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tibet by the short hairs
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I've begun to feel worthless, I mean - guilty of not fulfilling enough promises. But I still feel followed - why?! I ought to describe how nature and people laugh at us - for being ourselves. Civilization makes us feel most irresponsible when we simply try to be free. Freedom like mine isn't admirable anymore... I don't care too much what happens to me. Does that seem an excuse for laziness? How much money have I spent, that's the real question. Flying from Taipei to Kashgar is costly. I'll spend as much during the next sixty days of camping as I have already in a single week, jetting city to city... Today, everything must be done quickly enough, or not at all. |
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But who am I? What am I doing here? You will be lucky enough to answer that for me, friend. I am only one more David, and I'm going to Tibet to see the wilderness. I haven't grown a beard yet... Looking young - that's my good luck - and it can't last much longer. The illusions of youth are a great technique for concealing suspicions about self... Nobody need know what a burnt-out loser I really am... |
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How different this kind of half-honest writing will always be from the even sneakier, wilful prose of fiction. Slow ebbs the flow and up grows the construct, the idea answers for us. Perhaps all conventional writers choose to write fiction because the truth of their own lives is too close and too tender for their minds; the author's heart is too full and unable to articulate the incongruities, failings, triumphs and personal injustices of real life... Not true? You think you can? Oh that's my point. Fiction is made for transmuting the ineluctable truths into less painful stuff, into matter more readily apprehended. The verities of one's own life are forgotten for those of a hero's. It doesn't matter. Interchanging your dreams is easy now. To get out of the big jam and find a new lover, a new land to call home, a warm pond reflecting your minnows, whatever, you are living your life, not me... The new "truths" of fiction are supposedly more clear than the ones about your own simple story. Ah but all authors know that their subliminal insights about self and loved ones are transported through the imagination into a newer, more comfortable world far removed from actual home and family. We write of other lives to escape our own; yet inevitably, we write to explain our own experience. This is why so many poor writers become fretful about confusing life with art, and so mistakenly warn against using life to make art... They haven't understood what art is. The finest authors know, just as the best novel is really as pure as contemplation, that art must wed with life - intimately and inexcusably. |
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I've fallen off my perch again. Ahem, pardon me: the challenge today isn't a novel, but the true story of a journey from city to wild Oriental lands. Nothing too unexpected ought to happen along the way because I want to come home alive. But WHY am I doing this? Because - I love riding my bike through natural places! After I get off the plane in Kashgar, in the westernmost province of China, Xinjiang, it's a long ride south into Tibet. |
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Taipei to Hong Kong. The only interesting thing that happened on the way was a light moment when I forgot my tickets in the travel agent's office and I had to endure a very slow elevator ride to beat shop-closing time. The astonished travel agent was more relieved than I. |
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Sorry - my shocked, grinning look of confidence must resemble permafrost - I'm the ultimate manque disguised as an exemplary of the flying free man... I feel so supine inside, a coat on a hanger in a closet, much retarded in my efforts at enlightenment and creativity. Personal aspiration and the cults of commercialized personality have gone far to occlude the collective soul in all artists. The Self - your self - is the enemy of Buddha and Jesus - even if you don't believe - and the self is the enemy of all poets, too. Take heart, and forgive yourself for losing your soul. That isn't Shakespeare, either. We all become meek and mighty, but only after we understand that we are all thieves; we are taught to take everything from each other. The morality we preach is not new: it never existed, except perhaps as a proposal - a suggestion of what to do... We are neither so mighty nor so wise as we imagine our gods to be - and that's why we need to imagine them, in fact. We invent divine intelligence to excuse our desire for a world that nature cannot admit... Forget it: you will find my metaphors offensive before enlightening. I prove my point, but quite unintentionally; writing is simply spontaneous... |
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My life is passed and all my labors are worthless. This is the conviction goading my consciousness and what's left of my conscience turns into a perpetual reminder of loss. A cliche pops into mind: worn-out wishes are like hides flayed raw. We stay shut up inside the silence of what we dare not utter... I'd rather make you wonder what I'm about - even till you turn off my book so you can go out and "have fun" instead... Meanwhile, the rest of the world suffers war and starvation. So, please - feel privileged - that I can bore you enough to make you ask, when AM I going to start travelling? |
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Be patient if you feel like it. But you know, honesty isn't a hot property. People at the heart of things are well-paid to lie whitely, blatantly - to themselves and you. I prefer to do it privately. Feels more secure that way. Journalists and novelists of the soulful kind, we all tend to be impoverished and pay dearly for our spiritual "purity." |
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On Earth, each man and woman usually has only one or two big fears during the course of their whole lives... Like, not getting enough money to put your kids through school. Or starving to death. The quest for material security has long since surpassed spiritual compulsions. In the Middle Ages, which none of us have experienced, people were not afraid of losing their jobs - they were afraid of God. Nobody is afraid of God anymore, not even Bible-punching good guys. I want to believe, why not? But I cannot imagine being afraid of God in the process... Will I be forgiven by St. Peter? Will Buddha smile down and bless me, despite my benighted calm? Should I hope so? I can't even conceive of these ideas seriously... |
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As I've hinted, the self has swallowed the soul perhaps, and we forget what it was like to be emotionally sensitive to beliefs instead of the coy, snappy everyday "better-wisdom" which we buy and sell to win our certain sensibility for material confidence. Push aside those dangerous feelings and be a man! Like I say, every guy and gal has a couple of big fears we try again and again to overcome; these fears are subsidiary to the basic physical hardship of keeping lungs and heart oscillating autonomously upon a full tummy... Forgive me for speaking of my deeper motivations. If you can permit such a pronounced phrase, my impetus hangs like a sack of rice upon the earlobe of divine pity; and my lower lip, misshapen in the effort to confess everything without giving away my problem... A big fear: that I will forget myself and all my work, and suddenly wake-up uncreative and illiterate - and after all these years of discouragement, wasted effort and self-willed obscurity - the deep confidence I've always enjoyed cultivating will be destroyed. Result: the total disablement of my talent - a neutered imagination, a paralyzed pen - that's what I most fear! Okay, laugh at me. |
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I'm weak because fascinated by the problems that compel our insecurities. Wrong: I am merely dull because I'm exactly like so many others who have ways and means for avoiding work. The wasting of time conspires with all the "big" peoples' designs for you. But big opinions collude with the small people's opinions, too. Of course, everyone is really small, and great minds are freaks of nature who seldom find a comfortable home on this Earth: nobody who is talented actually claims to be a genius. Nothing tragic happens until the act of lifting a pen to paper is silenced with the feeling it's a ridiculous humiliation to even try; then, the creative paranoiac proclaims that the "society" has silenced him/her out of jealous disregard for true talent... The want for an audience is supposed to be explained by the generally "low" level of commercial mediocrity that sells easily. The pulpy action novel wins big... The ridiculous humiliation experienced by the failure is deepened, knowing that others were able to produce a few fine works from improbable material. |
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The last point lingers: only you decide what to do... Realize that other people do not really judge you - or at least, if they do - their judgements are hardly important to the work you do. Other people do not decide what you will or will not do with your creativity... You do. That's all. Facing yourself is to defeat numerous cheating schemes, most of them perpetuated by you alone. The strongbox of mind shall be broken open, and the treasure inside awaits your daring touch... Sure it does. Nobody wants you to do it, and surely somebody else will get to be big and live that gratifying life full of other peoples' respect instead of the usual self-pity. Really - nobody has to pity you... |
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I AM burnt out, and maybe it should be a relief. Now, it doesn't matter what I do or say. Nor does it matter very much how I live or work. I can write nothing, or write excellently. I can write drivel. The beauty of my situation is that absolutely nobody will care! Nobody will care that I'm spoiled and self-conscious, that I wasn't born in the right town with the right parents, etc... |
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Blessed with obscurity, my secret delight is knowing that my work is startling and clear - full of beautiful metaphors and insights. I'm not even remotely obtuse... But because nobody will read it, how can I help but become careless? That's what you think - because you assume writers must compete, too. But I refuse to enter the fray. It would be just too hard for me to drop the self-consciousness of being a professional; it's one more plague upon the modern imagination, a cheap hypocrisy. After all - how can we pretend that we don't care about being brought up to kill other people for what we pretend to deserve? |
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I can stop here and write no more, but there's so much to tell you about. I will see and feel deeply in this place. I can tell you of the people I meet, and I will embellish the mountains with my mood. Empty of cities and full of solitude. Hot sand and vivid water. You cannot imagine how trapped you are in your car and lovely, expensive homes... |
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Age allows me to outgrow impatience. Perspective is one of nature's truest gifts, and each of us should learn to keep it close to the heart for understanding the long span of our more disquieting persuasions. Dispel trouble with an inkling that all eternity lives in each instant. |
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I suppose, to be fully honest, this anxiety about running out of money really threatens to ruin my talent. Some think that being poor keeps the edge on the blade so to say. Doesn't a difficult actor earn more respect for being desperate and insecure? Weird, how we pay each other to be afraid of this wondrous world! Haven't we made running out of money a good reason to die? |
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I'm getting a little older: peoples' judgements can still bite sometimes, but usually their prejudices don't touch me... For example, if the Pontius is full of noise and slim knowledge, he may suspect that I know more, and then he imagines himself flustered by my irresponsible, lose-all-my-money actions - since he hasn't the largesse or balls to do the same thing. Don't forget: once you get hold of a lot of money, you will automatically become more careful and won't be allowed to risk anything at all. You will become as rich as the next millionaire - and nothing more. I know that I'm always going to be poor, so I don't have to worry about it much. Perhaps some of my younger judges are dimly aware that they fail to put themselves into my shoes, and can't see themselves doing the same kinds of things later in life, having locked themselves inside the forced-labor camp of a "career." I never had a career - thank God... |
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You can make something out of the world only if you really believe that you need to make some changes. Yet so many of our theories and political ideologies - they are so often made of plain avowals, testaments and claims to believe in one narrow way of doing things. Example: what lies behind my silly belly button but a faith that I'm a writer, and not merely by choice - but by birth! Promising to try again is the universal refrain of all failures. It's too easy to do nothing but mock and be mocked - half-wit and genius alike. |
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My claim to be a writer evokes indifference, or the eyebrow imperceptibly lifted. Occasionally someone admires the idea. Still, I don't talk about being a writer. Sometimes I imagine that I emit a mysterious allure over which I have no control. But that is a dream deep inside the imagination of women who don't know me, and has nothing to do with my supernatural talent, which isn't always apparent as I live day to day. I guess I don't often give myself the chance to perform. My talents aren't open to public purview anyway: they are deeply at home in my consciousness and aren't often shared... So let's hope that a woman with imagination can make up for a man's shortcomings. |
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The imagination of twenty-three was so much more capacious in the scope of its illusions, especially in the sense that its blind spots were whole globes of shattering consciousness, when each experience was too soon taken as universal. Time must pass and perspective grows up by itself. If you're smart, the globes of blindness recede into moles, barely noticed under the stubble of your five o'clock shadow. The most interesting phases of growth help free up new questions from the ice jam: truly, the world is a womb for the imagination and its birth is a process of years. If you are fortunate, the sense of unique experience due to privileges of birth, education and economic class tend to retreat as we see that each one suffers being alone... Truly, it's a step towards our illusion of maturity, realizing that we actually live in the same world as everyone else; but we see that our perspectives are wholly personal. Maybe only joy and agony are identical between individuals. ...You realize that you're small and everybody suffers delusions and wishes to be loved as much and even more than you. The world isn't only a trap for you, it traps us all among daunting dilemmas. How can I be understood? What's the point of doing a job if it takes me away from my joys and talents? |
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The assumption of human equality as a common goal - towards the ends of health, prosperity and the exercise of rights - is a noble wish, but one which has never been understood very well... Many hardcore chumps who end up being labeled "right-wing," tend to hold out against this assumption of human equality because they consider themselves very wise, and believe that they can't fail to see how unequal we are born, achieving no more and no less than our innate level of natural intelligence allows. What these mean ones fail to acknowledge is that the idea of human equality involves our external rights and the exercise of privileges on social levels only... Instead, we ought to emphasize that human beings are always members of the same community - and we are all equal at the conceptual level - before the divine mind's eye; only within this belief are we likely to make progress towards realizing the good life... |
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Too often we give up the attempt to win arguments involving what we perceive to be a gross misunderstanding upon the part of our opponents... |
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~ Okay, travelogue! |
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Here I am in Chengdu. I fly from Hong Kong even though it costs nearly twice as much as a plane from Guangzhou, which is just across the water from Hong Kong. But HK is an "international" airport, so that's reason enough to charge double for the same distance, isn't it? |
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Arrival in downtown Chengdu is a comedy act perpetrated by an aging fat man, gray barbs sprouting from his chin: his pedicab is all of three massive bicycle wheels; he waits at the bus stop for guys like me. I'm on. He heaves against the stiff lead pedals. But he doesn't ride me to the hotel I ask for. Not at all. Instead, he takes me straight to a big storefront full of lovely girls 18 to 22 years old. |
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The most wonderful thing about Chinese prostitutes, or at least these young girls, is their infinite allure. They are born with a proclivity for preserving their natural, most innocent coyness. I get the distinct impression that most of the youngsters here are virginal, untouched, and somehow able to preserve the first character of their vestal, spring-blossom-like inexperience and curiosity - apparently even after having laid a hundred guys. Giggling as they see me come inside, the girls scatter from the room, running back behind the curtain as if expecting me to chase them onto the nearest bed. But I don't even know where I am, abandoned, not at my hotel, but at a brothel which only resembles a hotel on the outside... Feeling that the clever Chinese are out to confuse me to no end, I consult my road map with help from the pimp, grinning over my shoulder at the few girls brave enough to peep at me from behind the curtain. Then, I heft up my bags for a walk across the bridge to my hotel. |
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The name of the Traffic Hotel is precisely appropriate, judging by the sick smoke and dust smothering the city all around, and the 66 public busses parked next to the hotel. The hotel is designed for poor travellers like me and costs about 5 dollars a night. Each room has three beds, and it's tight, but cozy. The hotel is full of back-packing Americans, Europeans and a few Chinese, too. |
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Two guys are already lodged in my room, archetypal youngsters attracted to the new East. They are Americans on a sort of "package-career-tour" which includes study of Chinese language and an "internship" (i.e.: slave-labor) with a big multi-national-joint-venture company. (Remember one thing: only the executives get to be grossly over-paid in these sinister, hilariously medusan companies...) |
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I go with Tom and Frank, in search of a real Sichuan restaurant, and we find one. They tell me some hairy stories, making me laugh: only two weeks before they were in Beijing as NATO forces (Americans) "accidentally" bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. The two fellows had a tough time getting taxis to give them rides for an entire week, especially as the Chinese media took advantage of the tragedy to saturate the country with anti-American info. |
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I wander with the them around remnants of old Chengdu, once a very pretty and quaint old town made of red bricks. Here, the ancient streets are as naturally articulated as human arteries carrying the life-blood of Earth's oldest continuous civilization. China is such a frustrating effort of the imagination for Westerners to grasp... (The controversial psychologist Jung once warned that if you grew up in the West, immersed in the Christian milieu, then you would be ill-advised to attempt conversion to Buddhism or Hinduism because he believed Europeans and Americans could not achieve any effectively acculturated understanding of the East, which he assumed would be necessary for a genuine religious experience. Since Jung presumed that Westerners were psychologically ill-equipped to achieve understanding of Eastern faiths, he advised that any such attempt at conversion would only confuse and so make us, "lose our centers.") Of course, such a critical warning need not be applied to the study of culture and polity, and we realize that Confucius, the longest-running mind in the ancient and modern history of China, was fairly basic in his program of feudal dominion: he preached a pragmatic doctrine, and was a code-obsessed and rather fusty patriarch; in fact, he was an old-fashioned dogmatist who today would be classed among the most stuffy of right-wing conservatives. Confucius is quite easily understood by the typically unimaginative official intellectuals employed as politicians and professors throughout the Western world nowadays... |
