Part III:
The Heart
of Buddhism
China and Tibet
2006
Continuing the Journey
After returning from Peru and Bolivia I wasn’t ready to deal with the deep and lasting effect of being assaulted in LaPaz. I still had thoughts about making a journey in the summer of 2006, and originally my thoughts had gone to the Holy Land. That became an easy plan to abandon due to the significant dangers and conflicts in the region. Dangers that were considered widespread, not like the personal violence I’d experienced in LaPaz. For whatever reason, it was a much easier kind of threat for me to acknowledge. The kind of personal danger I experienced in Bolivia was the kind of thing I found myself angry about, the kind that I had never previously acknowledged as an actual threat, the kind of thing that I had always assumed would never happen to me. There was some part of me that was embarrassed, ashamed, and shocked about having become the victim of personal violence. I have always been offended by the idea that I, as a woman, have to be extra careful when doing things alone, that there were people in the world who could freely choose to harm me. Absurd. No. I refused to accept or believe it. But it happened anyway.
I entered into a relationship with Max soon after returning from Bolivia and was quickly and happily distracted from my trauma. Max was a sweet, fun guy who loved to travel. My time with him was lighthearted, rarely too serious, and never challenged me in a fundamental way. One day, just in passing, he tossed out the idea the we should go to China together. Max was always coming up with random ideas, and I never expected this to go very far. Our relationship wasn’t really that serious, and the idea of planning a trip to Asia together seemed far-fetched. I felt a degree of humor in it, and entertained the idea with little seriousness.
Max’s fantasy of going to China began to grown in the spring of 2006, and we had long conversations over martinis and maps, plotting the adventure of a lifetime. I wanted to continue to travel as a way of exploring my spirituality and my own inner landscape, and Max wanted to go to China. I went with the whole China idea rather blindly, without questioning it too deeply. I had no better ideas, and it appeared to fit my pattern of travelling. People had come to expect me to have crazy adventures, and China seemed like an ideal place to explore, especially because of its rich Buddhist history steeped in Buddhism. Not only that, I wouldn’t have to go alone! It was a novel idea to have an adventure in China with my boyfriend - it could be romantic, and there would be someone else to share adventures with.
After a bit more fantasizing, we decided that we were going to walk a section of the Great Wall of China. We would camp and trek, perhaps two or three weeks in all. I began to research what had been done before. It seemed that very few people had ever walked any significant portion of the Great Wall, and it would require permission from the Chinese government, since there are still a number of military installations at various points along the Great Wall. The idea started to look like a near impossibility, but I still didn't take it too seriously since the mere notion of sharing a journey with Max still seemed unlikely. After all, many people had talked about travelling with me, but none had actually come through.
In retrospect, the Great Wall of China seems like a strange destination for a sacred journey. The Great Wall was the site of an ancient boundary, and around it much violence and misunderstanding occurred. Even now I know relatively little about the history surrounding the Great Wall, but to me it was a perfect symbol of an epic journey: it was a very, very long pathway that was erected by human beings in ancient times, and that it spanned the distance of nearly two thousand miles, from the desert to the sea. Much like the Camino, it was one long line that could be continually followed. I had loved the beauty of a long, winding path as I walked the Camino, and I had sought to recreate it ever since. In my mind, the Great Wall seemed to offer the possibility of recreating the simplicity and solitude of the Camino. There were certainly major differences, too, but perhaps I would still be able to follow my quiet, simple path to the sea. As I thought about the Great Wall, a crumbling, ancient structure, I imagined fragments of stories about people and places throughout history and was reminded of the Buddhist idea of impermanence. Wandering along the Great Wall would be an interesting and unusual way of connecting with history. Not a nameless, faceless history, but the history of humanity itself, with its rise and fall, creation and destruction, and cycles of living and dying.
My fantasy surrounding the Great Wall grew, and my idealistic vision of wandering through China with Max filled my imagination. I didn’t learn about the history of the Great Wall or about twenty-first century China. In reality, the anchorpiece for the entire journey was an historical structure that represents some of the very worst tendencies in the history of humanity. After all, the Great Wall was a structure of division and conflict.
Fantasies of going to China grew into plans, and planning a journey with Max made me feel safe. My own complacency said, “what the hell.” I didn’t have to figure it out, be personally moved, or take any risks on my own. And yet, it lived up to a first-rate journey in theory. I didn’t have to dismantle other people’s expectations of me as a traveller. More importantly, I didn’t have to explain the way that fear had frozen my path following the assault. I didn’t even realize it then. I wasn’t ready. We bought our plane tickets with little discussion regarding our individual desires or motivations.
My pilgrimage journey continued, but I was a shell of my former pilgrim-self. I had no intentions for the trip. I certainly felt a great deal of curiosity about Buddhism in China, which had held such a strong following there for hundreds of years. There were thousands of temples and shrines, and the country was steeped in Buddhist, Taoist, and Confucianist traditions. It seemed right for a pilgrimage, but I went into the whole experience in a fog. I wielded unknowing like a shield. It kept me safe, unfeeling, unafraid, and completely shut down.
My months of living in dissociation were a tonic. I was doing the best I could to keep going, but wasn’t honest to my real state of being. I was keeping up on the outside, but not attending to the deeper feelings that were buried. I suppose that this bought me some time to distance myself from the assault, to find a safe place within myself so that I could begin to deal with the trauma. Had I not ended up in China in a misfit relationship with no idea why I was there, I wonder how much longer it might have taken for me to begin to come out of that fog.
***
Leaving Home Behind
Getting ready for a journey is familiar territory to me. What to pack, what not to pack, making arrangements for everything to be taken care of at home, preparing my journal, notifying all the appropriate people. All the practical stuff that seems tedious. But each time I prepare to leave for a while, the day comes when I feel my energy shift. Usually, I am very aware of the feelings of connection that I maintain between myself and my friends, my home, my community. Each time I approach a journey, I feel those ties begin to release, like the sails of a ship unfurling themselves into the wind. This morning when I awoke, I realized that today is that day. It's an odd feeling, a mixture of anticipation, excitement, nervousness and exhilaration. This feeling comes with the realization that I'm about to leave the comfortable, familiar life I'm used to and immerse myself in an adventure that will challenge me in ways that I have yet to even imagine. It's a primal adrenaline rush as I prepare to release my attachments to my life, to free myself from all the situations and ideas that bind me to my identity as Angela.
***
Hong Kong
Nearly sixteen hours after we boarded our flight in Chicago, we touched down in Hong Kong, China's International City. Following the directions we’d received from our hostel, we found the appropriate bus to take us into the city. We stepped off the bus at the designated stop and were immersed in a bustling, slightly seedy street, full of flashing lights and hectic people. Solicitations of every kind bombarded us the instant we disembarked. Offers for accommodation, taxi rides, sales pitches. A sly, sideways-glancing Arab man offered his deal, “Wanna suit, wanna Rolex, want some hash?” We kept walking. I spotted our address and reverted to my carefully cultivated sense of single-focused tunnel-vision, leading the way into our “mansion,” which more accurately resembled a shabby, unfinished parking-garage-turned-stripmall. We walked quickly past a few stores, past seedy, aggressive salesmen, and straight to the elevators. One for the even floors, the other for the odd floors. We waited, and were briefly surrounded by a few suspicious-looking salesmen, who tried to convince us to take a room at their hostel. We declined and went to the third floor.
Before leaving home, Max and I had perused the Internet for options for a reasonable place to stay during our first night in Hong Kong. One place caught our attention: Chungking Mansion. A mansion in the trendy Kowloon district? We booked it for two nights. Unfortunately, the reality of the place was far less glamourous. The word “mansion” must have been a very loose translation of some kind. The building was a space of concrete walls and floors, damp and dank and mildewy from too much humidity and too little air circulation. Our hostel spanned half of the third floor of the eleven story building and had been designed to be purely functional, with little aesthetic consideration whatsoever. From our window, all that was visible was a sea of buildings, all plainly built and covered with an abundance of signs, flashing lights, and advertisements. A gigantic billboard of Jackie Chan’s face spread across the building right across the street. Next to that, a building was encased in unstable-looking bamboo scaffolding. Tons of air-conditioning units jutted out of the side of every building. A murky gray sky. A few trees. Essentially, Hong Kong was like New York, but with little aesthetic detail in the architecture, more businesses (if that’s even possible), more noise, more flashing lights, and even less of the natural world.
***
China Journals
***
June 15, 2006
(Hong Kong)
Lantau Island, where the airport is located, is mostly undeveloped, and a beautiful place to wander in nature, so I'm told. When we were landing, Hong Kong seemed to be so beautiful and rather laid back. Everywhere there were verdant little green mountains emerging from the sea. It was so lovely. And Lantau is really beautiful, most of the island is a nature reserve. What a shock it was when we took the bus to our hotel! I’d pictured some old British estate property left over from the colonial days, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. The neighborhood, Tsim Sha Tsui, in Kowloon, was like Times Square, but much more intense. All the buildings were tall, more than ten stories, and covered in an unbelievable amount of glitzy signs, all lit up like a Christmas tree. It seemed to be a place where no one lives, just hotels, tourist shops, high end shopping malls, and money exchange offices. Though I had known that Hong Kong would be a huge metropolis, nothing had prepared me for the endless commercialization of the place. Hong Kong is the kind of place where you can buy a $10,000 custom made suit or a $1000 silk blouse on one block and a knockoff Rolex on the next. It's a plastic place, and everyone's happily medicated with the pursuit of material gains, frequently working seventy or more hours per week in order to maintain the status quo. I’ve never seen anything like it. McDonalds “McCafes” were fancy and plentiful, as were the Starbucks, and there are 7-Eleven stores on nearly every block. Our hostel is on the third floor of the Chunking Mansion, a very run-down building with at least one decent room (from our first night) and one awful room (second night). Thank god that southeast Asia has air conditioning, though! I’ve never sweated so much in my life. The humidity has been very high, and the temperature is nearly 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Though I’m still happy to be here, the air conditioning is making it so much more livable. I don’t think I could sleep in so much heat.
At the moment, I’m feeling strange about being here in Hong Kong with my boyfriend instead of being here alone. One moment I’m thrilled, feeling on top of the world, the next confused and doubtful. I want to acknowledge my frustration with feeling like this while on a journey. Part of me is resentful of choosing to travel with someone. It’s already a challenge to make any plans with Max. We decide to go in one direction, he wanders off in another. Everything is a possibility with him, but nothing comes to fruition because of his lack of ability to focus. It’s frustrating. Not to mention that I also have to wait to go anywhere while he finishes smoking, which I’ve done with no complaint. But then he takes off in another direction, just assuming that I’ll follow. He’s acting kind of moody and aloof right now, and we’re sitting separately at this cafe. While I’m inside writing, he’s outside smoking and reading. I told him that I want to spend some time alone writing for a while, so he’s going to wander around the neighborhood. A bit of alone time is a good idea for both of us.
