warm and comfortable. By the end of the night, however, my inadvertent turning in the night would cause my feet to pop out and freeze. It got to be quite awful.

Then there was work. I was generally doing my usual tasks of essay editing and file conversion at first, visiting an office which some of my friends worked at. All the folks who worked in the office were Tibetans and they would speak Tibetan all day. I got to use my own desk and talk with my friends who were quite skilled in their native Eastern dialect of Tibet as well as the Central dialect (with which I am familiar) and English too (to varying degrees of ability). We would work in the morning, take long lunch breaks, drink tea, laugh, work, play. It was great.

I eventually tried to set up some projects with them and their superiors who are based in Chengdu. One day the superiors came to visit our office for a big annual meeting. My fellow coworkers thought it would be cool if I kept working in the office, I could talk to the bosses about projects, and then they could have their meeting. This is essentially how things worked, but then one of the bosses asked that I stopped coming to the office. This was hard news to take, but I did my best to not hold a grudge. After all, I was not an employee of the organization and, thus, did not officially belong there. Regardless, this was the one heated place where I could come and feel warm and at home. It hurt to have that taken away from me immediately after I had found it.

I spent the next few days working at another friend's office which was under construction. They were converting the office into a cafe, thus there was quite a bit of construction equipment, workers, and sawdust. They did still have internet, however, so I went there a few times; when I had to. At this point I still had not found my own apartment yet, was driven out from the place where I could happily work, and was just constantly cold. It was bit difficult to stay there. On top of all that, most of the people I needed to work with weren't even around. It was time to go.

I got a bus ticket back to Chengdu just in time to help my girlfriend move into a new apartment. It was a lot of work setting the new place up, but it was so posh. Hard wood floors, big kitchen space, and a fully functioning (and private, might I add) bathroom. After setting up the water, internet, and a quick trip to Ikea it became an ideal living space. I could use the internet freely, sleep comfortably, and stay relatively warm. How nice!

After setting up our new apartment, I was beginning to feel better. The feeling of having a suitable shelter cannot be understated. After a couple of weeks I was thinking of heading back out to Kangding and giving it another try. I bought some long underwear, a big sleeping bag, and was on my way. So, now I'm back here in Kangding, and still seeking a home away from home here. I decided not to stay at the Black Tent and I found a nice hostel up the mountain (that even has an internet connection!). It is a little more expensive, but exponentially more comfortable. I cannot live here forever, however, thus my first big priority is to find a place to call my own. There are a few complications involved in this process, but I am confident that my friends here can help me find what I am looking for. Otherwise, I will just have to play nomad for a little while. I can do it now, though. I have more confidence in myself and a stronger will to stay here. I also have a sleeping bag.

Small Lunch, Big Thoughts

So yesterday I ate lunch with a new friend. He is a well educated Tibetan from Amdo (Qinghai), north of Sichuan. Although he does not wear monks' robes, he does have a great propensity for the Dharma. Yesterday he was wearing a gray, long sleeve T-shirt and some blue jeans. One distinguishing feature, though, is that he was wearing (what I later identified as) a rosary (Tib. phreng ba, pronounced drengga) made from Rudraksha seeds around his wrist.

His profession is to write and edit Tibetan-Chinese-English dictionaries. He is quite well spoken in both Tibetan and Chinese, but his English is a little clumsy. He knows many words, but cannot always put them together into sentences quite properly. I suppose that is a result of working with dictionaries. Thus, we spoke a lovely hybrid of Tibetan and English.

I came to the lunch strictly with business on the mind. I wanted to introduce this friend, who makes dictionaries, to another friend, who works for a school which wants to buy some of these dictionaries. I thought I would meet with the buyer, bring him to visit the maker, and then we could talk business. This, however, is not how things worked out.

The potential buyer of the dictionaries was busy and needed another hour or so before he could come to lunch. Before I knew this, however, I had talked to the maker of the dictionaries and had already arranged to come to his neighborhood in the northwestern part of town. It was a very long bus ride and the potential buyer just didn't have time to make the trip. So, it would just be me and my dictionary-making friend.

