夏河

I’m just back from a very interesting experience in a town called Xia He. I went without a computer, and things were so very different from anything I’ve experienced before, I decided early on just to write things down by hand and transcribe it when I got back to town. Well, I’m back in town. Here, as it happened, was my weekend. As always, you can click on the photo for a larger version. And there are many more photos in the gallery!

Near the beginning of the pilgrim circle.

It’s hard to take photos here because the people are pretty intensely involved in a religious act and I feel more than a little bit intrusive. Also, it’s not really a tourist site: the pilgrims outnumber the tourists probably 100:1.

The bus ride was a trip. I tried to wake naturally, so naturally I overslept and missed the direct bus. I had to switch in a Muslim town halfway along.

Oh, I’m getting funny looks from the pilgrims. (I think part of the point is not to stop) so I’ll be on my way. Not that anyone is giving any of the monks funny looks: a lot of them are standing around sending text messages on their手机 (cellphones).

Near the Gongtang Chorten shtupa.

So yes, people do stop to pee. At first I thought they didn’t because most everyone was hopping a fence to pee before they started the circle. There’s nothing like watching an old Tibetan woman doing her business.

As for the rituals taking place around me, I have no idea what folks are doing. Some of the women remove their hats when passing open doors (into temples and monks’ quarters by the looks of them). Some people stop and bow.



Wow, some of these folks are old. I can’t even guess—they’re pretty rugged looking. There is a lot of text (in the guidebook and on the walls of the hotel) about the local nomads—I’m starting to think they mean that literally.

I paid to get into a shtupa tower. I got a little Chinese language tour of the interior photos (this is the 4th Dalai Lama. This is the 8th Dalai Lama. This is the 12th some-other-Lama). There were four large Buddhas around the square (well, at least three of them were Buddhas: the fourth looked like a lady), and there were hundreds of small ones in little cabinets throughout the building—all the way up to the top.



There were many electric lamps, but on the first floor they were burning some sort of tallow candle or lamp. Smelled pretty funky.

So I’m attracting a crowd again by writing. I’m also sitting next to a beggar. There’s a younger lady, maybe my age, prostrating herself a few feet down. I’m on a little stone platform—maybe this isn’t a beggar, but rather it’s this lady’s job to keep the dust off this platform? There are also blankets and little hand pads sitting here so that you don’t get too dusty. Yep: my mistake. That’s no beggar: she’s renting out the blankets. Think I need to pay for my seat?

Back on the trail

I’m keeping pretty good pace with the decidedly un-ceremonial greasing of the prayer wheels (which a monk told me are called money wheels). A middle aged man and a little girl are using Pepsi bottles fitted with long nozzles to do the job.
Quite a few of the pilgrims wear gloves or have scarves wrapped around their wheel turning hands. The tower just past (what I think is the) the halfway point is whitewashed, but there is a bare spot on its face. I was thinking people touch it on their way by, but I just saw a lady put her forehead up against it for a good long while. How many pilgrims' foreheads does it take to wear away a paint job?

…

There are few wheels on this side—just a long dusty path, with lots of places for bowing. I just passed a group of 20 or 30 little hermitages up on the side of the hill. 3 or 4 feet tall, about 5 feet by 7. They seem to be right above the holy-of-holies, a pretty elaborate temple that has a big smudge pot outside, prayer flags, and drumming coming from inside of it.



I feel like I’m a little early for this part of the trail—I’m above the monastery a little bit up the hill. They say the chanting at dusk fills the whole valley. There’s still a while to go for dusk though.

At the Nomad Cafe

There is one last tower, which people walk around a good number of times, and finally two last galleries of wheels. And then you’re back in town with the mix of Muslim, Han, and Tibetan vendors and restaurants. I finally did hear the chanting near the end—the monks’ quarters are near the end of the circle, and judging by the sound, they were most definitely occupied.

Also near the end I passed two pilgrims doing the full prostrate: kneel, face plant, clasp hands over head, kneel, stand, take two steps, repeat. They were very, very dusty.