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...Unfortunately, Western prejudices about China are often inspired by the impenetrability and self-supporting insularity of Oriental culture. Language is a great part of this barrier. Yet, everybody knows how closely Chinese expatriate communities stick together overseas, in America, or anywhere, and that they generally made almost no effort to mix and meld with their host societies for generations... Dear, dear, now why is that? Wait, wait a few more years for your mind to open, pal. The Chinese, if not completely blind, are perhaps blessed with some innate wisdom about societies outside their own; since the Western world is obviously very different, so most Chinese realize that there's no way they can transform it into something Chinese... So why bother trying to integrate? If your Chinese compatriots are also living abroad, and in the same neighborhood, then it's easy to speak only with them, right? |
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Of course, the experience of mixed-"race" couples yields up many peculiar predicaments borne of stubbornly innate dispositions. Many foreign boys cannot understand why their Chinese wives force them to do things their way; likewise, the wives will steadfastly fail to comprehend how or why things ought to be done differently from the Chinese way. Dear friend, if you are in any way disinclined to fulfill your destiny as a grey-suited father, do not marry a Chinese woman unless she's a freak - and already very wealthy - for she will make you slave for money and infants until you run away, bored into premature age! On the other hand, if you feel born to be a family man, you are perfectly content with the Chinese lady, who makes no big pretence, nor is in any way shy to admit, that her dreams involve making babies, buying houses and driving fancy cars. |
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Now, times have changed a little bit, and some variants have crept past the age-old, universal familial destiny. Besides the usual pros, ordinary rebel babes can sometimes be found in China. But don't be fooled too easily - most of these "deviants" are actually stuck in the chrysalis stage of their development, and only wait for the "right man" to ignite the next phase, which entails a sudden reversal of philosophy, mutual cocooning and spontaneous rebirth as a "mother-to-be." Instantly, the svelte, "free-woman" of the wild world is replaced. As others have said before me: the people populating oriental cultures, especially in Taiwan and Japan, are experts at social mimicry. While adopting many ostensible forms of Western behavior, including a few of the subtler social mores, they have had their own culture for thousands of years - and this reality is usually overlooked. All people end up carefully concealing their more naturally innate traits beneath the surface of their pretty social games... |
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The tiny, crooked streets of Chengdu's denuded old town are squeezed between the new, straight avenues. These small alley-ways comprise only a single sliver that survives from a much larger jigsaw. Big slices of this exotic pie can be found still extant in other, smaller Chinese towns: Weishan and Douge in Yunnan, and Suzhou and Yangzhou in Jiangsu... I love these old Chinese streets, because they were made for living in, close to your neighbors. Such streets put people in each other's laps, and it is the easiest, most natural thing to walk outside and start chatting with the folks next door. Indeed, at dinner time, the children and parents of old Chengdu and Yangzhou come outside to socialize with their neighbors. You seldom see folks in America's sprawling suburbs wander even halfway up the block for a chat: we must use cars and telephones before we can touch other people. So, community life isn't as detached in these old Chinese neighborhoods, since folks are able to fulfill their humanity more easily, living close to each other. It's a heart-warming sight and yet it baffles me: I feel as if I really missed something, not growing up in such a place! |
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Our walk leads us to a restaurant like a classy bistro. Sichuan food is rightfully famous. We choose standard, universally loved dishes - like eggplant in tart oyster sauce - and this one is truly saucy, not oily! Then something unexpected is given us: "Flower-Shaped Tofu." It's a simple delicacy made of softly-textured tofu laid out in a mandala-shape - exactly like a giant open flower - garnished with cucumber slices and tasting very light and melting. |
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The next day, walking alone, I get photos of two white statues: there's an acutely chiselled dame playing a lyre in front of the musical university, and a famous poetess of the Tang period named Xue Tao, situated in a park named after her... |
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Xue Tao wrote few poems, about eighty. She got around too, and didn't need to get married to enjoy her guys: typical Chinese rich girl from the past. Today, the tiny park she calls home is worn-out, but the bamboo trees are lush. Xue Tao's statue resembles many other contemporary female statues in China and you will discover that her facial features resemble a softer version of Shakyamuni Buddha. The statue is also reminiscent of the southern Chinese deity, Kuanyin... You could even mistake Xue Tao's image for a Manchu, since her face does appear more Korean than Chinese. Except for her too tiny mouth, that seems to come from another land again. It's her inflated cheeks that trick my discernment. Anyway, looking at such ideal features, it's easy to suspect that nobody remembers what she actually looked like. Let's just say the sculptor's image crosses woman with a rosebud fairy. She looks a subdued and crafty thing. The sculptor had skill: Xue Tao looks such a woman, and her smirk confides that she's the one who so obviously knows! |
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About statues: if you spend enough time in China, you will be able to guess which statues were made recently, and which are actually vintage relics: all the newer ones tend to resemble each other and the old ones have more individualized features. In China, the imitation of established artistic forms has been the only acceptable technique for mastering the arts of painting and sculpture. China's history has much depth, and the forms of art familiar to each era were easily isolated from one another by vast spans of transition and the great distances between places. Today in China, as contemporary methods of artistic training go on, as in the past, through copying popular techniques and styles, the reduplication of similar forms has tended to spread uniformly across the nation rather than having the more ancient appearance of temporally individuated schools, which were slowly diffused and evolved separate, regional stylistic norms. (Places took a long, long time to happen in China.) The point is this: if you see two statues depicting two different historical personages from ancient Chinese history, and they resemble one another, then you can infer that they are probably comparatively recent sculptures; or, that they were created concurrently in the same place during a specific dynasty. |
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This inference may later fail as you discover some genuinely ancient paintings, in Tibet, for example; whereupon, seeing the close similarities between different manifestations of related deities in the same temple, you may conclude that the norm for Oriental painters was only to imitate features - deliberately, and for hundreds of years - all for the sake of easy recognition. However, you may also decide that Eastern religious art is bred of traditions which sanctify particular canons of authority while statues of famous personages are not bound by anything but the whims or fashions of particular historical moments. Anyway, no matter what you think about fashion, form and authority - many people would like you to accept the popularized notion that religious painters and their uniform styles are concerned with an idealism that connects to an acutely refined demand for supplying the receptor with direct spiritual inspiration. That requirement for being able to develop an inspired experience and spiritual achievement is supposed to be more important than having any absolute authority. In fact, the several varied schools of Buddhism clearly evidence the singular importance of an ever-evolving historically sub-divided tradition, and consequently, the development and espousal of several very individualized routes to achieve enlightenment. |
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Du Fu was another famed male poet of the Tang dynasty. He came from the east of China to live as an exile in Chengdu. Today, you can pay a visit to Chengdu's "Thatched Cottage Park," dedicated to Du Fu's memory. It's a more interesting place to visit than Xue Tao's park. Du Fu wrote many fine poems, and like the work of Li Po, his poetry has been translated into several languages and made famous around the world. His park is verdant and large and it's a great place to stroll with a girl. I regret to add that there are no parks dedicated to football heroes or golf pros anywhere in China! |
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...A pleasant fellow in the Tibet tour booking office at the Traffic Hotel tells me that no authority outside Tibet is allowed to give me a permit to enter it - unless I pick up and pay for a tour package, in which case, permission is faxed from Lhasa to Chengdu by the police bureau! My present destination is Xinjiang - north from Tibet - so the authorities there will have no jurisdiction over Tibetan destinations. Even so, the travel agent is encouraging, and says I ought to go on without a permit and "see what happens," since I'm travelling by plane and bicycle. I won't bother visiting the PSB - the "Public Security Bureau" - a civil police office charged with handling all foreigner relations. They would only reiterate the words of the travel agents: "Join a group of two or more other travellers to arrange an official tour." This usually means a flight and a couple of nights in Lhasa hotels. This "tour package" costs twice as much as the normal price for a ticket to fly from Lhasa back to Chengdu. One reason that the authorities team up with the travel agents, a theory espoused by the travel agent himself, is that the number of hotel beds in Lhasa is limited, so the authorities need to keep tabs on how many foreigners are permitted into the city during any given week. My flight to Xinjiang, China's westernmost province, requires no permission. |
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~ Xinjiang is an unusual colony. The name of my destination translates from Chinese to mean, "New Frontier." It was given this name during the 19th century. But that era, not so long ago, was by no means the first time that the Chinese usurped the rule of the Uigur people. These folk are of Turkish descent and claim to occupy the territory since at least the 7th century. Today, modern Xinjiang remains a true melting pot of people. Most are still Uigurs, and there are Kazakhs, Kyrghiz, a few Uzbeks and all sorts of Han Chinese. Many locals are a mixture of Mongols (Tartars), Turks and even Russians. |
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My night flight from Chengdu to Urumqi is on a Russian-built plane, roughly the same displacement as a 737. But legroom is lacking, and I stand up towards the end of the flight to save myself from constrained knees. The hostesses on the plane are clearly unfamiliar with Westerners, and eye me as if I'm some strange organism. With the exception of the hostesses, almost everybody on this flight is a male, and most of these guys are Chinese, not so many Turkmen. This is one thing about communist China the uninformed are liable to overlook: while there have been female doctors in China for years, the Communist cadres are still loaded with male bosses, and much as with the Western business world, women are generally dissuaded from ascending to independent positions of authority, wealth and power. |
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Arriving in Urumqi, a grinning Uigur cabby waits for me by the gate and whisks me straight to the town. But the female clerk in the hotel seems annoyed by me. When faced with chilly receptionists in China - wonders why are they mean like this? It's late at night and she wants a break. I suspect that many individuals in China feel stuck in their places, with little chance for maneuvering about into some new situation, assigned as they are by a fateful decree from heaven: "Thou shalt be a receptionist until death, or until you experience a miracle capable of rising above the state's great unquestionable wisdom." Nobody loves the state in China, but the people have been kept well-practiced in the motions they've had to repeat regularly about having faith in the State's great virtues. So, Chinese communism is basically a lot of memory work - much like having to recite some incomprehensible Old English in high school. Some say that the society evolves positively, with the rule of law gradually coming to the fore. Perhaps, but with it also comes along a vast, socially stratified technocratic machine... |
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While I sign in, enter three nocturnal wraiths: two Americans and one Japanese, chin stubble growing rife, their expressions weary. All have fallen into the last stage of exhaustion when day and night, even impatience, are forgotten. I think to myself that these guys have just come through some misadventure, and they are more than merely exhausted, exactly as if they have lived through a crime, or perhaps, had to pull one off, in order to reach Urumqi ...because... they say nothing. Experience and the black dirt under their skin silences them. Perhaps they have just come across the Taklamakan Desert... A bitterly hot simoom wind seems still to numb their hasty heels. We go to our separate rooms, and remain unknown to one another. |
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In the Western world, the Taklamakan Desert is not so well known as the Gobi. The Gobi lies in a plain much further east and forms the corridor into Gansu province. But here, below Urumqi's mountains, lies a big oval depression called the Tarim Basin. This big bowl holds the Taklamakan Desert, one of the world's largest, most formidably dry and hot deserts; it is made of nothing but sand-dunes with few green spots, except along the perimeters. Arrayed about the desert's edge are Xinjiang's oldest and biggest towns, like Kashgar and Hotan. |
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Tonight, I'm so weary tonight. Taking off my clothes, all I can think of are women and their temperatures. The young women of China seem either cold and mean - or youthful, warm and open to suggestions. Most Chinese women are truly gentle creatures at heart. The fascinating thing is that some women - whether white, blue or red skin - they still want me. This is funny because my prospects, and my body, remain pretty thin. Nobody wants my work. But, I write anyway. You don't know how I see myself: I feel much less verbally witty than I used to be, unless ignited by that rare sense of mutually ingratiating camaraderie. Sometimes that warmth still happens at home with best friends. It happens travelling, if you meet a kindred spirit in need of speech. But women may want you for reasons besides wit. Maybe all men are attractive if the woman can appreciate the balance of your heart and head. |
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Why do I have the impression that the younger people of China are more pleasant? Older and middle-aged do smile too, but these folks are often likely to give you this look of certainty, as if they believe you're lost. Perhaps the older ones covet your youth, your mobility, and they only wish to be less embittered by the idiocy of their history - an experience you and I can never ever understand. Actually, some Chinese adults are very sympathetic to those who wander: perhaps they sense, with a pinch of irony, that we Westerners are truly lost - spoiled refugees from the "burden" of our freedom. Who knows better that feeling of not belonging anywhere but us, weary travellers in foreign countries, far away from our forgotten homes? Perhaps the need to lose our memory explains why we travel so far. |
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The traveller is afflicted with forgetfulness of the past and that relaxes us. All the anxieties of routine strife are submerged in a flurry of novel impressions. Away from home, time stretches out and one week seems forever. I think we travel only to escape boredom. Many travellers claim to be in search of themselves. I won't argue with these popular philosophers and their pocket-book lingo: I already know they damn the man who refuses to "think positively" and "compete aggressively but with a smile." But it doesn't matter much what people think about you. As one Frenchman writer has said: to inflate ourselves, we belittle others. |
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...When I wake up the next day, an aging Japanese man moves into my room. He's babbling about his love of trains, very amiable. There are people everywhere in these cheap hotels. Too many people! How long till I can get to the wilderness!? The Japanese guy is a gentleman, though, and all his thoughts involve solving one mystery, "A toilet problem." This translates into curing himself of the shits. I haven't got them. |
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The city of Urumqi seems both as old and new, and as half-ordered, as many others in the rest of China. I do not meet anybody to talk to here, so I go to the market alone, eating shish kebabs served by a cheerful, portly chef. Make work with a barbecue. A dagger salesman accosts me as I pause momentarily to glance at his shiny steel blades. Gripping my sleeve, he almost stabs me with his free hand when I decide not to buy one. |
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I eat Muslim noodles: heavy flour strings with bits of green pepper, red chilies and mutton, and it's tasty. Muslims are everywhere. These Uigur Turkmen recall swarthy, manly featured Greeks and Italians, the kind you expect to see thriving among olive groves on sunny Crete. But they really are Turkmen, and the distance from China is foreshortened by the presence of Han Chinese folk all over town. I even saw one Russian guy strolling through the market! |
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The big provincial museum across the street is full of mummies hundreds of years old. There I find a good map of Xinjiang and stare at silk carpets way beyond my wallet: they are so dazzling. But nobody to talk to. Huge life-size models of desert tents, one from each of the major tribes, are set-up here, too. The ladies working at the museum ticket counter are Chinese and Uigur both, but they speak Russian to each other! Where am I? |
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It's raining so much. The plane to Kashgar was grounded. So, I'm lying in bed at Urumqi airport, waiting to leave... It's still pouring, and God's mind is the mirror of my sieve. This hotel costs five times more than the one in town: 20 U.S. dollars instead of four. But I'm thankful I had to pay "too much." It's the first time I've seen Russian tv. In Urumqi, many of the travel agents speak Russian. Some of those fellows are the products of marriages between Russians, Turkmen and Chinese, the offspring of proximity and entente. What's more, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan are just over the hills, and not long ago, they were both controlled by old communist Russia. |
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On tv, a seriously disgruntled Yeltsin speaks in a slow, deliberately formal way. He's probably talking about how hard it is to have fun in Russia today. Flipping over to the other Russian channel I get a black and white movie. Very good and very recent: it's realistic, yet wonderfully, a very black comedy about the latest in thieves. The premise involves Russian gangsters attempting to smuggle stolen gold out of the country inside cigarettes; the bad guys finally get good, and the money is saved from leaking out of the country. The last scene is a beautiful cinematic kiss between heroine and hero, and one of the very best I've ever seen! Then a news program comes on to show the Duma assembly - the men and women of Russia's central governing body; and as I watch the program I get the feeling that each individual has a particular, personal idea of what to do, and it's quite different from reality as his colleagues imagine it ought to be... Look at poor Ukraine - so many helpless folk stuck in their country gardens. Those few crooks with some leg up in government and business - since they haven't the patience to wait for a real cure nobody can figure out - they simply take what's meant for the people and run away to buy houses in Florida and California! Now, Russia and Ukraine resemble Africa more than they do Europe. Well, at least the people aren't fighting each other too much. They want change, but nobody knows how to start with nothing. Do you realize that before the great empire collapsed, half the economy of Russia was devoted to military enterprises? Those factories are all gone. But so are the ones that used to make computers and chocolate sweets... |
