The journey of my summer 2013 cannot be simply described as
having many tear-shedding frustrations
and serendipitous encounters. From now on I accept that every journey
will be blessed with lots of them.
What truly stand out to me in my entire journey from the Subcontinent
of India to the Roof of the World of Tibet via the mountain country of Nepal and
back to the basin of Sichuan, were the numerous people who extended their
helping hands to me, known and unknown to me previously. To name a few, I think
of my Chinese friends who hosted me when I missed my flight to Delhi in
Hangzhou and Shanghai, of my professor Rob and his collaborators who arranged
everything for me before I even arrived in India, of Arnab and Susmita who
welcomed me in their homes in Delhi and showed me the Eternal Gandhi museum
when I had to find a place to stay in Delhi because of the missed flight, of my
FES classmate Divita who took me around Hyderabad, of people at the NGO Samuha
in Northern Karnataka who brought me and my professors into the villages and
the villagers who hosted us, of the staff and students at the ACARA social
enterprises boot camp in Bangalore who let me participate in their courses, of
the Green Path Hotel owner who gave me a free tour of his organic farm outside
of Bangalore, of Mamta, Vishal, Sir Tandan, Oma and many more at the NGO
Jagriti and my later translator Naresh in Kullu who broke their legs to help me
accomplish my research and accommodate my requests, of every woman and man in the
villages around Kullu who welcomed me into their kitchens, answered my
relentless questions and served me overly-sweet milk tea and food, of the apple
pickers and owners on the road side who gave me hugful of free fruits, of Aunt Susma
who made me breakfast while staying in her guest house, of her son-in-law who
gave me a free ride to meet my friend Hal close to Dharamshala, of a
Tibetan-in-exile named Zheba in Mcleod Ganji who treated me ginger lemon honey
tea and carried my suitcase to the bus station, of my
never-before-met-but-known-through-the-youth-climate-network friend Rajesh in
Kathmandu who hosted me, cooked breakfast and took me to see the major wonders
of Kathmandu in one day on public vans, of the bus driver who helped me connect
to another bus to the reach the border town of Tatopani, of the pupils on the
bus who chatted with me and took me to a guest house, of a Nepali travel agent
who in the next morning took me to the border check point from my hostel and
carried my suitcase, of Yangyang a young Chinese working in the Tibetan/Napali
tourism industry who took over the suitcase from the checkpoint on, helped me
find a van back to Lhasa and brought me to taste the best yogurt, sweet tea and
shows in Lhasa, of my remote relative
and his friends who hosted me, cooked for me, used their “connections” to get
me a ticket to the Potala Palace and waited in line for me to get my train
ticket, and of my father who arranged things for me from afar and made sure he
put money back into the credit card and of my boyfriend who had to listen to my
frustrations and cries on the phone while being 16 hours of time zones apart...
The list cannot possibly end and I am not sure how I would ever fully repay
their generosities.
Traveling alone undeniably enhanced the chances of
encountering memorable personalities, laughing and heartbroken stories, and
making discoveries by accidents and sagacity. I had too much time to think over
what just happened and what it all meant while traveling through one bumpy bus
ride after another. But I had too little time to write it down, as whenever I
did, I had to devote it to typing notes from interviews and/or writing a paper
in collaboration with my college professor. But in this short note, I will jot
down whatever enlightenments and discoveries I can remember throughout the
journey.
On spiritual
“perspectives”
What do you do when during one summer you came across people
belonging to four different religious/spiritual practices, two of which told
you their paths were the only ones to truth while the other two demonstrated
their devotion by their relentless worshipping
to their gods and Buddha? Learning and being open to different
perspectives have been the mantra of my American education and underpinned my
traveling and research endeavors all over the world. But what happens when
these “perspectives” into truth are in irreconcilable contrast? All
cultural-political-religious systems carry their own set of logics, metrics, and
practices developed over thousands of years. No matter how they have advanced
or protracted the societies, no matter how they have uplifted the spirits of
the people or burned their bodies, there are people in either end of the
hierarchy perpetuating the structure. Are there right and wrong perspectives?
Is it rational for me to have my own judgment? Will I find peace following one
or none? Or perhaps it is really possible to have my own belief system blending
the good of others and good only? Understanding different perspectives seems to
be both a blessing and a curse.
The followers of the Guru Swamiji in Kullu, many of which
were the wandering souls of the 60s if you will, realized through the teachings
of Swami that the reality is only the waking state and your true consciousness lies
in your dreams and your mediation. You shall have peace by tapping into the
true source of universal knowledge that is within yourself. Swamiji saved them in the crumbling years of
60s and 70s and provided them a place in Kullu to seek their own peace (not
possibly that of the world as they later realize) while giving them enough
freedom to do what they need to do in life.
Then you have an American couple on the train who are such thank-God-there-is-FoxNews,
Obama-is-a-curse-to-the-country, government-handout-is-bad,
blacks-and-Indians-are-naturally-lazy and Jesus-love-you Christians from South
Carolina. They were teaching English in Dongguan – the manufacturing capital of
China before spending a fortune in Tibet for the 3rd time in 15 years.
