Vignettes of the World
By Nic Dunlop Tuol Svay Prey, the district in Phnom Penh where the prison is located, roughly translates as “The Hill of the Poison Fruit Tree” Tuol means hillock. Sleng is also the name of a tree with extremely poisonous fruit.[i] In this …
There was a time when Hong Kong was considered China’s window to the world. In Chinese, it is said that Hong Kong faces the world with China at its back. If we consider the geography, geopolitics, economy and cultures of Hong Kong, what really provides …
I am saving this entry to the last because this boy truly, truly moved me. This young ten-year-old worked at his family’s Uighur restaurant. On one of our last days in Lhasa, a group of us went to this restaurant for dinner. When we sat down, he served us tea. One cup by the other, he poured the tea with incredible poise – as he himself was not that much taller than the dining table.
We were already impressed, and being the “kid-nnibal” that I am, I asked him some personal questions, such as how old he was, and if I could take a picture with him. He did not want to take a picture, and asked us to go ahead and order.
The “big pot chicken” is a popular dish at the Uighur restaurants in China. It comes in a sweet tomato base with chicken and Uighur hand-pressed noodles, wok-friend. One of us asked, “how big is this small-sized ‘big pot chicken’?” The waiter (an older child) gestured a plate to show us how big this small sized dish was. We thought that was not helpful.
After five minutes of indecision, we decided to go for the small size. That was when the young ten-year-old brought an empty plate up two staircases. “Miss, this is the plate for the small sized big pot chicken.”
I was touched, and tears swelled.
The next day, I brought candies, some chocolates, and some drawing paper and crayons to the restaurant. The two children recognized me. The older child was happy to see me, and thanked me for the gift. But the ten-year-old was a bit shy. He walked away from me when I tried to talk to him. So I told them, make sure you find some time to draw and paint, and enjoy the candies. Before I left, I turned around to look at the ten year old. There was this smile on his face, truly happy, truly sweet.
The last night in Tibet, I lied in bed sleepless and crying. I knew that there were many more children less fortunate than this ten year old. I knew also that there were many more children far more fortunate. He was precocious, and I felt like by giving him candies and crayons I could remind him that somebody thought he was entitled to simple childhood pleasures, of liking sweets, of finding joy in creative talents. I wish he did not have to serve me dinner that night, but that he did, also made me realize how fortunate I was growing up.
It has been over a decade since our visit to Tibet. The boy will have become a young man by now. He would not remember me, for sure, and neither would I recognize him if given the chance to see him again. Yet, as Anthony Bourdain has said, “it is the small acts of kindness that matters.” I shall always remember that both he and I were touched on our chanced meeting in Tibet.
Have you ever had the experience that, on the nth day of your trip, you have lost track of time? That was Tibet to me. It is an environment that constantly entices you away from the established routines and thoughts that structure your life in …
Unlike Lhasa, Namtso is forever frozen in time.
If there is one piece of advice I have for travelers going to Tibet, it is that they must bring some warm clothing with them, at least a sturdy, layered windbreaker and a scarf.
It was frigid up at Namtso. At an altitude of 4,718 metres, the lake is in winter year-round. The area frequently turns stormy subject to the whims of nature. Yet many natives still live in this severe environment. Being a holy lake in Tibet, the Namtso attracts tourists throughout the year, and tourism has enabled a livelihood that the Tibetans have caught on in order to survive.
The scenery at Namtso amply compensated for the terrible cold. We arrived on a gloomy morning. The lake was enveloped by a range of snowy-topped mountains from afar. The vast body of water flowed peacefully, not unlike the tides of a calm ocean. Occasionally the sun shone, giving a false glimmer of hope that there might be warmth coming, but it would soon hide coyly behind the clouds again. In fact, it snowed for a little bit after. Many natives were leading horses and yaks for the tourists to ride on, and there were no lack of activities despite the bitter cold.
We walked around to explore the area. Even at this altitude and cold there was a monastery nearby. Although I did not visit the monastery, the signs of Tibet’s religious heritage were seen everywhere. Scripture thangkas were hung, fluttering by the wind. A man sat amidst a huge pile of stones, inscribing Tibetan Sanskrit onto the tablets with a small booklet of scripture as his reference.
There was a settlement area near the lake, and this would be the only opportunity I had in this trip to observe a Tibetan home. Some structures were built, and some others were canvas-covered makeshift tents similar to the Mongolian yurts. We went into a stall-like structure and found ourselves in a family-run setup serving food. Surely, it was too primitive to be called a restaurant, yet the hospitality was no less wanting.
We sat down and eagerly waited for hot bowls of noodles. There was a picture of the Panchen Lama in the home, taking the place of the Dalai Lama, who was in exile and thus whose picture could not be displayed. On the menu was the one and only offer – a lamb soup noodle. As much as I would like to enjoy local food, lamb was the one thing that I really could not stomach. I could take a minimal amount of mutton, but to have soup that was cooked with bones and intestines could make me barf. I thus opted for ramen instead.