I’m not sure how I feel about this relationship right now. I hope I didn’t make a mistake in choosing to come here with Max. So far, things aren’t good between us. He is being very self-centered. I don’t think he has a sense of “we” here, only you and me. It almost seems to be my-way-or-the-highway. How can we reconcile this? He’s kind of shut down, shutting me out. Not that I’m perfect! I’m very emotional, and I feel even small things so deeply. I know that my sensitivity is hard for Max to understand. He’s so repressed, and my heart-on-the-sleeve approach is messy and uncontained.
***
June 17, 2006
(Macau)
More doubts today about being here with Max. We got into a nasty argument in the middle of the night, being awake and still befuddled by jetlag. Maybe I’m asking for more than he can give me. We don’t seem to be on the same page about being here at all. I’m not going to spend my energy on this relationship, but on travelling, on offering myself to this adventure. After all, I’m in China on a spiritual quest. I had hoped that Max understood that. Maybe he can’t.
***
Soulful Macau
Macau. A Portuguese colony returned to China around the turn of the millennium. It was once a Portuguese colony, and much of the architecture is quite European, and now the place is a strange combination of European and Chinese cultures. Macau is a major tourist destination for Hong Kong residents looking for a break from the madness, it is also touted at the “Las Vegas of Asia,” and “The Monte Carlo of the Orient” because of the network of casinos that comprise one side of town. Fortunately, the whole place hadn’t been taken over by wealthy gamblers. Macau is a place that I felt a connection with from the time we made our way down into the labyrinthine streets of the older part of town. Slightly gritty and dilapidated, there was a sense of authenticity about the town that was a refreshing surprise after spending a couple of days in Hong Kong. The contrast between the two neighboring cities was significant, indeed, but there was something deeper than that contrast that seduced me. There was some indescribable quality of the place that intoxicated me, and even lured me back at the very end of the journey.
***
We wandered out the door of our hotel, Hotel Central. Once the most luxurious place in town, it was now preferred by young budget travellers, as well as a gaggle of Filipino prostitutes, and was sufficiently tattered and beaten down as a result. The hallways were filled with a strange combination of fragrances: hot carpet, dust, sweat, alcohol, and a hint of fried noodles. The air-conditioned lobby gave way to dense humidity, and the day was brutally hot, even thought it was barely 11:00 a.m. The air carried a hint of saltwater, mingling with the exhaust fumes and smells of fried food.
We took a right, heading in the only direction we had yet to explore. The direction of the port, several temples, and most of the old town. We wandered with little agenda, snaking down narrow, dirty side streets, rarely speaking. We passed by an herb shop, filled with roots and dried leaves and concoctions in vials. Every bit of space was filled with healing natural remedies. I longed to enter, to explore, to learn the well-kept secrets of the older man sitting inside, nearly hidden by his goods. Alas, nervous about my lack of language skills and shy about entering, I contented myself with briefly gazing in the window. As I walked away, I noticed something just beside the door of the shop, approximately the height of my ankles. It was a small, red altar. A tall wand of sweet-smelling incense burned there, sticking out of a sand-filled dish, along with the remains of many other incense offerings, the tiny stubs barely visible in the sand and ash. As I continued walking, I noticed other doorstep altars, all in active use for the daily offering of incense. Buddhist? Taoist? I never learned for sure.
Herb shop. Meat market. Laundry shop. Plastic housewares shop. Semiprecious stone jewelry shop. Simple sidewalk restaurant: Chinese fast food. Air conditioners cranked up full blast. Motorbikes and cars beeping their horns in competition for being the fastest down the narrow, one-lane streets. Carts bursting with fresh bananas, cherries, peaches. Little old ladies selling incense for pennies.
I saw no other westerners. In the old part of town, there were no tourist shops. Even in the newer, wealthier part of town near the casinos, the shops designed to lure in tourists were mostly interested in the dollars of the comparatively wealthy vacationers from Hong Kong. They sold expensive jewelry - diamonds and jade - as well as designer clothing. But here, in the humid back streets of Macau’s old town, we two grubby westerners were hardly noticed. No one competed for our business. No one shouted to us from their shops. Occasionally we were offered a nod from a merchant, and occasionally a full-blown stare. Mostly, we were left in peace to wander the streets at our own pace without any interruption. Perhaps that was one of the reasons that I fell in love with Macau. I could be anonymous there, freely wandering the streets, not merely a foreign tourist to be taken advantage of.
We turned right onto a slightly wider cobblestone street. At the end of the block, an open area beckoned. A small park with trees and well-placed benches. Across from it, an ornate facade, red. Huge wooden doors, open. A sign outside, “welcome.” Inside? I had to find out.
Max and I sat on a bench, watching. He smoked a cigarette. I squinted my eyes, hoping to catch a glimpse of the inside. “I have to go in!” I blurted. It was, after all, the first temple I had discovered since we arrived in Asia. Though I didn’t know what rituals or gestures were appropriate, or even what kind of temple it was, my heart sang out to me, “go inside and know!”
Max gave me reason after reason why I shouldn’t enter. I’m a westerner. I don’t know what to do. I might offend someone. My attention faded from his argument, and I stood from the bench and took a few steps forward. I could still hear his pleas, but my own curiosity and wonder were stronger. Still watching, I approached the temple. The street wasn’t a busy one. Occasionally, someone would pass by the temple, bowing in reverence before continuing on his or her way. Finally someone entered, and a thrill shot through me. Yes! I had to enter, too! I watched and waited, and after a short time, the person left the temple, bowing once more toward the front entrance before leaving.
I looked back at Max, who was firmly planted on the bench, one leg crossed over the other, shaking in a nervous fidget. He inhaled from his cigarette, an anxious look on his face. I understood his trepidation. He was a sociology student, after all, and was far more educated than I was in the realm of appropriate methods of interacting with foreign cultures. I considered his point of view. I didn’t want to offend anyone. My intentions were rooted in reverence. And curiosity, too. But primarily, I wanted to enter into this small sacred space with my own earnest desire to connect with the sacred. Sure enough that my intentions were pure, and intuitively certain that I wouldn't make any spiritual blunder, I approached the gates.
The wood was old, swollen with humidity. The red paint had chipped away in places and a pleasing, smooth patina shone through. The doors were huge, nearly twice my height. I lingered for a moment as my eyes adjusted to the relative dimness. The floor was also cobblestone, and wet. Freshly washed. Something moved in the corner of my vision. I gasped, my head snapping to the side, a reaction of lingering worry spawned from Max’s hesitation. A ray of sunlight shone onto the wet floor, illuminating a small turtle. He roamed slowly, yet freely, inside the temple, and I was delighted. The air was damp and thick with the fragrance of burning incense, coiled and suspended from the wood-framed ceiling. This little temple was so beautiful and inviting. I briefly glanced back in Max’s direction. His attention had wandered and he was no longer watching. I looked back into the temple and stepped across the wooden threshold, entering sacred space for the first time since we landed.
Though the space seemed cavelike from the outside, the temple was filled with rays of bright light that shone in from somewhere above my head. I was far too entranced by the whole experience of entering the temple to notice whether it came in through windows or skylights, but sparkling beams of sunshine illuminated wisps of incense smoke, drifting in curls across the room, and occasionally, bits of ash fell onto the damp floor. My only companion was the small turtle I had seen while standing outside. He crept across the room, graceful and silent.
Out of nowhere, a man appeared, possibly from an unseen room in the back of the temple. A moment of guilt and fear rose into my throat. Shit, maybe I shouldn’t be here after all! My mind raced. The man looked over at me and nodded with a smile, then continued his work silently, paying no attention to me. I watched him, though attempting not to stare and masking the intense curiosity that filled me to nearly bursting. I guess it’s OK for me to be here after all. I breathed deeply and started to relax.
The man walked to one of the front corners of the room and knelt over a white translucent plastic box. He withdrew another small turtle, to my surprise and delight. Gently, he placed the creature on the damp stone floor, and it too began to make its way across the room. Where were they going? I wondered. Surely they must see the walls, and yet they continued to walk toward them. Would they really just wander around a room aimlessly? When I approached the box where the turtles were kept during the night, I could see remnants of food, so clearly the turtles weren’t looking for sustenance. Puzzled, I watched each one continue its path, walking in a straight line until obstructed, then continuing in another seemingly aimless direction.
Round and round, wandering without any real purpose, seeking what is needed, and then continuing to seek for its own sake. Seeking is all we know, whether turtles or humans. Only the process varies in its complexity. Is that what I’m doing here? Lingering here, wandering there? Dancing with the invisible pull to move, see, feel, explore?
I continued to wander around the large open room. I paused before an altar table, watching sticks of incense burning in the sand. Long thin wands, long thick wands, all filling the air with their rich, earthy aroma. An act of faith, of prayer. The alchemy of intention and ritual of people who I would probably never meet, and whose language I couldn’t use to ask them about their intentions. Invisible beings following their own straight lines, their stories and hopes burning faintly here in this beautiful, nameless temple. I yearned to know more about their lives, their prayers, their own searches that led them to light these wands of incense.
Connection. Without language. Without even passing beside each other.
In that moment, love filled me. Everything made sense, the turtles, the incense, the temple caretaker’s kind nod, and even the bizarre moment of recognition that I, a young American woman wearing boots and a backpack, a stranger in an even stranger place, fit this moment perfectly.
I’m here for the same reason they are. We’re all looking for the answers to our prayers, to be happy, to stop suffering, to grow and to live. Part of my purpose in being here is about my desire to experience a more intense and tangible sense of connection to the whole world, the whole universe, the divine thread of life that runs through it all.
The incense smoke clung to my damp skin in the dense humidity of midday. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I wished that I had my own incense to offer in prayer, but as I held the sweet smoke inside my body, I knew that it didn’t matter. These prayers burning before me were my own, too. I exhaled and opened my eyes.
A bowl of ripe fruit sat on a large altar table near the front of the room. Peaches. White peaches. A few had also spilled onto the table. Their rich sweetness filled the air, and flies drifted about, drunk on the fragrance, or perhaps weighed down in the damp air. In one corner, a large handmade broom.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Slowly, just like the turtles, I moved in a circle around the room. Red and gold and green, nothing too ornate. No chairs for sitting in meditation. Do people meditate only in their homes, and then visit this place for making prayer offerings? With no one to answer my question, it merely fell from my mind into the well of contemplation that journeys are made of. Even the caretaker had once again disappeared. As I approached the gate, I paused and turned to face the center of the room once more. I nodded to no one in particular before leaving. Not because I felt inclined to follow any tradition or ritual. In fact, in the moment I had utterly forgotten that I had seen others bowing in reverence as they passed outside. No, my nod was in gratitude to this small space, in thanks for its peace and stillness, its quiet and rich sensuality, and for its interruption into the busy flow of my own mind and the culture I was immersed within. I nodded in gratitude that places like this exist throughout the world, places where humans declare their connectedness to the sacred, and in returning to such places, declare their commitment to maintaining a small place inside of themselves for that connection. To god, to the universe, to one’s highest self. And in that small sacred space, I acknowledged my own intention for the journey.