Now it’s time for dinner. I’m sticking with the book’s recommendation for now. I’m on a 3rd floor terrace. The Brits at the next table admit to being afraid of street food. I told them to get over it and enjoy the street meat while they have the chance. Against their advice, I’m having the boiled yak.

They were a shocked, simply shocked, to hear me speaking Chinese with the waitress. In the process of telling the story of their trip, they also complained about the service in Chinese restaurants. I explained that generally the 服务员, once they take your order, will pretty much ignore you unless you call them over. So I taught them the word, and when my first course arrived the lady leaned over and said “they’re better with vinegar and chili.” So I called “Fuwuyuan!” and the the lady said “Oh, he’ll teach by example.” I felt a bit like a performing monkey at that point. But she was right: the dumplings were better with 醋和辣椒。

In case you were wondering: the yak rocked!

Breakfast

There’s a total hostel atmosphere here at the Overseas Tibetan Hotel. Right down to the English breakfast and Israeli backpackers.

A bit about the bus ride out here: I was looking at my class notes for a bit (and lamenting how fast I’m already forgetting characters) which caused a 50ish man to move to the seat next to me. He corrected a few characters, and insisted on changing a bunch of neutral tones back to their originals (in many 2 character words, the second character loses the tone it would have had by itself and turns into a neutral tone). So I guess there’s some debate about this point. Also, he insisted that every syllable gets equal emphasis—pretty much directly contradicting most of my fluency training.

So I might ignore his lesson (although I do appreciate getting my spelling corrected), but he did do a pretty good job of pointing out all the Muslim features of the landscape passing by the window (and come to think of it, I didn’t see a single pig until I got to the Tibetan part of XiaHe).



Anyway, I know Gansu Province can’t be judged just by my route. My memory of the province’s demographics tells me that there is a three-way split between Han, Tibetan, and Hui. But dang—just about everyone in the countryside seemed to be a follower of Islam (which I think would make them Hui: please don’t quote me. I’m nothing without my reference books). I also saw many freshly completed mosques, and a bunch more under construction. And just about all the men were in white caps, and many of the women had some sort of head covering—wheter a hijab or a simpler scarf. My seat companion was sans cap (funny how I know the word hijab, but not the men’s version), but proudly insisted that he too was a Muslim.



A lot of the landscape on the way up to XiaHe is straight out of the Columbia Gorge and Eastern Oregon: dry stream beds, rolling hills on the plateaus and steep cliffs in the river valleys. No trees. But after a while, the hills showed terraces almost all the way up. I’d say that every inch of usable land is being farmed, but it appears that an awful lot of the unusable inches are being tilled as well!

The bus switch made me regret momentarily the decision not to set my alarm. First of all, they rushed me and I had originally planned on having lunch in LinXia (the transfer town) and having a little look around. (看一下，散散步). Second, one look at the bus told me that this was going to be another ‘developing nation’ moment. There were no chickens inside, but there was luggage and parcels strapped to the roof. I got one of the last seats. The other passengers included a few pilgrims, two old men with shiny new double-bladed hacksaw-looking things, a variety of other folk, and two Spanish backpackers who started the trip with me. I scared the hell out of a little girl by giving her a haw flake. She never did warm up to me. And by having a spirited conversation with the Spaniards we proved to the bus that yes, all white people do know each other.

Have I mentioned how beautiful the weather is? I actually had to put my coat on last night when I went to check out the Chinese end of town. (And yes, there was dancing in the town square. How could you even wonder?)

Pre-tour

I have a half hour until my tour starts. The main part of the monastery is filling with tourists. Maybe 2 Chinese for every 1 Euro/North American. I bought my ticket early and did a little wandering. I caught the end of a big chanting session—but I stayed outside. I’m still a little squeamish about interrupting people’s rituals. There was a group of about ten mini-monks outside the temple (not little people, but little boys). I think they were supposed to be reading lessons, but only a couple were. I got a wave and a giggle. Three others who were playing soccer in a courtyard wouldn’t let me take a photo. I’m really glad I asked.

Oh Flat Stanley, where are you?