We were free to look at the open kitchen as we waited. The Tibetans leading nomadic lives rely on dried yak dung as their fuel. I was told that, once dried, the cow dung was clean and they freely used their hands to handle it as fuel. The pot of mutton soup was simmering, but we were told that it was not ready yet. I also waited a long time for my ramen.
We slurped the noodles with great anticipation. Yet just after the first bite we looked at each other in disappointment: the noodles were not hot. It was very steamy but not hot. In Tibet, we came to experience our high school science lesson in real life: the air pressure was so low at high altitude that the boiling point of water was much lower than 100 degrees Celsius. That explained why so much time was needed to cook the noodles. The “boiling water” was at a lukewarm temperature. The mother looked at us eagerly to see if we liked our lunch, and that was instead what kept us warm.
The children of the family came around us, wearing heavy rags. We could not talk, because most of them spoke Tibetan only. Yet we did communicate, especially with a lovely little one who knew how to conduct herself in front of our cameras, posing for pictures with ease. They knew what kept the tourists’ hearts.
I have heard of people meeting the rich Tibetans who ran businesses and profited enormously from the development of Lhasa, especially by tourism. Yet I daresay that poverty was still the norm for the native Tibetans and a lot of the non-Han Chinese inhabitants in Tibet. Someone at Harvard Business School has come up with the idea of Yaksmere, the use of Yak fur to make cashmere. That would be one way that the developed world can bridge the gap between a primitive economy and the demands for pricey products by the consumers of the world. I surely hope that, one day, these kinds of ideas would blossom into viable businesses that lift the Tibetans’ standard of living, one yak at a time.
No one has ever seen the dead body of a vulture. The sky burial might be one of the most fascinating and unique aspects of Tibetan culture. When I talk about the sky burial with people outside of Tibet, they often tell me, “that is …
The trip to Shigatse was the highlight of this trip, if not the highlight of my life. Shigatse’s status in Tibet is next to Lhasa. Our experience in Shigatse was second to none though, because we saw him. The Panchen Lama! What I thought to …
We visited the Potala Palace on our first full day in Lhasa. In the morning we went there to see the building from ground up. We were pleasantly surprised to find ourselves walking amongst an avid morning worship by the Tibetan people. They walked the streets with their prayer wheels swirling in hand, their eyes half-closed, their minds preoccupied with one scripture or other. They were not concerned with the tourists who took pictures of them as if this scene were anything new. Facing the Potala Palace, they bowed down completely, full body styled. Hands together, down to the heart, bowed to the ground, kneeled, and their bodies laid on the ground flat with their hands sliding along.
We noticed that the Tibetans like dogs, and they brought their pets along for this morning worship, dogs wearing lovely collars with big round religious bells. It was an awesome display of the Tibetan people’s faith, undeterred by the busy traffic along Beijing Road. The Tibetans have embraced the pace of development without giving up religion, the root of their existence.
The hike up the Potala Palace in the afternoon was even more strenuous than the hike up four floors in our hotel, and we were embarrassed to find ourselves the last ones to arrive at the ticket booth, us being the youngest ones in our tour group. Soon enough I have entered the Palace, and was facing the burial altars for the former Dalai’s.
There are many kinds of burial in Tibet, and I will talk about the sky burial in an upcoming entry. The Dalai’s, though, have a special kind of burial called the “sitting burial.” When they pass away, people put them in sitting posture and build a burial altar for them, with special embalmment to preserve their bodies. The burial altars are different for different Dalai’s. The Dalai that contributed more to the wealth, development and well-being of Tibet are immortalized with more gold and treasures. We could tell that the Dalai that died young received less and had a smaller altar.
There was no altar for the Sixth Dalai, and that intrigued me.
The reason being that he wasn’t following one of the most important rules for the Buddhist monks, namely, celibacy. Legend has it that, because the Sixth Dalai was chosen when he was 15 years old, he had already learned the art of human love, and he would go out to the city at night to woo beautiful women with romantic poetry.
The main idea in Tibetan Buddhism and politics is that the living Buddha (the Dalai being the political leader) keeps reincarnating. One life after another, when one living Buddha passes away, he will reincarnate to his next life. The next Dalai is chosen amongst very young children, some one to five years after the death of the last one, when the child reaches five to six years old. It is believed that the living Buddha is living one life that doesn’t end. In his sixth life, the Dalai had romantic emotions; as he was capable of loving, he did not deny the nature that made him human.
The choosing of the Dalai’s seems inhuman to me, the foreigner, as how is it fair that a five year old is told to be the political leader of a people and to forego all the pleasure there is that life offers? Would he later come to question his own identity as the real Buddha reincarnated, and would he wonder whether Buddhism is the ultimate truth? The very idea of picking a Dalai goes against the precepts of western modernity, which upholds a self-chosen destiny.
I came out of the Potala Palace satisfied, having learned that, for once, the Dalai had known life as a common man.
When we arrived at Lhasa, we were told not to shower or exercise on our first day. We did both, as who could pass up the first chance of showering after two days without it on the train? The walk up four floors to our …