I turned around and stepped across the threshold and back into the street. Max stood near the bench across the street, shifting his weight from foot to foot while looking all around. Our eyes met as I crossed the street. As he nodded in my direction, I smiled.
***
June 17, 2006
(Macau, Central Plaza)
Max looked a bit fidgety and uncomfortable. I can see that my visiting sacred places is going to be an area of discomfort or disinterest for him. I’ll have to really consider the best way for me to experience places like these, since today I felt a bit hurried, unable to really let go and enjoy being there. After all, he was just standing around waiting for me. I don’t like that. I want to consider his needs too, which is necessary in a relationship, after all. That’s the hardest part for me so far. I’m so used to just taking off and following my thread however I want, but with him along, I have another person to consider. A huge challenge to compromise.
***
More often than not, my gaze and smile are met with suspicious glances. Many of the thirty-five and over Chinese women carry a stern, hard look on their faces. They look terse, stressed, untrusting, angry, bitter, suspicious - some mixture of these. The older the woman, the fiercer the glare. Men of the same age group don’t carry the same quality of expression, but none of them look happy. On the other hand, the younger people are all smiling and laughing. Is it generational? Is this contrast due to major changes in culture? Are the older folks beaten down by so much hard work?
One thing that I’ve found completely surprising is the tremendous tendency here to consume. It’s worse than at home! Hong Kong was a shopping nightmare, with an abundance of expensive stores in all directions. The consumerism in Hong Kong was beyond anything I’ve ever experienced. One mall after another lined the streets. Macau has a lot of shopping districts too, but consumerism feels more escapable here. There there are street markets and tiny Chinese food places, there are small grocery stores and parks and pedestrian zones. There are many signs of local life in the midst of Macau’s tourism industry. Yes, you can buy a whole new wardrobe, skin care and herbal regimen, and luggage. But you can also just linger and relax.
***
This afternoon we walked a ridiculously long way, several miles at least, in search of a bar. Drinking beer in the middle of the day, stopping to buy more cigarettes, smoking in the room, waiting for him to finish smoking - these things are getting on my nerves. Max and I are wandering separately tonight, and I honestly would have preferred this during the afternoon, too. I’ve found a perfect little teahouse for writing and the tea is very refreshing.
Earlier, we wandered down all these tiny back streets, all winding, full of scooters and hanging with a rich array of signs in Chinese and Portuguese. There are shops for everything here. Some are filled with cheap-looking toys, some with shoes and cosmetics, others with either very cheap or very expensive looking clothing. There’s an endless array of tiny Chinese restaurants; most are complete with the special blue lights to fend off the insects, little cat-waving-his-paw statues, and the uniform, utilitarian-looking decor of fluorescent lights and basic tables and chairs. Like a rice-and-noodles luncheonette counter! There are some tiny food markets and stalls that sell live fish, fruit, and beverages. The center square is quite commercial and very expensive - many shops are top designers from around the world, and there are abundant corporate chains, like Starbucks and McDonalds. We were stunned to learn that ice cream at Haagen Daas costs about $6!
***
June 18, 2006
(Coloaine, Macau)
We took off for the day to one of the Islands of Macau, Coloaine. It's mostly green, with an ugly industrial park and a delightful sleepy village. Once on the island, we hit the road and walked to a small beach where we hoped to take a swim. It was an unbelievably hot day, and by the time we reached the beach we were ready for a cool dip. We found a huge blue swimming pool right by the sea ... no one was swimming in the sea at all, and upon closer inspection I could see why. The water was murky and there was a lot of trash lining the shore. We headed to the pool with everyone else, and enjoyed a relaxing afternoon.
We have been discussing the costs of travelling to Tibet, and it looks like we’re going to do it. The major cost is the flight to Lhasa. We’ll have to book through a travel agent and get permits. I have felt really strongly about going ever since the idea surfaced while we were in our tiny room in Hong Kong. We’ll have to live more simply than we have been, that’s for sure, but it will be totally worth is to travel to Tibet!
***
June 19, 2006
(Guangdong Province)
Today we crossed the border into mainland China, en route to Guangzhou, China’s wealthiest city, it’s also Hong Kong’s factory town. We had discussed going only as far as Zhuhai, which we’re rolling through now. It seems big and built up like any other place we’ve been, though on the way into town we passed a lovely park with a lake. Now we’re moving alongside the sea. Short and tall palms span the promenade, and old wooden fishing boats are moored; back a ways the harbor was full of industrial fishing boats.
The rain has subsided and the sky and the sea are still. The sea is the color of milky glass, dotted with tiny fishing rowboats here and there, yellow rocks jutting out of the water. The land is green, covered with abundant vegetation: trees, grass, moss, vines. This coastline is hilly, not exactly mountainous. Some trees are in the ficus family, which I learned from signs posted in Hong Kong and Macau. There are long tendrils that hang from their branches, very jungle-like. There are some very interesting evergreens, too, similar to the Norfolk Pine, very well-manicured. Zhuhai, this seems to be a very affluent town. Estate-like houses, well manicured sidewalk gardens. In the distance the mountains are swirling in the mist.
Everything here seems really clean. Even industrial areas are relatively well maintained. I’m sure there’s a lot that I can’t see from the window of this bus, though, and splashing in puddles in the port areas of Macau in the rain on the way to the bus this morning was certainly less than clean. Smells of motors and pungent rotting garbage.
Parts of the countryside here look like Virginia or West Virginia. And though the human touches on development differ from culture to culture, so much of it remains the same: there are still roads with guardrails, offices look like offices, and development sites and construction sites still look like they do at home. Many of the cars are the same, and now that we’re in China we’re on the right side of the road, unlike Macau and Hong Kong, which are both British style, on the left.
This morning we stumbled upon a small food stall and ate fried noodles that were wonderful. The woman put some kind of brown sauce on them. She also had a few skewers of broccoli, and I ended up eating all that she had. She plunged the broccoli into a vat of boiling meat and brown sauce to cook, and being vegetarian, for a second I was horrified. But I just kind of laughed and gave in to it. It was a tiny, authentic place, not concerned with catering to tourists.
***
Observing China:
Ruminations about Land and Home
Slowly, we snaked through the southern provinces and into the heart of China. Though we planned to spend time in a variety of cities along the way, our ultimate destination was Chengdu, Sichuan Province. From there, we’d been told, we would be able to book our permits and airline tickets for Lhasa, Tibet.
Leaving Hong Kong, I had hoped that the consumerism and flashing lights would recede. Macau had given me hope. Though part of the city had been dominated by elaborate, glamorous casinos and hotels, much of it was still thriving with authenticity, and not merely cultivated to attract tourism. Macau was fully prepared to serve travelers and tourists from China and beyond, for sure, but the temples and shops and markets and tiny restaurants were clearly there for the citizens of Macau. I hoped to find a similar authenticity as we entered China.
We made our way through the south of China by bus. I watched with my journal in hand, capturing the essence of my observations. There were moments when I witnessed evidence of the China I had imagined. Small houses and huts were poised at the edge of still blue ponds. Rice paddies stretched off into the distance, and farmers toiled in their fields. Here and there, banana plantations. The blue sky was filled with white, puffy clouds, and the colors of the earth, greens, browns, and tans, were rich. I yearned to get off the bus and wander there, to meet these farmers and play my flute for them. These were places that busses didn’t stop, though. We flew past them, speeding on toward our destination. As I stared out the window, the horizon began to change. Modern China slowly emerged, dominating the serene, pastoral landscape.
We passed through Guangdong Province, one of China’s wealthiest regions, as well as the world’s factory region. For the most part, “Made in China” means “Made in Guangdong Province.” On the outskirts of the city and its suburbs, factories and pavement and concrete buildings hovered on the horizon.
***
Right now, we’re rolling through an incredible juxtaposition. Rice paddies and banana plantations, little lakes with simple shacks on their shores. This is old China, the rich culture of the place that I’d imagined, agricultural land. But off in the distance, encroaching upon the countryside, are factories and smokestacks - industry and development pumping out black smoke, paving over everything, poisoning the air and water. Here are the world’s factories. The simple “peasant” dwellings and lifestyle are still here for now, but what a better use of land to build up tall buildings, to give the explosive Chinese population homes and work. Working the land is quickly becoming a thing of the past, if these factories are any indication. The markets are full of junk food, from Coke to beer, potato chips, cookies, candy, and processed foods. To buy produce, you have to go to a street market vendor: a farmer! What happens when the factories have overtaken the countryside and there are no more lands to farm? Food becomes hard to come by, but the world will have so much plastic, so much stuff to consume. We’re giving ourselves everything we don’t need while making it harder and harder to get what we do need to live: clean air, clean water, and pure, healthy food.
***
The sea of cities began shortly after we reached the capital city of Guangzhou. From city to city, bus to bus, hour after hour, I was reminded of the section of highway in New Jersey that stretches from the south toward New York City: putrid air, thick gray smoke in the sky, concrete and pavement, and ugly, industrial buildings as far as the eye can see. What surprised me, though, was the extensiveness of the development.
***
Looks like blasting in the hills, the soft green hills are broken by jagged red earth. Highways? Industrial development? Who knows. The Chinese seem to be just as bad as, if not worse than, America in dominating the land for development. But how else will they find ways to house and accommodate more than a billion people? Some of the housing skyscrapers are huge, a massive concrete wall extending drearily to the clouds, with metal cage balconies, many hanging full of plants and laundry.
***
To me, with my nature-girl sensibilities, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I had heard people refer to the “boom” in China, but hadn’t ever investigated it or spent much time thinking about it. I still held the images of China that were formed when I had read The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck: images of rich farmlands, peaceful communities nestled in the countryside, and serenity found in communion with the earth. It became increasingly clear to me in those first few days that China’s “boom” had been a national commitment to keep up with the rest of the world in every possible way. Indeed, it seemed that China was doing much more than keeping up, it was catching up in record time and surpassing the west in many ways, clearly an attempt to leave behind its status as a “developing” country forever.
***
There is much that I love about my country: vast expanses of countryside that are still protected and unspoiled, freedom of personal expression, and a variety of lifestyles open for the choosing. I can go where I want, say what I want, live in a city, live in a yurt in the mountains, live in a commune, live in a small town, or pretty much anywhere I want. I don’t have to ask anyone first. I can choose to go to school, I can study what I want, and I can find a way to finance that if my family isn’t wealthy. If I hate my life, I can change it. If I can’t figure out how to change it, I can complain about it, protest, write a book, post it on the Internet. These are basic freedoms that I, and every other American, has been guaranteed by being born in this country. The things that I loathe about my country are many, too: a corrupt government caught up in power struggles and beaurocracy, apathy about the destruction of the environment, love of money and wealth, and lack of commitment to the lives and well-being of individual American people as a result of what I consider questionable values.