We went to a really nice Chinese restaurant where they would pour tea for us as soon as we would finish our small cups. They would take away used bowls and replace them. They even covered my friends jacket on the back of his chair with what looked like a velvet pillowcase. It was really quite over-the-top.

We talked about the prior days' events, friends, and food. He said that he does not eat meat at Chinese restaurants because he thinks that it is unclean. We talked about living situations. He said that he likes this part of town because, although there are not very many of his friends here, he is able to concentrate on his work. At first, one must have a quiet place in order to develop wisdom. Then, after sufficient practice, wisdom becomes unperturbed by surroundings.

He said a quiet place is important for mediation as well. I liked this comment. I had sat down to meditate a little that very morning, but I had left the window open and could hear the constant chatter of roosters, dogs, and ducks. I asked him a funny question; Does meditation have a goal? He thought for a little while, and may have even taken a phone call while thinking, and replied that there are many kinds of meditation. Some kinds do have goals, but many do not.

He then asked if I was familiar with the state of calm abiding (Tib. zhi gnas, zhiné), i.e. being able to focus one's attention on a particular thought or mental object with full clarity for indefinite amounts of time. I had heard of practices leading up to such a state in various classes I had taken, so I replied asking about the Six Perfections (Skt. pāramitā, Tib. pha rol tu phyin pa, paröltu chinpa), i.e. the perfection of generosity (Tib. sbyin pa, jinpa), ethical discipline (Tib. tshul khrims, tsültrim), patience (Tib. bzod pa, zöpa), joyous effort (Tib. brtson ’grus, tsöndrü), concentration (Tib. bsam gtan, samten), and wisdom (Tib. shes rab, sherap). Was the fifth perfection, concentration, the same as calm abiding?

He said that they are similar, but not the same. Calm abiding is certainly a type of concentration training, but the fifth perfection is a much broader category. He then started to speak more about the second perfection, ethical discipline. He stumbled on the English word which he was looking for, making many "w" sounds in the process. I have heard other Tibetan Lamas have trouble with this word before, so I knew that he was trying to say "vow" (Tib. sdom pa, dompa). He said that a vow is like the ground, space, or a foundation upon which other virtues can be grown. We then discussed the various vows of body, speech, and mind.

He said the most basic vows pertain to body and speech; to abstain from killing, lying, stealing, sexual misconduct, and taking intoxicants. He said one should not kill other beings, speak untruthfully, or take from others. He said it is fine to marry but, once one has married, he should not sleep with other women. And then he said that drinking is not good for you; it does not do anything positive.

I had heard these vows before. I had even tried them for a time; very rigidly avoiding all these different types of misconduct. But not lately. It made me think of mosquitoes. Jen and I leave the window in the bathroom open when we shower. There is no proper shower or bathtub, but merely a drain in the floor, so the entire bathroom gets wet. There is no fan either, so opening the window helps air things out a bit. But it also lets bugs in. So Jen has gotten some pretty intense mosquito bites in the past few weeks, swelling up to the size of a penny at first, and then just itching like hell afterward.

I had this in mind when I saw a mosquito flying away from my dresser. I followed it into the living room and swatted it down, out of the air and on to the floor, with a folded up map. The swat felt quite satisfying; taking this pest out from mid-flight. I looked at it, stuck to the ground, moving its legs slightly, not sure what had just happened to it. I hit it again, to put it out of its misery. There was a giant blood spot on the floor, probably Jen's or my blood, but it looked like it came from the bug. It was kind of an awful sight.

The next day I found another mosquito. This time I chased after it, trapped it with a cup, and carried it outside. I liked this solution better. I thought about these things as my friend described these vows and building virtues upon them. It really made me think. In the recent past I have thought of vows as an extreme and unnecessary rigidity in one's behavior; one which will ultimately lead to frustration. This conversation reminded me of a time when, long ago, I wanted to find wisdom and happiness unaltered by the world around it. Although my aspirations have changed quite a bit over time, building virtue upon a foundation of saving lives, even pesky ones, seems like a very good start. Will I stop drinking now? Probably not, but we will see what the future holds.

