South of Yecheng

Let me continue to recall a voyage in Western China, into Tibet, picking up where I left off in a previous post.

Mani and I had busted out of the hotel compound and were now walking southward, out of Yecheng. Being Sherpa, Mani could pass as a Chinese national, but not me. Fortunately, I had picked up a hat made of black sheep's wool back in Kashgar, which hid my western features, afro-like. It was early morning, there was a moon, and the road was lined with poplars. Folks were hauling goods on donkey carts, mostly toward the city, but nobody paid special attention to me. That's my memory.

After a couple hours, we caught a convoy of truckers heading south. We traveled perhaps 200 kilometers before we stopped. Word was, a bridge was washed out, and we'd have to wait in a small Muslim town. Here's a map. You'll find Yecheng in the lower left. You'll also note that there aren't any towns worthy of being marked on the route that leads into Ali, in Tibet.

As things go in this part of the world, it's bad form to immediately busy yourself with issues like food and lodging, gesturing into your palate and the like. You hang and let the locals feel you out. That's what we did. It was 1987 and the velcro on my backpack was the object of fascination for local children, and later, the adults. Those hooks and loops were put to the test for better than an hour, I'm sure.

A Tibetan man was stranded in that town. On his truck were hundreds of watermelons, destined for Lhasa, several thousand kilometers away. He figured the Tibetans would shell out major renmibi for the novelty fruit. His plan was now shattered, but he didn't seem fazed. I imagined that the adventures of that Tibetan, who faced disruptions and weirdness (e.g. me, as well as the local Uigurs) with equanimity, would make a nice low-budget movie. "Lhasa Watermelon Run". Black and white.

So, we ate watermelons while the bridge was being repaired south of the village. We ate so many watermelons, we shat red. There were also these very long noodles ("la mian") served as soup or stew, a regional specialty.

Mani and I played gin rummy constantly to pass the time. If we had another encounter with the police, it's possible that the penalties would be stiffer, so there was always some lingering fear. Mani began to see me as an obstacle. He was a professional photographer looking for novel shots in this part of the world, but my presence screamed "trespassing foreigner". We'd been together a couple weeks now, and he had decided that we our luck was better when he won the card games. In the end, nobody contacted the police to rat on us...I suspect that local dislike of Han authorities benefited us.

After maybe four days we were able to continue. Heading south toward Ali, the memories are dim. In the distance, a convoy of trucks winding slowly up a pass, like ants traversing the edge of a taffy ribbon. Little outposts serving noodles. I got the feeling that the workers in these regions, all male, had been sent out here as punishment. Things were cold and desolate in the Takla Makan desert...beautiful for a traveler, but probably incredibly tedious from the point of view of a companionless grunt. At one stop, however, two pairs of female legs emerged from a truck, and the workers lost any semblance of composure. I assume the women were prostitutes...fairly good-looking, and dressed inappropriately for the cold.

One thing I'll never forget is the golden mountain. It was perhaps 9:00 in the morning and this pyramidal peak must have been dusted with mica or some other reflective mineral. It really gleamed. I urged Mani to take a photo, but he knew that the effect would be lost...it was simply a monstrous chunk of gold. So, that intense goldness must be added to the list of amazing things that can't be photographed...

*a deep, blue, cloudless sky

*pure blackness in a cave

*the intense, encompassing whiteness you get when you're walking on the snow, in the clouds, with the sun threatening to break through

Supposedly, K2 could be seen from that region. Nobody was there to point it out amongst the other distant peaks, however.

Toilet paper isn't sold in that part of the world. I found a communist youth magazine that sufficed, however. The right, absorbent texture; nothing glossy. Yes, those pages were endowed with pics of all the revolutionary heroes.

At some point, we were traveling a narrow one way road, to one side a steep bank, to the other a lake. We encountered a convoy traveling in the opposite direction. Neither convoy seemed interested in reversing course. I'm not sure how this conflict was settled. Rather than slugging it out, it seems that both parties decided to relax and snack near the lake; a very sedate game of "chicken". We might have hung there for 2 hours. The incident brought to mind Dr. Seuss's tale of the Zax.

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Above is a photo of postcard. Mani made postcards as his livelihood. That's Mt. Mustagh Ata in China. Despite the gentle slopes, it peaks at 7500 meters...one hell of a footprint. Actually, the pic was probably taken from the Karakoram Highway on the way to Kashgar, a week or so prior to the travels described above. I'll have to write about that later.

A "Penalty Decision" from China, 1987

My father dug up this little treasure and sent it to me. Seeing it, I chuckle. It's a "penalty decision" for trespassing into off-limit areas in China.

The town was Yecheng. It's about 200 kilometers south of Kashgar, and maybe 1,000 kilometers north of Tibet. My goal was to get into Tibet from Kashgar, and passing through Yecheng was the only efficient way to do it. The alternatives might have added 5,000 kilometers to the trip.

My traveling partner, Mani, and I found a hotel in Yecheng. It wasn't long before a policeman arrived and roused us (I feigned sleep when he entered the hotel room...somehow that wasn't an effective strategy). We were donkey-carted off to the police station where we were hit with the above penalty, which didn't amount to much by Western standards. Nobody could speak English, but the police were able to communicate by opening a little notebook in which handwritten explanations of various offenses were available in English. The manual was quite detailed...they even had foreseen the various objections that offenders might offer, with rebuttals following.

I was also asked to write an "auto-confession"...an apology to the People's Republic of China. I could have written just about anything, given the total lack of English skills. I wrote that my ancestors would be ashamed of me.