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...Whenever I think about China, I always imagine a roomful of people who don't know what to do trying to make decisions. But that image may give you the wrong impression: it's the fear of taking responsibility and acting authoritatively that cloys their blood. The average man prefers to be told what to do because that is the history of China, and the only socially safe way of life. Many Chinese people have been well-trained not to think for themselves and to fear their superiors; never act, but always check with your bosses well after the last instant for any possible action has safely passed by - that's the preferred method of Chinese disingenuity. Figuring out China doesn't really involve questions about political stances. Whether you or they are "right" or "left" - that doesn't matter either. There's no point fretting over whether or not the present leadership still believes in the old ideal politics of communism. The fact remains that the manufacture of cheap, shoddy and useless things began by accident; at first, empty forms of behavior impeded further development. This situation was hardly a product of "insufficient resources" or a "third-world economy..." People everywhere have to learn for themselves how to do something well. Imitation and duplication are always a poor beginning for those who want to become truly innovative. Because: even if you study the work of others, your work will only be superlative if it evolves into something new. Your imitative days must be followed by original efforts. It has taken the Chinese some time to realize this, and only now do we see signs of independent and foreign-funded enterprises capable of producing high quality goods. The export economy is supposed to turn into a domestic economy. But that hasn't happened yet either. Maybe it can't. The same situation goes for most other Asian countries. You won't know what I mean till you go there, friend. |
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The great gap between the slaving peasant farmer and the city rich continues to be the main reason so many Westerners arrive in China only to wonder why the whole society doesn't fall apart completely... It's all too easy for fatuous Western tourists to overlook the fact that most goods produced in China really are exported for cheap sale in dime-stores across America and around the world. |
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The Chinese are unwillingly retarded by their society and its organization. They are flustered, knowing so. It's easier to pay people to do nothing than learn how to do something new. The modern world comes to China, but not without making a god-awful mess of things. One thing you will notice about China, in stark contrast to a country like India, for example, is how effectively the state has replaced human religion, ostensibly, with political faith: most individuals may not really buy it, but the official lines are still perpetuated, and most people grow up not bothering to ask why they disbelieve in God and favor slogans about democratic communism instead... Theory replaced religion in the old communist universe. Nowadays in China, few speak their minds, except to their closest friends and lovers. |
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Yet, on the other hand, in the West, how many of us stop and think about how passed by are the foundations of our own beliefs? Jesus, Moses, Muhammad - they all died a long time ago: perhaps communistic ideology, which began in the West, merely represented an attempt to displace the drag of the past with ideas made of the modern day. But nowadays in the West, we see that the so-called liberal elements only pretend to encourage imagination and creativity; really, we do nothing but impose the bonds of school and rules, and so, we choose to administer to the "free imagination" by means of corporations and councils - and each imposes strict forms to act out, and to fill out. So the question must be asked: will you ever be heard if you do what you really want to do, after all? Maybe, but probably not. American magazines only publish Americans. Poor writers, who never question the regime, who pretend to be apolitical, or who appear safely to support the "rhetoric of democracy" - only these malleable mannequins get published in America; oh sure, a few authors have published critiques of civilization in America: but they aren't well-known, or are deliberately left out. As for the barthes and pynchons, the salingers and the hellers and vonneguts, they only got to publish their work after the crimes they critiqued had been committed already; preventative measures are never allowed in America. Safely ensconced in the collective promotion of past forms and dull commercial dross, the publishers in America are proud to prefer stay-at-home and naive authors writing sensationalist tripe to wise poets with real life experience. So, it's small wonder I don't get a chance to air my views. I'm just not there - involved and engaged with the all-important "system." I'm a small rustic Canadian who can't even think of any reason to go back home. I'm silenced and forbidden, by blindness, by that fat-stomached, professional lack of curiosity - that communal fear of developing aesthetic and social discernment. ...Drubbed down small into our skulls. But why and how are our sensibilities so cloyed? Because - the only thing allowed is that which gets sold, you stupid fucks! Sell! Sell everything! And nothing but! Why - why is that? You don't even know why... and you'll never ever be permitted to find out either, kiddies... |
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Back to China: of course, the average man and woman can be more open than you would be led to expect by the media and even what I wrote above; people who have been isolated become aware of it after awhile, and then they suddenly become curious about others from the outside; so, you will encounter many individuals who are very eager to communicate... All Chinese people are fascinated with the West. There's nothing wrong with that. It's natural - like history at play with its social and developmental inevitabilities... |
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Look at how all people believe in many things. We carry many dire convictions through life, but many of them we maintain simply because we haven't stopped to wonder what may really be going on... You are reluctant to buy that one? Well, let's just say care must be taken to note that what's really happening is always mingled with the energy and ideas of what men and women try to do... Most of us are sympathetic enough to feel quite blameless as we watch one another "fall into place" like a logical declension. Naturally, one hopes that Destiny is larger than grammar; but the sensation we have for being written remains, as if all character has been set down for us by others - by mothers and fathers and the cultural roots special to each of us. Having to rise above that identity is the same thing as admitting that what's really happening to make us who we are is never the same thing as what we actually want to do, especially in ourselves, as self-determinate beings separate from those exteriorized and acculturated personas of parentage, language and culture that inevitably shape all of us. |
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What am I really trying to say? That being honest with yourself sometimes involves lying to the world... Usually, because you must persuade yourself to do something, as a means to an end, or because other people expect you to - so you can rationalize your plan sufficiently - until your instincts and drives are subdued, fully conquered by the ready currencies of conventional wisdom; civilization may be defined as a victory over the natural physical, intellectual and even spiritual rebellion inspired by dreams and wishes for an ideal life. The ideal life is the core of imagination, and for some people, it seems possible. But if such a life can come to us, perhaps it usually feels like a gift, and seldom like a goal finally attained. |
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The heavy rain abates at daybreak. The new silence is effaced by the windy whir of a jet engine. My flight to Kashgar leaves at 10:00 A.M. |
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~ Kashgar Airport is blinding, sunny noonday. The absence of clouds gives the sky a sense of absolute depth, as if the whole planet was a desert plain afloat in a bowl of blue space. The blue is too bright, solid - infinite - yet enclosing. In contrast to the muted icebox grey of the jet's dim interior, the asphalt tarmac is vacuum black beneath this too bright sun. The air is weighty and blazes: my flesh prickles as it dries. ...Stepping outside is a new sense of reality: nature is the only true standard, and offers sensations that cannot be mistaken for temperature-controlled rooms. |
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The short drive to town rolls between slender trees along village byways. It's a pleasant garden amidst the desert. People walk leisurely along shady paths; they ride mules and bicycles. I remember the plane flying over grey and icy peaks, with a tinge of green in the river valleys between; dry rivulets stream from crinkled mountainsides and disappear into the beige sands of the great Taklamakan, a bleak vista sprinkled with moon rocks... I am sharing the taxi with a quiet, robust Pakistani wearing a very big, brown beard. He lugs a huge clothe sack, so maybe he's a travelling businessman. His face recalls the aerial mountains - especially the deep wrinkles filing into his eyes. Then we reach Kashgar; it feels ancient - a town all made of earthen bricks. The presence of China feels much smaller than in Urumqi. |
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I arrive at the Seman Hotel. Here's a place that was designed to be a hotel. The lobby is vast, dark and such a naturally cool temperature - without electrical air-con! The lobby invites you to stroll lazily across it. Yes, the whole atmosphere is redolent with a well-aged identity still intact; it emits that trace of intrigue, unexpected romance and adventure. The desk girls are friendly, too. They even expect me to change traveller's cheques! Is this really China!? |
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I meet someone to talk to at this hotel, a young guy from Singapore travelling all Asia. I unpack and he rambles on about his new Japanese girlfriend, his adventures and the food we all need. He's skinny and mildly effeminate, yet masks this with a sometimes serious tone and a manly mien. Generally he's a friendly introvert in desperate need of converse after days alone on busses and trains. You discover that solo travellers often talk incessantly after a week or two alone; it's a necessary compulsion. I think psychologists should recommend travel to pretty places and camping outdoors as remedies for inert depression and chronic social silence. |
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Across the traffic circle from the hotel is an excellent Muslim restaurant serving generous lamb shish-kebabs: the succulent, fatty mutton is seasoned with coriander, caraway seeds, chili powder and perhaps cumin, too. I over-eat in preparation for the long trek across emptiness into Tibet. It's Friday. So that gives me three days to gorge myself until I set out across the desert on Monday... |
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You must realize that I've carried a lot of equipment with me. I have four packs on the bike, a tent, and a sleeping bag: it all weighs at least 35 kilograms. I have a camera, 3 lenses, 25 rolls of film, a notebook, maps and cold weather clothing: nylon pants, synthetic long johns, a flannel shirt, a down-fill vest, a thick turtle-neck undershirt, a wool toque, insulated gloves and heavy 100% wool socks. I have food and three water bottles. The bicycle is new - light but very strong - made in Japan, and designed for making long distances easy. |
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The Kunlun Mountains lay below Kashgar. They represent a formidable obstacle. Beginning some 300 kilometres south of Kashgar, the icy peaks wall-up the entire southern length of the Taklamakan basin for hundreds of kilometres east and west. In between the city and wilderness are several oasis villages and one city called Yecheng, or Kargilik in local dialect. |
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Paul, the guy from Singapore, decides to come along for a walk. His skin is deeply tanned by summer travel. He's unblemished because he's young and so typically oriental: all Chinese have smooth, depthless flesh, unmarred by body hair. In the dark, you often wouldn't be able to tell a young man's leg from a woman's. We head for the Id Kah Mosque, both quite happy to wander in any direction we please. |
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Kashgar is a fabulously old town. Many of its homes are constructed from mud and straw: it's amazing how the tawny dry colors of the desert earth rise up into human dwellings. I notice that the sky doesn't have yesterday's really pure, translucent blue. The rain is two days past and now the atmosphere is hazy again, full of dull desert dust. |
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Kashgar is 1300 metres above sea level and that makes for hot days and cool summer evenings. The main streets are shaded with old trees, larger than the slim ones growing out of town. In the city, the main arteries mimic the design of modern Chinese towns: walled compounds pocketed with little shops and sporadic gates. But few new buildings have been built in Kashgar, except for hotels. Surrounded by the square avenues, the crooked alleys of the old town seem like ribs joined to a humped spine. Many of the old houses hide quietly behind tall mud walls. |
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The character of a civilization is revealed in its most changeless aspects. The walls of Asia stand tall and will not come down! If you desire a glimpse beyond them, you must sneak inside or beg permission. As we stroll up the lane, Paul and I glimpse a housewife. She works beyond an open, heavy wooden door. The woman wears a long dress, all black so far as I can see, and her head is draped with a brown shawl. She's in the middle of her courtyard and the potted flowers turn up their brilliant yellow faces. She hangs her washing, looks concentrated. I catch her attention and motion that Paul and I want to come in and have a look. She smiles and shakes her head and closes the door. |
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We have better luck a few steps ahead as we come upon some bread shops. Uigur bread takes in two basic types: a bagel-shaped thing, dense and as hard as a soda biscuit - it's baked to last a couple of weeks without going stale; the other type resembles a flat pizza pie without any toppings. The bread is dotted with sesame seeds and a thick braid of dough around the rim. Always steaming hot at the shops, best eat the stuff while it's still tender and chewy. |
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A tiny old lady with an expression midway between desperation and crafty glee approaches me as I buy a fresh piece. I cannot resist the plea of a poor old lady, clad in tattered shawls. Her flesh is so hollow. So I give my bread to her and buy another. Her face defines the essence of human experience: despair vanishes and the smile she wears is joyful, grateful, even triumphant. She knows her hunger alone was enough to capture my heart. Something stirs in me - the beginning of an insight - one that the Western mind is unwilling to realize. My wish for knowledge is a query I can't answer. What do they know about me that I don't see? Perhaps their poverty is possessed of a wisdom that my affluence cannot learn, an inarticulate thing, precisely in the metamorphosis of her human face. Despair reigns a moment before joy wakes up. Is there time yet to understand what my good luck prevents me from learning? |
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Paul and I walk on. There are many tribes here. One lady stands out. She wears a brown shawl, placed squarely on top of her head. It drapes over her breasts and down her back. The yarn is soft but woven in big loops, so I suppose she peers through the filaments. Amazing. But as for what she looks like - I suppose only her mother, sisters and husband know. Amid all the local people in the market, I notice only one Chinese girl riding a bike. She wears a white cotton dress on pale skin. A large floppy hat sits low on her brow, her lips are painted into a smug, charming smile. She zooms quickly past. |
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The daily market appears knotted around the hub of a T-intersection. Bicycle cabbies and street hawkers roost around the corners. Arab writing is all over the signboards. The old shops are small and look worn-out. Yet, the style of modest wealth still seems resplendent in their old designs. These buildings must have seemed more grand long ago. The phenomenon isn't new, is it? The sense of displacement - of old things by new ones - often responds to the sheer size and scale of construction, at least as much as to the vintage of each building's claim to a modern style. |
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Perhaps the measure of all things "urbane" remains one of our greatest social illusions - merely a function of relative size and the proximity of familiar sensibilities. But the scale upon which we build our belonging to a community is hardly indicative of our more pure, innate sensitivity. Our individual perspectives are reducible to the detached subjectivity of the rootless world citizen, who knows not only one city, but all cities as one! In this respect Kashgar also mixes its metaphors, and time melts away into something especially indistinct, and so you may have to guess where and when you are! |
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On the corner, curious Paul responds to a beckoning gent content under a beach umbrella beside a vast bin of green and yellow granules. With a broad smile, he rolls the "seeds" into a slip of newsprint paper and hands the cigarette to Paul with a match. Not anything like tobacco. We've never seen it before and it tastes tart and hot. The aromatic herbal mixture is hard and crunchy and it burns hotter than soft tobacco leaves. It would take time to acquire taste for this, and I don't want to; I'm afraid of searing my lungs. |
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The street is lined chock-a-block with tiny stalls. A couple of workshops produce ornate brass and wooden treasure chests, most probably for stashing away the dowry of newly-wed women. The brass reinforcing the chests is geometric. Designs on teapots are organic, like paisley. Here are a dozen men making clothe caps. They copy each other's design again and again. The most popular cap finds its origin in lands distant from central Asia. It looks like the cap some men in England, Sicily and Greece wear to this day. Perhaps the proper name is a "squire's cap," a riding cap, or a huntsman's cap: the visor attaches to the brim with a snap, making it look like a circular wedge. It's made of fine woven cloth: grey plaids and tweedy browns. Did you ever see the syndicated comic called Andy Capp? The strip was an on-going visual pun about Andy's frigid estrangement from his wife: she always booted him out for not paying up, and so he always ended up beside a short-skirted blonde with big knockers at the local pub. Andy's is the same cap produced by the haberdashers of Kashgar. The 5 dollar hat is too hot for me and for most local men, too. In summer, the local guys prefer white cotton skull caps and simple, square beanies. |
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We pause to swill beer beneath a shady umbrella. Nearby the Id Kah Mosque easily endures the heat. A few hundred years old, the portal is an arch done in bricks and glossy ochre tiles. Several men lounge about the portal: most of them are aged. They've come to Kashgar especially to see the mosque. Some of the oldsters have long grey beards and wear tattered robes darkened by dirt and travel. We go inside the gate. Three very old fellows watch us earnestly from within the portal. One has big black leather boots. Where's his trusty steed? The fellows sit between plaster painted inscriptions naming their faith. This isn't what I'd expected. Middle eastern mosques are vast white structures with elegantly slender pillars; inside them a huge open space prevails. But beyond the portal of the Id Kah, there is no ceiling. Instead, a garden of trees is planted in orderly rows. Tiny waterways flow between the slender trees. Two gazebos sit in the middle. Nobody but Paul and I seem to be here. Oh, but one bum lies on the sidewalk: he's definitely a Russian because his skin is pale, his grey clothes are dirty, and a drowsy grin below his nearly shut eyes seems to betray some small awareness of our presence. This bum's hair is grey and if he knows nothing else, he's quite happy that summer is here. Inside one of the gazebos some four Uigur men discuss a business deal. The garden paths are silent, and so are the trees, slivers of darkest green. We walk to the back and discover the prayer hall on a raised floor less than two metres above the garden. It's big enough for two hundred worshippers. The roof is supported upon fluted pillars. These delicate arabesques set upon gothic-like arches remind one of a world built further westward. It's so peaceful, why don't all the men come on in off the street to enjoy this lovely garden? I suppose they respect their holy place and enter only to converse with their god. |
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Outside the mosque is the gold jewelry market. It's a lot of shops along a very long, narrow path. Quick appraisal of the scene leads you to conclude that half the fellows have set up shop because they've seen others make a good living at it. A lot of goldsmiths produce rings, necklaces, bracelets and earrings, all in 24-karat gold. A popular design for earrings is a small golden ball, and it looks suspiciously like a dropping: it's precisely the same size and shape as one excreted by a full-grown goat. Undoubtedly, the goldsmiths presume that foreign tourist ladies are sufficiently in the dark not to recognize exactly what they're buying, perhaps a cruel and punishing twist on the cliche, "filthy rich..." Other types of earrings are curly-cues of wire that mimic flowers; this style is most popular with local girls and matrons. Gold is very much expected by women in Xinjiang: amorous men must perform obeisance to lovers and wives alike. Women take good care of what they get, too. They enjoy strolling by in the afternoon to have a favorite smith wash their jewelry in a boiling spirit bath: 24 karat gold and raw silver require frequent cleansing to revive their lustre. I want to buy something. For about 40 dollars you can buy a gold ring and a shiny black sliver of stone like a piece of wild rice. |