Kangding and Back Again (Part II)

Dardo/Minyak/Rongdrak/Lhagang Photo Album

I can say with confidence that I grew a little bit this past week. My mind and body were contorted and my world was turned upside down. It all started with a seven-hour bus ride from Chengdu into my future home city of Kangding (Tib. Dartsedo). Jen and I were greeted by heavy rains, honking cars, and shouts of "Hello!" Although I have not heard it very much in Chengdu, such shouts are a common greeting from curious Tibetans and Chinese. It is like a hook that pulls your attention to the speaker (usually a child or vendor) although there is not generally much follow-up conversation.

We stayed in Kangding for several days, adjusting to the slight, but significant, increase in altitude. We dined, we hiked, we soaked, we saw sights, we visited old friends, and we made new ones. I could write more about our lovely time here, but perhaps you could (eventually?) consult Jengdu for a more in-depth account. I may write more about Tibetan tourism later on, but not now. Now I will describe only a few days from our trip, but they were very eventful ones. Some of the more eventful and impactful days I've had in some time. They were the kind of days that play through your memories for some time, stinging, but imparting understanding.

One morning, Jen and I decided to take a day-trip to the great Minyak Gangkar Mountain (Ch. Gongga Shan). I had done a great deal of work describing the tourism work and prospects of this area while I was back in Charlottesville; detailing hotels, hiking routes, and restaurants for the geotourism portion of the THL website. I felt like I had already been to the little villages, walked the circumambulation route, visited the monastery, climbed the mountain passes, and seen the illustrious White Snow Mountain. I was rearing to go.

On that fateful morning we found a driver from the area, a native to Minyak and a speaker of the unintelligible Minyak dialect (very different from any form of Tibetan that I knew; Minyak and Central Tibetan dialects are mutually unintelligible, perhaps comparable to French and Spanish, but probably even more distantly related, like English and Spanish), and tried to set up our trip over butter tea. Luckily he had been to Lhasa before and was somewhat versatile in his Tibetan dialects (and, of course, quite good at Chinese). Thus, through a combination of his broken Lhasa-dialect and my broken Chinese we could communicate with some success.

As I wrote previously, I was excited to go on a nice day trip, see the mountain, and return; but when the driver informed me that the trip there takes on the order of seven hours, the situation changed a little. It was Friday morning and Jen had to be back in Chengdu by Sunday night at the latest. She had to work on Monday morning and we would be driving in the opposite direction of the city. Upon learning this information, Jen passed me an uneasy glance.

I, in a moment of relative unreasonableness, felt that we could drive down, see the mountain that day, spend the night in one of the hotels which I had researched, hike out to the monastery the next morning, and return the following night with ample time to return to Chengdu by Sunday night. Jen, however, was less sure. After a long discussion with the driver in which, of course, Jen could not partake, she went along with my absurd scheme in order to appease the spirit of excitement which had temporarily overcome my wits.

We started on relatively smooth mountain roads, traveling south (see map below; very approximate rendition of our course). As I mentioned earlier, there was a heavy language barrier between our driver friend and I. Thus, communication regarding our plan was never quite clear. I knew that we were going to see the mountain, but exactly where we were going was never quite clear. I just assumed we would stay in one of the small hotels found in the village to the east of the monastery.

As we traveled further and further away from Kangding, the roads became steadily worse. The potholes became more gaping and frequent, the rocks became more jagged and numerous, and the turns became sharper and blinder. Jen and I were thrown about the worn Nissan van, hanging on for what quite literally felt like our lives. Such was not new though, not to me. I had been on worse roads before, I thought, when in Lhasa. I'm an old hand at all of this. And the driver was quite skilled at finding the best route; swerving, honking, and off-roading.

