"The Tibetan: Tashi གཉིས་ (2)"

 

The faceless guards led me through a series of dark, narrow, bending hallways and brought me to another cell, another icebox. It had lights overhead. They were golden and intensely bright lights. They were lights like spotlights on a stage.

In the cell were 15 other men, all Tibetans, except for one Chinese, who appeared mute or deaf and was missing about half his left arm.

We weren’t allowed to speak. And we didn’t want to, either. A bird-faced jailer sat on a plastic stool, staring at us from the shadows, behind the harsh light. He’d sit pensively, somewhere behind the cell, and would emerge, with a truncheon, and rattle at the bars if anyone spoke. Another jailer, also with enraged eyes, brought us our food, and, in the evenings, wheeled in a TV, that we were required to watch. It’d show Chinese state propaganda, generally news, documentaries, and sometimes soap operas of happy Han families. 

We slept on the floor. We used a bucket in the corner for piss and shit. There was one small, grimy sink, with a single cold-water tap, next to the bucket for washing. We were fed twice daily, a small bowl of rice and a bowl of clear soup with a chunk or two of pork fat and slice or two of cabbage.

I was there a while. I wouldn’t find out how long until I left. The days and nights, time, became irrelevant. There was no window in the cell, no clock, and the lights were kept on 24/7, so time didn’t really exist there.

In that deathly, luminous cell, we all just sat staring at the gray wall. Since I thought I might be sentenced to death, my thoughts, at first, were of my next life, where I’d be, who’d I’d be, what I’d be, and how much karma I’d earned and how I might be reincarnated.

But then my thinking turned to fear, wondering what I’d be charged with, what my “crime” could possibly be. I worried about being sent to one of the worst labor camps. I feared never seeing my family again.

It sounds horrible. I sound like a monster when I say it, but I actually didn’t think too much of my family during this ordeal. Firstly, because it was too painful. Secondly, though, because I thought, perhaps, that they’d turned me in, for whatever my crime was, and that hurt so much more.

Thinking, about anything, became too difficult, so I stopped. I stopped my mind from racing, from conjecture, and I accepted karma. I began to silently recite Buddhist mantras, over and over, and I’d meditate, revisit the calm of dreamless sleep…

 

Eventually, the faceless men in turtle helmets returned, took me to another room, in another part of the jail. This room actually had a window, and I saw the sun for the first time in ages. The sun! The glorious sun! Its yellowy light pouring into the room, like the aura of a deity.

Sitting down to a hard metal chair, I was not strapped in or bound, but my back and shoulders still ached, from the first day’s beating, and from sleeping on the cold concrete floor. But I could feel the beautiful, merciful touch of the sun’s rays, shining in from that window, and the sunlight tickled and warmed me and brought me back to life, and I shifted my weight toward its glow, like a flower. 

The men presented me a written confession and a pen. I’d have almost signed anything, just to be out of there. I’d have maybe confessed to murder if it meant being outside, working in the sun, breathing fresh air, never seeing that jail again, never again smelling its mutant stench of feces, urine, and bodies.

The statement said I’d been reported by a neighbor for “spreading rumors and subverting state power.” It didn’t say the neighbor’s name. It didn’t elaborate on exactly what “rumor” I’d spread. I couldn’t imagine what I’d said that would have been considered a “rumor.”

But I knew of this charge. I heard of others receiving it, usually for criticizing the government or holding an unsanctioned religious event or gathering. Short of being told that everything was a misunderstanding and declared innocent, a charge like this was the best I could hope for. It meant probably, at most, maybe 5 years, and in a reeducation camp, not one of the hard labor camps.

I signed it without question and was then whisked to another part of the building, brought before a panel of 3 judges, one of whom, not much older than me, looked Tibetan. I don’t know if he was for sure Tibetan, but he looked like it. I’ve rarely felt such anger as I did, toward that judge. I’d expect the Chinese to do this, but a fellow Tibetan, being my judge, no, I couldn’t... Part of me died inside, just laying eyes on him.

Buddha forgive me, but I’d have killed him, with my bare hands, if I could have. I’d have sprung up, charged at him and wrapped my hands around his skinny neck, and strangled him to death, snapped his neck, like a chicken, and stomped on his lifeless face until it was gone, until any trace of his Tibetan features were erased.

I’d never felt such hate for my fellow man. Rage jolted through me, as I stood there, my teeth chattering, and I hung my head and stared at the floor. In that moment, I couldn’t see the judge’s face. I couldn’t bear it…

The panel sentenced me to three years and asked that I apologize and acknowledge my crimes to the court. And I did. I threw my head back. I looked up. I told them what they wanted to hear. That I apologized for my crimes. That I loved Mother China. That I was proud and loyal to the Communist Party. That I would correct my errors. I would have mentioned my errors, specifically, since I know that would have made them happier, but I couldn’t, because I still wasn’t exactly sure what I’d been accused of saying.