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Saturday morning breakfast at the cafe brings together a group of foreigners. Betty is on vacation from San Francisco. She's an attractive woman with delightful, happy eyes. I can't miss a chance to tease her about the mellow California tone in her voice. A mousy Finnish woman has completed a year teaching English in Northeastern China. There's a shy British blonde travelling alone. A backpacking hippie chick likes to wear men's clothes, also English. 1999 must be the year of the solo female traveller! Do you think it's a new phenomenon, this female audacity for fearlessly going anywhere around the world? Most of these ladies claim they've had few problems with locals. In fact, they seem very casual about all claims to courage. In central Asia, where society is male-controlled, women have to be brave and tactful to travel without incident: too many stories of women harassed and assaulted come from places like Pakistan. Other women say Pakistan is one of their favorite places. I cannot imagine why, as I'm told it's hard to see any women at all. |
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I see how the Kashgar cafe is full of foreigners. The Western bubble pops up, all too apparent. A worn-out path of budget travelers stretches around the globe. English, Aussies, Canadians and Japs can't escape running into each other again and again - especially at these eateries designed to collect our dollars: Chinese dishes and pizza pies, even fried egg breakfasts and coffee. It's this path I want to get off and forget. I don't really want to see any familiar faces. I don't have to apologize. I love a good talk, but sometimes - I need to be alone. Maybe that's why I'm riding to Tibet, after all. |
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On Friday night I meet an exception to the rule of "foreigners-only" at the cafe. He's only nineteen or twenty and has studied English for a couple of years after school. He earns extra cash by showing tourists around Kashgar. I question him about the Chinese government and life in Xinjiang. He's remarkably canny and unafraid. I ask, "Does the government give you any money? Do you have to pay when you go to the hospital?" His answer, "Nothing. We have to pay a lot." It's clear that a goodly number of local people in Xinjiang really don't care if the Chinese come or go. The boy tells me about the difficulty buying hashish. He's clever: the market price has jumped a hundred times - since he claims the police have clamped down on the scene - fining and jailing local producers. Apparently, the greybeards use it more than the youngsters nowadays. So he says, if you want some, you have to pay extra for it. I don't bother asking for any; I hate hash. Give me cool, smooth grass instead, thank you. |
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Saturday disappears as quickly as letters into mailboxes and cups of ale into my belly. Cool rain pools the light of small red taxis wheeling round the traffic circle. The rain will go. Before night meets morning, Paul and I wander over to the darkest corner of the hotel grounds to check out some nearly naked KTV chicks. After that, we find the old Russian Consulate. |
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The Russian Consulate is a prime survivor from an earlier era of modest "frontier elegance." Layered tiers of simple yellow bricks are set between austere stone lintels. Today, the Consulate comprises a wing of the Seman Hotel. Inside, the edifice has preserved a feel for its heyday, especially the big dining room. Here we discover a startling artifact: a huge wall mural, probably painted at the time of the Consulate's construction in 1890. The scene painted upon the mural is quite beyond interpretation. It's title, more than I need today: "Theseus - Vanquisher of the Minotaur." An old cliche, but a pretty one. Basically, the painting reads like a map of civilization from Occident to Orient, left to right. Yet, the Western "half" appears very dark... |
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The world of Greco-Roman myth is depicted above the world of reality: a god hands down a divine message to fearful mortals. Perhaps these gods are out of touch? Far to the left, some insecure-looking scroll-makers are gripping the burden of their creed and language. Women bear libations and casks of wine. The pillars of civilization surround all of this, but there is little light. In fact, an aura of fear is cast around this version of the Western world. Perhaps the Russian painter felt that the folks of eastern Turkestan were somewhat in the dark about the West, or perhaps, in a not very subtle way, he wanted to suggest that the West was bent on conquest and its constant religious squabbling inevitably suppressed enlightenment. At worst, his image makes the West appear shaky at the foundations... Ah, but maybe the Russians were trying to win favors with the Uigurs and Turkmen. For in the East, on the right side of the mural, lies Kashgar, or perhaps simply Mecca. The painter's name and the painting's title is signed in square Russian characters on the bottom right... |
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Here, unlike all the grey and stooped Romans and stone-bearing Jews, all the Turk and Arabic peoples stand tall and colorful below broad beams of golden sun. Amid the rows of Turkmen sits a horseman, obviously a Russian, since he wears a uniform and a beard. The crowd is large and among them is a local leader who resembles a mullah. He wears a brown turban of authority. He might be Muhammad. Beside him stand the local Eastern folk, including a lusty Uigur woman, her bosom cascading from her dress. She certainly wears no veil. You cannot help but feel that the Russian horseman, of acutely serious mien, works hard to restrain his glance from her inviting flesh. A most literal allegory is placed in the middle of the whole painting, exactly between the West and the East: a centurion wrangles with a big bull... We are to believe many things according to this image: the West and East will meet in a battle. Another way of looking is simpler: the East follows their mullah and Lord while the West is bent on conquest. So, viewers of the painting are led to believe that the presence of the noble Russian rider among the Uigurs implies that the more civil, and less "Westernized" Russians are able to side with them. Obviously, the Russian painter wants to convince the locals that the identity of his nation lies in the East, while the Western world remains foreign to his intuitions. This impression represents a ploy on the painter's part. For what could a Russian know about Islam or Turkmen? Perhaps the painter didn't know what to paint, and the secret behind his dark and bright imagery is revealed in the currency of his own day: in the eighteenth and nineteenth century it was the vogue to interpret everything in the world through the "Revelation of St. John" and the "prophecies" of Nostradamus. Such great menaces as Napoleon explained the popularity of these superstitions. Are we looking at a crude representation for the whole design of earthly destiny in this painting? That goes too far? Perhaps the painter attempts nothing more than to portray how radically opposed in spiritual inspirations and material motives are East and West. Still, the attempt to win favors with local Turkmen cannot be dismissed. |
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On Saturday evening, I bring back about five other travelers to have a look at this mural thing, and we discuss it for half an hour. One British guy with unruly hair has a completely different opinion. It's funny how we sometimes realize that our preconditions for "understanding" things often coincides with what we want things to mean - even if they don't... As I set up my mini-tripod to torpedo the mural with a time-lapse shot, the British fellow speaks. He says something to the effect that the whole painting defines the phenomenon of empire-making in general; maybe the Englishman only wants to see beyond the painting's overt lack of symbolic subtlety, as if he's trying to reach the innocent and more intuitive mind of the painter's first inspiration. |
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Even uninformed observers can see the painting is the work of a "gifted amateur." Perhaps the ambassador himself painted the image, having nothing else to do with his spare time... The figures are crude and the colors, hurried and unsubtle, are much like a cartoon. His efforts to portray emotions and detail fall short, and the looks of desperation on the faces of his Greco-Roman subjects suggest the painter's own sense of failure, as if he knew too well that a caricature was the best he could achieve... We can forgive the painter his hackneyed prejudices, and even his unsubtle allusions to the whoring of Russian and British officers, since after all, the sheer incongruity and bizarre ambiguity of the piece reveals, at least, a sincere wish to depict a universal insight about East and West. While he wanted to share his thoughts with the local folk, whatever the painter may have felt and understood about Kashgar was ultimately beyond his capacity for coherent articulation. My efforts to explain also lack images sufficient to explain his fumblingly subliminal insights. |
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Sunday comes and everyone gets up early to visit the great market. Me and three women - Betty, the blonde, and the hippy - take a cab to the market at 6:15. None of the vendors are open yet. But, behind the market lies the stockade and the animal dealers are already here. The herdsman go through motions that never had a beginning and will never cease until all the worlds in the universe stop turning: they knot up the forelegs of all their sheep and goats to hold them in an orderly line: for sale, for sale - everything will be sold today. I notice the farmers feel naked in front of cameras. Too many tourists for their taste. Men and their sons wait for the local crowd to arrive and surround them with privacy and anonymity once more. After 7:00 A.M., more folk wander into the market and heavily laden carts slide into town, drawn slowly by burros. |
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Breakfast is a stuffed mutton bun and a pot of weak red tea beside the noisy thoroughfare. By 7:30 a huge crowd fills the entrance to the stockade and you can't get in anymore, so it's better to go find the rest of Sunday morning in the market lanes. The Kashgar market is a weekend job for many local folk. Several oasis villages dot the desert edge in the vicinity of Kashgar, and everyone comes to town. |
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A very old man is grinding spices beside the road. I buy some cinnamon and have him mix it with cloves because it smells so good. He smiles and surely thinks I'm silly when I say it's for tea. I meet one of the travellers from the hotel, a Swiss guy who got a big knife for 100 yuan. But he has money to burn having worked in a Rolex factory the year before: Swiss companies control 80% of the luxury watch market. |
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A small carpet bag catches my eye. It's made of solidly woven sheep wool dyed blue, gold, red, brown and several other colors besides. Perfect for my camera. Bargaining is a serious game in this country. Uigur merchants always expect you to buy once you begin haggling over the price. Should you lose heart and run from the chase, the salesman will take offence and conclude that you are an idiot who doesn't really know what he wants. This particular merchant wears a trim beard on his olive skin. He keeps an intent eye on me. He really wants me to buy the carpet bag. Yes he does, and he won't take my head-shaking about his price, 100 yuan. He's willing to come down, but not to 50. The best he will do is 80. I say 70 but he doesn't want to budge. He then launches into a step-by-step explanation of his cost price, which he claims is high, since the bag comes from reputable weavers in Hotan town, some distance away. He senses that I really want it, so he practically sits on me for his 80 renminbi. I'm a lousy bargainer and get taken. |
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Following my fancy, I walk alone since I've lost the women. The vendors sell everything from furniture and fabrics to bicycle parts. It takes a good two or three hours to cover all the aisles. The market is roofed with red awnings and the diffuse air beneath glows warmly. I find something else that I want to buy. Ukrainian wool shawls, red and green blossoms on creamy white, and black and white poppies on scarlet. Betty, the California girl, spoke of them. The man gives me a deal, only a few dollars each, so I buy four and plan to mail them home to Canada. A lot of stuff comes from the countries surrounding Xinjiang: cheap cotton and fancy polyester from Pakistan and India; plain red and black carpets from Kyrgyzstan; and all kinds of domestic goods: plastic tubs, pots, utensils, electric batteries, tools, string, stationary and sewing machine oil. |
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By 11:00 A.M. I feel too hot. Everyone wears a hat but me. I can't stand the crush of people and my deep-seated agoraphobia flares up, forcing me to rush from the market and back to the hotel in a taxi. Later in the afternoon I meet a Canadian guy who wants to ride his bike to Pakistan. But all he has is a big backpack. I advise him to buy some woven wool "donkey bags" at the market. We go to the market, it isn't so crowded as morning time. He bargains and bargains and chooses the sturdiest pair of saddle bags he can find. He tells a curious tale about designing an automatic gas-filling device for gasoline stations in Calgary. New users must install a sensing device and a special intake on their gas tank so the robot camera can automatically direct its filler hose... The system will be introduced along with a special subscriber's credit card. Hallelujah! Now, the obese and the lazy will no longer need to struggle - grotesquely - up out from their Lincolns and Caddies to fill up! They will never have to go out doors ever again: yet another miracle over nature and a wonderful labor-saver for the hurried automatons of mighty America! What a whiz... (All right, so I admit it's great for handicapped drivers.) |
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Tomorrow I ride! I pack the shawls for mailing home. I try to sleep on the thought that it's time to go. Ah, there won't be anyone to talk with anymore. |
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~ Lying in bed. Two days ago I called my girl to say goodbye. Xinjiang melons tasted like honeydews mated to cantaloupes. Betty told me that Gretsky retired in June. I'm permanently retired and yet unable to retire, being perpetually broke. Tennis players need to win if they want to make a living. But they never talk about that, do they? Anyway, my girl told me over the phone that the Institute for Sold Souls will cover most of my airfare. Makes losing all my time seem worth it. |
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The day is bright and warm, even at 7:00 A.M. Betty is up early for an excursion, and her talkativeness makes me smile and I feel good about going away alone. She takes a picture of me in front of the hotel. I'm clean-shaven but feel less than serious. Today is the longest day of the year, June 21. The sun came up at 6:00 and doesn't set till 10:00. I'm not so strong, but feel a surplus of energy: I can make it anywhere I want to. My bike feels too heavy. The ladies in the post office ask me to open my packages so they can make sure I'm not mailing hash across the sea. |
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By 10:00 A.M. I'm out of town. Free, with nothing to worry about. Breathing deeply is my biggest thrill. In front of me the road unrolls a bolt of black, silken heat. I feel that lovely peaceful sense of going nowhere in the middle of infinity and nobody to know I'm doing it. Alone and unobserved - I'm completely free inside the huge, real world. I ride to the wilderness of purest nature! There will be no noisy televisions there... The sun and wind are happy. The artificial anxieties of all "civilized" things are no more. No more hand-me-down neuroses of complaint. The hypocrisies and all the deceptive social ladders fade to nothingness between trees shimmering under a friendly sun... |
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It's noon, 38 degrees north latitude and 35 degrees Celsius. The birds are singing up in the incredibly tall, mature trees along the way. Peace at last. Cute kids chatter along the road. They laugh and wonder up at my presence. Yes, the Earth will live for awhile yet, despite us crazy humans. |
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Here's a restaurant along the brand new main street of Shule. What a contrast to Kashgar only twenty kilometres north: the street looks built only last week! Wow. The city planners of China are smart enough to make new streets wide enough for cars, donkeys and people all at once. Of course, from the sidewalk, you'll never know if the real cause of growth is pork or planned development; because, outside town, the villages giving off the road are entirely different. The villages are made of ancient mud bricks and the little lanes seem modest under the great trees. The paths are shady and children always play and couples walk together. But these villages all look as if time passes by - unmeasured... To step across the highway from the village into Shule is a mind-bender. It's like some shiny new civilization next door to the eternal mud wall! Wonderful Chinese brain-teaser! I can see the poor folk suffer impossible crises of perception... For whom the white tower and the wide pavement? Where art the great king to occupy yonder office? Is he to arrive tomorrow - or next week? What does he do all day behind the wheel of his land-cruiser? |
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Eternal mystery of modern civilization: we build with or without stated purpose. Even so, we are organisms who desire progress. It can be effectively argued that we must waste an awful lot of natural resources before we achieve the technical prowess necessary to find solutions to various man-made crises - all of them created by our material appetite - an inescapable circle. |
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Nowadays, all societies import forms of doing and making things: we share the life inspired by neighboring societies. So, the polyglot soul of the world comes closer to each of us; you can't stop it. We do things, without knowing why! You don't believe me? Well then - if you can close all the gaping holes between rich and poor, the big street and the dirt path, then you deserve a Nobel Prize for economics. But if you've been working on an elaborately theory of statistical analysis instead, then I would have to bet you don't know why you're working on it... |
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Oh yes, the world is like a vast numerical calculation that doesn't end. You add and add and subtract and multiply, but it doesn't equal anything... The old world goes on, especially when you want it to explain itself. It's a vast path, and it leads you into everyone else now. Try to find out what your friends are feeling. It's like a god wakes us up in a clever trick of consciousness. You are given a chance to master your spirit with imagination. You are literate. We are free because we say so. I'm guilty because I feel it. But that I am my own master is no longer a matter of righteousness. Can you free yourself from judgement? The vision of freedom inflates the "ego" - or whatever you want to call yourself. How free are we of each other? We are made of deliciously feeble opinions; we are made to be impartial and we dissect each other with invisible knives, too sharp... Pity the wandering imagination. Dare you risk your center and stray beyond the social niche bought with birthright of class and education? But viewing things conversely, from a lower position on the social scale, then the world hasn't changed at all for your own good, and you will see how bitterly the world will refuse to forgive you for insisting upon what you want to do. Nobody has the right to push you aside. They just have more right to it than you, even if you have more to say... you're still running still in the running. Still. |
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I lost it. So, I'll find it again. I'm good at it: born to pick up the ball and lob it back at the stiff archers of ignorance. Sure, I know that my closed eyes are responsible. But I know that a shirt costs very little to stuff. Society has other ways to make us pay for our vanity. Seldom are we lucky to earn bread with our best talents! That's the bite that distorts me till I become vermin. My first wish for freedom, for success is a lost laugh. There's a shroud upon my memory. Because the heart I wanted was the one I gave up for dead years ago, after I wrote my first poem, and realized that despite the ecstasy and joy of creation, my whole life long would be a struggle against losing art to the devouring nature of a society automated by physical wants and unthinking reactions. I'm too conscious to let go. I am too crazy to explain what I'm feeling now. |
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We live on - despite our better wisdom and creative inclinations - maybe because few of us really share our blessings as we should - and others can't share your experience. To invert fear and remember joy, I climb deeper into creativity. Can you back up a few notions into the past of your aspiration? Our human towns all look the same in America and Europe. Even ghost towns can be mistook for bustling centers if you drive by fast enough. We cannot help but want things to be identical - as "we would have them be" - around the world... But the people here in China, they have perspectives both beyond and behind the privileges of the Western way of knowing better. We know nothing better - we only believe we do. |