Even in the first few days of the journey, I became aware of the great contrast between the problems in my country and those in China. Max had often joked about the censorship imposed by the Communist government, and the vision of Mao. I didn’t really know what he was talking about, and before travelling to China, hadn’t made much effort to find out. But what I gathered in a few poignant conversations and through careful observation was shocking. The news was completely censored. So was the Internet. Consumer culture was rampant, even more than in the U.S. Also, I learned that in China, there was no concept of a “well-rounded” higher education. Someone who wants to work in business studies business. Those people who are on the cutting-edge studied English. But if people want to debate the policies of the Chinese government, they had better keep it to themselves. No one was interested in discussing politics or world events, and most people looked quite uncomfortable at the very mention of such topics.
Even more surprising was the struggle that many young women go through in the pursuit of a higher education. While going to University is common among young women from big cities like Beijing and Shanghai, a woman from a small village is also given the opportunity to go to University, and her whole village would assemble the funds to pay for her first year. However, that money must be repaid at the end of the year. How does a young woman earn so much money so quickly while studying? Many of them work in after-hours “salons” in one of China’s infamous “pink-light” districts, and I learned from personal experience that in these “salons” you’ll be denied a manicure or pedicure.
In all of my previous journeys, I had felt that the places I travelled through were better in a variety of ways than my own home. In China, though, I felt a deeper sense of appreciation for home, and for the first time in my life, I began to see the good in my own country.
***
June 21, 2006
(Yangshuo)
Though Guangdong was our original destination yesterday, we decided to head further inland to Guangxi province. We spent one night in Wuzhou, home to the world's biggest Snake Repository, but we didn't make it there, unfortunately. While in Wuzhou, we felt like celebrities, with people staring at us wherever we went. We stopped to eat breakfast in a park and were quickly surrounded by a bunch of locals who tried to talk with us, very friendly. Perhaps they don't see many westerners there! We again decided to put some ground behind us, heading to the mountains of the region. The urban developments gradually gave way to farmlands and dramatic mountain peaks, and soon we arrived in Yangshuo.
***
June 22, 2006
(Yangshuo)
Yangshuo is a delightful, relatively small town in the mountains, and is popular with the active international backpacking crowd as well as with the Chinese. Though it is surrounded by mountains, no one could tell me the name of the range. The few people I met who spoke English told us that each mountain had its own name. These peaks were rugged stone covered in mossy, lush green vegetation, and most were freestanding from each other. I was reminded of pictures of mountains drawn by children: steep, humplike things, that's the landscape of Yangshuo. I was glad to be someplace that felt a little more humane, as opposed to the endless sea of buildings and roads that had comprised much of China thus far. We decided to stay for a few days.
During our first day, we decided to walk out of town into the mountains. Bicycling is a huge tourist trade in Yangshuo, and tour guides tried their hardest to convince people to rent a bike and hit all the tourist sites. Fortunately, neither of us was particularly interested in renting bikes or being caught up in throngs of tourists, so we wandered our way along the road out of town, walking among the bicycles, scooters, motorcycles, rickshaws, motor-powered tricycle carts, wobbly trucks, tour busses, and military vehicles. We were followed by water-hawkers: Chinese ladies who were convinced that if they harassed us for long enough we'd buy their bottled water, coke, or beer at three times the going rate. We wandered through banana farms, rice paddies, and tall limestone peaks. There were numerous caves along the way, many of which had been turned into tourist sites, as well as bamboo rafting on the river, and an enclosed site that held a very large tree. In fact, most of the stunning natural environment had been developed into tourist attractions, now commodities available to the masses for an entrance fee. We walked past one after another, and finally made it to a popular hiking site after a couple hours of walking, and decided to climb.
The mountain we had chosen to hike was known as Moon Hill, due to a huge opening in the rock near the top of the mountain in the shape of a half moon. We climbed up 1250 steps carved into the mountain side, and in the heat of the afternoon, we were roasting and nearly encrusted in bugs. The water hawkers followed us all the way to the top of the mountain, relentless. We arrived at the peak at about the same time as two British guys, and casually joked that the peak on which we stood may well be one of the few non-bugged places in all of China, then noticed some sort of transmission station even there.
We didn't do any touristy things in Yangshuo, preferring to stumble into our own adventures. There were a few good bars where everyone was watching the World Cup. We were taught to play a Chinese dice game one night by a young woman named Lulu. We also wandered through tiny streets filled with markets. Amid the carts piled high with fruits and vegetables were wicker cages full of chickens and the occasional duck, still alive. On tables next to them, slaughtered ones, de-feathered, a hole cut in their necks. Tables full of raw meat, meat hanging from hooks, pigs’ feet, chicken feet, the list goes on and on. The necks on those birds actually made me cringe, though I tried to keep it to myself. There were murky ponds filled with frogs and fish, covered in a thick green film and dotted with trash. In the markets there were shallow tubs full of fresh, still alive fish, which sometimes leapt out. Are these fish from these local murky, trash-strewn ponds? What about the buckets filled with frogs and snakes?
After contemplating whether or not to rent a motorcycle and have a Che Guevara style adventure in the countryside, we decided to spend our last day in Yangshuo pampering ourselves. We both had full body massages and ended up meeting some people at the local English Language School, and were invited back to teach English anytime.
***
I got an e-mail from my neighbor Ros informing me that there had been a fire in the neighborhood, and that a neighbor had died. I began shaking and crying and Max held me while I cried. He didn’t say anything, just held me. The man who died, Kent, was an older gentleman. I’d lost touch with him in the last year. There were times when I didn’t even wave at him when he was outside, for fear of being caught in an inescapably long conversation. Too busy. In the midst of getting absorbed in my life I lost connections with a lot of people. Really, my energy has been so focused on my relationship and a few close friendships that a lot of other people have fallen out of my regular company. I’ve been too absorbed to spread my love as freely as I usually do, and I don’t like that. Is this relationship worth it? Anyone can be gone with no notice. Life is so ephemeral. How does this change bring me to greater awareness? It’s so important to make time for the people in my life. My heart has become way too single-focused.
***
June 26, 2006
(From the train to Chengdu)
I’m currently aboard a train from Liuzhou to Chengdu, a ride that will take thirty-three hours. I don’t think I’ve ever been enclosed in a filthier environment in my life. The bed compartments are okay, but the rest of the train is a festering filth carrier. The between-car compartments are the “smoking area,” the only space where there’s no piped-in elevator music or loud, annoying announcements. Men openly spit on the floor. Not just spit, they hack out their lungs with the most revolting noises I’ve ever heard. People also spit on the bathroom floor, in the toilet, in the sinks ... I’ve never heard so much foul spitting in my entire life. The toilets are not as bad as they could be. They seem to be regularly “cleaned” with some kind of vinegar solution, but they still reek of urine. There’s one sit-toilet at least, and they keep replacing the toilet paper.
The most hideously nasty thing of all? The dining car. The eating habits of the people make me want to throw up. Chewing their food, letting little bits dribble onto the table cloth, bones or whatever. Animatedly talking with food spewing out, and more spitting ... not actually hacking anything out onto the tablecloths, thank god.
I’ve lost my appetite. I don’t want to touch anything. And I think I’ll need to take a bleach bath after getting off this train!
xxx
I’m feeling a little more relaxed, since Max has been bringing me beer all afternoon. We’ve been playing cards, closely watched by the security guard of the train. He’s a funny guy, he speaks no English and acts like he owns the train. Max and I played cards for most of the day until a few minutes ago when the security guard took our deck of cards away and disappeared! Other than that strange incident, he’s been very friendly with us, kept us entertained.
In Guilin, I ended up having to exert my forcefulness with the office that booked our train reservations. We had booked our tickets for the train to Chengdu in Yangshuo and paid our deposit. We then went to Guilin, with the promise that our tickets would be delivered to our hostel by 9:00 p.m. the night we arrived. We were given a telephone number to call if the tickets didn’t arrive. Surely enough, they didn’t. The delivery time was changed to noon the next day, and we were informed that we would pay a man, Mr. Li, for the balance of the tickets in Guilin, but not receive them until we got to Liuzhou, where we’d have to call another number to retrieve them. So, the next day as noon approached, we were informed that our tickets had not been booked at all, and that we could only get tickets for the following day.
My rage began. Mr. Li, who ended up being two shady-looking Chinese guys, showed up to talk to us. The first guy who showed up was skinny with a smirk, and spoke some English. He tried to fix the deal, offering us sleeper bus tickets, twenty hours, and we were ready to agree. Then he told us that we wouldn’t be on a sleeper bus, but reclining seats on a tourist bus would be fine, and all for the same cost. It’s difficult to remember the exact progression of things, but a second man joined us, a pudgy guy with two cell phones who spoke no English. We went back and forth, and the story kept changing. After nearly an hour of negotiating by phone between the booking office and Mr. Li, I had had enough. I demanded that we receive a full refund, including the booking fee we’d paid, and after I insisted several times, the man on the phone asked me to hand the phone back to our pudgy friend, Mr. Li. We were issued our refund, and the two men skulked off looking furious. We decided to take care of the rest of our travel plans ourselves, and headed to Liuzhou, the starting city for the train to Chengdu. All we could arrange at the last moment was soft sleeper: first class. We took it.
***
Max informed me a minute ago that a kid just took a crap on the floor of the train. On the Oriental rug, perhaps? Yet another element of this train to make me cringe.
As we were leaving Hong Kong, we had stumbled upon a Tai Chi class near Victoria Harbour. At the end, we were talking with the master, a tiny, exuberant man clad in white satin. He told us that if we wanted to see the real China, to head west. Well, that’s what we’re doing: heading through the heartland, the corn-farming, rice paddy hills. Here, too, we’re finding hillbillies. Spitting, shitting, talking with their mouths full and spilling over. At home I had been told that China is filthy. I could have easily overlooked the hideously foul, sinus-searing, eye-burning public toilet facilities and trash strewn all over. Those things are vile in a lot of places in the world. But on this train, I’ve seen behavior more akin to animals. Not at all civilized, hellishly unrefined. God, I feel like such a prissy snob. I’m now hesitant to touch pretty much everything. I hate to be so downright harsh and unaccepting, and it makes me feel guilty, but it’s the truth.
***
June 28, 2006
(Chengdu)
Eventually, the train from hell arrived in Chengdu, Sichuan Province. Think spicy food. Tongue-numbing, lip-searing spicy food. The only remedy we found for that pain was beer. Room temperature will suffice. In Chengdu, yet another of China's frantic, commercial centers, we were finally able to book tickets and a permit to Lhasa, Tibet.
