“On ancient maps Dragons were drawn to symbolize the unknown, and to travel beyond the familiar world was to go "Where There be Dragons." (WTBD)
So said the WTBD company course preparation booklet I was reading last minute on the plane to Kunming, the capital city of Yunnan province. But for me, China was not a dragon. I could speak the language, have many Chinese friends some of whom are my closest, and have been to Beijing, Hong Kong, Shanghai and even Manchuria. However, after three months of urban and rural home-stays, studying the language and the culture, travel, community service and trekking, I realized that China still is a mysterious dragon for me. This dragon was much more magnificent than I had imagined with resplendent colors and shapes. Some parts of her silky body even felt like an independent organism with entirely different culture, people and nature. Just as dragons are depicted as evil and aggressive princess-abducting creatures to be defeated by handsome princes in the West, China also felt a little intimidating and sketchy initially. But China that I discovered was the East’s dragon that is mighty but auspicious, and this dragon nourished me with the rain she provides.
As the mascot of Korea is a tiger and the US a bald eagle, the dragon is one of China’s mascots along with the more friendly cranes and cuter pandas. The first place that made me realize that her body is completely different from the head (capital) Beijing was Yunnan, which means “South of the Clouds.” As the most south-western province of China’s twenty-two provinces, Yunnan shares her borders with Vietnam, Laos and Burma, which makes her the biggest sex and drug trafficking area in China. Thousands of miles away from Beijing, Yunnan used to be the land of exile for Chinese criminals. But just as the English criminals would have been happy to leave gloomy England to arrive at sunny Australia, I think I would not have minded the life of exile in this ‘city of eternal spring.’ Not only are drugs and women plenty here, but this province is a treasure house with majestic mountains, rivers and rich biological and cultural diversity. Yunnan boasts half of China’s plants, mammals, birds species, and twenty-five of the fifty-six minorities recognized by the Chinese government.
Nevertheless, the first skill I needed to master before I could enjoy these natural and cultural treasures was building my bus stamina. As Korea is tiny, the longest bus ride was five hours and even in the US the most I had been in a bus was six hours as I fly long distances. But in China we encountered this smelly invention called the ‘sleeper bus’ which played us the snoring symphony by the Chinese male sleeping troupe all night and my first bus ride lasted twelve hours. I am pretty short so I was doing ok but one of my instructors and friends who were over six feet tall could not even stretch their legs fully.
The bumpy and mostly unpaved road, and the madman driving also didn’t help and we even had to wait for over an hour at a site of landslide. Although the steep precipices and ravines were breathtakingly beautiful, they also gave me vertigo and i felt nauseous. But this virgin long-d ride was a chance for quick bonding for twelve of us on the program and I do not know how I could have borne this ride without sharing my boredom and fear with them. This ride was only the beginning of countless 10-20 hour bus and train rides we would face and we slowly learned to enjoy long distance travel.
Eventually we arrived at a small alpine town called Zhongdian, also known as Gyalthang in its original Tibetan name. As if having two names is not confusing enough, the Chinese government renamed this town Shangri-la after James Hilton’s eponymous utopian novel in order to foster tourism in this quiet Tibetan town. As “Shangri-la” in the novel is ruled by a Tibetan Lama, maybe the Chinese government should consider returning the land to the Dalai Lama if they really want to make this town “Shangri-la.” Gyalthang was in fact part of Tibet until China’s 1950 invasion and forced incorporation. Tibet used to be twice bigger than it is on the map now with many towns in Qinghai, Sichuan and Yunnan provinces also belonging to the rooftop of the world.
Yunnan’s Shangri-la is also not the only one and Tibet, India and Pakistan all claim towns named Shangri-la. Shangri-la is not a physical location but a transcendental, timeless space within the minds of James Hilton and travelers that can be accessed from anywhere in the world. Renaming towns like this felt to me like British government renaming some idyllic countryside town to Hogwarts for tourism and felt like a distraction from Shangri-la’s omnipresent spiritual nature.
