Aside from the Jokhang Temple, Lhasa wasn’t as crowded or
peopled as Hong Kong. Perhaps there aren’t a whole lot of people who’d want to
live in a place that high off the ground. I wasn’t sure how people could live
there, really, living up in the sky like that.
Back in Hong Kong, I’d read an article about how Tibetans
had evolved differently than other humans, developing special genes and
anatomies that enabled them to survive at a higher altitude. Their very
existence, like, an example of Darwinism, these people of the skies…
The Tibetans were interesting people, man. They had a
different appearance to them than the Chinese. They were something of a hybrid
between the Indians, with their shorter stature and dark brown skin, and
Chinese, with slanted eyes.
Visiting different spots around the city, I noticed
immediately how friendly they were, the Tibetans. And I’d laugh at how the
street peddlers would cajole us, some even trying, absurdly, to wrangle us,
pull us into their street side stall, so they could sell us tchotchkes, sweets,
or whatever they had sitting under canopies or large umbrellas.
I didn’t know what they were saying since most were speaking
Tibetan to us. But it was obvious they were hawking their wares, pointing to
things, shoving them in our faces. It was comical, really.
Although, man, it was sad, some of the street beggars we
saw. There was a time or two, when a beggar, holding a little baby, would
literally hoist up the baby and thrust it at us, while pleading for money.
Welshman said not to be fooled by it, however, because, apparently, in parts of
Asia, there’s a “baby renting” racket, where “professional” beggars will rent a
baby for a day, to elicit sympathy…
There were little kid street beggars, too, skittering
around. One beggar, looking no more than 6 years old, ran up to our group,
wrapped himself around the tall lanky Londoner’s leg and wouldn’t let go until
the guy gave the kid a couple bucks. It felt more like a form of emotional
extortion to me… But really, it was sad, man, to see that level of poverty, to
see little kids doing that…
I mean, dude, I grew up rich. I pretty much grew up in a
castle. The worst thing I could remember witnessing was a friend in summer
camp, on a hike, stumble into a beehive, and get swarmed by angry waves of
bees, stung up and down his back. I was roughly 20 feet away, viewed the
horrific scene as we trekked up a path, by a clearwater mountain stream. I
remember the bees, the buzzing mass, the hovering shadow encircle and swallow
him in its clutches, the army of flying insects jabbing and stinging at him as
he wallowed, his voice cracking in misery, pain and terror.
Amazingly, he didn’t die. But his back, his face, and his
arms and legs were swollen, sheeted in red lumps. Dude looked almost like the
Elephant Man... It was ill…
That was likely the worst, saddest thing I’d ever seen in
person. But I’d never seen such wide-scale suffering until I traveled to the
developing world. I had never seen truly grinding, truly generational poverty.
I had never seen such inequity, corruption and failure of leadership until I
traveled to Latin America, parts of Asia, the Middle East, Africa. Man, it was
fucking visceral, seeing that. Seriously, like, I’d take the worst slum, the
worst neighborhood in America, any day, over the slums I saw. Americans really
don’t understand how some people are living.
I remember, as a kid, seeing that fat lady in those
infomercials, pleading for money to feed starving African children. I didn’t
see her anywhere, in my travels. I was thinking maybe I’d spot her in some
slum, on the outskirts of a city, filming an infomercial. But I didn’t. I
remember that we’d always joked, my friends and me, that she’d been eating all
those kids’ food, or she was like a cannibal or some shit, kidnapping and
eating the kids. But after seeing those places, for real, all that became less
funny. I wonder what happened to that lady. I don’t know.
But, seriously, man, like I really became aware of how
fortunate I was, in so many ways, after traveling the world, for real…
Most of the Tibetans we came across had obviously not
traveled much outside of Tibet. Most had obviously never seen white people
before, with how they were looking at us, gazing at us in wide-eyed, happy
amazement. The rural, farmer types in particular. They’d point, wave, stare at
us. Here or there one would speak to us, in Tibetan, smiling and asking us
questions.
Welshman whispered to me something about how it was a far
cry from the first foreigners who’d visited Tibet and were hissed at and spit
on. Nope, we were treated far better, thankfully…
When the Tibetans would speak to us, wave, say stuff in
Tibetan, we’d just smile back, shrug our shoulders. Our tour guide, you might
have thought, would have translated some, but he kept quiet, dour-faced as
always; his lips firmly pressed together at all times.
As he led us around, his hard face betrayed little emotion,
and he kept his eyes fixed to the ground or in a straight line toward our
destination. He only translated when a transaction of cash was necessary, like
at restaurants or buying entrance tickets to temples or if we wanted help
purchasing a souvenir.
It was striking, to me, how positive most of the locals’
attitudes were, given the circumstances, and how much random people on the
street smiled.
I only knew a bit of the history. I’d read online, before we
came, how the Communist Chinese had invaded Tibet, occupied it since the 1950s
and declared it a part of China, how they expelled the Dalai Lama, considered
him a terrorist. To the Chinese, the Dalai Lama was like Osama Bin Laden. It
was all strange to me, seeing that I’d always viewed the Dalai Lama as a
peaceful, friendly old man.
I’d read too that the Chinese had even banned the Dalai Lama
from being reincarnated. Man, the Chinese had things in Tibet so locked down
that they controlled reincarnations! I wondered how that worked, if the Chinese
government had paranormal police, like the Ghostbusters, and if the Dalai
Lama’s ghost would be thrown into a paranormal prison, a purgatory of some
sort. I couldn’t quite figure that one out. The communists are weird, man.
Speaking of the Dalai Lama, we were able to visit his house,
the Potala Palace, which is an immense, mammoth red and white structure atop a
hill, in the old city area of Lhasa.
Driving in and stepping out of the van, we tossed our heads
back, gawked and gasped at the sight of the palace. The palatial structure
towered and skied above us, sat imposingly with the sharp teeth of the
Himalayas as its backdrop. Its grandiose appearance gave it a curious aura of
seclusion, and to enter the palace, we had to trudge up a small mountain of
steps that were almost like an unending stairway to the heavens.
Walking up the vertiginously ascending, zigzagging, endless
flights of white stone stairs was like climbing an obstacle course, with how
thin the air was. We were all parched, huffing and puffing, hands on knees,
once we reached the stairs’ summit, but our moods were slightly lifted upon
being greeted by the snow lion statues at the entrance. We then wordlessly
panned our gazes, appreciated and soaked in the jaw-dropping views of the
Tibetan plateau.
In contrast to its bewildering façade, the palace felt
curiously empty inside. But it was definitely worth seeing for its panoramic
views of Lhasa and its environs. Not to mention the breathtaking, lush wooden
architecture, columns, and inward sloping walls painted in iridescent reds,
golds, and greens. The walls were beautifully decorated, too, meticulously
painted in detailed Buddhist scenes and images. With the overall craftsmanship,
scale of the 32-acre complex, with its 13 storeys and over 1000 rooms, one
could easily understand its UNESCO status, designation as one of the “Wonders
of the World.”
Despite its grandeur, there really was an empty feeling in
being there, I thought. As if we shouldn’t be there. The palace was a graveyard
of sorts, a house of ghosts, a place in enemy hands. It felt like Paris, the
Eiffel Tower, during the Nazi years.
Just being a tourist there felt wrong, guilty in a way. I
felt like a graverobber, like I was prying open and exploring an ancient tomb…