The journey was blessed by a visit to the Wenshu Temple. Located in the heart of a bustling commercial district, this large temple was an oasis of calmness. I was fortunate enough to witness a ceremony of some kind provided by the monks (many young, in their twenties or thirties) for a couple. The chanting was extraordinary! For more than an hour, the monks chanted in unison and in harmony, striking gongs and bells and drums. It was beautiful and moving, and the first truly sacred moment I'd experienced since entering mainland China. It was a welcome experience, too, since I was beginning to believe that there was no sense of the sacred left in the whole country.
***
Yesterday afternoon, I had a minor meltdown. It seems that almost everywhere we go in this country is an urban hell. We’d been wandering around and it started to feel like we were going in circles. It was hot, and I just couldn’t take anymore. Though Chengdu doesn’t seem to be too overrun by cars, the motorbikes, bicycles, and rickshaws are equally maddening. There is endless chaos, and that, mixed with the concrete jungle and the huge shopping district that surrounds our hotel pushed me over the edge. I ended up sitting down beside an empty fountain and burst into tears. Max tried to pull me out of it, he suggested that we go to an amusement park or something, but he just doesn’t get it. I just felt overwhelmed and defeated. I’m not a city girl. I need green and earth and fresh air in order to be happy.
***
June 29, 2006
(Lhasa, Tibet)
Moments after arriving in Lhasa, I was blown away by the temperature. After spending weeks in an infernal heat that even Dante couldn't imagine, Lhasa was refreshing. Dry, about seventy-five degrees, gentle mountain breezes. The airport bus dropped us beside the Potala Palace, once the primary residence of the Dalai Lama, now an ominous structure enclosed by high walls, open to only 100 wealthy tourists per day. We trudged along with our packs and were approached by a friendly Chinese woman who offered us space in her guesthouse. Though it was thirty minutes away from the heart of town by foot, it was located right on the Lhasa River, with nothing but water, mountains and sky out the window. We had somehow landed the guesthouse from paradise!
***
June 30, 2006
(Lhasa, Tibet)
Tibet is bare. Barren. High altitude desert. Trees are rare, mostly planted and tended by people and require the efforts of cultivation. The stark countryside isn’t terribly hospitable, with the wind sweeping across the naked, dusty mountains, and the sun baking it all ever drier. It is amazing to me that anyone could live there in the first place. As an east-coast American, the lushness of trees and grass and dense green is home. In Lhasa, the few plots of grass are carefully tended, and guarded by women with megaphones. Lured into sitting under a tree in the lush grass, Max and I were met by several frantic, shouting Tibetan women. It was made clear to us that this was not space for lounging.
There are prayer flags all around the city, and Tibetan language accompanies the Chinese on most signs. We are in the Himalayas! Though in this part of the region, there are no snowcapped peaks, merely velvety brown and green mountains.
Lhasa has long been considered the holiest city in Tibetan Buddhism, and colorful strands of prayer flags are scattered across the hills. Many Tibetans journey in pilgrimage to Lhasa in order to visit the most sacred temples of Tibetan Buddhism. Circumambulating the holy Jokhang Temple along the Barkhor Circuit, circumambulating the outer walls of the Potala Palace while spinning prayer wheels, chanting mantras, bowing full-body at the entrance to the Temple, all swirling in a haze of juniper incense from giant clay burners. In their left hands, strands of prayer beads, from simple wooden ones to ornate strands of stones. In their right hands, personal prayer wheels of wood, metal and stone, each filled with paper coils bearing the holy mantra, om mane padme hum. There are pilgrims in traditional dress from various regions, as well as some in modern dress. All (excepting myself and a few other westerners) Tibetan. No Chinese.
I have spent time each day walking the Barkhor Circuit, and am always entranced by the pilgrimage culture swirling around me. Some of older pilgrims can barely walk, their feet gnarled from a lifetime of hard work and inadequate nutrition. They walk on, their faith unwavering. One old pilgrim, dressed in a long, dark robe offered prostrations every step of the way. Initially I assumed that he was a crazy, demonstrative beggar. But I looked past my suspicion and bias and saw something indescribable in his eyes. His eyes were focused beyond the bustling pilgrim circuit, beyond the world of humankind. It's such a foreign concept to me, and to many contemporary westerners, to exhibit such faith and devotion with utter abandon. His gray hair was knotted, and his hands were filthy from making repeated contact with the ground during his prostrations. But his passion shone beyond all of that.
***
July 1, 2006
(Lhasa, Tibet)
There is nothing quite like waking up to a delightfully cool morning and relative silence, and outside the open window, a rushing river, a soft, rocky Himalaya, and a vibrant blue sky.
Even here in Lhasa, I’ve been struggling with noise and crowds and traffic. Yesterday as we wandered around the city searching for Barkhor Square, I began to feel overwhelmed again, miserable. It is always bustling in China, it seems. The hectic pace makes it impossible for me to relax and let go like I want to. I am even further frustrated by the tons of people walking so slowly on the sidewalk. Often two or three across, blocking anyone else from getting by, I want to just shove them out of the way. And many of the women carry umbrellas, too, which are just the right height to poke you in the face if you try to pass them. It’s very hard for me to be patient, nonjudgmental, and compassionate.
***
Barkhor Square, a somewhat European-style plaza, stretches out in front of the Jokhang Temple, and is home to pilgrims and sellers of Tibetan handcrafts, as well as curious Tibetans. I am sitting near the flow of pilgrims that are circumambulating the Jokhang Temple. Seconds later, I have been surrounded by a crowd of Tibetans and one Chinese security guard. A young woman and her baby are poised near me, begging for money.
Something is in the air tonight, it seems to be that something is about to happen here. The Tibetans keep running in various directions, shouting. I don’t think anything has really happened, but when the police gather and start talking to any Tibetan, a crowd forms in much the same was as it has formed around me right now. When people start shouting, it feels volatile, at the edge of a riot. I don’t really get a feeling of violence, nor do I feel unsafe, but there is so much history of conflict between the Chinese and Tibetans. I wouldn’t be surprised if something did happen. There is a real sense of solidarity among the Tibetans. The people I’ve met are very curious and seem friendly and passionate - the exact opposite of the Chinese! I must admit, I feel much more of a connection here than with the Chinese culture.
Ah! I just learned that today is the inauguration of the railway line between Lhasa and Beijing. Could this be the beginning of some kind of uprising in Tibet? There seems to be a strong sense of Tibetan culture still alive here, but I wonder how much of it is all for the sake of selling Tibet. Though the pilgrim circuit is full of pilgrims, it is also full of shops selling wares of every kind. Some are clearly authentic crafts and goods, but others are nothing more than cheaply made replicas - every bit of space outside the shops lining the Barkhor is filled with stalls. So, as in the rest of China, buying and selling is a huge deal here. Even still, it doesn’t seem quite as commercial as other places I’ve been.
The rail line, though, could potentially cause a lot of cultural damage here. If the Chinese import more and more of their culture by way of train, which is a much cheaper alternative to flying, the Chinese people themselves could take care of eroding Tibetan culture without the help of the government.
***
July 2, 2006
(Lhasa, Tibet)
Last night there was a huge display of fireworks by the Potala Palace, a celebration for the opening of the new rail line. There were tons of people milling about, a lackadaisical crowd and a light show with the central fountains all choreographed to classical music. The police presence was everywhere.
After our lunch and a conversation with an interesting Brazilian man, I told Max that I needed some time alone. I’ve been feeling a little crowded by having a lot of conversations. There’s a lot to take in, especially in the market stalls, and I really felt the need for a break from giving my attention to anything external, especially listening. Currently, I’m trying to feel invisible, and so far no one is bothering me. I’ve been wandering in the market and bought a couple of things, including a silver singing bowl and two strands of prayer flags.
I don’t much like the bargaining process. The women are so pushy, yelling “looky, looky! Cheap, cheap!” Sometimes they tried to grab me, and yesterday one woman grabbed my arm tightly and wouldn’t let go. I called out to Max for help, and he offered her a ridiculously low price on a strand of prayer beads. She then let me go, looking disgusted. Men tend to be less pushy, and I’m more likely to buy something from them.
I was talking to Max about the fact that I’m finding it very hard to let go of myself on this trip. He wanted to know if it was because of him, and I assured him that it was not. Now I’m not so sure about that at all. Since we came to Lhasa, things seem a little better between us. But are things really better between Max and me, or is it that I’m much happier here in Tibet? In one sense, having him here is helping to keep me sane. He makes me laugh. He makes me feel like I’m not alone here, which is huge. In my previous journeys I’ve been easily able to escape from the mundane world, from busy city life, from everything I know. But here, the cities are overwhelming. Everything is like New York. It’s just too much for me - cars, cars, cars, lights, noise, advertising, shopping, people. Everything that seems to have had a numbing effect on the people here is an assault to my senses. At least here in Lhasa I feel a little better - the air is cooler and dry, and the mountains are everywhere. The presence of the sacred is undeniable here: pilgrims walking the circuit, bowing fully down in front of the temple, monks are all over the city. While spirituality is definitely being marketed here, the root of that is sincere and authentic.
I told Max the other day that I’m a lousy Buddhist. It might be worthwhile to contemplate the heart of Buddhism as I understand it. Well, surely it’s non-attachment to everything. Perhaps the reason I’ve been so curious about Buddhism, though, is because I struggle so much with attachment. I am attached to my stuff, to my friends, to my community, to my feelings, to all of the things I love. It’s my nature. I am also attached to my ideas, and many of them are based in the fantasies that I have created about the world. This is most powerfully manifest in my idealism regarding the spiritual. I have these ideas that there are places in the world where peace really exists, or did in the past, or will in the future. In these peaceful places, all people feel a deep connection to what they conceive of as Divine or sacred, as well as respecting other people’s feelings of connection to the Divine. Out of this respect grows a deep understanding, an appreciation of the differences between people as individuals, as communities, as cultures, as countries. And love grows and grows, and ideas of hate, war, and violence become obsolete, completely evolved out of human nature. Now I have to laugh. Before coming here, I thought my ideal spiritual place could indeed be in China, the land of Buddhism.
My utopia sounds great, indeed. We wouldn’t need government anymore, people would make all their choices considering not only themselves, but also their impact on the world. Laws wouldn’t be necessary anymore, and what a different, better world it would be. But a major paradigm shift would be necessary.
***
I’ve been talking with a Tibetan guy about Buddhism and the Barkhor Circuit pilgrimage. There are two different kinds of Tibetan Buddhism, and the sect determines which direction people walk. One sect walks counterclockwise in the Barkhor, but the other is the majority, walking clockwise. These were the people I walked with yesterday. He told me a few other things about Tibetan culture as well, he said that it was very deep. He couldn’t explain why people use the prayer wheels, though. After we had talked for a while, we were joined by a monk who had joined Max and me last night in a conversation.