(Deep down, it dawned on me how grateful I should be that it was a “neighbor” who’d been the informer and not a family member. I felt horrible, too, that I’d ever suspected my family of such treason. Buddha please forgive me for this sin…)

The judges admonished me. They spoke, sternly, iron-eyed, saying how hopefully “I’ve learned my lesson.” I was immediately led, in handcuffs and shackles, to a van, which had three other men, who were Chinese, and we were transported to a reeducation camp that was fairly close by.

 

 

"The Tibetan: Tashi གཅིག་"

 

I don’t like to talk about it. But I see it in dreams. I dream of it. I’m there. On the floor, that cold concrete floor, where I stayed for what I think was months. I stopped counting the days. But it was probably two or three months. I only know this because the season had changed. It was the dead of winter when they came for me, when they came to my house.

We’re used to seeing them. We’re used to their questionings, or them cordoning off the village. They rope off the village during holidays. Or if there’s an immolation. There were more immolations before, but they’ve stopped almost entirely since the Chinese began arresting the immolator’s family members. Is it guilt by association or that they fear the family members would do it next?

It’s unclear, to me, why they’d care. The cynical side of me believes they’d be happier with us in flames, us eaten by fire. Then there’d be less Tibetans for them to worry about.

My grandfather spoke of our country before it was invaded and captured. He spoke of greed. He spoke of serfdom. I wasn’t sure whether to believe him or not because he’d been in a reeducation camp like I was. He was schizophrenic. He’d parrot the party line in public, but at home he’d speak of the country, the old times, independence, both in nostalgia and disgust.

He spoke of it being karma. That Tibetans had strayed from the righteous path the Buddha had set for us. He’d wished the next life, for him, and for every Tibetan, to be better.

I pondered the next life a lot, my first days in jail.  

 

When they arrested me, they bound my arms behind my back, blindfolded me, and hauled me away. Then they brought me to jail and chained me to a chair, a tiger chair; my arms and legs strapped tightly, by leather bands, to the cold, hard metal seat. I sat rooted in that chair for hours. I pissed myself.

They yelled at me, again and again, demanding that I confess to my crime, but I didn’t know what crime they meant. I’d been an English teacher at the local school. I’d only taught from the books they gave me. I’m a devout Buddhist. I don’t believe in harming others. I’ve never stolen. I’ve never committed an illegal act.

I repeated, over and over, that I’d committed no crimes. That didn’t satisfy them.

I remember the room… The interrogation room… It was dark and freezing. It stank. It’d stunk so thickly of urine, already, when I’d been led in there. The atrocious smell was the first thing I noticed when I entered the room, blindfolded, my hands roped behind my back. I was revolted by the intensity, the heavy punch of the stench. It reeked worse than any toilet or outhouse or manure pit… It made me woozy…

They’d untied my blindfold, but I couldn’t see their faces. All I could see were their helmets. The helmets were pill blue and shaped like turtle shells. I still couldn’t quite see their faces when they approached me, either. It was as if they had no faces. There was only a ball of darkness where a face should have been. There was only a black bubble, a void between their uniformed bodies and turtle helmets. It was as if the turtle helmets were hovering in the air above, like flying saucers.

I believe that I pressed my eyes shut when they approached because I didn’t want to see them. I wouldn’t see them. I would control that, if nothing else. But I couldn’t stop hearing. I couldn’t stop hearing the cries, accusations of sedition. Sedition? That’s what it was about, I pieced together. And I denied that, strongly. I professed my patriotism to the Communist Party. I professed my love for my country.

“What is YOUR country?!” one shouted, before dashing over and whacking me, hard, on the shoulder, with a truncheon.

“China!” I cried, “China!”

“China?!” he bellowed back, before striking my sides and shoulders several times, sending shockwaves of crunching pain searing through me.

There’s only so much a person can endure, and eventually the anguish reached its crescendo. My nerves became blunted, and I numbed up, and thank Buddha, the last couple strikes I felt only the sickening jolt of their sticks whipping my numb body. But at least the pain… the pain slept… Then I figured out what I’d said wrong...

“The People’s Republic of China!” I cried out, and then began to sing the national anthem, “March of the Volunteers.” I’d memorized it by heart, after hearing it, every day for years, blasting from the loudspeakers installed around my village.

Once I started singing the anthem, the men relented striking me.

So I sang louder, and louder, my voice straining, hot-salt tears involuntarily streaking down my cheeks, I sang, “Arise, ye who refuse to be slaves! With our flesh and blood, let us build a new Great Wall! As China faces her greatest peril, from each one the urgent call to action comes forth. Arise! Arise! Arise! Millions of but one heart! Braving the enemies' fire! March on! Braving the enemies' fire! March on! March on! March, MARCH ON!”

I’d had a cousin who’d been interrogated, beaten, and he’d spontaneously burst into the song, thinking it might make his captors let up their assault. And it worked. Fortunately, it worked for me too.

But again, they demanded I confess to my crimes. I knew my options were limited, that I would probably have to confess.

After they’d struck my back, the blows must have damaged my lungs because it hurt to breathe. Between choking gasps of breath, I requested they present me my crimes, in writing, and that I’d sign a confession.

I supposed that as long as I wasn’t being framed for a murder and wasn’t facing the death penalty or life sentence, I might confess, depending on the charges. Once the Chinese arrest you, whatever they arrested you for, you did, whether you really did it or not. I’d learned from others’ experiences that the only way out is to confess, that way you’ll receive a lesser sentence.