Whatever I think this renaming marketing strategy worked brilliantly. In 1997 there was only one lodging for foreigners here and no decent restaurants but now the place teems with accommodations, restaurants and souvenir shops. Nevertheless Gyalthang has preserved its Tibetan heritage well for a touristy town and this was my first kiss and the beginning of fascination with Tibet. She also challenged me as I quickly ran out of breath and suffered a little from high altitude sickness climbing up her breast to get to a temple atop a hill as the town was over 3000m (10,000 ft). But all was forgotten watching the multi-colored Tibetan prayer flags dance to the wind and visiting the largest Tibetan monastery in China outside of Tibet.
Songzalin Monastery was built in the 17th century and housed over 600 monks (it used to be over 2,000 at its peak) and many statues of buddha some over 8 meters (25feet) tall. On the courtyard were many kids half my height running around and it made me happy to watch these innocent, mischievous kids. Holden from the Catcher in the Rye would probably also be happy here. On the other hand it bothered me that these kids have already become monks. What if the monastery lifestyle didn’t suit them? Although I on my pursuit of elusive utopia probably had no right to question their bliss in their utopia, did they become monks because they wanted?
I am uneasy about both the child baptism I received and other religious rite-of-passage rituals like Jewish Bar Mitzvah at the age of thirteen. How can little kids that lack experience and intellectual ability decide on such important matter such as faith? Philosopher Rousseau wrote that kids before the age of fifteen, sixteen cannot understand abstract concepts such as souls and argued against the religious upbringing of pre-teen kids saying that it is better to not know about God than wrongly believe.
I am, however, grateful for the exposure to religion from birth. Not for moral reasons-- I have many friends much more ethical than I am raised in secular families-- but for sparking my interest in spirituality and transcendence. I think good theology has aesthetics of good poetry and despite all the evils of religion and especially of organized religion, I think it is easier to start on spiritual path by belonging to a religious group. Whether I like it or not I need religion to appreciate both eastern and western literature, philosophy, art, music and architecture I love. Although churches in Europe are turning into bars and restaurants, religion is growing in most parts of the world, and the world needs more bridges between not only different religions but increasingly between secular and religious people as well.
Just as couples from arranged marriages somehow report to be happier than the freely-wed couples, I wished these kids were as happy and free as the birds flying around the courtyard. Perhaps the elevated minds of these meditating kids are already freer than mine that jumps around like a drunk monkey and uselessly thinks and worries about everything.
After Shangri-la we headed to the Nujiang Valley and hiked there for four days. Armed with twenty five kilograms of rice (55 lbs), five kilograms of noodles (11 lbs), and immense amounts of carrots, corn, cabbage, trail mix on horsebacks, we began our ascent. Although our Tibetan guide tried to teach us a traditional Tibetan song, we were pretty hopeless so we sang English songs. During the hike we passed by countless scenic peaks and unpolluted villages. My only complaint was the ubiquitous food trash-- these mountains are for the seasoned hikers and why don’t they take care of the mountain that they love?
In the villages we passed we ran into many minority groups such as the Bai, Nu and the Tibetans. We home-stayed with these people for a night and I was surprised to see crucifixes and images of Virgin Mary in their houses and a small Catholic church in the village. Just as many people think all Palestinians are muslims despite significant Christian minority, I think most people think Tibetans are buddhists. But all the Tibetans we met in this village were Catholics and they said it was the result of the 19th century Jesuit missionaries.
What was more surprising than the missionaries finding this isolated cloud-hidden village was seeing the vestiges of the Cultural Revolution-- a failed political experiment that put China into a decade-long turmoil and caused the deaths of millions and destruction of innumerable cultural assets. The church had not recovered from vandalism of that period and the wall was still covered with the red sprays of “Long Live Mao.”
Although most of China has recovered from this 20th century Dark Age, it seemed to me that the Cultural Revolution is continuing for the Tibetans. Since China’s 1950 invasion most buddha statues have replaced by images of Mao’s and only 1700 monasteries remain standing from over 7000 that stood before. Currently the worldwide Tibetan population is less than 6 million and out of these over 1.2 million Tibetans have lost their lives since 1950. Just as Chinese children accused and turned in their parents during the Cultural Revolution, the Tibetans still have to denounce the Dalai Lama who is their spiritual and political father. Tibet that had 30-50% of its male population as monks before 1950 is losing herself day by day.
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