***
A thick crowd is swarming around me now. Tibetans, Chinese, kids, adults, indigenous, modern, even other tourists, who are very confused to find me, a westerner, at the center. It’s amazing, you sit down in the plaza for a minute and at first a few people crowd around, then a few more, then a swarm! Even monks, even other tourists with cameras want to be a part of it, to take photos. Very odd to be the traveller here, and to be the subject of great interest.
The Tibetans that I’ve met in the Barkhor Square are curious and friendly, and seem to congregate at the slightest little thing. Last night I played my flute, and the crowd grew and grew, probably over 100 people. It all began when a couple of little girls were sitting next to me, singing. I pulled out my flute and began to play their tune. They giggled shyly, and a crowd started to form. I began to play, and ten minutes later when I stopped, Max and I were surrounded by a captivated crowd. I looked up from my spot on the ground, and all eyes were on me. I shrugged and began to play again, continuing on and on until a curious little boy stuck a stone into the end of my flute. After a few raps on the sidewalk, the stone fell out, and I kept playing. Definitely a memorable musical moment!
Several times now, always around the Barkhor area, I’ve been poked at or touched on the bare arm or leg by old women. I’m not sure what that’s about. I know that to go inside a temple I must wear long pants or a skirt, but I’m not sure about outside the temple. Regardless, this poking makes me uncomfortable!
***
July 3, 2006
(Lhasa, Tibet)
Lhasa is an extraordinary city, and culturally, a world away from China. The neon-clad high rises and shopping malls that littered much of China are nonexistent in Lhasa. The dusty, rugged, brown countryside extends to the sky in all directions, and the people of Lhasa tend to reflect the same temperament: open, deep, and welcoming. Lhasa is not filled with illusions of happiness and perfection, as in much of China. Lhasa is rough around the edges. The main street, Beijing Donglu, is filled with garage-like shops selling everything from Tibetan traditional clothes (the wealthy class style) to freshly slaughtered yak, displayed on top of wooden counters, abuzz with flies. There are carts full of ripe peaches on every corner, and down the labyrinthine alleys are even tinier shops filled with tea and yak butter, and occasionally there are women frying fresh french fries right on the street. The fries were so good! The yak butter, however, slightly funky in odor, is disgusting. A few days ago, Max and I were tricked into trying yak butter tea by a local Tibetan guide, who poured us glass after glass. It tasted like hot, salty buttermilk. Now, I can’t walk by a yak butter shop without feeling a slight heave in my stomach.
Since our hostel is located on the outskirts of the city, we have been privy to several adventures that other travellers might not have experienced. For example, the first night we went wandering after dark. When we realized that we were lost, Max hailed a bicycle rickshaw to take us back. Fortunately our hosts had given us the address of their guesthouse, located in an enclosed neighborhood. After our driver pedaled himself silly to get us over the river, we ended up on a dark street, and he didn't know where to take us from there. It was late, and the street lights had already been turned off for the night, so he basically left us on the side of the road, and we had to wander our way back to our house. After that, we vowed to take only car taxis home. Another eye-opening thing is the presence of the military. Though army trucks are a frequent sight in Lhasa, and the police presence in the streets is very noticeable, on several occasions we have watched parades of military and police vehicles driving in caravans at night along the other side of the river, clearly visible from the window of our hostel. The road across the river was perhaps near a military base. One night, no less than 100 police SUVs and cars paraded down that road, all evenly spaced and flashing their lights.
***
July 4, 2006
(Lhasa, Tibet)
After our first few days in Lhasa, we decided to investigate our options for getting out of the city and into the heart of the Tibetan countryside. Tours have never appealed to me. I prefer to travel slowly and alone, and though I often seek destinations that have become popular among tourists and travellers, my own purpose is to connect with the sacred in those places, not merely to check off a list of must-see destinations. Unfortunately, due to the high degree of regulations enforced throughout Tibet by the Chinese government, it is impossible to even enter Tibet without a permit. In order to leave the vicinity of Lhasa, it is absolutely required to travel as part of an organized tour.
Max and I investigated our options. A tour agency at one of the youth hostels offered an affordable, no frills trip from Lhasa to several famous monasteries, and onward to Qomolangma National Reserve, known in the west as Mt. Everest! Eight young travellers will comprise our group: Max and me, a conservative American couple living in Shanghai, a German man living in Nanjing, a couple of Israelis just out of the military, and a standoffish Australian man who hitched his way into Tibet illegally. For five days we will be together in a small "bus," otherwise known in the western world as a rustic, cramped van, rumbling across the unpaved Himalayan countryside.
***
Honoring Everest
The bitter wind whipped around me as I struggled up the stone-covered hill, and rocks tumbled down behind me as I climbed toward the top. I wondered to myself, looking at the rocks. Is this hill naturally occurring, or did people gather these stones, creating a mound after so many years? A high altar for the offering of prayer flags? The morning was cold, and behind me, the sun was beginning to break free from the panorama of high mountains, casting incredible colors across the horizon. As I finally reached the top, winded and dizzy from the altitude, I stood silently for a few moments, wrapping my mind around the experience: sunrise at Mount Everest. I slowly turned clockwise to view the spectacular landscape all around me. Intensely rugged brown peaks towered in every direction. In the distance were higher, more rugged mountains, covered in pristine white snow and ice. Even the closest mountains sparkled in the early morning sunlight, after having been dusted with snow during the frigid night.
My prominent, yet easily climbable hill was clearly a shrine, with stone cairns both at its base and on top. Suspended from sturdy branches were colorful strands of prayer flags, red, blue, white, green, and yellow, a sacred symbol of prayer in Tibetan Buddhism. They fluttered in the morning wind, in various stages of tatter. I had observed these flags displayed all across Tibet, from the center of Lhasa to the remotest and most unreachable-looking mountaintops. I had also ritually tied prayer flags to my house for years, often as my own celebration of freedom on Independence Day. But witnessing these prayer flags, fluttering in the first rays of morning sunlight while standing atop a hill-shrine in the shadow of Mount Everest was more powerful than I could have ever imagined.
I looked back toward the simple tent-village that comprised Everest Base Camp. Slowly, people were filtering out from their refuges and wandering to the flat, scree-covered expanse of land to one side of my hill-shrine. I recognized a few figures among them, my fellow travellers. I knew that my time that morning was limited, and a seven kilometer hike lay before me. I reached deep into the pocket of my yellow windproof parka and pulled out my own strand of prayer flags. Though the chill of the morning was numbing my body, a rush of warmth filled me as I contemplated my ritual. It was an unspeakable honor to have the opportunity to offer my own prayer flags at this holy mountain, and I held the prayer flags in my hands for a few moments. Though I was not familiar with any prayers or rituals in Tibetan Buddhism that accompanied the offering of prayer flags, if there were any, I felt deeply drawn to dedicate them consciously. I offered them with the desire for living in greater truth, with compassion and love. As I tied one end of my strand to the wooden post, I was filled with a rush of joy. The other end of my strand didn’t quite reach the second post, and I tied it to another strand of flags. I stood back, beaming. My bright, clean-edged flags fluttered in the breeze, dancing my prayers into the wind, scattering them all over the world. I lingered for a while longer as tears spilled down my cheeks, and then slowly made my way down the steep hillside to meet the others. Halfway down, I stopped to look back at my offering. Already, my flags were lost among the others. I picked up a few small stones along the way, sacred tokens of the Mount Everest shrine.
A large number of people had gathered to watch the sun cast its bright glow on Mount Everest. Still, the mountain was encircled in a constant swirl of clouds and mist. Everyone was waiting, cameras poised, hoping that the morning clouds would pass, even for a moment, revealing the mountain in its full splendor. After all, one doesn’t travel from the farthest reaches of the globe to see the highest mountain in the world, and shrug when the clouds obstruct the image. So we waited, breathless, for over an hour. Several times it seemed that the clouds would nearly pass, only to reveal everything but the mountain’s peak. I became wrapped up in the shared intensity of the crowd, and shot nearly two rolls of film in the process. Just as we all had nearly given up to a thicket of clouds that appeared to be endless, the tip of the mountain appeared, blazing in the morning sunlight. Cheers and shouts erupted all around, and though the entire mountain wasn’t clear, we were all able to celebrate that moment of witnessing the peak. The realization that I’d now stood in the shadows of the world’s highest mountain was filled with a touch of the surreal. It was thrilling, but not as meaningful as my ritual of making a sacred offering to the mountain. The moments of tying my flags among the others were fully real, completely grounded. It was undeniably clear that I was walking on sacred ground, and the cloud cover hadn’t obstructed any feelings of connection to this special place.
***
Considering Xi’an
I washed my socks in the leaky sink as the door closed behind me. Max had gone out for an evening walk, and for the moment I was alone with my thoughts. Smiling, I walked over to the makeshift clothesline to hang my socks to dry. I walked back to the sink and scrubbed my shirt. The sweet, clean scent of the laundry soap lulled me back into memories of Tibet. Only that morning we had left Lhasa and flown to Xi’an.
Earlier that evening we wandered across town to Xi’an’s famous Muslim neighborhood. The character of the community was much more interesting to me than the parts of the city we had wandered through during the afternoon. So much of China had begun to look the same, the same colors and shapes were uniform for every old palace and temple, and the same concrete high-rises comprised the modern city skyline with little variation. But in the Muslim community, the architecture was intriguing, the buildings were smaller and closer together, and the shops were filled with teapots and dried fruit.
As we wandered through the neighborhood, the last light of day began to fade, and the call to prayer echoed in the narrow streets, beckoning followers to stop for a moment and pray. I began to wonder if there were small pockets of people tucked away all over China who continued to align their lives with the sacred. I pulled out my map of the city and quickly located the Mosque. I learned from my guidebook that in order for me, a non-Muslim, to enter the temple, I’d have to pay a steep fee, and as a woman I’d be further restricted on the parts of the temple I would be allowed into. I sighed, realizing that I’d have no chance to meditate or pray there. Besides the uniformity of the architecture, yet another trend in China was to charge hefty fees to enter sacred spaces. In order to enter a temple, mosque, church, or monastery, you’d have to pay a steep admission charge. Spirituality seemed to have become a commodity, just another way of profiting from the throngs of tourists that poured through the country, gawking and snapping photos all the way. Is there any place in this country for an American woman seeking to experience the sacred? Even in Tibet, it had been a challenge to find truly sacred space, perfectly exemplified by my final experience inside of a Buddhist monastery in Tibet. There, I had followed the drone of chanting until I reached its source: a room filled with monks, all chanting as they counted piles of money. That had completely blown my mind, and had brought me to question whether China had left any place untouched for communion with the sacred in its pursuit of modernization.
