To the Tibet (the plateau at least)

10/07/2010

I am one who likes to see and do things for myself. This has led to seeing and doing many things that were regrettable, but nonetheless good experiences. Taking the sleeper bus last night here to Maqen will be in that category. This situation presented several difficulties, not the least of which was that the beds were a paltry 5½ ft long. Not only that, but the bus also didn’t take the highway (obviously) but rather the local roads so the ride was incredibly bumpy, so there were times when hitting a particularly big pothole (as opposed the garden variety), I would be nearly launched out of my top bunk onto the sully bus floor below. The cleanliness of the beds was also dubious at best, as the entire bus smelled like feet. Or it could have just been the guy next to me (I think I figured out how they make boots here: they simply don four pairs of socks, wear and not wash them till they’re rock hard, then, viola!, you’ve got boots!). I managed to befriend a Buddhist monk from Inner Mongolia who invited me to his 老家 (remember that one?) in December. I fully intend on taking him up on that offer. After a long pit stop (which we pushed into the heat of the owner’s house) and subsequently sleeping in one or two 30 minute intervals a few times, we arrived at 5am. We were greeted by darkness, an immaculate night sky, and below freezing temperatures (not to mention disbelief that this place was a medium-sized dot on the map). We were kindly invited to stay on the bus in the comfort of our beds until daybreak by the driver who smoked even as he slept (I think…). The city rested at 4500m above sea level so the air was thin and cold. The wind made my cheeks hurt so it was fortunate that I wasn’t in the mood for smiling J  At a little past daybreak when we were booted off the bus, it was still cold and we were running off about an hour or two’s worth of sleep and junky food from the rest stop. So we, like sheep gone astray, shuffled into the closest food establishment that would have us. Inside, we were greeted by a iron cast stove that would serve as our table (should’ve learned earlier not to put my elbows on the table) and warm hospitality of a the Tibetan proprietor. After eating spicy hot soup and noodles and drinking tea, we went in search of the rumored hotel. Indeed, it existed. In this one-horse town, there was but one place that was open to foreigners (situation that needs more explaining). After checking in, we rested for an hour or so, then with reckless abandon, charged out onto the street. By this time, it was mid morning, the sky was bluer than blue, and the sun was high and the air was crisp. Beautiful. I got it in my head to climb the first mountain I saw (something that tends to happen, Lisa and Wesley may remember from Burtchesgarten ;) ). So, armed to the teeth with a bottle of water, dried noodles, ice coffee, and snicker bars, we started off. At this altitude, even tying your shoes can render your lungs useless. On the way up, we passed through a Tibetan prayer flag ‘village’, which is where the locals hang thousands of multicolored prayer flags. It was a beautiful sight. Then we climbed and climbed and reached top after top. But there always seemed to be one higher (and it was “just RITE THERE!”). We past herds of cows, a coyote chasing a flock of absurdly stupid goats, streams, birds, and finally reached the top of this mountain. One could know it was the top by the small collection of prayer flags on its highest point. There at 5100m above sea level, we sat in the stark wind and among the mountain flowers and beheld the breathtaking majesty and beauty of the Tibetan plateau. It was to die for. And as the sun made its descent from its perch in the mid sky to rest behind the endless mountains beyond, we decided it was best to do the same.

The descent was hard as the 4 hour climb up had rendered my knees useless. Eventually reaching the bottom around half past nine, we swiftly ate a hearty dinner and the same Tibetan place and retired to our foreigner hotel. 

In Xining

10/06/2010

I am writing currently from Xining, Qinghai. Melanie, an Austrian friend of mine, and I left Monday via sleeper train from Chengdu, 24 hrs till arrival. Unbearable. On the train there were plenty of sights and sounds to keep me company. There was a native Qinghai family there with us, so we played cards and chewed the fat for several hours until my Chinese vocabulary and their patience started to run thin. But in the 15 or so hours (that’s a long time!!) that I spent talking to them en route to Qinghai, we covered a plethora of topics ranging from Buddhism (which I graciously declined to acquiesce their persistent attempts to convert me to) to consumer culture in the U.S. I would say most of the people around us were typical day laborers on their way back to their laojia 老家 (literally ‘old home’ in Chinese) and it was very interesting to get their perspectives on this wide range of topics, as opposed to those of the college educated middle class kids that I often mingle with. So, after a surprisingly smooth ride, we arrived in Xining on Tuesday morning. We ducked into our hostel for a few moments to check in and put our stuff down, then quickly made off to see the city we only planned to spend a day in.

Just to sidetrack for a moment: you see, the problem is, we have zero plan. Nothing, we just decided this morning that we would leave today. And actually that decision was under review even just one hour ago when I had gotten this fancy of camping in the middle of the Qinghai tundra near some snowy mountains for a few days and mountain climbing all day every day. Probably best that we didn’t go with that one.