Back out on the street, we purchased bus tickets back to Kashgar for the following day. If the police accosted us, we could simply show the tickets as proof that we certainly planned to head north. Of course, we didn't. Around 4:00 in the morning, we exited the hotel. Unfortunately, there was a chain link fence surrounding the hotel, and we had to quietly bust open the gate to get out.

We wandered south for a couple hours before catching a truck heading into Tibet. That's another longggg story....

The Tibetan Situation

Above is an ancient Mani stone defaced with Maoist graffiti in the Ganesh Himal region of Nepal.

Scour the message boards and video sites, and you'll find a very polarized take on the riots in Tibet. The Chinese government point of view is surprisingly well-represented in these nooks and crannies of the internet, possibly because of a PRC-organized spam campaign. When this viewpoint is expressed in video, it is generally accompanied by bombastic, militaristic music.

Given the polarization, it's difficult to discern any middle ground in these debates. There's an order of magnitude difference in death toll estimates between the sides. The Chinese cite the Qing Dynasty's presence in Tibet from 1600-1900; the Tibetans say the presence was minimal. The Chinese refer to pre-1950 Tibet as a society of slaves, but others describe the division of labor as broad and reasonably egalitarian. The "Free Tibet" crowd cites 1.2 million deaths and 6,000 destroyed temples in the initial invasions of Tibet; the Chinese government calls these figures gross exaggerations.

Etc.

I'm trying to hear out the Chinese viewpoint. However, there is one series of arguments that continually strains credulity, and thus casts doubt on all the Chinese contentions: to quote China's communist party chief in Tibet, Zhang Qingli, the Dalai Lama is a "wolf in monk’s robe, a devil with a human face but the heart of a beast". He sat contentedly on his throne, overseeing a slave society that worshipped him as a god. Currently, he has no interest in practical solutions for Tibet, since the strife enables him to cavort with Hollywood darlings like Richard Gere. The CIA funds his operations in Dharamsala. Blah, blah, blah.

There is no evidence for these claims. Search YouTube and you'll find myriad videos of the Dalai Lama. He preaches only non-violence. Unbeknownst, apparently, to the Han Chinese who flood the message boards, the Dalai Lama has had harsh words for Tibetans who resort to violence. The violence instigated by monks demonstrates that these Tibetans certainly are lacking a traditional grounding in Buddhism, courtesy of the Chinese.

The argument that the Dalai Lama was a repressive God-King is absurd. He was a mere teenager when the Chinese army swept into Tibet. In fact, his early exposures to foreigners and his fascination with science/technology gave reasons to suspect that he might well have transformed Tibet, if given the chance.

As far as I can see, the arguments for CIA funding are real stretches. It's true that the CIA funded Tibetan paramilitary training more than 50 years ago. I've yet to see the scantest evidence that it's true today. One thing for sure: if some anti-Western politician in the Congo has a car accident, you can be certain that someone will accuse the CIA of masterminding it.

I'm hardly a fan of the Bush administration. But Condoleeza Rice expressed the current situation succinctly: "There has been a kind of missed opportunity here for the Chinese to engage the [Dalai Lama]”. The Chinese propensity to demonize the Dalai Lama is utterly out of touch with any evidence. The last Chinese leader who met with the Dalai Lama was Mao himself, who had some words of praise for the 15 year old. Since then, one has got to wonder if China's succession of leaders fear that the incarnation of Chenrezig will place a whammy on them if close physical proximity is allowed.

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The Hans seem rather astonished that the Tibetans would revolt. They are allowed 2 or 3 children, unlike ordinary Chinese. University entrance requirements are lowered for Tibetans, and many other minorities. The Tibetans receive funds and medical care that they never saw 50 years ago. Roads and trains now access Tibet. Etc.

When debating the situation in Tibet, the Chinese are quick to invoke the historical treatment of American Indians (not to mention the English treatment of Scots!). One might be tempted to point out that these crimes were committed 150 years ago, that Americans can and do express regret at their government's actions in these realms, etc. This is sometimes a mistake, however. The Chinese, you see, are not necessarily arguing that American actions were criminal or regretful. They are arguing that the American actions were necessary for the progress of the Indian population. Why, then, should Americans criticize the Chinese for the advancement of the Tibetans? Stability, harmony, and "progress"...the Chinese find it nearly incomprehensible that some folks have other priorities.

I'd ask the Han to see things from the Tibetan point of view. Not only did the Chinese flush the Tibetan's revered leader into India, but they denounced him in the harshest terms. They still denounce him. Not only do they denounce him, but they attempt to redirect Tibetans' feelings of reverence to new authority figures (e.g. Mao) and doctrines (Maoism) in the most fustian manner imaginable. Witness the Chinese efforts to select and groom new, Maoist-friendly candidates for the positions of certain incarnate lamas. A new-generation Dalai Lama who promotes the view that religion is the opiate of the masses! Truly bizarre!

Until the Chinese adopt a reality-based attitude toward the Dalai Lama and Tibetan Buddhism, they should not be surprised at the Tibetan's lack of "gratitude".

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In one online discussion, a defender of the Chinese approach did suggest that the venom directed at the Dalai Lama may be intended to focus Han Chinese anger off the Tibetan people, and onto a single scapegoat for the "good of the nation". Not entirely implausible. Oddly tantric. If so, however, the Chinese may be forgetting that the focus of their anger is the also the focus of Tibetans' aspirations.