They admired China and Chinese people for being the most capitalist and
hardworking. For them and if only I can believe too, humans came from one man
and one woman. Following Jesus is the only path to truth. Only Jesus can decide
who is to go up to Heaven or down Hell. They wish the Tibetan Buddhism devotees
who impoverish themselves by kowtowing 10 thousand times and travel hundreds of
miles on foot and over so as to have a better life can go to Heaven. “But you
know it is not our choice. The path is controlled by God.” It was both
frustrating and necessary to engage in such conversations, which both the old
man and I could obviously feel. The man said we were from such different
generations and it was important for us to know what the younger generations
were thinking because we were the future. I wanted to know how the
Republican/FoxNews discourses run through the thinking and languages of an
ordinary man and woman.
On Tibet
I thought I could finally say a word or two about Tibet, now
having traveled through the Tibetan communities on both sides of the Himalaya,
from India to Nepal to Tibet. I have a few narratives from people and museums
on both sides – far from enough to present a fuller picture. But this
collection of what I saw and heard tells me that the reality is sometimes
simpler and sometimes more complicated than either side presents. I spent a night and a day in
Dharamshala/McLeod Ganji, where the 14th Dalai Lama retreated and
established the “Tibetan government in-exile.” McLeod Ganji is a small but
rightfully touristy town set half way between Dharamshala at the bottom of
mountain and the snow-capped peaks
of the…The first night before Sunset, I stumbled into a Buddhist temple
that hid itself into the forest down hill off the bustling streets of McLeod
Ganji. A sign before the entrance into the temple said “monk residence,
visitors entry with permission.” I strolled around the temple hoping to acquire
such permission, until finally one monk saw me and approached me. I asked if I
could still visit even it was so late. He gladly invited me into the temple,
unlocked the gate into the inner hall, and told me the name of all the statues
inside the temple. After a while he asked me where I was from. I was reminded
of the warning my landlady’s son-in-law told me, that I should not tell people
in McLeod Ganji that I was from China because 80% of the population was
Tibetan. “Just pretend you were American.” But I have decided that if I were to
seek meaningful conversations I shall be honest to begin with and so replied
the monk, “Chengdu, Sichuan province.” He smiled at me, nodding his head.
“Are there a lot of Chinese
visiting here?”
“Yes, sometimes.”
“Oh, that’s good to hear.”
“Chinese people, no problem. His
Holiness said the Chinese people are good.”
A little bit surprised to hear
this, I mumbled something I remember that did not make any sense to him perhaps
– but basically something about the “yes it is big politics between the
governments.”
As he took me to another hall to
see Mandala made of sand by the monks, I asked when he came to India. He said
more than 10 years ago and most of his families were still in China. “I do miss
them but you can’t go back.”
The next morning I went to visit
the main Buddhist temple and a small museum right next to it. I had earlier seen
a piece of wall on a quite street that said “Evidence of Tibet being an
independent country.” There was a picture of the Tibetan flag appearing on a
1934 National Geography magazine, next to two other countries, a photocopy of a
Tibetan diplomat’s passport with stamps from several countries, and another
picture showing the full government cabinet with a visiting British
official. In and outside of the Temple,
I saw posters depicting the image of an eight-year boy – the Banchan Lama who
was allegedly kidnapped and put under house
arrest by the Chinese government about 16 years ago – with the demand to the
Chinese government to return him to the Tibetan people. The museum, free of
admission, presented a fuller story of the struggles of Tibetan people had been
enduring ever since the communist party of the new China “invaded” Tibet in
1951. The narrative began in 1951, when right after China’s independence in
1949, the party sent an army to invade Tibet. The then 13th Dalai Lama,
who had in the 1930s warned the Tibetan people about the imminent threat of the
red ideology, organized a brave but eventually ineffective army with mainly
volunteers to fight off the invading People’s Liberation Army. Unable to defend themselves, the Tibetan
government was force into signing the “peaceful liberation treaty” with the
communist party. Since then, tens of thousands of Tibetans began escaping into
Nepal and India, walking all the way with and without their families. Because
life after 1951 did not seem to get better, more Tibetans ran away, until 1959,
the 14th Dalai Lama and his government decided it was time for him
to go. The presentations accused the Chinese mainly on the following accounts:
1) cultural assimilation, making Tibetans the minority of their own land, 2)
destruction of important Tibetan temples and religious sites especially during
the Cultural Revolution, 3) environmental degradation: cutting down Tibet’s
trees and mining away its resources, 4) the kidnapping of the young 11th
Banchan Lama and erecting another one, etc. One part of the exhibition made
clear 2 demands: 1) make Tibet a true autonomy, 2) let the Dalai Lama return to
Tibet. His Holiness’s vision for the
future of Tibet includes building it into a true democracy.
As an environmentalist and anthropologically inclined person, these
accusations speak directly to me. But it is easy to see how these narratives also
capture the imaginations of the western masses. But it is perhaps as one-sided
as story made believe on the Chinese side, as I tell the story later.