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The White Man cooked the Native American Indian for dinner and then held it against the Native American Indian that he didn't taste very good! We are like that: we white men have a way of being right all the time no matter what. The Chinese and other Asians have a way of being blind and right at the same time that we white men find annoying; because, in response to our criticisms, the Chinese always reply, ludicrously: "Do not interfere in the internal affairs of our country..." And it's as if they actually believe such a simplistic command creates a rationale sufficient to excuse the cruel injustice that the state can and does impose on ordinary people. Well, then again, we can blame some fairly recent European philosophers for creating the current international political milieu, of the pressing need to promote international responsibilities across borders and languages. The "Rights of Humanity" are tantamount to faith in God for today's chief rhetorical sentimentalists: pull on the heartstrings of your neighbor before you bed his wife, then he will never suspect you did her! |
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Come now, isn't it noble, you insist, to promote concern for other people, especially oppressed people like innocent Tibetan country folk, monks and nuns who are beaten and jailed for such great crimes as burning flags and singing songs? Sure it's fine to say that you care, but what it comes down to is really - how much can we actually do to improve that faraway situation in Tibet? We can walk into China and tell people not to put monks and nuns into jail. But they still put them in jail! Go ahead, say what you like. The Chinese have a bad habit of instituting more controls if the first set seem ineffectual. They can't change their minds or admit a mistake. The system they have in China isn't anything like you can fathom! Too many reasons are attached to its need for abstract notions like "security," which of course amounts to security for nobody but the regime... But that doesn't matter, since the regime is interested in itself before any of your careful thoughts about human rights! You can criticize, but the silent answer in the mind of the Asian ruler always comes back the same: stability is priceless. If confronted by questions of brutality, corruption and freedom trounced - what can the great leaders say? "Who police's the police?" As for the legal killing in China, how can you explain that the authorities consider that a kind of disease control, and that human dignity is restored by punishing the crime severely? "Crime" in China can be anything that upsets things. There can never be enough police in China: the authorities will laugh at your "Western" conscience as something weak and ignorant of the mighty ideals of their glorious system. To contrast definitions of freedom, to suggest political and social alternatives to the regime, and to share grand notions of democracy and human rights isn't yet a practical way of life to the rulers of China. |
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A bowl of rice topped with fried lamb mixed with peppers and a tasty tuber like turnip, but very bright yellow. 3 yuan, or 25 cents. I keep going despite the noonday sun. The main road from Kashgar to the mountains is busy. The map I found at the museum shows a secondary road to the east. This detour to Yecheng implies an extra 80 kilometres, but the route comes much closer to the Taklamakan Basin. It's my only chance to see the desert, so I go. The poplar-like trees are plentiful. The barley harvest is being threshed by the peasants. Heaps of barley and wheat pile up. The people toss the grain into the air, sifting chaff away... |
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Some villages of Xinjiang are very large. It's a busy Monday market. All the locals seem quite pleased to see me, as if I wasn't expected to show up. I eat some fruit - delicate, sweet red cherries - and a baked mutton bun for lunch. My neighbors grin at the thought of such an odd-looking foreigner lunching with them. Nearby, some local farmers joke about which homemade wooden rake to buy, since they are all too rough and flimsy. |
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The road goes through oasis after oasis. Vast fields of produce grow. I reach a town called Yopurga. The main street is being reconstructed in slow motion. The main street is a dugout road bed loaded with stones bigger than basketballs. The town doubles as a garrison for young Chinese soldiers. So many towns in China are like this, as if they wouldn't even exist, weren't it for the army. |
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The Yopurga hotel is empty but for a few permanent lodgers. Dinner finds me sitting round a table with local people. I have nobody to talk to anymore. So I sit with them. I roll cigarettes. It seems hard these first few days, as solitude silences the tongue. Nobody knows the language of your mother. But the people with me are warm and curious. I see why they join me: everyone comes from some place else! The cook comes from Chengdu, and he's been away from more than a year. The manager of the restaurant is from some other place, and she's a Christian. I see the big cross she has put on the wall. Everyone is lonely. Some school girls come in to ask me questions. The manager is so pleased with the cigarette I give to her, that she thanks God and gives me my meal for nothing. I read alone in my room, "The Woman in White" by Wilkie Collins. Have to pee at three A.M... But the innkeeper has locked us inside the building - a typical Chinese thing - and very helpful if there's a fire. (Locks are worshipped in China.) I wrench the window open and piss precariously into the darkness. Not much chance anybody can hear it. |
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Next day I reach Markit, about 90 kilometres away. It's one of the most memorable rides of my trip. I ride across an uncultivated waste between the living farms. Then, from behind the trees a huge sand dune rises, like a wave of golden sea poised above the green shore. I climb up the big dune and spot the other fields growing up a few kilometres beyond these waves of crystal earth. An old camel lies quite prone among the dunes... |
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He gets up onto his shins as I approach. Poor guy, he looks so thirsty, as if somebody has left him deliberately to languish between the dunes. I leave him alone. Two more villages and then no more. I get off my bike and ascend the road shoulder: sand as far as I can see. Only sage and a sedge-like grass grow in the ditches... |
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No more trees at all. Another 40 kilometres to Markit. The 2:00 P.M. temperature reaches 34 degrees. No clouds. I ride on. Not far into the desert I cross a waterway speeding from the Kunluns into the desert. A single family lives beside the watercourse among some small shrubs. A man driving a donkey cart trots by, and he barely notices me. I keep going. Finally, after an hour or two of desert heat, I see a faint line of green. |
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At last I'm among the shade of the huge old trees. Between them lie fields of vegetables and grain. This farm must be the biggest commune in all of Xinjiang. An ambulance passes from behind and stops. The driver sets himself onto the pavement. He's a mammoth. Carefully balancing upon his corpulent mass, he focuses his one-eyed gaze on me: he has an eye patch. Then as I ride by, he asks me, without reference to anything particular, "Dos shao chien?" That's Mandarin Chinese for, "How much does it cost?" Well, I don't know: maybe he refers to the strange farm all around... Or his missing eye. |
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Then I pass a van parked beside the road. I spot the police guards then. They sit among the shady trees along the fields. In the sun on the fields a big crew of people are laboring. They are all male and wear the same beige and olive striped shirts and pants. Of course, they're prisoners. This place is a gigantic work farm! |
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Then, walking towards me, two gangs of convicts, walking in a long line, two by two. All of them are males. In front, a Chinese guard strolls along in olive drab; he totes a compact automatic rifle. I see two groups of prisoners, actually. The first group is mostly Chinese, and they wear hats. Some wear colored shirts and shorts. Some even smile. Only a few Uigurs are mixed in with them. Their feet are an unchained melody of shuffling, two by two, up the road. The second group is different. They wear no hats and no colorful clothing: their uniforms are striped. But, unlike the first group of Chinese, these men are mostly Uigurs, and they are chained together at the ankles. None of them smile. Some of them stare at me. So I wave and some manage a smile, but most faces don't change. Maybe they can't or won't see me for real; how could a foreigner like me ride a bike through this forbidden zone? |
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Then I am pierced with a pang of pity: they're all prisoners, and I don't know what they have done to end up here. Maybe they are all drug dealers, thieves and murderers. Some are political prisoners. The guards are Chinese men and there aren't any Uigurs carrying machine guns. I can't help but think that the Chinese are maintaining a colony in Xinjiang. It's like a scene from the black slave days of America - the chain gangs of Oklahoma. I go on, riding between the endless, huge fields... |
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The whole place is ten or fifteen kilometres across. Ahead, an old man walks along the road. He holds a bag of nothing in one hand. Maybe they just released him today... It's another 15 kilometres to town. Then, more guards under the trees watch a group of convicts spray insecticide on vegetables. I pass one more chain gang of shaven-headed Uigurs in heavy irons. Again, they are led by a guard wielding a machine gun. The last prisoner in this chain gang is a big fellow hobbling on legs permanently misshapen below the shins; he has endured the yoke of punishment for years. I want to stop and take a picture, but don't because I'm afraid the guards will get angry with me. The last group of armed guards whom I see near the road do not smile like the guard following the last chain gang. These Chinese men look seriously depressed. I'm glad to get past the prison farm, with its beautiful trees as big as God. |
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The little market town of Markit appears and the hotel lets me stay, no questions asked. Recently, somebody has built a rack for the grapevine to grow up by the rooms. I share a room with a grinning ex-con playing tapes of Uigur folk and Chinese punk music. I know he's an ex-con because his arms are laced with tattoos: his prisoner number and his female regrets, all the emblems of frustrated and satisfied masculinity. Maybe he knows I've seen something most foreigners never see - the convict farm. So, even in silence, he feels intimate with me. Then some kids annoy me, watching me as I wash up. So, I heave a full pail of water, sousing them: the little boys run away screaming and won't come back. |
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Morning drops a road from Yopurga, due south to Yarkant town. This stretch is densely populated with Uigur villages. I spot some fruit pickers and their orchard of nectarines... |
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Many endless lanes, powdered with fine beige dust, lead the way to mud and straw homes. Children play in the irrigation canals and some women on donkey carts don't even notice me making their photo... |
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Men and boys along the road are keen to pose, too... |
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I arrive early in Yarkant, and make for the central hotel on a large street with dozens of shiny new buildings. I argue about the rate and they put me into the oldest wing of the hotel. The place resembles a ward in a loony bin 80 years ago: its brick walls, half-a-metre thick, are designed to keep the place cool during midsummer, and cozy warm in winter. |
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I find myself entirely alone with my thoughts. Nothing to do but relax and enjoy the cool temperature. I wash my bicycle, shower, then eat dinner in the hotel dining room. I wander the street looking for diarrhea medicine - I've been pretty loose lately. The wilderness is only two days away... I drink beer, one, two, three of them. I smoke some hash some friends gave me in Taipei. I try to relax, but feel restless and walk outside again. It's so dark everywhere, except at the entrance to a new bowling alley next the hotel. Beyond, I see the flashing lights of a disco. |
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I open another beer inside the disco and watch the show. Local guys and one or two girls are hopping around to Chinese music as goofy and square as it comes: semi-operatic singing crossed with martial melodies and lyrics about a "dear friend..." I can't stand it and finally ask loudly for, "Disco, disco." A few minutes later the old Chinese maid running the awful show is ejected by a youngster. Oops. Someone starts to play recordings of original-sounding Uigur dance music, all synthesizers and Persian funk, fast-paced and hypnotically rhythmic... The snaky-voiced singer climbs up and down the scales as if his grief and ecstasy are real. Then they play some disco and the people nearby drag me onto swirling feet. I dance then giggle when I see the Uigur guys jump into a Russian jig. Unbelievable: they look so much like real pro Russian dancers! The men, so quickly, skip up and click their heals, then kick their feet straight out. Hands on hips, they grin, nod and swivel their heads to and fro. The music sounds Russian, too: fast, with an electronic beat. The dancers are very happy, knowing how to do this, making me wonder why I can't... I just flop around like a drunken fish. |
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Night progresses and I need to kill solitude. So I sit with a group of four guys and a couple of girls. I drink and they do too, unusual for Uigurs. Maybe the girls are Chinese, but I can't see very well through the dark veil of alcohol. Then a local guy slips onto the stage and wails over his synth keyboard. He really can sing and he plays the synthesizer to an accompaniment of taped music. Later, I ask whether or not if he knows if we can get me any "Nishi-nishi" and then his buddy shows me the local stuff: it's grey and powdery, but smells good. We smoke and I am far gone. In fun, the singer slips my expensive watch onto his wrist and refuses to return it. I ask Mr. Balls the singer to please give it back. He doesn't even listen. Then, we're on the street - me, the singer and his pal. The disco is shut and we need to find an all-night place with a reliable dealer they claim to know. I still don't have my watch back and realize how drunk I am. Dreading the idea these two may want to relieve me of my wallet, I give up and grab a taxi. |
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Next day, at breakfast, I meet the singer's pal eating with two girls. First, he says the crooning wonder will soon arrive with my watch. A moment later he goes to make a call then tells me the singer won't come because he's left town. So often China is made of lies. I laugh inside, since it really was all my fault. I decide to leave and won't push my luck. Let's just say the singer's pal looks pretty grim. Obviously worried I might go to the police, he tries to scare me as I ready my bike: he puts his old finger between the needles of a pair of pliers, and it's, you know - hint, hint... I'm just another rich prick - so why should I want to bother about retrieving my lovely Japanese watch, right? Right. |
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So I'm riding away, happy to leave my folly behind. Just remember - all's well that ends up not making any trouble, especially while travelling in a strange foreign country... |
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On the street the sun blinds everyone equally. There's a wide boulevard and an intersection right before my eyes. As I proceed to turn right, a young boy of fifteen rides past very slowly, and he's riding one of the oldest bikes I've ever seen. But, he's too far out in the traffic lane for the secret policeman hurrying round the corner behind the wheel of his black VW Santana... The windows on the secret police car are very, very black: I can barely see through to note that the policeman wears black sunglasses, too. So obviously blind, he side-swipes the poor kid riding the old bike, who falls instantly to the pavement. The VW slows down momentarily, but the coward cop driving it can't be seen outside his car; he doesn't stop, but stays inside, behind black glass, then speeds away. The kid picks up from the street and he's okay. But when he gets back on the bike, his tired old wheel wobbles terribly. |
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I feel grim about the universe for a few seconds, then can't help but laugh out loud at the absolute idiocy of a policeman's need for glass so dark and secret that he can't possibly see where he's going! The modern colonial police state exhibits an inextricable pathology, all its own... |
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I spend all of a hot day sliding up to Kargilik, a worn-out sort of town, but fairly big and built on an absolutely flat spot. I stay at the Mountaineering Hotel. It's popular with Uigur, Chinese and Tibetan truckers en route to and from Ali, the capital of western Tibet. Ali is my first destination, the capital of western Tibet, and it is about 1500 kilometres southwest from Xinjiang. The road to Ali climbs high peaks, traverses desert plateaus, passes huge lakes and traces rapid alpine rivers. |
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Across from the hotel here in Kargilik is a Chinese-run chop shop and I gobble up sweet greasy Sichuan pork and tomatoes. I eat a lot in anticipation of the hard trip. The I visit the market to buy black cotton slippers - for the cold mornings ahead. The mosque is beside the market. Many men are gathered outside in front of the mosque, and they pray on their knees as I walk by. I find some silver bracelets at a shop near by. As I bargain over the bracelets, the praying men come ambling round the corner. I also buy a kilo of lovely walnut and raisin square. |
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Then I take my silver bracelets to the post office. The skittish girl behind the counter is unable to explain why she can't mail my bracelets, and I can't tell her how much I don't want to lug them up and down every mountain between here and Lhasa... I gather that the government only permits international parcels from the main post office - in Kashgar. All these people have to stand in line for China, and yet, they couldn't care less about it. I throw a childish tantrum, embarrassing myself completely. Moping around the post office, I shout, "Mintien, mintien, that's it, you've got China - everything's mintiiiiiennn!" (Mintien means tomorrow.) I'm a complete asshole, so I leave the post office to cool off. |
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On the steps, I sneer at the old scribe sitting by his pile of envelopes and paper, "Your filthy son stole my watch..." Hopefully, he doesn't understand me. ...Scribes really do sit on the steps of post offices in Xinjiang: they're available for illiterates who need to write letters begging for money from relatives, and to apply for lost I.D. cards. |
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I relax by getting a hair cut. The hairdresser's light touch really makes me feel good. Once more, I look the politely sane marine, not a shaggy dog psycho. People in China all look the same as each other: you can't tell the difference between a policeman out of uniform and a regular local businessman. There is no visible distinction between arty types and money men like we have back home... Of course, the Uigurs look quite different from the Chinese - wearing their characteristic beanies, and the women, shawls and long dresses. |
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The fact remains that I need a new watch before I go... This particular department store is a museum. The shop proves that the enduring patience of Xinjiang equals slumber. The salesman smiles to himself when he realizes that I actually want to buy a watch. He pulls three trays from the bottom of his display: antique stock. These aren't the latest Hong Kong quartzes... I mean, this is like the back streets of Algeria or Burma. But I like old watches a lot - they look so crafted. This old watch has 17 jewels and winds up on a spring - for about 8 U.S. dollars. The amused salesman takes me outside to find a nice guy on the street corner to attach a stretchy silver watchband. |
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The Chinese television shows the English news. Ah, to leave televisions behind forever: what a wonderful release from all the horrible shit of the world! The last thing I endure before switching off CCTV4 is a feature about the "officially approved" Panchen Lama leading a puppet festival of Tibetan Buddhist grammatical gymnastics. May God bless all the pawns of the world. Did you know - there was another Panchen Lama before this one got on Chinese tv? He was chosen by the Dalai Lama, that's part of his job, audacious fellow that he is. But the Chinese government did not permit his selection and quickly arranged to discover their own official Panchen Lama; all this strange colonial behavior, much to the dismay (as well as "correct disinterest") of ordinary Tibetans. |