Immediately post-tour

Lots of names of Buddhas and Lamas to remember. I won’t even try. But there are six collges located here. Our guide is a medical student, but the high lama says it is important for him to talk with the tourists.

I think the highlight for me was the big prayer hall, which was in use when we went thru…

Lunch

I had to stop writing because three monks wanted to talk to me. They taught me a few words of Tibetan (which I’ve promplty forgotten) and basically went through my whole backpack. I got a few Tibetan characters added to my Chinese notebook, and they got totally sucked into my map of Lanzhou. We were sitting near a gate that said (in 3 languages) “No women allowed. Please respect our traditions.” I asked why no women. They shrugged. I asked if I could go in and they said sure. It was a temple to some sort of dark-skinned monster-ish creature that I saw on side-altars in other temples, but here he was the main attraction.



I think the monks pinched my pen.

Post-lunch.

As I was saying, the big prayer hall. According to the tourguide, today all the colleges were praying together. They just had graduation exams, and today’s big prayer was only for those who passed. To quote the tourguide: “No pass. No pray.”

The monks sat in rows back-to-back so that one row faces another. It was pretty dark, and a little yak-butter (turns out that’s what’s in the oil lamps!) and incense smoky. Monks moved down the aisles pouting liquid into bowls—I don’t know if it was medicine or tea. According the guide, all the monks take Tibetan medicine for good health. (After it’s made, it is left on altars in various temples to age and collect power. I saw it in a number of places.)

The chanting was slow, and there were a few voices so deep and scratchy that they could have been throat singing. Or Tom Waits.



The tour was really informative, but I’m not sure if I know too much more about Buddhism than when I started. And it’s still a mystery how they kept anything going through the Cultural Revolution when so much of the place was destroyed. There used to be 80 temples here, now there are 18, and many of those are recently rebuilt.

I have one more stop (the printing press) and then my day with the monks will be complete.

Post-press coffee

The press was 5元 well spent. I think it may have been the building that the tour guide said was the library. The building looked all closed up, but I heard a ‘hey!’ from one of the side buildings (there’s sort of a collonade [minus the columns] of cells that makes up the courtyard of most of the temples) and I asked the monk who called if this was the “Barkhang”. He promptly asked if I wanted a ticket. The ticket turned out to be a 12” long wood block print, and the printing press turns out to be a lot of monks sitting around doing woodblock printing. The blocks are 4x12” planks of wood with Tibetan (sanscrit?) script on them. The building holds thousands of them, and made me wish I knew enough Chinese to discuss classification systems.



So it’s now approaching dinnertime, and it’s going to soon be time to decide what to do for the evening. I’m sitting on a main street balcony drinking coffee (in a decidedly tourist cafe). In a short while the sun will be hitting me in the face (unless the clouds keep coming). Should I buy a couple souvenirs? Replace my 2元 straw hat with a fancier Tibetan model? I did promise to find cake for my birthday (and I have found a bakery: I just haven’t bought anything yet). There is a hill to climb. If I eat early, I can make it up there.

Dinner

Get this: my waiter doesn’t speak Chinese. As I don’t know Tibetan or Hindi, we are making do with English. The restaurant is mostly monks drinking tea or Pepsi. I couldn’t really find anyone inside to share my birthdcay cake with (most everyone had cleared out by the time I was ready for dessert). There are rain clouds moving in, so I’m not sure if climbing the hill is such a great idea. It’s a bit of a dillema: I followed through on my promise to find cake, but do I have to eat it too? I fear I’ll feel just a little bit pathetic eating it alone.

Post-cake.

OK, that didn’t feel bad at all. I decided to take one last walk around, but not to stray too far. On the last pass through the monastery, I watched late pilgrims circling the tower at the end of the circle. It was approaching full-blown dark, and a handful of them produced flashlights. The flashlights and the approaching storm’s lightning were a good effect—I thought it was a rather poetic way to end my visit.

However, on my way back to the hotel, the crack of pool balls pulled my eyes to a lit window. I didn’t know Tibetan monks like to shoot stick.