After several hours, we came to a mountain pass. The driver greeted his fellow Minyak driver friends in their alien tongue and Jen and I joined the other Chinese tourist groups atop the pass. The winds were blowing sharply and we took out our warmest gear. Looking south, there She was, staring back. The great White Snow Mountain decided to wink at us past Her veil of clouds. It was a glorious sight, I thought, intimating what was still yet to come. As the winds began to blow more bitterly, the Mountain's cloudy veil came to cover her completely. I was left wanting more.

We did not stop very many times after that; only to eat and gas and pee. As we made our way down, the rest of the drive was not nearly as cold as the pass, but was certainly rivaling its beauty. The valleys were littered with three-storied stone houses with beautifully painted facades. There were tents and nomads and yaks and sheep. It was glorious. I looked back occasionally and saw that Jen was no longer worrying about the absurdity of our plan; enraptured by the beauty of the regally towering mountains. It was not until I started asking the driver more about our plan that the spell was broken.

I tried to verify with him that we would go south, stop at the village, stay the night, and then return back to Kangding the next evening. He shook his head, though, and said that we did not need to go back to Kangding. There was a better way to get back to Chengdu. We would go around the mountain to the west, travel north past Kangding, and shoot east from there. This sounded absurd to me. The little village I had invisioned was far to the east. To go around the mountain sounded like a terrible plan. Jen heard us discussing these details and could feel the tension in the air. She probably could also make out words like "Chengdu" and "Kangding" and, quite understandably, became concerned. What were they talking about?

The driver was quite resolute in his plan and I eventually stopped trying to convince him it was a terrible route. I, after all, didn't really know what I was talking about. We eventually came to a stop; what I thought was a restaurant, or some kind of pee break. We talked to the other Chinese tour group and one man in a bright red jacket offered for us to go back north with them, through Luding, and back to Chengdu on Monday night. This was similar to the route I had envisioned, but it would make Jen miss a day of work, and I was already skating on thin ice with her. I was still sitting in the front seat of our van and the driver began to make us take off in the middle of my conversation with the Chinese tourist in the red jacket. I shouted back "We can talk more at the mountain, right?!" but I did not hear a response from him. We never saw them again.

Thus, even before we got to our yet-to-be-determined destination, we had begun brooding over the yet-to-be-determined details of our return. We drove on a little bit and our driver began stopping to yell out to pedestrians in his peculiar language. We must have arrived in his valley, I thought. We stopped and picked up a woman carrying some kind of produce. We then stopped and picked up a group of three young Minyakpas. They were smoking cigarettes, had well-kept hair, and one even wore a neckerchief. It was like we had just picked up three Minyakpa greasers. I looked back at poor, asthmatic Jen as they crammed in next to her, blowing smoke out the window and ashing carelessly. I asked if she was OK. She looked back sharply and said that she just wanted to punch something. She did not look happy. I shrunk down into my seat for the rest of the ride.

The packed minivan eventually stopped and we all piled out. I sheepishly faced Jen and flexed my abdomen as she unbridled a few blows upon it. I had never seen Jen so vexed before. She was clearly overwhelmed with frustration by the whole situation. I was doing my best to reassure her when the oblivious Minyakpas asked us to come to the temple (dgon pa - lit. monastery) with them. This confused me. Was this really the Gangkar Monastery? But wait...the monastery is so deeply west into the valley. I thought we would come hike here tomorrow? Surely this must be a different temple.

The local Minyakpas gathered around us as we walked up the stairs. We entered the central temple with the driver and, sure enough, we had reached Gangkar Monastery. All around there were beautiful statues of various Kagyu saints. To the left there was Marpa the Translator and his heart-son, Jestun Milrepa, with his hand to his ear. To the right there was Guru Rinpoche and Rechungpa wearing monks' robes. I could not quite identify the central figure, towering above the rest. He was a great statue, twice the height and girth of the four other figures flanking him. He had wide-open eyes and a great beard. I thought it might be Tilopa or Naropa, but I was not sure. I asked the driver and he seemed unsure. He consulted the rest of the Minyakpas who had been steadily streaming into the temple doorway. There was a cute moment when a dozen Minyak locals were pointing with open hands, palm upwards, at the statues and postulating who their gods might be.