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Only one day of rest in Kargilik. I don't know what I'm up against. I ask the truckers how far it is to Mazar. 200 kilometres, they say. Mazar is an army outpost in the Yarkant valley, just beyond two high mountain passes over the Kunluns. The highest pass has a Tibetan name, the Chiragsaldi La ("La" means pass) and is over 5000 metres up. I leave town very early the next day. The road is the usual macadam between double rows of trees and straw muck. Some old men are shaking out their household carpets by the road. Their sons must be too lazy to do it. I'm happy to be gone and hope they forget me, too. |
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The road's too straight for my taste. There's a T-intersection and nobody waits to see me turn off. I go straight south. Finally things start to change. An old man crouches beside the pavement near an old commune. As I pass by, he tears a small piece of paper in two. His commune isn't one of the new ones, I guess. I know nothing about how other people feel... Then I see them coming: a convoy of olive drab trucks trundling from the hills... So, the Chinese army is very busy around here! Ten heavy transport trucks are travelling together. The trucks speed by, their drivers anxious to return after three days hauling across nowhere. |
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The land has no more trees to give. The sun blinds: the horizon is gone, there's only an empty fire of blurry sand and hazy heaven. Nobody lives here. Nobody. Ahead, I see a pair of beige ridges. They look far away, fuzzy, as if painted on the sky, rising slightly. They are like massive crow's feet edging the eyes of a lofty visage - perhaps the invisibly large profile of spiritual hope written across earthly desolation. |
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I ride for half an hour and spot a commune based on an artesian well. I need water, so I stop and fill up three bottles. The residents show me around the peaceful place. They keep a garden. A grinning old man passes us, bearing a burden of grapevines ripe with juice and vitamins. |
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The next ridge is three times higher. Believe me, the Earth sometimes seems too big on a bike. At least, the oasis villages up here are full of folk. One of the most fascinating towns is Kogyar. Lunchtime finds me in a rustic cafe full of men. The cook fetches a bowl of boiled mutton and noodles. All the guys are watching the television play hokey Hindustani movies full of unlikely heroes and hard-to-have-fun-with heroines who'd rather race around in their cars than let their boyfriends touch them. They sing about love, wave their polo mallets in the air, and generally avoid the slums and street urchins. |
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I look for a hotel. But there's no place to stay. And the local Chinese governor, reclining in his office, doesn't offer any hospitality. He says only one word of English, "Back... back... back... baaack!" I'm not sure if he's suggesting I return to Kargilik - or what. Quietly, I leave. The villagers of Kogyar let me take pictures... |
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The road slips from the green seclusion of an oasis onto a plain of burnt red sand. A strong wind strikes me full force. Fine crystal sprays across my face, making me wish for a pair of ski goggles. Out of nowhere comes a man wearing black sunglasses, walking two camels. He smiles at me and I wonder where to camp. But it's impossible in this wind. |
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A few kilometres later I come to another oasis village, Pusa. The local folk gaze at me from across the road as I consume some beer. I wonder where to camp. Finally, some kids show me a grove of apricots. Pusa is an idyllic spot, affording perfect shots against the golden sand just beyond town... |
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The contrast between lush green and burning sand is astonishing. I feel like the village lies under a bubble of grace, a whim of divine favor. Pure spring water flows from under the Earth to feed the village. It's a perfect camping spot. I set up my tent for the first time and hope all my camping spots are so perfect as this! The kids watch me wash my body and clothes then finally leave me alone at dusk. |
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Back up the main street, I see a new school by the path made of tile and bricks. Luckily, I find dinner and a video with the locals. It's a horror flick about a nineteenth century warlock: his spirit is trying to take over the town so he can renew his body and return to his previous lifestyle of orgy and endless youth. All references to local Uigurs in this California-made movie, I write-off to mild schizophrenia. I also write-off the audio speaker sewn deeply into the outdoor air: full of voices reminding me how slow I go... Anyway, I sleep soundly, free of bad dreams. |
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Morning finds me riding up the road and the local farmers look like they can't believe I'm really going up the wrong way - towards the high passes and the endless empty wastes. But I am. Very little plant life grows here, only wild grass and small shrubs. At the upper valley is a sparse, dry hamlet of goat herds. Their single store is almost empty; I buy peanuts and fruit soda for lunch. |
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Immediately after the village the road becomes a steady climb up to a pass. This affords an interesting transition. At the top of this first high pass, you can look back towards Xinjiang and see the desert air, a yellow ochre haze enveloping everything northwards. But to the south lies an entirely different place: the mountain peaks range up much higher, and there's none of the dry powder squelching the atmosphere. In the south, the Kunluns graze the transparent deep blue of outer space. The air is clean and pure. Beyond, I spot some white, ice-crested peaks of ranges even further south, in the vicinity of K2. |
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The road drops thirty kilometres before I come upon a road workers' commune beside a deserted Uigur village. The place is called Akaz. One of the men shows me to a shower. The water is river-cool, but it feels so good to wash. Then I go for a walk through the deserted village. Of fifteen mud houses, only two or three are still occupied. The people farm a tiny green patch at a bend in the river. A field of barley and the few huge and leafy trees stand in impossible contrast to the stark, lifeless peaks above this place. |
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Inside the road workers' commune the guys spend their spare time playing cards. When dinner comes, like a starving dog, I grovel humbly before the chief cook for some mutton noodles. He's amused by my hunger and knows that I'm at his mercy. I pay for it, too. This place isn't a hotel, and there simply isn't much extra food. I share a dorm room with a fellow from Kargilik who speaks English. He's responsible for surveying the grade on the road with his trusty transit. Near eleven o'clock I drowse off as one of the guys brings in a stew pot of fresh, smoky flavored fish. It tastes delicious.. |
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Morning takes me along the river for quite some way. Up and up, hardly a tree grows anywhere. There are two small communities and one town, good for lunch. It serves as a truck stop for convoys of army trucks and individual traders. After lunch there's nothing but a hard climb. Green marshy grass appears as underground springs well up. Goats, sheep and cattle graze. I pass a smiling road crew wearing orange caps. |
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At five I'm looking to camp. It's at least 4500 metres, but not the top yet. Fifteen army transports dust by in the opposite direction. I ride a few more kilometres till I find a grassy meadow beneath teethy peaks. Up hill - all day. So, 58 kilometres is pretty good. |
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As the sun drops away, a full moon rises. Dinner of peanuts, watermelon, dried fruit, and two pieces of bread. The temperature plummets and I wear everything: heavy wool socks, underwear, down-fill vest, flannel shirt, wool toque and gloves. In my sleeping bag, I curl into a ball. Everything freezes outside. |
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At sunrise, my thermometer says minus 4 degrees Celsius. But the temperature zips up in no time. Soon, I take off everything down to my shorts. The ice peaks tower only a few hundred metres above. Only a few sheepherders live here. |
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Altitudes can be very strange. At 5000 metres, breath is short and glacial ice appears beside me in the river. I ride only 23 kilometres on this day, the 29th of June. The air is too thin and the Kunlun massifs tower over me. I stop at 2:30 to rest and acclimatize. Another road workers' commune. The Uigurs are happy to invite me in for the night. |
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A convoy of Chinese army trucks takes a break late in the afternoon. They hand out watermelons and take pictures with the Uigurs. The Uigurs are amused by these Chinese guys, as if, like me, they are unexpected visitors from some far away land. Most of the time people get along in Xinjiang. If you compare the Chinese administration with the strict Muslim rule of Afghanistan or Pakistan, at least you find that the basic right of women to live in public still exists in Xinjiang. It's a mess, thinking about how people want to control others - somehow, all the time, everywhere... Why? Why can't we teach that nobody knows better than you? |
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A huge snow mountain lies just across the valley on the other side of the road. I sit on the step, reading and staring at the wonderful sight for hours. I share my tobacco and exchange names with the help of a bilingual dictionary. After a dinner of rice, tubers and goat, the guys fire up the generator for lights and tv. Chinese and Indian stations. Everybody's in a good mood, I'm diverting them from monotony. |
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I get up at 6:30. At 7:00 A.M., the thermometer registers minus 2 degrees Celsius. Emerging from shadows into sun, I manage the remaining ten or fifteen kilometres to the top of the Chiragsaldi La. It's spectacular. The mountains are made of steely grey rock, sometimes charcoal black. Icy snow crowns them under azure skies. |
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The ride down is steep, smooth and fast to the army outpost of Mazar. But the Yarkant valley is still much higher above the sea than the desert of Xinjiang, two days behind me. An overturned truck rests beside the route. The driver waits disconsolately nearby. He must have lost control - driving too fast. This truck is the second of seven wrecks I will see on the way to Tibet. I spy some camels resting by the road. I've counted 20-odd camels so far, several prairie chickens, marmots and some pretty red birds bigger than robins. I've seen wild burros, too. I find a culvert draining icy, clear water into ditch by the roadway. It makes a great shower. |
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There is nothing at Mazar except a base full of drunken soldiers and half-a-dozen chop shops. I stop and eat some rice, tomatoes and eggs. It isn't really enough, but I keep going anyway. Some soldiers smile at me - and those who frown - I don't care what they think. |
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It's purely beautiful, the Yarkant River valley. It's barren and almost lifeless. You feel as if you're on a new planet. No people, no homes - nothing. The river flows rapidly past a jumble of polished carbon rocks. Iron pastels of gravel lie under the slopes on both sides of the valley. Only a few hardy scrub plants stick up near the water. That's all. The road is a donkey's joke - a rough gravel washboard ruined by the heavy transports rushing to Ali town. I jar painfully and slowly across deeply worn corrugations. The wind isn't familiar. First it holds me back from the East, and then it changes direction, head to tail, and now it pushes me along again. The sun is hot. Without asking permission, dust devils whirl and jump at me. |
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I'm low on water. Over there, a pure clear mountain stream flows into the muddy river, but on the other side! It's impossible to ford this deep river without being swept away. So, I conserve my remaining two cups of water, camping out beside the Yarkant, hoping for a clear stream tomorrow. |
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Morning, cool after the lucid moonlit night... How can I describe the feeling of being alone, with nothing to depend on but physical stamina? The sensation becomes acute - I'm far away from cities and towns. Helpless. Nature presents herself - but she does not speak. She watches without emotion. I may err by letting "human" imagination impute personality to inanimate sand, but there's so little life in the Yarkant Valley that its silence and emptiness is like some silent, watchful presence. I spot only one small group of camels grazing scrub on an islet in the middle of the Yarkant River. |
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Nature is the only thing here. But I'm a man. Rocks and sand cannot support life. I'm responsible for keeping alive. My food seems insufficient and I get that sudden panicky emotion of idiocy that comes as foresight seems likely to fail. |
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Water: I find it flowing over my toes - clear - absolutely pure to drink. As I fill my three little bottles a trucker drives by slowly, as if taking care to see if I'm okay. People are made to care for each other - as strangers and as family - the same. He's thinking about how slow I go... |
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I wonder what solitude is it made of? Why do I feel everything around me is so formidably opposed to life? Out here, it does not possess a name or a personality. I wasn't born to believe in the spirits of falcons and rocks, not as native American Indians who persisted for thousands of years with nature as their one tool, and their only mother and father. I grew up amid the man-made universe. I spent no time learning about survival. Does that make me lucky? I see things the same way as any other town person: it's a very streamlined world - problems are taken care of - or we forget them with appropriate fantasies and economic rationalizations. |
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Too many questions and no easy answers... My father wondered why I was always asking questions. Sometimes, I asked so many questions that he gave up trying to answer. Maybe he didn't know how to explain it easily... "What does the word 'inevitable' mean?" I asked in front of my dad's friends... "I don't know..." he said, shaking his head, "...this kid." And when I insisted to know what the word meant, my elder brother had to intervene, and distract my mind away. But I still wanted to understand the new idea I had found, and was forbidden from learning... |
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We grow up with the definitions for everything around given to us. We are obliged to earn our living by knowing how to do special things very well! But nature is far from being a routine that we simply have to learn. It's a thing outside of our familiar knowledge. We may see it everyday - but we have no need to interact with it at all. Even if we try to understand the world around us, the words we choose and the ideas with which we attempt to fathom things rely on references to the familiar universe of our scientifically inspired, idea-oriented home. We're made conscious by everything we do: making a fire, planting a tree, catching a fish - and by knowing complicated things about history, culture and the political milieu. |
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We're capable of fathoming myriad abstractions about the nature of our modern time. But the more we know, the more we assume perspective, in this sense: because of our deeply inborn hindsight about the progress and failures of our civilization, we expend plenty of energy imagining that we have earned a wonderfully comprehensive understanding of the whole history and present estate of humanity. We earn so much from this devotion to achieving wisdom that we complain of shortcomings as if they were somebody else's problems. Can you begin to see what I am driving at? We all believe in ourselves and have great faith, but without knowing how to realize our responsibilities. |
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I mean to say, the more we understand, the more we ought to expand our natural depth, and our unsinkable convictions for pointing ourselves in the right direction of genuine progress. We have faith in ourselves as never before. All insecurities are imaginary small things that we conquer by concentrating our thoughts on resolving the dilemmas we exact from nature. If we need a lot of hydrogen, then to derive it from water, nothing is stopping us from constructing huge solar arrays in the world's deserts. |
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The development of global equality among human societies, and the wisdom we bear along with us, has seen much less advance than the great physical and social benefits afforded by recent scientific and technological wonders; except, not everyone benefits from the new wonders. What does that mean to say? Materialism is our way of being selfish. It's been said before by people with far more metaphorically inclined poetic dispositions. Our present state of consciousness is lop-sided. We do without knowing why and wherefore; so, our superficial attempts to grasp the answers lead us into deep confusion, and we misplace priorities. ...The syndrome that envirophobes love to talk about involves the main roots of our apparent social, economic and industrial miasma: it's a cliche about needing too much of a good thing... We can't ever have enough plastic bags and cars, nor enough factories to make all of them, can we? The limit is invisible and we are so slowly imbecilic in the effort to suggest and act upon our future sanely, instead of greedily and zombiely-glued on our paradigm career, happy mice gleefully filling out forms and submitting to the magic authority of expert planning... I'm glad to report that I am not an expert at anything but taking a shit. |
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Our estate is ruffled when people saturate us with threats suggesting that our universe may collapse momentarily, due to depleting ozone, or increasing carbon dioxide levels... It is all true, I am sure, too. And like you - I don't know what to do. Everyday we are obliged to contend with great idealists who may actually go so far as to lob missiles at other people because they think political thoughts that have far less in the bank than they actually have to spend on the war effort. If we could grow up enough, then we might realize many good things: that an enemy isn't really an enemy, but just someone you don't know very well. |
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For a moment, imagine that all our wishes for perfection are foolhardy, and our belief in accomplishment, quite unnecessary. To be free is to let things go, and let them be themselves... To control, to attempt to change others and make them see the light, what is that but an attempt to impose your desire for a better idea upon someone else whose soul you don't understand in the first place? But this is a crime you scream - I will surely let everyone down again! (Especially the women, whom I ignore by sticking to only one lover-girl at a time... When instead, I should be chasing all their tails at once...) |
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I am too poor, but overfed. All the powers are so weak, while so very strong. Is the pacifist just a peasant buck-skinner who hasn't the pep to pop the pebble in the hole? Even a dummy can suggest that we, the wealthy powers, are likely to concentrate on keeping things going on much the same as ever - and the same as we can possibly keep them! But that isn't so good, because it leaves the rest of the world under the gun - and they know it; meanwhile nobody in the streets of America, Sweden or Japan or anywhere like that has the slightest clue about how the really poor feel - because of how you and I are able to live... The poor under the heals of your society at home - do you hear them? |
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What about those who pretend to non-violence simply by ignoring the fight between nations? It beggars reason to expect everyone to come home and roost among the myth of peace from progress, when in reality people are as bloodthirsty and crazy as ever. We have to figure out how to make ideas reach the heart and enlighten the Spirit - that ancient organ for truth and compassion - with real hope for freedoms made of joy. But we are too busy joking, bullying or competing for illusions of correct status... We can't take the time to figure out what to do... |
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Nowadays, responsibility is touted as governance by the content and emptiness of your pockets. But isn't that belief an irresponsible hubris unto itself? Today's popular attitudes make it seem as if fools are the only ones who care for other people. All right - responsibility is often thought to be the action of living consciously and with care and concern. In words more lyric perhaps: responsibility is the face we hide in the palm of our pocket: without knowing who we are - we still want to know...! |