A murder or other heinous crime that carried too long a sentence I wouldn’t confess to, since either way, I’d be dead. A death penalty would be better, anyhow, than a life in the Chinese labor camps. I’ve heard of life there, waking up at sunrise, picking cotton all day, digging holes, doing hard labor, or toiling with backbreaking factory work. Being beaten, kept in a small dog cage if you didn’t meet quotas. The prison labor camps in China are hell on Earth. I’d rather they just shoot me in the head...

 

"Immolation in Lhasa, Tibet"

As the evening sky began to purple, I shifted my gaze and spotted a young Tibetan girl, maybe 15 feet from us, down the city block. The girl was in an oversized, floppy white robe, like what a cult member would wear. She’d shaved her head, like a Buddhist nun, and her face appeared reddened, yet blank, emotionless, like a passport or driver’s license photo.

Showing no feelings, she set down a backpack, and from it, lifted out a red canister, held it aloft and doused herself in a clear liquid.

She then whipped out a lighter from under her white robe, flicked it with her thumb, and touched the tongue of the tiny orange flame to her chest.

She didn’t explode. It wasn’t like a bombing. It was more like when you start a fire and the kindle begins small and spreads, grows. The flames began in a small pool on her chest and grew into waves that wrinkled, washed sideways and upwards, slower than I’d have expected, although it could have been that the scene was so surreal that it appeared as if the whole thing was happening in slow-motion.

Standing with her arms outstretched to a “T”, the fulgurate flames fully engulfed her form. She appeared as if a burning effigy, inhuman, particularly given her silence. I’d have expected she’d scream or chant, utter a statement, and maybe she did, but I didn’t hear it.

After a handful of long seconds, she then crumpled to the ground, her forward falling body becoming a burning ball, a heap of tumbling flames.

Then the smell reached us. It was far worse than that of burning hair. It was burning hair mixed with the smell of burning flesh. It was such a nauseating smell, such a stench, that once the smell found me, I felt an ugly sensation tingle and wash over me, sickening my stomach, like I swallowed a thumbtack.

It was then, I swear, that I saw the girl’s soul, like a specter, float upwards and leave her body; her ghost, her soul in a spectral cast, ascending luminously from the fire. 

The girl, in her white robe, was whole, intact, her form translucent and radiant. Her face was resolute, contrite, as she rose from the burning lump, like a butterfly from a chrysalis. Then she broke apart, into a thousand hailstone-like pieces that whirled and washed in with the wafts of bone-gray smoke billowing below the purpling night.

The police in the booth nearby had been playing on their phones, when it happened, and were too late to stop the immolation, though I guess they rushed in once they’d looked up and seen the flames. The cops, panic painted all over their twisted faces, clumsily hurried over, brandishing fire extinguishers, and they desperately shot a volley of gooey white foamy liquid bursts that extinguished the blaze.

But they were unable to prevent the soul from exiting the body, and all that remained on the pavement was a white and black blob, vapors, and curls of smoke…

Our group stood transfixed, watching the scene. It was like some shit from a movie, seeing a person burn themself alive. I’d never seen anyone die before. I was frozen in shock. Then I shuddered, my throat dry as salt, my throat clicking. I was thinking I might vomit.

Even the Welshman was moved by the scene. He just stared at it, somber, his face bleached pink and his upper lip curled, his head cocked to the side. The other guys cried. My eyes teared up a bit, too, I’ll admit.

I wondered if she’d moved on to another life. I hoped she did. I hoped she wasn’t a ghost, an unhappy ghost, wandering the Earth. That wasn’t a sky burial. But did it count? Was it merit? Or would she go to the Buddhist version of hell, Naraka? I wanted to ask our tour guide about it…

But I wouldn’t have the chance. Another group of cops quickly showed, swarmed the scene. They whisked us away and led us to a couple idling cop cars and brought us to police headquarters.

 

Man, that police place was grim. It was a big gray box of a building, and it seemed like everything in it was gray or colorless. Worse yet, it was cold as a meat locker, smelled moldy as an old gym, and practically every cop inside was smoking cigarettes. Smoking cigarettes inside their offices, the hallways, at their desks, even in the elevators. I’d never seen so many people smoking. It was like we’d stepped out of a time machine, stepped into a 1950s black and white movie…

The police didn’t handcuff us, and they weren’t rough with us. But, with the help of an interpreter (a police lady, a young, 20ish Chinese girl, not bad looking, either) a pair of shifty-eyed middle-aged coppers questioned us for an hour or so about the incident, asking the same stupid questions again and again.

We were then shuffled from one drab, gray room to another, made to wait. Finally, an English-speaking policeman arrived to question us. The policeman had a fat head, and the flesh around his eyes was all puffy. The fat head gamboled in, walking in confident, elongated strides. He was smoking a cig, of course, and he sat down to speak with us.