That moment was the lightest my heart had felt for some time. Jen even didn't seem to be fuming anymore. She pointed to a picture of a young Tibetan man on the wall and asked who he was. I couldn't see the picture very clearly and assumed that he was Gangkar Rinpoche, the local reincarnate lama. I asked the driver if my assumption was accurate and he agreed hurriedly. Jen then said "Are you sure? Isn't that the Karmapa?" I looked more closely and, indeed, it was. It was the young Lama who Jen and I had serendipitously been able to see in Boulder, CO, only four months previously. Recognizing his image made me shiver with electricity the same way his presence and voice and teachings did. I made a donation and a prayer after the driver and we left the temple.

The driver took us down the road a little futher and we stopped at a few houses. I had figured that there were not any houses around the Gangkar Monastery, assuming it to be quite remote. We got out and followed the driver past a menacing dog tied to the wall, through a dank lower level and up some stairs into the house proper. We were in the driver's home.

(to be continued...)


View Larger Map - A Loose Approximation of Our Route - Click Sat or Ter for the full effect

Kangding and Back Again

Right before I left to go to college, my Dad offered me an analogy. He said that, son, up until this point in your life, you've been like a tree planted in a pot. You've certainly been growing; progressing from a seed to a sprout to a strong young sapling. At this point, however, it is time for a bigger pot. And that was college. A bigger pot.

The bubble of Charlottesville was certainly big and scary at the beginning. Initially I would look back to high school and think about how comfortable it was. About how many friends I had there. How I missed it. There were so many people at college. And the classes were so hard. And I wasn't nearly as special as I used to be. There were people who would work harder, get better grades, and, dare I say it, even play frisbee better than I ever could. I don't fit in here, I thought. I'm nobody here.

But it took time. It took time for my roots to grow. It took time to learn how to play frisbee and how to get good grades and how to learn. It took time to make good friends. It took time for Charlottesville to shrink. I now look back at quaint, little ol' Charlottesville filled with love and stained with longing. Such are transitions, are they not?

Learning to grow can be so difficult some times. I suppose that's the nature of growing. If it weren't difficult, we would continually grow, regardless of space, proper air, or ample water and sunlight. But, as it is, we need these conditions, these finely tuned surroundings in order to grow. In order to become blooming magnolia trees of Charlottesville or staunch junipers of Tibet.

(to be continued soon...)

A Book Report

On my last visit to Charlottesville (less than two weeks ago, but what feels like ages), I picked up a copy of George Orwell's Burmese Days. When I saw it on the shelf at the used bookstore downtown, I fondly remembered reading 1984 and Animal Farm in high school, so I took it with me. I began reading it during my 24.5 hours of traveling and finished it today. It has been an interesting lens with which to begin examining my time here in China.

Although told from the third-person perspective, the novel primarily follows the life of a protagonist named Flory as he spends his days in a small district of Burma called Kyauktada. The terms and names of many characters were delightfully similar to those of the Tibetan language (belonging to the Tibeto-Burman language family), such as the fat, diabolical magistrate, U Po Kyin (U being his title; reminiscent of dbu, no?), and the desperate former mistress, Ma Hla May. The presence of such names immediately lent a sense of familiarity, even though I am actually quite unfamiliar with Burma (now Myanmar).

Here was a man living in a foreign land; brought there on behalf of the timber industry for which he worked. At the beginning of the book he was dreadfully lonely; too sensitive toward the 'natives' to truly mix with the bigots found in the European Club and too European to find true equality and friendship among even the most respected Burmese. Eventually a young, unwed English woman arrives into town and his heart subsequently makes many cycles of joy and sorrow. There are also many exciting moments of politics, intrigue, and culture. The book is exceptionally well-written and, unlike Orwell's other two pieces I have read before, is relatively tangible.