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My enemy? Our lover? Our god? Who's telling we should know better?! I feel poetry is the only throb we have to know, feel and realize the world. Poetry is insight into true feelings for each other. Poetry is the deepest, most immediate meaning available. The predilection for poetry is recognized by human sensitivity as it unveils truth - undeniable and obvious... |
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True discipline is learned from within and cannot be imposed from outside: that is a subject for a poem! |
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How do we usually meet nature? We don't. Normally, we meet a familiar world defined by the parameters of controlled and "safe" circumstances: we build roads to let us drive through the mountains and never have to get outside our cars. We holiday according to an itinerary based on time and the ease with which we can be guided through things. We are enclosed by embodied, mechanized movements and the substance of reality tends to slip past us. We visit elaborate and carefully maintained theme parks, or play video games to experience a systematic depiction of "real" events without ever having to close the distance between fantasy and reality. We never really get much chance to leave man-made shells behind, unless we decide to go far away from home - preferably to a remote environment. More than ever before, people with surplus time and energy are "escaping into pure nature." River-rafting, long difficult treks, hiking into remote countries - all such activities obsess many of us. We imagine that we will find the "truth" and "ourselves." Of course, we often do little better than to become awestruck and disoriented, sometimes simultaneously. |
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The feeling of solitude is real though. On a bike, I'm absolutely surrounded by the beautiful lines of empty Earth. The emptiness makes me feel small. Here are only rocks. The Yarkant Valley is made of carbon black sand and some scribbly scrub brushes. |
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The road doesn't ever end. After drinking some water, I go on to some startling vistas. Everything rises to a high shoulder above the river valley. Below, on the flood plain, the river divides into silver threads and cords all unraveling. Sedge-like grass on the valley floor adds an unexpected sense of life to a landscape starved of all but blazing sun. Around the next left to the north is a huge ice mountain. Passing the vast pyramid takes half-an-hour. The Earth is very large, not small, believe it. |
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One last road workers' commune: I go inside and the fellows greet me in an almost friendly way, as if I'm a fool. They smile and generously offer me several hard buns. They seem intent on moving me along, so they can go on repairing their big earth-moving tractor. But I don't think they really want to fix it, because then, they'd have to go back to work... Maybe they're too far away from home like I am. They're smiling after all: amused by my predicament, and maybe they don't really believe me a fool. They're happy to give me bread and water, but I don't dare ask for any hot noodles. I guess I'm supposed to be a tough dummy. |
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One of the Uigur guys shows me a photograph - it's a French-Swiss mountain climber who tried making K2 the year before: with curly locks and big gold earrings, he looks the perfectly charming Romeo-cum-Errol. But he didn't make the mountain, and they tell me that he died in the effort. I have no idea why the Uigur worker wants me to know about his tragedy. I'm not expected to make it either. It doesn't matter about the dead climber from Europe: nobody can scare me... I'm not climbing K2 Mountain. I'm only riding a little bike over 5000-metre passes - it's easier and much safer. Cycling takes more stamina than skill. Well, a bit of skill - riding down, maybe. But I still feel like an ox. |
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So slowly I climb up the steep, smooth pass separating the Yarkant and Karakax valleys. The grade becomes high and very steep as the road ascends a narrow flute between towering rock walls. I pass a broken truck. It's jacked up. A hungry-looking crew try to repair the rear wheel. At least I make them smile and joke in face of impossible problems. The black rock formations give way to colorless greys and sandy beige at the top. The ice peaks show up, a few hundred steps above. |
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A cold wind comes over the pass, opposing me. I can barely move against this monster's hydra-head: it's like the atmosphere is frozen solid. It pushes me, so I lean on it like a wall. I get off, fumbling to drink some water. Wind grips my weary leg muscles and crushes at my heart. Why should nature take on this personality of resistance? For a moment I feel nature hates me - because I'm a man. My suspicions are superstitions. I'm feeling it's more like the resentment of nature, not anything like nature's jealousy of me. Yes, (lack of) human imagination is the suicide's best tool... Unreal phantasms, superstitions, mistaken ideals, manufactured vanities, false teachings, the sense of despair and failure plaguing our scientific age - all savagely conspire to murder civilization everyday. We need to escape despair - it's made of isolating selfishness. If we want to discover more joy on Earth. Waiting for heaven feels too silly for most of us now... |
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Personifying the elements will never again be new enough. Transcendentalists thought Earth is mother and protector; but in a romance of the sea - the ocean becomes an avenging god. Today I feel fear because the wind doesn't want me to get over the pass. Yet, if I make the top, the same wind can give me pleasure. So I get off and don't give up, but crouch forward, grip my bike, and walk into the wall of air. It stops me - for a minute. I'm not so strong. The force makes me feel like crying. Go on? |
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The road switchbacks away from the wind and stretches, at last, up the summit. A level space made of 360-degree vistas upon three gargantuan ice peaks not far above the roadway. Snowy rocks and gravel. White and black earth. Behind lies the Yarkant, and below, the Karakax Valley. Shivering, I put on more clothes as my sweat chills. A land-cruiser comes up and stops. Three Tibetans travelling together and they offer me water. But I smile and shake my head: plenty of melting ice flows near the road. |
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The deepest valley lies far below and I ride down very fast over steep gravel. A sort of descending plateau unfolds, the tongue of a glacier bed, which will eventually crumble into sharper vales not far ahead. Windswept sands in spaces between the peaks resemble subdued watercolor washes. The most surprising hue is a charcoal black landslide. |
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Some green marsh appears along the fast, small stream flowing down from the glaciers. Here a farmer has pastured a few big cows and the first cool signs of rain. Time to camp. The river surrounds an islet of burned quackgrass. The flowers over there are tiny bright and dare me to cross over the creek. Life is irresistible, even amid so much barren land. |
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Light rain patters on the nylon night of my tent's skin. The temperature drops as if attached to Newton's apple. I clamber into my sleeping bag, once again wearing everything: my long johns, my feather vest, my toque. The sleeping bag is a French ultra-light that won't keep a man warm very much below zero. The bag's funny, too - cut for skinny freaks nine feet tall with shoulders only twenty-inches wide. So, I'm lying in a pretty tight squeeze wearing all my clothes. Sometimes I wake up at night - gasping. Above 4000 metres, the air is so thin that you can't catch breath to make your heart beat enough air into your torn muscles. |
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Flowers blossom by bubbling clear water and I write about life. Here's a quote from my road journal... |
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"Sometimes as I ride along, I keep thinking that I should use the free time to imagine a plot for a novel, and draft it out as I ride away. Well, I keep watching the road or gawking at the mountains instead. Then I think, guiltily and I wish, more joyfully, about women I know, my lover Kate, and hopeless Sue, and my lost Sarah. I think of the work I've done and the new job I'll have to find when I get back. I laugh at the time I'm wasting - have wasted for the past few years. Really, writing is my destiny, or death deserves me. When I think of the women, like Kate, I see her going through her routine, hopefully getting on well with Nick... and here I am working like a slave to ride this bike, everyday a vista, an exhausting struggle. Kate would wait forever for a guy like me, Sue won't. I haven't lived with her. In my own vain thoughts, I remember age and feel it coming over me. I'm no more capable of making a brilliant decision today than I was five years ago. "What a mind!" Not, "What a life!" They used to say that when I was ten years younger: "What a life!" Now, it appears that I'm expected to petrify and evaporate, since that's the normal course for a devoted obsessive-compulsive dupe idiot genius like myself. I don't want to hate anything or anyone anymore. Find peace. That's what I want. I'm a little scared of this natural Earth. I want to relax more and forget about whether it will be hot or cold tomorrow. Poor dear Kate? What will we do with each other? I am too stupid and afraid to say goodbye. To hang on without making a choice, that's distracting enough to the imagination, but perhaps crueler to someone younger who doesn't really understand why I cling so. Perhaps words will make sense to me again, later. I can't wait forever for the fate, the making up of my mind, her mind. Love is the one thing I need to be at peace. To let a woman love me - that appears to be the only thing I need to learn... People like me are considered foolish, since the one thing modern people pride themselves on is their decision, their self-assurance and the where-with-all to achieve everything. In our society, culture reminds us everyday to live sincerely and to devote your passions openly, honestly. Love cannot steal a man's focus... Only as a man understands what love is - can he receive it again. Life is a series of big and small crises, and naturally, some of us have strengths to reach and give, others have a gift for reason and analysis; our individual nature is driven simply by strengths, and as for our weaknesses - we ignore them, blot them out - until someone else accuses us of going off and being too selfish, etc... Our time is in love with opposed passions, selfishness crying for selfless love; xenophobia battles the open mind, and calm tries to defeat anger. Perhaps the time of civilization really does know too much, and so much do we know that our attempts to proceed are often mildly or wildly baffled by knowledge - and not by the declared "complexity" of things and personality... We are wise without really wanting to be, since we still don't know how to pacify the animal race beneath our pubic passions... Say it again, claim it, buy it - but try to sell it - that's another life davey... Rest and eating. Raisins and walnuts, buns, water, milk powder and cereal powder. I feel like an astronaut." |
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The next morning, I find my way down into a sand pit valley. On the way, I meet a group driving two jeeps: they call themselves "China Explorers." They're visiting the remotest corners of Tibet. Their leader is a bilingual Chinese fellow who spent years in America; he kindly outlines the road ahead, explaining the precise distance between the truck stops beyond. We all leave each other behind and I'm alone again. |
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Know - there are regions of Earth almost untouched by life of any kind. The Karakax Valley is like a place no man was meant to see: its desolation is a good hiding place for the earthly frustration placed upon our backs by divinities. The deeply etched surface has a lunar character, and seems unable to invite life. The grass is gone. Instead, there's a blasted waste of stuff that looks like concrete mixed with rusty brown lumps. It's color and emptiness might be mistaken for Mars. A valley so barren as this, bereft of gold, makes men lost with interminable emptiness. |
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One more truck lies upside down in the ditch; it's easy to picture the sleepy driver - as he hurries to arrive at some civilized place - anywhere besides the emptiness here! Already, help has arrived, a truck and a machine from a nearby base help upend the whole affair. The guys working on it look none too happy about the situation. I offer them a smile and a grimace... |
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The map indicates a town called Shaitulla is supposed to lie at the junction of two rivers. But the town of Shaitulla eludes my senses. It isn't at this point, as the map suggests. Instead, I find a lonesome white tent with a Tibetan signboard advertising home-cooking. Aside from the few Tibetan truckers back in Kargilik, this is the first real evidence of Tibet. Shaitulla was once the locus of Tibetan encampments, but long ago. I keep riding and see an elderly Tibetan man walking along the road towards me. Perhaps he lives in that camp tent and he's the cook. He looks surprisingly like my own father. But I go on, not feeling any hunger. |
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I recollect the Chinese guy in the jeep mentioned Shaitulla has several buildings and an army base. But I'm neither here nor there with the god of this valley... I ask four Uigur road workers lounging by the way to point out where the army town lies; they say that I'm already going the right way. But I don't know why - I don't want to believe them. I want to turn around and go back a couple of kilometres towards the old man's tent. But before doing that, I wave down two trucks to ask the drivers where new Shaitulla is... But they keep going and say nothing, as if I shouldn't exist, and I'm not really here. The heat is a shimmer of dry silence and mocks my uncertainty. |
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I'm not with it, and so ride back towards the conflux of the two rivers at old Shaitulla. Finally I realize that I am an idiot who can't trust his own instincts: I turn round once again, the proverbially trapped mouse, and I return to the road workers who seem surprised at my confusion. They insist that my first direction was correct. I keep going - afflicted with a fatal skepticism - disbelieving completely that the town really is ahead... Over the next rise, I see it. |
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Go home - your heart tells you sometimes. But there is no more home. Maybe I came here to forfeit my last chance for going back. Perhaps I hope to lose that little wish to turn around again, and so learn never to change my mind again. |
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I'm too crowded by the heat. I must eat meat and vegetables, or the mountains will stop. The village of Shaitulla is an army base, some restaurants and a road repair crew. The newest and nicest buildings are on the army base. Outside of the army's newly-built compound is the usual squatting arrangement of shacks, with only one or two more solid edifices by the way. I duck into what seems to be headquarters for the local babe scene. They're all Chinese waitresses, and pretty lonely. |
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The town supports a sizable contingent of Chinese army. I suppose that the soldiers are the only ones who get to use the few pretty working girls living here. The Uigur workers appear somewhat shy of the Chinese girls - and quite likely - too poor for them. Even so, all along the way, these turks have teased me about how good the Chinese girls look. The restaurant serves up a big bunch of fried rice, three eggs and sauteed spinach. Not to eat too quickly, not to betray the desperate emptiness of my tummy. The women are busy washing up and ignore me. A couple of senior officers come in for a drink and a joke, no doubt, about the low level of my intelligence; or maybe they're laying odds on my survival chances, or which woman I'll end up with. Who cares. |
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I smile and point directly at the grey-headed sergeant-major and say, "Lao-ban" and that means "boss" in Mandarin Chinese. I smile then drink my beer and refill my bottles with fresh water. Through the walls of the restaurant I hear one of the pretty dolls console herself with old-style Chinese opera music - high-pitched er-hus and grieving zithers. I buy yogurt and some cookies, a watermelon and dried beef riddled with oil and chili. Leaving, I pass by the army base and grinning soldiers who lounge by the canteen at the gate. As I leave town, I meet some Uigurs with mules; they all look glassy, smiling wearily at something I don't see in the vast space before me. They know the place too well. Something is there and I have to face it. The wind. |
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The Karakax Valley drives a long wedge up into the west. The valley ramps up to meet the gargantuan plateaus of Tibet. Wind comes from the head and doesn't slow me down much, since the road's already too rough. Then a sandy ridge buffers the wind. But beyond the ridge I'm exposed to a powerful surge exactly like a wall falling on me. The wind is wet and pours ice into my blood. It sluices through a cleft between two peaks right beside me. A glacier hovers still and chill between the icy knives. This phantasm of rock and snow wears a grey face, shrouded in froward, frigid clouds. The wind is twice as forceful as yesterday over the pass. But it's coming from the side, so I lean against it. It's late, 4:30 P.M., when an unexpectedly fierce gust pitches me off the bicycle. My thigh and shoulder take the hard gravel. I get up, but very slowly. You have never experienced a force so strong as this: I know. The wind makes it harder than you can imagine to stand up and lift the bike. My heart jumps as annoyance turns to fear. |
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Nature's slug-fest threatens to overpower me. But I walk, forcing the bicycle into the wind. I brace against each fresh gust then creep ahead. I play snails with the impossible side-wind and at last it begins to fade. In an hour I spot shelter near the silver Karakax. Wind and water have dug their fingers between shallow ravines above the river flats. So, I pitch my tent, sheltered on the polished sand below two dunes. The night is long and the wind is restless and mad. It sprays noisy drizzle on the tough nylon flesh of my alpine tent. I can't stop thinking: how strong nature is, and man, how weak... Words from my travel journal convey the experience more directly than hindsight: |
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"Intense nature: I had to walk a couple of kilometres past the huge peak. I am so small and nothing to the vast cosmos. All the vanities of the twentieth century mean much less than we'll ever begin to know ourselves. I found a slightly sheltered spot in the river valley behind a wind blown heap of sand. The weather is so moody! Unpredictable changes of wind direction and the glowering clouds are blown away in minutes. Hopefully (the oft-repeated - hopefully) the weather will be friendlier. Add more camels, that makes 41 I've seen so far. Temperature plus 2 this morning when I put away the camp. Sleeping bag is warm, but still need to put on a shirt and my vest to feel safe. By 9:00 or 10:00 P.M. you can tell if it'll be a cold night or not. Should have a good crap in the morning. God I hope that I live to see someone, all the ones who love me again. Not that I deserve to." |
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~ Everything - every idea seeks its person and each person needs to find something in which to believe. None of us can be comfortable unless we do find beliefs. Civilization is made of convictions. All heresies are past, and people accept truths and falsehoods alike. We have reached the point of mind that permits all thoughts and if we experience too much doubt beneath our senses, befuddled by the barrage of information and persuasion we suffer daily, then we are quick to fix ourselves in a permanent outlook that appeals to disposition and formation. But I still think we are big to be fooled and small to find out the truth. We talk of needing more "perspective" today, but it eludes us. Ideas are as large as ever - more than we want them to be. Ha - but the more naive and argumentative our world becomes, the more we need to retreat. We often leave reflection behind for stubborn convictions. Religion will never go away. Even if some believe that none of these modes are necessary, we cannot escape ideas and creeds. And why should we? They're older than the races we run... |
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Always, we learn that life is more than an appetite for conjuring apparitions of ideas that tantalize us with promises to satisfy the wish for knowledge and certainty. Yeah, sure. |
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So, at the same time we admit to ignorance, we still need to find answers when we understand that nobody can convince us what to believe anymore. This simple fact may have a lot to say about defining the nature of freedom today: it truly is a daunting freedom of mind. Sometimes, when faced with a dearth of answers, we explore the background of our culture, fumbling for religion, or some memory of youth. Some few of us must fall into fanaticism and reaction. In case you haven't noticed, the fanatic is actually desperate to reintegrate his beliefs, and yet, the more he needs to believe, the more improbable his situation will seem to have become, since, after all, he cannot realize his ideals... |