(The fat head’s comportment and his appearance gave him the look of a man who is very important, or a man who just thinks he’s very important. I couldn’t determine which…)

The fat head’s eyes had a quiet kind of animosity to them. He spoke impeccable English, almost in an upper-class British accent. He proceeded to interview us as a group. Then he brought us to other identically drab waiting rooms and interviewed us separately, asked the same shit he and the other cops asked, “What did you see?” “Where are you from?” “Did you know her?” et fucking cetera, man.

(Like any of us would know a random Tibetan chick on the street? Come on!)

Then another set of cops, in different uniforms trudged in. They were more military looking, these cops, had helmets, combat boots, the whole nine. With furrowed brows, lips seemingly curled in disgust, they checked our phones, and one of their gruff superior types, who didn’t speak English, demanded us, through the cute girl interpreter, to delete every single photo we’d taken during the trip.

The cute interpreter maintained a polite tone and trembling smile as she spoke with us. Obviously, none of us wished to trash all our vacation photos, all of which were innocuous, since I can’t remember any of us snapping photos of the immolation. However, none of us protested the policeman’s commands.

 

After they thoroughly inspected our phones, they huddled up, and the interpreter returned, told us we were to be deported immediately. She told us “no why” when we asked why, all the while maintaining her formal tone and polished albeit shaky smile. 

We were stunned. We couldn’t figure out why we were being deported, what part we had in this, aside from being witnesses… Perhaps it was that they saw us as a bad omen, bad luck. Welshman speculated that it was probably because they would lock down the area and that meant kicking foreigners out first. Whatever it was, the decision was final. There’d be no appeals. Peering over at the cops, with their menacing scowls, they didn’t appear to be open to negotiations. 

Once they finished the interrogations, they requested us to sign paperwork, which was entirely written in Chinese, and which the interpreter told us was simply a confirmation that we’d witnessed a “terrorist attack” and an act of “insurrection.” However, flipping through the papers, we wordlessly glanced at the Chinese characters... To me, the words were like strange hieroglyphics, practically an alien script...

Then, glancing at each other, we shook our heads, and, to a man, we refused, on the grounds that we couldn’t read Chinese, and we requested to speak with our countries’ consulates.

Thinking we might be spending a few days, or weeks, possibly, in the police station, we decided that would still be better than signing a statement in a language we can’t read. A statement that perhaps could be a confession or political ploy, form of entrapment.

But only maybe 20 minutes later, the cops returned, without the paperwork, and escorted us out and drove us to the hostel to gather our things. Then we journeyed directly to the airport, to leave on the first flight out to Hong Kong, which was the next morning, and so we spent the night in the airport, accompanied the entire time by angry-eyed, surly police escorts.

The Chinese police didn’t abuse us, but there was a look in their eyes, a seething hatred toward us that I could sense. It was a look like, “If we had the chance to kill you, to shove you in front of a firing squad, we happily would, so don’t try anything brave, you stupid fucking honky…”

“…”

We spoke briefly, by phone, with the tour guide, who promised us a partial refund, because the portion of the trip to Mount Everest, to drive around the foot of the mountain, would be canceled.

“I can’t climb the fucking mountain naked, right? Bullocks!” grumbled the Welshman, disappointed. Though he whispered to me, triumphantly, as we stood at the urinals, with our dicks in our hands, pissing, that his camera and phone were both set to the cloud and the photos would be safe. He’d be posting them to Facebook later. He bragged that he’d once sold a picture to the AP of a soldier shooting a protestor in Bangkok.

“Wonder how much the Firestarter will fetch...” Welshman wondered aloud in a hushed voice, and a cunning little smile touched his lips.

The whole time in Tibet, even though I’d downloaded a VPN, I could barely get online. I guess he had satellite net or something else. A few weeks later, when I was in Japan, he emailed me the pics, but forwarded none of the “Firestarter.” I didn’t ask why… 

 

Though I was bummed I couldn’t check out Mount Everest, seeing that sky burial, then seeing that soul pass from the girl’s body, was far more powerful than visiting any mountain, even the world’s tallest. 

Man, watching the girl’s soul, watching her ghost, witnessing it with my own eyes, it was, to me, a verification that the Buddhists are right. There is a soul. There is karma. There is another life. There is something more. I’d seen it. I’d really seen it.

Ever since then, I became a philosophical Buddhist. I don’t visit the temple or pray, but I’m with the ideology. I can relate a lot to the Buddha. I too was a sheltered rich kid, a prince, who was profoundly changed, after leaving my palace and witnessing the real world, witnessing suffering... I so totally respect and love the Buddha’s story, the Buddha’s whole vibe. I love the Buddha, man; like every other religious figure is all blood and guts and damnation, and here’s the Buddha, totally chill…

Maybe I’ll do like him. Start a new religion. Or start a cult. Colt’s Cult. Cult of Colt. But it’d be a cool cult, like we wouldn’t be into sex crimes or suicide or spaceships. We wouldn’t be weird. We’d just go somewhere and chill. Be chill. Like the Buddha…

I’m still a party guy, a philanderer, sure. I’m far from perfect. But it’s all in fun. Everything I do is fun. I try to create positive vibes because I know they’ll boomerang back to me. And I know that if I create positive energy, my next life will be rad. I totally believe in reincarnation, man. I’m ready for it. Like, death could be awesome, I think, if you’ve been living right….