As the events of the story unfolded, I couldn't help but feel parallels in my own life (as I often like to do when following stories). I am living in a bit of a European Club at the moment; an international school community slightly removed from the city with guarded gates, dining facilities, and many of the comforts of home. The classrooms look much like those found in America, only with Chinese equivalents to the motivating English messages: "Dream," "Be a Champion," and the like. I have dined at Italian-style restaurants; eating pizza, drinking wine, and using English with Chinese servers. Although I should not be complaining about such wonderful possibilities as pizza, I do not wish to spend all of my days this way. I did not come to China to live in America. Nevertheless, I am American. And this is the place where Jen and I live at the moment. So I do not seek to forsake these things all together, but merely to find a living situation which is more balanced and integrated with this society at large. That is, I feel, the best way to respectfully learn from those around me; to live among them. I'm sure I will soon.

Secondly, the cycles of life and emotion. I had a wonderful conversation with a new friend about this. Cycles are everywhere. We had just eaten a giant meal of Tibetan stew (tukpa), dumplings (momos), and some kind of meat-pie (sha palep, maybe). It was the first Tibetan food that I had eaten since I left Charlottesville. Although I spent quite a few uncomfortable moments mashing large deposits of fat and gristle found in the meat-pie, swallowing and attempting to be polite, the meal as a whole was delightful. I've had Tibetan stew on many occasions, but never with such a delightful consistency and combination of spices. It had a hint of Sichuanese culinary influences. I was elated.

But, as my friend pointed out to me, the elation of a good meal passes just as quickly as it comes. One is hungry, eats, becomes full, and then returns to hunger. These are inner cycles. There are outer cycles too. Seasons change, mad things rearrange. The student becomes the teacher becomes the student. Finally, as the poor protagonist in our story, Flory, finds, there are emotional cycles. The woman whom he loves finds him so courageous and appealing when he 'saves' her from a water buffalo, but so 'beastly' when he babbles about Art and identifies with the 'natives.' She wiggles with admiration when he successfully shoots a leopard, but detests the very same leopard skin after a manipulating aunt reveals (somewhat untruthfully, might I add) that Flory "is keeping a Burmese woman." And so the very same object of our admiration becomes an object of repulsion due to the ever-changing circumstances of life.

As I make more and more efforts to find the essences of life out here, I am more and more pleased. I truly do enjoy learning about people and the way they live. It is this very process which helps me understand how I ought to live. Thus, I truly enjoyed Burmese Days and it's exposition of life in Burma during the late days of colonial rule. It gave me many ideas to ponder.

I Was Flying in My Dreams Last Night

Really. It was a funny dream. I was out on a road with some old frisbee friends; not the older ones, but the younger ones. The ones that would generally respect and listen to me (whether such things were due or not!). The road was encapsulated by forests. Some were driving, but I distinctly remember running. I would run and then it was as if the earth would descend below me, but I would remain in the air. It was frightening, at first, to be soaring; to not have supports below me. Eventually, though, I began to enjoy it.

That's kind of what it's like to be here. There is very little to stand on. The most obvious example would be language. I have a very preliminary understand of Chinese; enough to survive, but certainly not enough to converse. Attempting to communicate in the most simple forms is somewhat intimidating. And then there is Tibetan. When living in Charlottesville I could impress my friends with my ability to talk to the vendors downtown. I could ask them how they're doing, the weather is nice today, isn't it? and have you met the new visiting Tibetan in town yet? If we hit any difficult points in the conversation, I could always descend back into English. I do not have such luxuries here.

Yesterday I started working. My task was to find a Tibetan Lama with whom we are collaborating. Apparently somewhere along the line he was not paid the price which we had promised him, so it was my job to find him and settle the miscalculation. I had no idea where he lived, so I called him and gave the phone to the taxi driver with whom I could barely communicate. This proved to be a key tactic. We drove quite a long way and I found myself in a corner of the city which I, of course, had never seen before. I walked into the alleys of the apartment complex, speaking on the phone and seeking my Lama. I heard a bit of an echo in his responses and, looking up to a garage-like vendor, I found a man wearing a golden shirt and a long saffron robe. He motioned for me to follow, and I did.