***
Everything went downhill after Max and I left Tibet. We flew from Lhasa to Xi’an, and it became clearer than ever that Tibet and China were completely different countries. Even the most famous monuments and historical sites in China were created in order to commemorate what I consider some of the worst elements of human nature, and many are places that conjure up historically documented accounts of elitism and division. In Xi’an, we visited the Terra Cotta Warriors, which were created as a burial monument for a king who wished to take his whole kingdom with him to his grave. Instead, a vast army of hollow terra cotta statues were created. The warriors were a remarkable, beautifully created monument, but as I wandered around the extensive excavation site, I wondered how much labor went into the creation of these statues, and what kind of self-absorbed king would consider such extravagance.
I began to think about the other famous monuments that we would eventually visit. The Great Wall of China. The Forbidden City. These great monuments were all representations of man’s power-hungry nature, the part of being human that seeks division, superiority, separation, violence, and a host of other things that are quite the opposite of the way of life that I embrace and the values that I honor. I felt more and more puzzled about the motivations that brought me to China in the first place. After all, the whole trip had been inspired by our fantasy of walking along the Great Wall. I was constantly reminded of the great lengths that humans will go to in the name of gaining and displaying power, but was the whole country spiritually bereft? With thousands of years of history that encompassed a variety of spiritual traditions, especially Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism, there seemed to be so few sacred places, but many famous places that honored human royalty and military prowess. Had these great spiritual traditions left no lasting mark? Perhaps there still were temples and other sacred places in China, but they were probably well-hidden in other small communities like Macau, invisible and inaccessible to one who speaks little Chinese. Based on what I had already seen in China before going to Tibet, this lack of sacred sites and abundance of highly-commodified historical ones seemed perfectly symbolic of the current values of Chinese culture, ready to do almost anything to make money.
In Xi’an I abandoned my desire to experience a spiritual connection in China. I began to surrender to my anger and disgust and found it harder and harder to keep my feelings to myself. I had imagined spending long afternoons in teahouses, writing. Instead of tea, I often found myself drinking cheap, mediocre beer while wandering the noisy, chaotic streets. I stopped searching for tiny Buddha statues and began to buy pirated DVDs. I sank into bitterness and sarcasm. I lost my fascination, gave up my desire to see the beauty in China, and I began to lose my faith in finding any further meaning in the journey.
***
July 12, 2006
(Xi’an)
Here in Xi'an, things have not been good. Two nights ago, Max took off on a walk, taking the only key with him, and said he’d be back in an hour. After three hours had passed, I was really upset, and eventually found someone at the hotel desk who could let me back into my room later. I set off wandering, in angry tears. After all, what could my boyfriend possibly be doing alone in a new city at 1:00 a.m.? I found him talking with some people in a park just a few blocks away. He was so apologetic and sweet, but I was furious. He admitted his mistake, looking desperate. He held me, wanted to know how he could make it up to me.
Last night, we ended up rubbing each other the wrong way over and over. The moodier I was, the more angry he became. He ended up going off on his own again, which made me feel worse. Again, tonight, he headed out alone, with no mention of when he’d return. At this point, it is impossible to ignore the problems between us. Short of ending the relationship here, I don’t see any way of improving things.
This journey has lost its spirit, its center. What am I doing here? How would I spend my time differently if Max wasn’t with me?
***
July 14, 2007
(Xi’an)
Yesterday was the worst. Xi’an is rather decent for a big city, but it is nonetheless hellishly urban. I’m longing for vast, green, natural spaces, clean air, peace and quiet, and an escape from the ugly developments of humanity. Max, though, loved Xi’an. He tried to convince me to really see the people, the beauty of how a city works, the everydayness of living in urban China. And I can understand some of what he sees. Individual people have humanity. They are the same as me, just going about their lives, laughing, smiling, playing, working.
But when I was with him in the train station, all I could see was a filthy, sweating, stinking, noisy cesspool of festering humanity. Pushing, trying to cut in line, yelling, spitting, farting, foul breath. The air conditioning didn’t help. There must have been 5,000 people in that decrepit ticket hall. Then, after waiting in line for nearly an hour, we were informed that all trains for today were booked.
I lost my temper at that point, and Max and I argued even more. Much of the reason I wanted to leave Xi’an is because of the conflict between us in these last few days. He just doesn’t have the same interests as me. Maybe his perspective is better. He just wanders around with no expectations, happily taking whatever comes. I, on the other hand, am psychically assaulted by the sensory overload that I experience everywhere we go.
I crave wild, open spaces. In my other journeys I always found the opportunity to really open up, to let my guard dissolve, to fully relax and just be. To forget what day it is, what time it is, to have no schedule, no place to be, to really settle into my softer, gentler self. To clear my head, to burn away the fog around my heart. But here in China that is utterly impossible. There’s no room for it. Too chaotic, too noisy. Just too much.
Anger
“Simitai? Simitai? Simitai?”
The words cut through the noise of the crowds, and were a great relief as we pushed our way through the sea of mostly Chinese travellers looking for their own appropriate busses. It seemed odd that the public bus to Simitai, one of the more remote, unrestored areas of the Great Wall of China, would depart from a small building on the outskirts of town, a building that looked more appropriate for a cattle auction. I thought to myself, surely there are other backpackers who would prefer to skip the tour and venture on their own to the Great Wall, but we saw no other foreign travellers in the bus terminal. It seemed strange, but the woman’s call was reassuring, and we followed the sound of her voice and boarded the air-conditioned bus.
Max and I took elevated seats located at the very back of the bus, the only remaining seats paired together. We waited patiently as the attendant made her way to the back of the bus, and in the meantime, I flipped the travel guide open to a map of the Simitai region. I hoped to find confirmation that, indeed, this bus would take us all the way to Simitai and the Great Wall. When the woman approached us to take our money, I showed her our map. A distraught look on her face revealed her complete lack of comprehension, and another woman leaned over to ask us, in English, what information we needed. The two women talked briefly, and the second woman confirmed that this bus would leave us in another city, about halfway there. In that city, we could take a second bus to the Great Wall. Content with this information, I began to nod off, half-asleep.
***
“Simitai, Simitai, Simitai!”
The bus lurched to a halt, and the attendant waved her hands frantically to get our attention from her position in the front of the bus. Max and I stood, gathering our things, and made our way to the exit.
We were the only ones who left the bus. In retrospect, I realize that that should have been a clue that things weren’t going to be as easy and clear as they had seemed, but in my half-asleep state, I hardly noticed anything to alert my attention. We stepped off the bus into the boiling midday sun, and before we had any chance to locate our new bus, we were bombarded by a throng of enterprising folks shouting, “taxi, taxi, Simitai, taxi!”
The combination of the heat and the shouting quickly made me irritable, and Max and I tried to walk away from the welcoming entourage. A few times, we each shouted back, “No taxi! Bus!” It seemed to make little difference. A parade of slowly creeping marked and unmarked taxis of all sizes pursued us as we attempted to find someplace to have a moment’s uninterrupted discussion in which we could consult our guidebook and consider our options.
Indeed, according to our guide, the Beijing bus led only halfway to Simitai. There was, supposedly, a connecting bus, but there was no further information suggesting where we could find the bus or when it would appear. We both became increasingly frustrated, and the brigade of taxis hovered curbside. We continued our conversation while walking, but were constantly interrupted.
“Taxi?”
“No! Bus!”
“No bus, taxi!”
The exchange continued. My temper soared. My shout rose in intensity each time, and I began to wildly scream, “No!” at each driver, and made a gesture of dismissal with my hands that I hoped might be as clear in China as it was in my own country. Most of the drivers got the point and drove away.
Between shouting matches, Max and I considered our options. There might not be a bus to Simitai. We’d already come this far, what to do? We agreed that it would be ridiculous to turn around without going to Simitai at all, merely out of principle and outrage. The frequent interruptions of “Taxi, Simitai!” made our discussion difficult. The heat ... the creeping taxis ... the shouts of solicitation...
Something within me snapped, not unlike Jack Nicholson’s character in “The Shining.” “NO!” I howled, out of control. “NO, NO, NO, NO, NO!” I glared at the man, giving my nastiest look, feeling the fire of rage fill my belly. The same man repeated, “Taxi, Simitai!” I said nothing and we continued walking. A third time, “Taxi, Simitai!” My mind melted into boiling hot fury. I reached down to the ground and picked up a dry, red clod of dirt, about the size of a grapefruit. I looked back at the young man as I howled a final, “NO!” at him and I hurled the ball of hard, dry earth at his vehicle. There was a loud noise as the dirt careened against the side of his taxi, and though the impact caused no damage, the sound and surprise of my action infuriated the driver as much as it satisfied my need to definitively force him to hear and understand my answer. His own anger was instantaneous, and he parked his taxi where it sat and got out of the vehicle to inspect the damage. He shouted at me from his position, shaking a fist and holding a stance of defensiveness and aggression. For a moment it appeared that he might come toward us, but he remained frozen in his place, screaming in me in his elastic Chinese. Neither him nor any other drivers pursued us any further.
We ducked into an alley and found a small shop that sold bottled water and cigarettes, and the man behind the counter spoke to us in English. We inquired with him about going to Simitai, and he informed us that there was no bus that would take us there. Our only option was a taxi. He offered us a ride with his friend, and the cost was less than what the other drivers had been shouting at us since we arrived. We accepted his offer and he called his friend to take us to Simitai.
***
July 18, 2006
(Beijing)
Max’s off on his own again tonight. Now he gives me the key whenever he leaves, and offers no thoughts of when he’ll return. There’s so little communication between us. I hate it. I’d much rather have time alone during the day when I’m not so nervous about wandering by myself. But tonight, I am glad to be sitting here on my own, wandering in my thoughts and writing, which has happened so little in the last week. I have no set time to be back, and I’ve stumbled into an operatic performance in front of a church in the heart of downtown Beijing. The singers are good, though not always in tune. Accompanied by an accordion and a saxophone, and maybe something else too, I can’t see. It’s really lovely, it fills the night with good energy and at least these few people are not just sitting around watching television. A plus for Beijing.
***
Anger, Part II
As the car sped toward me, I turned and faced it squarely, fearless. I locked stares with the driver, a middle-aged Chinese man. A surge of rage filled my belly as his car screeched to a halt in front of me. Max turned around from the opposite sidewalk, looking toward me, heavy pack on his shoulders. The traffic light was still red, as it had been as I’d tried to cross the street, dodging taxi after taxi. Now, this confused taxi driver glared at me as I scowled at him, our eyes locked. The anger in my belly mounted, and with it rose my arm, hand forming a fist over my head. Before I knew what was happening, my fist thundered down onto the hood of the taxi as I uttered a primal growl of outrage. Max watched with amused horror as my furious gaze lingered. The taxi driver began to shout at me as he leaned out the window of his vehicle. A momentary flash of fear passed through me, considering this man’s anger. What if he gets out of the taxi and comes after me? I wondered, but my adrenaline continued to surge. I turned and walked over to the sidewalk to meet Max, and we continued wandering through the crumbling streets of Shanghai, looking for our hostel.