So, look, I’m not afraid of any ghosts, man. I’m not afraid of that house. I’ll visit it later. I mean, for real, after what I saw, I know that ghosts are a part of something greater. Ghosts are just like you or me. They’re travelers. They’re passing through, and they’re not to be feared.

You know what I have come to believe? I believe that the scariest ghosts and monsters are alive. They’re inside us. They’re the evil living in the hearts of men. They’re the impulses of rage, insanity. They’re what make people kill. They’re the hopelessness, the desperation that would drive a person to burn themself alive. They’re our darkest feelings. Now those… Those are the fucking scariest spirits.

"Sky Burial in Tibet"

 

After the palace, we drove out to the countryside and saw something I could never, not in my wildest drug-addled dreams, have ever imagined.

A “sky burial.”

Suffice to say, we weren’t scheduled to see it; it wasn’t on our itinerary; we were to visit a temple nearby, but, on the drive over, from the van, we saw a small procession dragging a corpse up a rocky hill, and we asked the guide about it. Once he responded that it was a sky burial, we hounded him to pull over, to let us see, and he begrudgingly obliged, parked on the side of the road and we rushed out to view the unfolding spectacle. 

The corpse was a plump, brown-skinned old man. His naked, lifeless body was being dragged by three men, two of them youngish, one of them middle-aged. At the top of the earthy hill, the men, accompanied by 5 chanting monks, lay the corpse down. From off their shoulders, the men threw down and opened backpacks, then fished out what looked like small axes, chopping tools. 

Flanked by the chanting, bald-headed monks, the men, in floppy orange clothing, were smiling and nonchalantly chatting, and then the men suddenly raised their axes high in the air and began hacking apart the corpse, chopping the body into pieces.

My stomach shifted, watching it. The others retched. The Welshman didn’t, though. He’d served in the army so he’d seen way more gruesome scenes. Still, he was speechless, awed by it, watching the men laugh, not callously, but so normally, so casually, as they broke the body apart.

Our tour guide was unmoved. But when he noticed how affected we were, he explained to us that in Tibetan Buddhism, it’s believed the soul passes out of the body, after death, so that body is not a person anymore, it’s just an empty vessel, a shell. The remains of the shell, he said, would be fed back to the Earth, be food for vultures.

Hearing him discuss the sky burial was the first time I’d heard any emotion, passion in his voice. Not a lot of emotion, mind you, but certainly a trace…

He said the monks’ chanting was part of a ritual to summon vultures to eat the corpse, that the monks would sprinkle sugar over the corpse to sweeten it for the birds.

The men chopping up, separating the body were a “Todken” a sky burial master, and his assistants, who specialized in these burials. Most Tibetans, the tour guide told us, believe that if they didn’t have a sky burial, they’d become a ghost, wandering the Earth, unable to pass on to the next life.

I asked the tour guide if he’d have a sky burial, and he nodded, reluctantly, not making eye contact. His head cocked back, his eyes were solemnly locked on the scene at the top of the hill, where the men were pulling the corpse’s limp limbs off as if picking apart a crab.

Then I asked the guide if he believed that he’d be a ghost if he didn’t receive a sky burial, and he didn’t reply to my question. An awkward silence hung heavy in the frigid mountain air. 

He went on to say that the ground in Tibet is too hard, cold, and rocky to bury bodies, so sky burials were of a practical nature, but also it fit Buddhist beliefs that humans are a part of something greater, a part of the universe, and the body, being empty of a soul, could be made beneficial, could be made a form of merit, being fed to the wild like this.

“Excarnation,” exclaimed the Welshman, smoothing back his scraggly blond hair that’d been flapping in the increasingly bitter, cold and dry wind.

The icy Himalayan air kicking up, to a man, we were a shivering mass, our jaws twitching, teeth chattering.

“It’s not always a ceremony like this one. Often the family will bring the body out, leave it by the temple, leave it for the vultures…” mentioned the tour guide, shifting his gaze and walking with heavy feet towards the van, and we followed him, like a V of swan, back over to the vehicle.

I wanted to quip to Welshman about being dead, left out like that, on a hill in the Himalayas sure saves a lot of money on a funeral. Is nice to the birds, too, feeding them dinner.

But then I remembered how it’s possible that your brain remains alive, possibly, for days after you die, and you’d maybe experience that... The corpse up there perhaps had just suffered the torture of being hacked apart with axes and would now endure the horrific ordeal of being eaten, picked apart like a Thanksgiving turkey by fucking vultures... Cremation, a big smoky final session in the sauna sounded a whole lot better to me…

We continued onward, drove up to a nearby temple that stood on a mountain spur. It was another white stone, red wood, and gold-trimmed complex and was nestled at the foot of a jagged, rocky hill, overlooking a crystal blue, surging river. Bands of multi-colored prayer flags hung from its front rafters and a gargantuan golden stupa spiraled from its center. 