We walked down the concrete jungle, passing many cocked Chinese eyes, the tall blue-eyed American and trailing the robed highlander; both with freshly shaven heads. I'm sure it was quite the sight. I was excited to come to his home and, apparently, place of work. He introduced me to his colleague, another monk wearing all saffron and toting a string of white prayer beads. I eventually learned that his way of speaking Tibetan was much more entrenched in the Eastern dialect and he knew very little Chinese. It made me feel like speaking to the primary Lama was much easier. And so, after sipping some black tea, we got down to business. I was shown to the workshop inhabited by six or seven young Tibetan women, inputting the Tibetan Kangyur simultaneously. Before I entered I had heard joyous conversation, giggles, and Chinese pop music. When I entered, however, all I could hear was the constant clacking of keyboards; the sound of transforming some of the oldest Tibetan texts into a new, digitized form. It looked like hard, but wonderful, work. I think that I made the young women a little edgy in the work, so we left, joked around in the Lama's room a little more, and I went on my way.

Doctors and Dentists

I went to the dentist today. I figured it would just be a routine cleaning and then I would be on my way. You know, get the mouth nice and clean before I take off. So I went in, and the nice little nurse lady scraped and picked and drilled and flossed my teeth. After a few slightly unpleasant moments she gave me my mouth back and I was allowed to salivate again. After that, however, I was told that they were going to take a few x-rays. So I sat in a chair which resembled that of a horrific classic cartoon: the Feed-A-Matic. The nice little nurse lady covered me with a lead apron, put my chin on a bar, and sent the scary tube whirring around me. We looked over the x-rays and found some trouble spots. I will have to go visit the endodontist in order to fix two root canals from four and eleven years ago. Luckily, this past year I've been relatively disease-free. Today's visit reminded me of my own mortality. It is an important idea to remember: our bodies fall apart. Tomorrow I go for my Hepatitis A and Tetanus vaccinations. If such is the hoop I must jump in order to cross the ocean safely, I will jump.

Getting to the Bottom of All This

So, as many of you may already know, I will be leaving soon. Also, as many of you may already know, this trip has been a bit of an inevitability for a long time. Ever since I returned from my first big adventure to Lhasa, Tibet's capital city, I've been trying to figure out a way to get back over the ocean and up into the mountains again.

I knew that I wanted to stay for an extended amount of time, so I would either need lots of money or some kind of job. Figuring it would be impossible to get a job in Tibet proper, I decided to try to teach English in Japan. Thus, I spent my last semester of college learning Japanese and applied to the illustrious JET program. I organized and photocopied and stapled and sent my application in. I wore a tie and suit and went to the Japanese embassy on Massachusetts Avenue for an interview. And then, as my college graduation was nearing, I received notice that I was wait-listed for the program and may or may not actually get the job. They said that they would let me know.

So I was stuck. I could get my TEFL certification and try teaching in Japan through other means...but was that really what I wanted? I eventually decided, no, teaching in Japan was a means to an end. So, I decided to try another route. I contacted a professor name David Germano at my university. I knew he had many projects about Tibet, but I wanted to ask him for more details. We exchanged phone calls, he spoke to me about his vision of revolutionizing the function of the academic institution through the use of digital technology, about his brainchild, about THL <http://www.thlib.org>. We organized a meeting, he offered me a job, and I started work the next day. I've been working for him ever since.

So, half a year goes by, I meet with David and we arrange for me to go on this trip about which I will be writing. One tricky part, though, is right as I was making these plans with David, I was making some unspoken plans with a very nice girl. Long story short, now she's working in Chengdu and I will see her very soon. I continued to work hard, I learned Chinese this past summer, and now I am almost there. I am almost back.

I have taken these past few weeks to reconnect with old friends, with family, and with myself. I went with my family to my place of birth, to Northampton, MA, and saw many relatives. I went south to Charleston, Charlotte, and Roanoke to see a younger sister, an old friend, and new family. I moved out of Charlottesville and said goodbye to the place and people that I have grown to love. Now, I spend my last weeks in the house where I came of age, with the people who help(ed) make me who I am. I'm getting so close to my root. I'm almost ready to go. Now I just have to pack.