I don’t remember what time of day it was. I’m sure that it was daylight. I can’t remember the color of the taxi. Even the usual cacophony of Chinese traffic and city life drained from my perception. In that moment, I was completely blinded by rage, and out of my mind. I was stunned, too, by my action, since I’m normally capable of using greater discretion before reacting.
Culture shock. China blew my mind. The whole journey had been an experience of nearly endless sensory overload. In my idealism, the images of China that I had conjured were of lush, green mountains, sprawling rice paddies, and peaceful Buddhist monasteries filled with ornate artwork spanning many centuries. In the midst of researching some of the religious and spiritual history of China, I had entirely neglected to consider the state of the country and culture in 2006. I was met by a landscape often so far divorced from nature that the few lingering trees seemed to beg to be put out of their misery.
The sky in Shanghai, like most of eastern China, was frequently filled with thick smog, and the sun was only rarely visible through the dense pale gray haze. Noise was inescapable. Many shops had megaphone-style loudspeakers hanging near their entrances, turned up full-blast, shouting to the masses of people passing by. The sea of vehicles pounded their horns for every imaginable reason, and the constant rise and fall of the Mandarin dialect itself, tonal in nature, seemed to be comprised of variations of what I would consider shouting.
Personal space seemed to be a foreign concept, and in the closer quarters of public spaces, such as train stations, subways, and sidewalks, I often felt my anxiety rise, a reaction to both the intense July heat and humidity, as well as my own claustrophobic reaction to crowds. Any city of moderate size seemed to be striving to recreate the flash and glamor of New York’s Times Square with a Las Vegas twist. Advertising covered nearly every inch of every building, often in bright flashing lights. Streaming videos adorned the sides of many of the taller buildings. Smells of every variety filled the air. From the distinct burn of urine, to fried foods, to fumes from cars and busses, to rotting garbage, when all combined with significant air pollution, it was hard to breathe. In fact, after being in Hong Kong for only two days I developed a cough that lingered throughout the rest of the journey. It became more and more challenging for me to understand how Buddhism could possibly be alive in a country that seemed to me, with all my cultural biases, to be insufferable and unlivable.
Anger was a theme throughout my journey in China. My anger was fed not only by the sensory assault I experienced whenever I walked down the street, but also in numerous accounts of feeling misled, conned, cheated, and scammed, and generally reduced to one of the thousands of white western tourists that flood China every day. It seemed to me that there was much less focus on individuality and individual needs in Chinese culture than I was accustomed to, and on the few occasions I wasn’t overwhelmed, I contemplated the idea. Could it be related to the communist culture that was in the midst of a serious transition to consumer culture? Could it be tied to the fact that China’s population is more than a billion people, and personal space is simply not part of the culture? Both in the midst of my journey and now, it was easy to consider the numerous reasons why China was the way it was, at least in my own limited perspective as an outsider. These contemplations did little to relieve my anger and frustration, though, and rarely brought me to feel any deeper understanding of Chinese culture. In fact, often the only way of dealing with my feelings of anger and overwhelm was to retreat back to my private room, curl up into fetal position on my bed, and fall asleep.
***
Post-China Reflections
When people choose to travel, they are inviting the world to affect them. I have observed that people seem to approach travel with two different attitudes. First, being open to the differences and possibilities that appear. Second, being set in their expectations and sometimes suffering as a result. A huge lesson for me in China was to learn to embody the first attitude, which had been integral in my two previous journeys: to accept what is there, to accept things as they are instead of trying to form the experience to fit my ideals and expectations, and being disappointed when things don’t go the way I hoped. In China, I held tightly to my set of ideals and expectations. They were not fulfilled, for the most part, and the resulting shock was intense and difficult. China was vastly different than I could have expected, and its failure to meet my expectations caused me to feel a great deal of misery and conflict, as well as sufficiently shattering some long-standing illusions I had previously held, not only about Chinese culture, but about the nature of spiritual practice, and about myself.
In reflection, I now see that there were several factors in my journey in China that affected me deeply. Unlike my previous journeys, I wasn’t travelling alone. I was sharing the journey with my boyfriend, and at the time we planned it, I hadn’t realized just how different we were, and how poorly suited we were as travelling companions, not to mention in our relationship. I assumed that we understood each other rather well after having been in a relationship for six months, and was relatively certain that making a journey together would work well. However, we never talked about our motivations, our interests, or even less, the vision each of us held for the relationship itself. Too many assumptions. Too much was left unspoken.
In many ways it was novel to have someone to share my adventures and miseries with. When walking by a megaphone-style loudspeaker, Max and I would sometimes look around to see if anyone was watching, and then turn off the volume entirely, giggling as we rushed away, peeking over our shoulders to see if our prank had been discovered. We sang songs and held hands as we walked down the street, we engaged in intense intellectual debates about the future of China, we commiserated over the shockingly foul public squat toilets, and we ventured into tiny restaurants, never quite knowing what we were ordering. Max often did ridiculous things to make me smile, including once jumping into a public fountain to the amazement of the onlookers.
Though in concept I was glad to be able to share the journey, our perspectives for our shared journey in China, and our lives overall, were too fundamentally different. Max’s main goal was the adventure of it all, to have a good time. But my intention was to make a sacred journey. I wanted to move slowly, to take the time to experience things with all my senses, to listen to the deeper voice within me, to think and feel and ponder and be still and allow peace to seep into my being. This had always been possible when I travelled alone. But in sharing a journey, compromises were necessary. There were times when I felt that Max was humoring me. There were times when I wanted to linger in a place, especially temples, or when I wanted to participate in a sacred ritual, or even create one of my own, but Max wasn’t interested. We were in love, blind though it was, and there was a basic commitment between us to making everything work for the sake of our mutual happiness. Ultimately, the attitudes with which we each approached our journey didn’t match. More often than not, I ended up being the one to compromise, which eventually led me to abandon my vision for the journey altogether.
I spent much of my time in China feeling overwhelmed, crowded, and like I couldn’t hear myself think. I couldn’t seem to find even a moment of solitude. I struggled to get centered in my own thoughts and feelings, and I eventually gave up trying. Max just wanted to explore and have fun, and since I felt so overwhelmed, it was easy to give in. I believe that when I fully gave into his perspective, that’s when my anger began to mount to uncontrollable levels.
While my pilgrimage in China was littered with a series of relationship issues, there were deeper personal problems that had been brewing since I had returned from my journey in Peru and Bolivia. I had been deeply affected by the assault in Bolivia, and my own connection to my inner voice, the voice that communicated to me my deepest needs and motivations in my spiritual path, had been seriously disturbed.
In my state of being following the assault, I overlooked many things. I can now see that much of my decision to go to China was rooted in inertia as I followed my path, continuing as before to seek the sacred by making journeys. I went to China with limited research and knowledge, as well as a lot of personal bias and expectations that my culture and imagination had brought me to hold. I had read a few accounts of the life and journeys of an ancient Chinese Buddhist pilgrim, Hsuan Tsang. I was filled with ideas of the China that was hinted at in art and movies, as well as in the few books relating to Buddhism that I had read over the years. For much of my adult life I have been drawn to Buddhism above all other religions and philosophies. In China I hoped to learn, experientially, deeper truths about my life and what it means to be enlightened. And it has only been in recent reflection that I have come to realize that I did, indeed, learn a great deal of what I wanted to learn. The difference was that the journey to self knowledge in China was hardly peaceful and meditative.
In previous journeys, I’d been seeking to grow and understand, to expand my mind and heart. I wanted more than anything to be able to feel in sync with China, to have that moment of epiphany that I’d felt so many times before when I finally “got” a place. The moment when something would snap into place inside of me, when I would no longer feel like an outsider, but instead absorbed into the flow of my journey. In China, there was no epiphany. The more open and receptive I was, the more overwhelmed I felt, and the more often I’d feel the need to retreat by midday to my private room, soaking up the relative silence and stillness while curled into a ball on my bed.
Somewhere along the way it has become acceptable for hordes of people to be herded through places, spiritual and secular, in the name of tourism. See a place, check it off the list, move on to the next. While institutionalized tourism was minimal in my previous pilgrimages, it was inescapable in China, and was the root of much of my unhappiness. Along the Camino, I had been able to linger for as long as I wanted in little churches, and to be still and quiet in order to experience the place itself. Tourism didn’t interfere with my freedom to experience the sacred. Sure, the biggest cathedrals charged a nominal admission, and often there was a secured pathway around the perimeter of the space that kept the tourists from interfering with those who were there for the purpose of worship or meditation. But it was still possible in those places to experience the sacred in silence and stillness. In Peru and Bolivia, most of the sacred places were outside. Some where guarded and required a small entrance fee, but the spaces themselves beckoned me to sit, to still my mind, and to contemplate, to take my time, go slow, experience silence, linger for a while.
In China, I found it very difficult to experience any spiritual connection at all. It was hard enough to even experience a human connection in the midst of the tourist trade and rampant consumerism. No silence. No means of communing with nature. Few opportunities to linger or even enter into sacred space. I kept looking for something, someplace that I could identify as “sacred,” but found very few outside of Tibet. A temple in Chengdu. A park in Beijing. A juice stand in Hong Kong. I kept trying to pull myself back into the state of mind that I had learned to inhabit in order to see the bigger picture, to find the sacred in everything and every moment. It became a constant struggle. Some days I thought that if the Buddha still existed in China, he was merely in the little jade Buddha necklaces strung around people’s necks on red silk cords. Other times I wondered if Buddhism has thrived in China because of the seeming lack of the sacred in everyday life. In an environment thoroughly divorced from nature, so completely ruled by industry and commercialism, learning to meditate might not only be a nice idea, but necessary in order to maintain one’s sanity.
Tibet was an accidental blessing. China was the plan. I’d never really been drawn to China, but the pull of the Himalaya region of northern India, Nepal, and Tibet had always been strong. Somehow, though, Tibet was deliberately left out of our loosely structured travel plans. I now realize that the entire plan to travel to China was hardly my own. I was complicit in the journey, at best, but I am grateful for the circumstances that brought me to be there. My life kept me on the pilgrimage path, at least in body and mind, if not at heart. After a great deal of reflection, I now realize that I was deeply shut down following my assault in Bolivia. Perhaps in the process of being overwhelmed by China, I was snapped out of my trance and brought back into a more present state of being, with a lot of difficult issues demanding to be dealt with. In reflecting upon my anger as I returned from China, I began to delve into the deep injury that had been dealt to my spirit as a result of the assault. China was a rude awakening, but my experience there was truly transformational. It startled me into a place of readiness to confront that incident with courage and gentleness and begin the process of healing.
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