The temple had tall, whitewashed walls, topped by bands of red ochre and golden circles. There were massive entry doors, made of wood and iron, and high, sloping walls. Like the palace and Jokhang Temple, the walls were decorated in Buddhist-themed motifs, like the ashtamangala. 

Strolling the temple grounds, we kept tripping and stumbling over raised steps in the doorways, which we found amusing, in a self-deprecating way, laughing at one another’s follies. However, the tour guide maintained his poker face and told us in a deadpan voice that the thresholds were intentionally built high, to block wayward spirits. 

In one of the winding halls, the Londoner swung his red face to me, his thin lips barely moving as he spoke, and he mumbled about how he had met a Tibetan girl working at the hostel and was trying to bang her. He then stopped to hand a few small bills to a monk at the temple for a blessing, whispering to me afterward that “I’m doing it for luck, so I can ‘shag’ that Tibetan girl. If this doesn’t work, I can assure you, I am done with Buddhism…”

Though this temple was smaller in scale, inside, it had a curious vastness. Walking about its corridors, I had an uneasy feeling. Glancing around at the lifelike Buddha sculptures and busts in every corner, many of them appeared to be glaring, and it was as if the weight of a thousand eyes were baring down on me. I was experiencing a creeping omen, an anxiety, like perhaps spirits in the temple’s vicinity were trying to warn us about something…

 

After touring the temple, we returned to Lhasa. We had an early dinner, without our guide, at a Nepalese restaurant near our hostel.

(The tour guide was with us during the day, but at night he’d departed in his minivan to go back wherever it was that he went, and we were left to our own devices…)

Staggering out of the restaurant, our bellies stuffed with curry, jasmine rice and nan breads, we went wandering through the city center, then decided to check out a nearby bar. On our way, we must have passed by a police booth at every intersection. Seemingly, on every street, there was a small white and blue police booth, manned by one or two cops. Atop each booth, and installed at every intersection, and all around the city, were a panopticon of security cameras, the eyes of the Chinese Communist Party. Man, I was getting the feeling like the CCP could see more than God…

The heavy security presence, cameras, abundance of police were noticeable to us upon arrival at the airport, and throughout our stay. We’d also passed by numerous roving Chinese police squads, usually consisting of about 10 men, 10 sour-faced coppers, in phalanxes, marching in lockstep, all fitted with fire extinguishers.

And now was when we’d understand why most of the cops in Lhasa wielded fire extinguishers instead of just the traditional police accoutrements…

"A Trip to Tibet"

 

Soon enough, we were lifting off, in another plane, this one to Lhasa. Flying into Tibet, soaring over the Himalayas, a shudder plaited down my spine as I peered down from the plane, gawking at those mountains. The Himalayas were mountains like I’d never seen before. They had this unique shape, twisting sharp tips and spooky gray, white and black colors. They looked more like a leviathan, a strange dark living organism, than a chain of mountains. Thinking how they’d risen, erupted from the Earth, they were, in a way, the Earth’s adult teeth, wisdom teeth, fangs from the ground.

Stepping off the plane, the air was sucked dry from my lungs, as if a vacuum tube had been shoved down my throat. Frigid winds whipped at my face, causing my eyes to wet up and my nose to coldly congeal and drip icy snot.

It was tough to adjust. I felt breathless and lead boned as we lurched through the airport, respirating in rapid, shallow sprints. All of us were feeling rough, light-headed, dizzy due to the sudden shock of the altitude sickness. And we all were slightly aphasiac at the magnificence of the place’s scenery, the ruggedly exotic, breathtaking landscape.

(I’d been to Denver, so I’d been “mile high,” but this place was something else. It was 14,370 feet in the air. It really was the “rooftop of the world,” like walking through the clouds. If you stepped too quickly, especially when ascending stairs, you’d be gasping, literally. We found out fast, that in Lhasa, slow movements were preferrable…) 

The vibe in the place was weird, man. I don’t think I could ever have adjusted to it. Tibet, Lhasa, was just heavy with tension, and the minute we met our tour guide, by the baggage carousel, I felt a cold-dripping premonition...

We piled into a minivan with our tour guide, who drove us from the airport to downtown Lhasa, and he started telling us about the city, its ancient history. His English was excellent, only slightly accented, which was certainly advantageous for us, since none of us spoke any Tibetan...

Peering out the van’s tinted windows, we saw red flags everywhere. And I mean real red flags, the Chinese national flag. Chinese flags plastered on billboards, Chinese flags hanging from lampposts, Chinese flags attached to traffic lights, Chinese flags hanging over seemingly every business or home.

There were gigantic billboards lining every road with what looked to be propaganda. It was hammer and sickle, commie stuff, Chinese characters with lots of exclamation points and brave, happy peasants working under or saluting the omnipresent red flag.

Looking at the Chinese flag, the Welshman whispered into my ear that the flag was Mao’s bedsheet dipped into a pool of blood, and that Mao had run, like a cricket bowler, and launched himself into the sky, snatched five evil dwarf stars from space and then crashed back to Earth, slapped the evil stars onto his blood-soaked flag. Welshman said he’d read something about that in a book by a Chinese dissident.