The next noon, having registered a two-hour
yoga drop-in session for 2 pm, I went on another road in McLeod Ganji in search
of the Tibet Hope Center whose names appeared on many posters around the city.
I found this three-story dilapidated building behind the Hope Café. One young
man was sitting on a chiar outside of the building and another woman was
ruffling through bags of what seemed to me to be clothes and books. I asked the
young man if he could give me an introduction of the Center and he explained
that it was mainly a volunteer-run place to teach Tibetans English and other
languages but right now they were moving to another close-by building. He asked
if I was from Korea. I said no, “I am from Chengdu, China.” He then pointed me
to the woman, “She can speak a little Chinese. I can’t.” The woman looked at me
and said, “Yi Diandian (just a little).” Then another man, who always also
helping move the furniture, came back by and asked “Are you from China? Where?”
I told him again and also that I had been doing some research in Kullu, a
close-by district. He then started speaking in Chinese and told me no Chinese
dared to tell they were from the mainland here. He asked me to wait until they
finished moving and then we could chat. I gladly agreed and offered to help
move, under the drizzling rain. Later we sat down at Hope Café and both ordered
ginger lemon honey tea because I was coming down with a soar throat due to the
incessant rain in Dharamshala. I was not expecting to be sitting down with a
Tibetan to have a real chat, although I had wanted somebody to tell me a more
complicated story.
I realized how lucky I was to be walking
the road that Zhebang could perhaps never return. The road from Tibet to India
via Nepal was a one-way street for the runaway Tibetans.
We met again at a Tibetan
restaurant. I ordered a Thupka (Tibetan soup noodle) made with my favorite sweet
potato noodle. It turned out to be not enough for me. He surprisingly simply
ordered fried momos. This time I learned that he was engaged, with a British
woman. She was the daughter of the documentary director for whom he worked as a
translator. They were going to get married in October and later he would go to
England. I congratulated on his
engagement and told him I was truly happy for the new life ahead of you.
After dinner, he insisted on
helping me carry my luggage to the bus station. We walked back to my hotel. He mounted
the 15-kg suitcase onto his shoulder, and we walked to the bus station in the
drizzling rain. It was the same rain that drizzled onto me when I first arrived
in McLeod Ganji a day ago – when my hotel owner offered a 300-rupee balcony
room and insisted on taking my suitcase for me as we walked to see his “house.”
At that time I did not quite believe when he said he liked Chinese tourists as
I told him where I was from. I was welcomed and sent off all so properly by
both Indians and Tibetans living here.
Sitting in the bus with an Israeli
tourist next to me and watching McLeod Ganji slipping away from me, I realized
how the individuals could be so much greater than the mask called nationality
they were wearing and how fragile politics was in front of open hearts.
After a sleepless night on the bus, the passengers were
dropped off on the road side of a place unknown to me. I shared a van with two
other Danish students to the Delhi airport. The steaming but gently so morning
heat replaced the damp and cold weather in McLeod Ganji. I could not wait to
return to the grace of the Himalayan. By 6 pm that day, I had landed in the
lavishly green valley of Kathmandu, Nepal. I made friends with a Nepalese
student who about 2 months again responded to my email about a youth climate
conference in Beijing. So now, probably for the first time in my life, I had a
friend picking me up in a strange country. The next day Rajesh took me to the
most famous Hindu and Tibetan Buddhist temples in Kathmandu.
I have
little to say about Tibetans in Nepal for the two nights I spent in Kathmandu. As
far as my steps reached, there were Chinese tourists all over the place. For
what I know, the great Buddha was born in Nepal. There are many important
Buddhist temples in Nepal. Most of them seemed to be attended by Tibetan
Buddhists. His Holiness’s pictures were everywhere to be seen in the temples. I
saw Chinese tourists busy taking photos of the Buddha, together with His
Holiness’ pictures. One tourist was asking directly in Chinese if she could take
a picture of Dalai’s photo, and the monk replied in Chinese with a big smile on
the face “yes please feel free.”
In a Nepalese-owned Tibetan crafts
shop, I found the Tibetan flag – the same one that appeared in the 1934
National Geography and that in all the Free-Tibet demonstrations. I was told
due to agreement with the Chinese government, the Tibetan flag with “free
Tibet” on it was banned in Nepal. But the shop owner, as if he wanted to show
me the best he got in his small shop, quietly proudly took out a “free Tibet”
flag under the piles of hand-woven crafts. I thanked him for showing it to me
but turned off the deal. But it seemed to me there was business to be made under
the ban.
Nepal, sandwiched between China and
India, is the most important passageway out for Tibetan refugees, either to
stay in Nepal, go to India or elsewhere in the world. It was a few years ago
when the border became more open for tourists, Chinese tourists. Since then,
I left Kathmandu after two nights’
stay with Rajesh. I rushed onto a local bus that would go to the direction of
the border but require me to transfer.
... To be continued
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