But anyway, out in the streets of Xining. The vibe I got was very different. Xining, the capital of Qinghai, represents a melting pot (or salad bowl, depending on your political affiliation) of Han Chinese, Muslim Chinese, and ethic Tibetans. This has, in the past, led to serious conflicts. But generally, Qinghai is a peaceful place and is a model for harmonious coexistence 和谐共存. The standards of living in Xining were obviously lower than in many of the other Chinese cities I’ve been to. It is one of the poorest provinces in the People’s Republic. As evening fell, we wondered around the central square (西宁广场) and happened upon various large groups of (possibly competing) people singing folk songs and dancing traditional dances (not the quasi-disco ones you always see all the old ladies doing). I think there is something special about music as a method of culture preservation. The scene there in Xining Square, with the men and women, young and old, with children and without, reminded me of the time I was in the countryside of Hamburg, Germany in 2008, and went to a village classical music “show” in a barn. Much the same, old German grandmothers embraced their grand- or great grandchildren, explaining why this was important, how they did this when they were their age and so on, cultivating that sense of identity and that sense of being German in part through their preservation and nurturing of music. Through what channels is our great culture preserved? MTV?

We left Xining this evening and are currently on a sleeper bus bound for an obscure Tibetan town called Maqen. Don’t spare the horses driver! Adventure awaits!

To Qinghai

10/04/2010

I’m writing from the top bunk of a sleeper train bound for Xining, Qinghai. I spent this evening having silly conversations with my fellow passengers and playing games with the 3yr old that was staying with his family in the same compartment as me. Sometimes, last year, i found it wholly incomprehensible that i was actually in China and travelling or doing whatever. But now, it is just starting to feel natural. I’m looking forward to the time when I can quickly move past the usual conversations that I have with Chinese people have substantive conversations that can yield real understanding. I’m out looking for adventure this week. I have no idea what i’m going to do or where i’m going, but i’m aiming for an adventure. I wonder if i make this attempt at getting to know ppl in my own country. Why is it that i’m a more open and free individual outside the country?

Day 2 in Country

9/23/2010

Today I'm heading to wan shushu's younger brother's wife's laojia. i am told that the conditions here are considerably different than those that wan shushu's laojia. we're taking an suv to the mountain this time, accompanied by wan shushu's wife (referred to hereafter as xie aiyi), the younger brother and his wife. (and various others as it turned out)

the ride to the village was rough. much worse conditions than wan shushu's laojia. we rode up a snaking, single lane, mountainside road for 45 minutes, precariously squeezing past countless dumptrucks carrying the treasures of the mountain down to be thrown into china's economic machine. arriving at the top, we climbed up some steps carved from the ground and fortified with stones, and then entered the courtyard of wan shushu's younger brother's wife's family (whew). stepping over clucking chickens and ducking through twisting tomato patches, we came to sit in the courtyard. we sat on small stools again and exchanged pleasantries with teh family. i'm not sure what these people of the mountain are eating or drinking, but despite their brutal lives and robust smoking habits, they are all in fantastic health. the grandmother was approaching 90. if i had lived the life she did, i wouldn't have made it past 30. then a group of us went out together in to woods, armed to the teeth with shovels and rakes, to forage for mushrooms. i was extremely skeptical about this venture and wondered who among us would be deemed knowledgable enough to discern which mushrooms went well with soup and which went well with famalihaid (stuff you put in dead people). it turned out to be the two 10yr old nephews. that put my heart at rest. we climbed with scarred patches of land and i quickly learned the ropes and landed my first big catch of the day. after we had sufficiently gathered enough for the upcoming lunch, we meandered thru the bush, chewing the fat and taking in the surroundings. wan shushu showed me some abandoned step fields and remains of the homesteads that had once cared for them. finally we went back, but stopped first and the neighbor's house. i was confused by the family structure. there were two uncles, a grandmother, and then two young children. i learned later that the uncles were keen on the bottle and took it out on the young 6yr old at times, resulting in his left currently being swollen and black with remnants of a laceration down across his eyebrow. the farm life is not always and happy and carefree as it seems, despite the comely appearance. upon returning, they stuffed me beyond recognition with delicious meats and vegetables raised/grown not 30 meters away. there's nothing like good fresh farm cookin'. afterwards, we assumed our usual position on the stools built for someone half my size and chou'd yans and talked about the economic situation of the rural half of the family. indeed, they echoed many of the concerns from the last visit. this family said that they would move into the city and live with their children but the money that they would get for their land wouldn't be enough to sustain them in the city. and apparently, no matter what, after you turn 60, you get at least 80RMB per month. the grandfather had paid for his own health insurance his entire life so now it is supplemented given that he's 66. so each month he gets 120RMB. after that, we just went down the mountain and bumped back down the mountain. these few days have been fantastic for my research and understanding of the real situation on the ground in china's rural areas.