“Ma Jian is my favorite Chinese writer,” Welshman whispered, panning his snarling mug back toward the passing scenery of wintery plains and spiraling swaths of snow-capped mountains. 

The Welshman was a bit of a bookworm, read a lot, unlike me, who’d read some, but was more into nonfiction and thrillers, the page-turner, Tom Clancy stuff. The Welshman read fucking Russian, French, and Indian novels and shit… However, you probably wouldn’t pin him as a reader, if you saw him walking down the street. Given his perpetually scowling Sid Vicious face, you’d think of him, likely, as a ruffian. And you’d also be right. The Welshman was really a case study of interesting dichotomies... 

The Welshman pointed out that every street sign was tri-lingual, with the Chinese characters atop, in the largest type, then the Tibetan script underneath, roughly half its size, and English, smooshed to the bottom, even smaller. “The irony is didactic,” mumbled the Welshman, as he angled his handheld digital camera, pressed it to the van’s windows, snapping pics like a seasoned traveler.

Arriving in downtown Lhasa, I found the city itself to be a dichotomy, a curious amalgamation of modern and ancient. Modern, glassy boxes of buildings were situated next to slanted roof, chalk white structures; knots of Buddhist monks in saffron robes played on cell phones in front of golden, triangular temples, constructions that appeared over 1000 years old; elderly street hawkers, with faces worn as an old leather glove, wrapped almost like mummies in countless layers of clothes, the hawkers squatting on tiny plastic stools, curbside, the hawkers with colorful blankets unfurled and piled with vegetables or fruits or handicrafts to sell to passersby, the hawkers adroitly operating smartphones, accepting mobile phone, digital payments… It was quite a scene…

Driving by a temple, we passed a group of lumpy elderly women, their bodies wrapped in heavy orange shawls. They were facedown, prostrating on the street, outside the temple. I’d never seen anyone prostrate. One of the other Brits exploded in laughter, upon witnessing the women throwing themselves, crawling on their bellies through the icy muck of the street.

“What is that shite?” he asked himself, through gasps of cackling, high-pitched laughs... The Brit had a narrow, ruddy face and a frohawk style haircut that made him look sort of like a chicken…

“They’re prostrating,” spat back the Welshman, sounding annoyed.

“Prostrating? What’s that?” the laugher queried, speaking in one of those London accents that omitted every hard “T”. “Prostra..ing,” he chirped, but after realizing his ignorance, the Londoner’s laughter quieted and slowly died.  

“It’s a religious thing,” returned the Welshman, sneering and pointing his camera at the prostrating women.

I’d half-expected the Welshman to crack a dark joke about it. But he didn’t.

 

We then arrived at our hostel. The place was a total dump. It had graffiti written on the walls and stank like a pungent mixture of cigarettes and unwashed ass.

After we checked in, our tour guide, a local Tibetan, a chunky, 30ish, sad-faced man, pulled the Welshman aside and whispered something, the guide speaking with a somber expression.

The Welshman stepped back over to us, with a pained face. He said something about how we needed to keep quiet about political matters. That the tour guide had done 3 years in jail because he got ratted out for criticizing the Chinese Communist Party, saying something he claims he never said, and it had taken 3 years in jail for it to be cleared up, so we needed to be careful how we spoke during our trip.

(Yeah, like, I’d noticed immediately something was off about the tour guide, man. He had the thousand-yard stare and spoke mechanically. He never smiled. His lips weirdly twitched. His dark brown face, especially his eyes, looked droopy, like an invisible weight were pulling them downward. He had unevenly buzzcut hair, color-clashing clothes, tattered sneakers, and his yellow jacket was zipped up to his chin. His head seemed to be bloated, like the size of a pumpkin, really unnaturally large, even for his heavy-set body... He just didn’t look right, not at all… Man, I bet the poor fuck was tortured like a bastard for years in that Chinese prison. We all really pitied him after learning his past, laying our eyes on him as if he’d been a holocaust survivor or some shit…)

“A fucking cultural genocide,” mumbled the Welshman, as we hauled our heavy backpacks, wheezing as we trudged up three flights of twisting, narrow stairs, to settle into our dingy rooms.

 

Shortly after getting situated in the hostel, our guide took us out on a short drive around downtown Lhasa.

Man, it was amazing. It was sort of like I’d have imagined India to be, except colder and less populated. It was more modern than I’d envisioned, too, full of shiny new cars, vans, buses, trucks, and motorbikes. And there were no animal-pulled carts or rickshaws, either, like I pictured. Except for the bicycle driven rickshaws, though, which, like, at that altitude, those dudes pushing and pedaling those bicycle rickshaws had to be stronger, more jacked than even the most roided-up Lance Armstrong…

The traditional Tibetan buildings around the city were similar to other Asian buildings I’d seen, with the triangular, sloping roofs. But they were slightly different, had a chalkier white exterior, smaller windows, and loads of bright orange prayer flags hanging from their upcurved eaves.

Lhasa was turning out to be a bustling, lively little place, with tons of restaurants, tiny shops, street vendors, people in brightly colored garb, puffy sheep fur jackets, turban type head wraps and various colorful ethnic clothes.

(With their explosions of radiant colors, the woven patterns on their loose, long-sleeved robes, their wide-brimmed hats, plaited hair, beads, precious stones, glimmering jewels and finery, the Tibetans, reminded me, in a way, of Native Americans… And I spotted one Tibetan woman, in a purplish red robe, who was wearing a headdress that was similar to a Jamaican beanie, and I couldn’t help but wonder if she was a fortuneteller of some sort, maybe the Tibetan reincarnation or sister spirit of Miss Cleo…)

All of Lhasa’s winding streets and curving alleys seemed to be leading to the Jokhang Temple, which was the heart of the city, both spiritually and economically.

The temple was where our short driving excursion ended. We parked across the street from it, got out, set out on foot and perused the rows and rows of stalls outside the temple’s gates. The stalls were selling items to the masses of tourists (who were mostly Tibetans), hawking stuff like Buddha-themed souvenirs, Tibetan knickknacks, prayer wheels, and local food, largely consisting of dumplings stuffed with yak meat.  

As we walked through the rows of souvenir stalls, toward the imposingly tall, golden temple gates, which were glowing effulgently in the cold sun, we encountered more folks out front, Tibetan pilgrims, predominantly elderly, in black robes, who were prostrating, chanting and crawling on their bellies, through the streets beside the temple entrance… None of us said a word as we walked by, shifting our paths to avoid them, their bodies undulating and sliding as if submerged in water…

Our guide then brought us inside, took us on a tour of the Jokhang Temple, shepherded us around. It was astounding. Beyond words, really. There were bald-headed monks in saffron robes chanting Buddhist mantras as we walked in. I got goosebumps, stepping in there, for real. It was like a scene from a movie, like Indiana Jones or something. To a man, in our group, we were all pretty speechless, in awe of it…

The Jokhang Temple has an impressively long history. Our guide said it has stood in various forms since 652, and the Welshman whispered something to me about how it was a miracle the place survived the Cultural Revolution, when mobs of angry young communists were running amok, all over China, smashing up every temple in sight…

The temple was jam-packed with people, largely Tibetan pilgrims, Buddhists, who were there to pray. Long lines of worshippers were streaming in and out of the temple gates, crowding and moving in masses through the halls, rooms, and spaces. Practically every inch of the place was peopled.  

We carried forward, amongst the knots, like passengers in a packed train station. The temple was like a maze. It was disorienting, overwhelming, and incredible, with twisting, turning halls and corridors that were brimming with statues, paintings, writings in Sanskrit. The halls and corridors were somehow narrow yet vast, infinite yet still somehow small...  

Throughout the temple, there were Tibetans on their knees, chanting, bowing to Buddha statues, bowing and praying to and with the monks. The Tibetans were really into their prayers too. Their bodies electrified as they knelt. The monks sitting there all cross-legged and Buddha-like, too, were the epitome of Zen. It was quite a sight. The monks’ and pilgrims’ chanting reminded me somewhat of preachers speaking in tongues. But, really, it was nothing like you’d ever see in America…

The temple was simply magnificent. Man, like, I’d seen gorgeous churches in Europe, but I’d never witnessed anything that could compare to this temple, certainly not in terms of exoticness. It had these intricate frescos of scenes from Buddhism, and immaculate, brightly painted red, gold and green wooden beams, and various Buddha sculptures sat everywhere.

We trudged up a steep stairway to a rooftop deck, took a look at the peaks of the Himalayas that ringed around the temple. I noticed that the temple’s roof was gilded, and part of it looked to be made from pure gold. I couldn’t imagine how they’d constructed it, with that much gold. It looked like more gold than I’d seen in every gangsta rap video ever made. I think Trinidad James would die from a euphoric heart attack if he ever saw it…  

I wanted to ask the guide more about the temple’s construction, but he’d stopped to pray with a monk. He was on his knees, his eyes shut, and was chanting, rocking back and forth, and so I didn’t think it was the ideal time to disturb him.

A feeling surfaced in me, like, how peaceful this was, the temple, how chill. Unlike Christian churches, with the bloody Jesuses hanging overhead, the Buddhist imagery seemed so… serene. It seemed to be about life rather than death and purgatory. That was the vibe I got from it, anyway, and I appreciated it…

Not only was visiting the temple incredible, but the smell inside, oh man, it was unforgettable. The monks were burning incense, “joss sticks,” everywhere, plus some other sort of stuff that I couldn’t identify. As we made our exit, clumped amongst another surging mass that pushed toward the gate, I asked the tour guide about the unique scent, and he said it was yak butter.

Like, wow, the stuff had the most pungent smell to it. The smell crawled and nestled itself in my nostrils, clung to my clothes. It was stronger than any cigarette smoke, as if the scent were a power of its own. Everywhere in Lhasa, I noticed it, that same smell, that cloying, heavy scent of yak butter. At first sniff, it repulsed me, but pretty soon I got used to it, and even started to like it...

Walking out of that temple, our group was dead quiet. I think we were all experiencing a touch of sensory overload. It blew me away, really, that something so beautiful, intricate, and incredible could actually exist.

 

Prostrating outside the Jokhang Temple

On the streets of Lhasa