Day 1 in Country

9/21/2010

Today was the first day of actual research. I went with my hostdad to his laojia, a small village on the side of a mountain a few kilometers from the Chongqing town of Wanzhou. Going into this research endeavor, i had many ideas about what it would be like to conduct my research in the rural villages. in my imagination, i would easily walk up to the village with minimal disturbance, hand out some cigarettes, and get all the answers i wanted. i was mistaken. much to my chagrin, when i told the folks at the university that i planned to go solo out into the nongcun to do my research, many of them scoffed at me. i found out that the scoffing was well-founded. my hostdad (referred to hereafter as wan shushu) opened all the doors to the research that i needed. upon getting out of the car after the long, bumpy ride to the mountain, we disembarked from wan shushu's brand new audi. the juxtaposition of the audi against the mud huts of the village was a microcasm of the gulf that exists between china's newly rich and its traditionally poor. as wan shushu and i, along with his younger brother and 10-year old nephew (referred to hereafter as didi) ascended the mountain, we encountered several of the people that these mountain-side hovels home. I got pictures with a few of them. Ideally, i wanted to pass through, not interact with any of the people and be invisible b/c they tend to act differently when a gigantic (by their standards) white guy waltzes into their village. we met the village chief who was on his way down a small goat paht iwth some local laborers. he was a middle-aged man, shorts and unbuttoned white shirt, and sun-baked skin. his voice was harsh, but he always had a smile on and a hand open to help. he guided us throught the village that wan shushu used to call home, pointing out the homes that lay abandoned as a result of china's rapid urbanization spread even to this remote shire in the chongqing mountains. then we reached the home of wan shushu's elder cousin. the place consisted of an enclosed concrete courtyard used for thrashing various vegatables, and a modest tiled two-story house. the entire extended family (except the younger 20-30 yr olds who have since moved to cities) lives there. outside in the courtyard, they whipped out several old benches that were about a foot off the ground and we all sat around and chatted, wan shushu kindly translating from the local dialect to mandarin for me. we waxed about a pack of cigarettes before we really started talking turkey. wan shushu starting asking about how much money they got from the gov't, whether they were able to obtain subsidized loans or any loans at all, how they got the capital to farm if needed, where they got the money for medical services, and so on. Generally, families who had children didn't get anything from the gov't. so they fended for themselves off the land and relied on the younger generation who work in the cities to give them money. this is quite common in these types of villages. it seems that the only ppl who live in villages anymore, the real kind, are old people and children. but later conversations with the village chief and other older residents revealed that some got up to 500RMB from the government in addition to free health care. for example, their is a childless old widower who lives in one highest homes on the mountainside. he lives alone and is rather solitary. he receives 200RMB per month and then grows his own food and rations his energy usage with spartan austerity. he also is able to see a doctor free of charge. some of the most interesting conversations arose over lunch in the elder cousin's house where we talked about everything from differences between northern and southern people to the changes that deng xiaoping enacted. without exception, deng is seen as somewhat of a diety. they frequently repeat, "without deng xiaoping's gaige kaifang, this (pointing to something random) and this (often pointing to their healthy guts) wouldn't be possible!". and true to chinese tradition, the most important and most often cited benefit from gaige kaifang was food. but back to some of the researchy questions, i was told by the village chief that generally speaking, a villager can obtain one loan of 10000RMB, but absolutely no more and often less. it just isn't possible to get more here. my question about other sources of capital (i.e. loan sharks, mafia) was not directly answered. hint noted. it will take more time before they will speak to that. i was surprised by the frankness with which they spoke to an absolute foreigner such as myself. but i suppose it makes sense; they all live off the land, they all generally get the same amount from the gov't, what is there to hide? and come to think of it, what is this complex about money in the west? larger topic for another time. after resting for 45 minutes or so after lunch (they were drinking me under the table even in mid-afternoon), wan shushu took me outside the courtyard to view the graves of his parents and his cousin's parents. a solemn moment ensued as he spoke to chinese family tradition of believing that you should bury your parents close to home, so that they watch over it and protect it. it is moments like this that i wish so so so badly that my chinese was at a level that i could communicate my empathy, but sadly i was consigned to nods of acknowledgement and occasional grunts to break up the monologue. that being said, over the last few days, mandarin has become english to me and the local dialect has become mandarin. what i mean is, when i'm trying to get something done or have something to say, i am relieved when someone is able to speak some semblance of standard mandarin and have to struggle through situations with those who don't. after many more cigarettes and awkward greetings, we made our way down the mountain as the sun did the same. we bumped our way back down a road unfit for cattle in our audi and returned home. Tonight i went to dinner with some of the local whos-who from wanzhou where i was treated to a fantastic dinner and a lot of throat-burning baijiu.