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There are so many different kinds of problems brought upon by the modern "freedom of mind." Curiously, the ubiquitous lack of self-enlightenment that we endure as companion to our freedom, also makes a profound statement on how earthly problems affect us... |
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Too many of us exhibit an over-eagerness to believe - a gullibility for being told what is true and what is false. This susceptibility is made of custom and tradition - usurped... Even if you want to call yourself a conservative, it isn't really possible anymore! The fabric of convention was pulled out from underfoot a long time ago, like a carpet, by some agent of repossession. If you let them, familial and acculturated roots evaporate as if they never existed. We may try to retrieve them, too. You are - as you wish to behave. So, the bedrock of your self-conception is made of soft rubber: do with it as you please. |
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Disavowed of standard self-conceptions, you can say that all of us have passed behind some sleight of hand: even if God still exists, we are inclined not to think so. Maybe it's a test of faith and imagination. It would be wonderful if people could live and flourish beyond their roots. But while some of us are blessed with clever wit, many seem blanketed with darkness - an inability to discriminate good from bad, and justice from brutality. Fear of this darkness beckons for the proven tenets by which we have long tried to abide. The attempt to legislate faith in mercy was the prime word of the Western god - made human. Ah, but what does rage express - but futility? Calm accepts it. We sow again. |
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The truly fascinating thing about our changed condition - the access of divine knowledge, and our ability to articulate primal spiritual truth, is that we did not need philosophers to speak up: it happened to us before the Greeks. People spoke then wrote down the thoughts of God. Surely that was one of humanity's most magical achievements. Now that's what interests me most about the progress of history: we humans are responsible for speaking out the definitions and truths of all things divine. We didn't discover them buried under a rock. We wrote it all ourselves! Civilization was transformed by creative imagination. Was that an easy job, I wonder, writing the bible? The effect on our meditations was unprecedented. Inspiration carries at least as much insight as it invites confusion. Nevertheless, the making of love, civilization, and this weird writing, too - that makes and shapes our disposition - the characters we share and see in each other. We were uprooted without much feeling the disjunction, because science gave us new things to believe, whether we found them agreeable or not! It only took a few generations to transform human identity, age over and time again. |
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In this world we happen upon - we appear larger than we are. Because, I find myself very small in the desert of the Karakax Valley. Wander deliberately into lonely space? Why would I want to, and why am I not afraid of it? I don't ever really feel afraid, a bit irked sometimes, but more often - awed. Please realize curiosity alone didn't bring me here... To leave places and people behind... Find a new place that I'd never seen before, to experience a feeling of isolation. |
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Nature lies before me, holding me, keeping me alive, and yet threatens to kill me with barren cold. This strange desert has less to do with life than being here to see it all has lead me to believe. One idea is sure: it means little to say: "We come from nature." |
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Is it all so obvious to me? Surely, we are natural beings! To say that "living dust" is an easy metaphor for the incomprehensible fact that life happens amid dead matter ( and the absence of it in the emptiness all around the earth above the atmosphere ) must suggest an all-creative entity like a god. Well, why? If all of nature were a singular nexus of living creatures - instead of being what it is - mostly a mass of mostly inanimate matter, coincidentally prone to natural accidents that occasionally originate intelligent life among that vast emptiness of space and star gas, then we might be far less likely to assume some external creative Being was necessary to make us from dust... You see that the condition of human mentality is extraordinarily subject to impressions given to us by the world we come understand. That world includes the natural one we are given and within which we abide, along with the world we imagine, too... But they're not really the same, these two homes. |
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...We do not see how we come to be alive, only that we are alive. The trees and rocks remain at bay outside us. The inner ability to distinguish essences are limited since we find no necessary sensation of essence in the appearances that shroud the causes of our being alive. We have become conscious enough to notice ourselves, that's all. This peculiar state of mind is especially human! We can't even imagine an "intelligent" life form as anything but the embodiment of a complex integrity - final, whole, perfectly equal to almost anything we imagine ourselves to be. So much are we such "a piece of work," that we tend to define everything within the mirror of the mind. Reason, faith and imagination - we can as easily choose to live with, or without. |
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The only thing I'm certain about today is that I'm in the middle of a desert 5,000 metres above the sea. I've made myself completely alone, without any companion. I like that feeling. It frees me to breathe the fresh air, see beauty and feel absolute solitude. It's a dream of elation we ought to fulfill, but cannot figure out how to access, especially after waking up. |
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Out here, I've outgrown all my excuses, but I remember feeling sheepish, as if I'd never really seen myself. Well now, does it matter? I'm in the desert, limited, too mortal, yet ready to remain alive... Holding myself hostage to the little lie of aging hopes. I can't find words adequate to describe how I stand with my back to myself. |
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Constantly, we tell each other to feel guilty about doing the things we are made to do. The middle class has done itself proud, looking down on the artist, always telling us to try something else... Seldom can we artists live and act without feeling some regret. But I try to live with none. Maybe that's why I came to this remote place. If I had never come here, I would never have been free of that past full of ready-made emotions. |
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But I could have been writing more plays instead, or even more fun, chasing the prettiest girls in town! Holding down some job, a mob, a wife, whatever, I don't care... Oh, fuck it! It doesn't matter what I do! I haven't seen the whole world yet: that's a good excuse. |
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I'm fated to leave things behind everyday: people, the past, dreams, the glorious beginning. Exchanging great hopes for the pecuniary end - that's how people force each other to grow up and be wise... We don't really want to know anything. We prefer being dumb - splitting the hairs. Less anguish, pretending that the big questions are for crazy people. |
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I would be alone forever if I didn't enjoy making love. But when you come to Tibet, it is easy to see why people here devote themselves to God... The Buddhists enjoy the wilderness because the wide open spaces cannot possibly oppress you! The Tibetan nomad wanders in freedom. Being in nature does free you from others and gives you independence. At the same time, city people seem locked into an unnatural fear of manly, vigorous action. |
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Open space is a threat if you don't have time enough to let it open you up. I haven't enough time! It would take a year for me to adapt completely to this empty space. Then I would be free to wander off in any direction, across the Tibetan wilderness, with a road or none! I feel strong enough to ride the bike, but that's all. |
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Sand and mountains live in my mind - as symbols of eternity. The mountains watch you in silence. You may wonder what they think about you - but they show no sign of emotion and no recognition. Pure nature can give you that impersonal sense of being alone in a world that can't know you are alive... Rocks and mountains are powerful eternities. Earth untouched by man is perfectly the same when we go away. |
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Immensity of Earth! I feel weak with solitude. The mountain doesn't believe in its spirit, but some people do, on its behalf... What gets me - is the permanence of this mountain... While people are already passing by... We move through reflections of light, and barely notice the matter that makes us real. |
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Nature is the basis of our reality, the one unquestioned given of all existence. We measure matter with time and space. So, the Earth is young and old at once. It won't go away after humanity is extinct and forgotten. Yet, freedom nature makes for us is to learn that we are not limited beings at all - but self-creative. Really, we are prone to imagine an understanding of reality. While this unprecedented talent for knowledge suggests that nature is unlimited, we are given also to suspect the absolutes which we presume to comprise reality; and so, we begin to shape our human nature of the constant search for messages and meaning: the blank emblem of a bough, and we may carve it into a stone face... Art is allied to contemplation and is our purest activity. With art, we realize that nature can't reflect us without thought. The first thing we see - before we create anything - is ourselves. |
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Why bother pitying myself? I'm already left behind, old-fashioned, out-of-date. Nothing I can say will faze you. Nothing I can produce from my pocket will surprise you, unless you're a naked girl... Life isn't long enough for me. Yet, already I want to die. But not in this desert: strangely - I want to live because everything here is dead. That's the mystery. Give a man ten reasons to live and he will find eleven to die. Because we don't know anything, we are so ignorant as to imagine it all... The Earth of nature will persist beyond our span. Mortality could be a basic metaphor for the destiny of civilization. You think it's too soon to tell!? Well, maybe it's already far too late - only we're too stupid to notice... |
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Nature is strong because it's irrefutable, unmovable. To flourish we need to make nature do what we want. Why can we think? Because we need to live. Humanity is a small monkey, an endangered species in the beginning, and it's the same today. Nature was a trial, before we became our own best menace. We often personify nature with wishes for good will, and a weakness for evil... Nature kills us, but not because we are targets... But really, nature is neither for nor against us - only we are. But you say that nature is stronger than us. Why so? What do we lack that we cannot yet master? |
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Nature makes many choices for us, except we fail to notice the significance of that. Up to now we prefer seeing ourselves as beings without cause. But we are certain that we are here and clever enough to sense a mystery. The being of intelligence among inanimate essences inspires the wish for God. Yet God hasn't been a good enough answer to satisfy Western humanity. Do you realize that Eastern wisdom didn't even need a God in the beginning? Can you even see the wishfulness behind the root word: god = good... We are born to say, "Here I am." But the rocks and sand say nothing to me. The sun and wind push me along, that's all. |
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Nature is stronger: but I am strong enough. I feel weak beneath the blankets at night, shuddering as the 5000 metre temperature falls. I curl up, a fetus, and somehow I sleep even as the calories burn through the shivers I expend to keep some small heat inside my body. At daybreak, I climb through the stiff and icy nylon tent skin. It's nearly ten degrees Celsius below zero! I scramble out quickly to pack away everything, waiting for the sun, so lazy and slow, to climb from behind the cloudy bank... |
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The Earth does not really need us. Nature doesn't know me. We are chance freaks of creation. Even if the human design is divine, we cannot say so. We strive to match self-conception with the efforts of creativity. In this respect, the Earth is a tool. The nature of life means air and water. They made us. Perhaps God used them to make us. You decide... |
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Mortality. The living matter of my body, the still silence of the barren soil. Nature leaves me alone like a dying mother. My mom is still alive. But I want to forget everything that I remember - even my family. This is why I came. Nothing worries me here, I've no concern about other people's choices for me. I've ridden past having to come home, too. Nature is essence, but the home for the heart is the one we imagine. Humanly personal identity is given and taken by creativity, and by making up your mind. |
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Some of us grow up trusting that home is as real as our good fortune. Others are born deprived of a home, and this idea which so many take for granted, never touches those with no home, except as a dream, a wish, or a despair... Why do we not see that myths are not universal truths at all? Ah, but we are too shy to ask whether or not our myths, and pride, faith and hope depend, perhaps, upon mere chance alone... |
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Maybe I had a home, but it didn't matter much. Or it did matter, but I pretend to forget. So, I end up wandering. Anyway, why should I pretend to some illusion about a heritage, a unique cultural "identity." If you can think for yourself - you'll soon see there is no such thing anymore. ...Is there something wrong with me? No, but many people remain adamantly stupid in their insistence upon imposing certain modes of "correct" thought. Some morons even pretend that a writer can seriously take a conservative or a liberal stance. But writers just write - they see the world and express themselves - as they are, not as political ideals... |
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What could happen: what's the consequence of ignoring the fact that we assume superiority over nature? |
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I'm not there yet. Like the last season of a sit-com: they've gone way beyond talking about what they already did in the first season; now, after cancelling the show, all they've got is three years to write their first movie while sailing around the world, fucking right by me, ha... Haven't watched tv since I was a kid, and happy about that, too. Now I am pleased to be a wanderer, unaware of that whole other world of easy box office wealth. Passed and crazy - no matter - I still hope to write poems & novels and won't waste any time begging permission to write soggy shit for hollywood... |
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Entertainment has made a lot of money making a fool of me. Make the audience laugh and cringe, you're good at it! Big words and ideas are for nobody. Use some slang. I was feeling up to an insult, a compliment, even though I don't want in a school, either. I enjoy being dumped. Picking up's the thrill. Slut life is more. Sure, I know... Costs a lot more, too... What costs more? Marriage - or divorce? I'm over-populated by the running away. Linger among my feelings if you dare. Then you can try to wander home again, too. |
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Shard Bard. Flat in red. Whiles by white. Hepped and heaped. Cleft crofter croesus crept. Then bit my strop. Put me to bed with puss. Nerd and Wuss. Priss and Cush. Kiss and cuss. Whish is whorse: fling or beldame? Stay at home or run amok? Drink or drive? Pretty showboys can't risk losing out on all that high-class, performance-grade pussy! ...Again, I hear: "Nothing!" |
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Morning. Here I am, getting up. And you know something? Memories seep through sleep. I feel some trepidation about going back to the road, imagining that, as soon as I touch it, the Earth will wind-up and spit another big wind at me - lay me low - and laugh at me again. But the air this morning is warm and very calm, so once I get back on the bike - I feel okay. Nothing to stop me now: I just go. It takes muscle to slip up the big grade. |
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The Earth grinds over the Karakax - so far as never-ending. I can barely make the top of the pass. I have to get off and push, gasping all the way. Maybe I overworked yesterday. Maybe it's the thin air. I see a velvet yellow plain far below. The road goes straight down into a faintly green plate, it's a big boggy marsh fed by underground springs. |
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The mountains left of the bowl are tall with amazing perpendicular faces. They are brought closer by a palpable shroud of icy cloud - a hungry jaw hung with frozen enamel. I'm looking for blood dripping off the fangs. I see similar vivid mountain faces, upturned and snapping sharply at heaven - far beyond, at the vale's end. Below boiling clouds space is perfectly transparent. |
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All I manage is to bounce over the ruts and overtake two trucks stopped in a chill mountain creek. The water courses over the roadway and the second truck is up to its knees in water. I stop, yank free my bottles and slosh bodily into the water to fill up. I can see the truck's driveshaft spinning - but the transaxle gears are stripped cleaner than the closest shave. Probably the driver missed a shift coming off the last pass. Besides the nervous driver sits a cute Tibetan girl, looking most sheepish about a delay she doesn't understand. I drink the pure river and keep going. |
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A few kilometres further up the road and what do I see? A man is walking at me from the sidelines. A tiny Uigur guy, looking like he doesn't believe I'm in his eyes. He's waving and sometimes with both hands. His signals are as if I might not notice him waving... So I stop, feeling a little bit tired of pity. Yet I do feel touched - that someone out here might actually want to see me... I wait for the guy to reach the road. He takes me over to the commune, yet another dirty brick affair, run-down and rugged... It's the kind of building people live in because they have no other choice. ...To know a choice: do you appreciate that blessing? Nah, you're a spoiled brat, a soft customer. I'm no better than you? We all have to buy everything for far too much, yeah... You haven't written home in years. You won't give a dime to beggars unless someone sees you doing it. Fucking shit of the world! Or, maybe you're actually one of those honorable wretches, and every time you give, it's because you think you're finally going to get well tomorrow and so forever free yourself of curiosity, fear and pity. The nature of man is to do good: still, we go on trying to teach this, or at least force each other to believe it - until man needs to cheat and steal. Ah, it's not a crime in the beginning, is it? Are you wondering how come I accuse without knowing you? I do know you - because you're reading this my friend, and I've had 36 years to understand what's wrong with me... |
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The first thing I do is find a place to wash my clothes. Almost unbelievably, a warm natural spring rises into the marsh behind the Uigurs' volleyball net. The warmth feels real, either that or my hands are chilled to the marrow! |
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The Uigurs chat with me, with the help of yet another English/Arabic dictionary. It's a regular thing, I'm getting used to it, just another dumb popstar accosted by the sleepy-head press. Time and again repeating the same load of crap. The only thing to note is how pointed the questions are - and how meaningless they seem to me - yet the questions are very meaningful to them! Okay, here it comes again: do you eat pork? Yes. Are you a Mussulman? No. So I guess that means they know now that I'm the Infidel - the dreaded white from far away! I'm the hunted beast, a creatureless being without any soul! All right! |
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Even so - to see me is to feed me - and they do. A bowl of rice, yellow tubers and grilled mutton. These guys are naturally friendly - because they are alone. I share my smoke and make myself comfortable. The next morning I get up before anyone else does. |
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The sleet doesn't start until I reach a dry riverbed. I put on my windbreaker and all my warm things. The wind pushes me ahead as the sleet changes to big, goofy snowflakes. The road hugs a sharp escarpment that climbs up along the river flats. Around a corner, at the bottom of the cliff, I spot yet another smashed truck - twenty or thirty metres below. It's all crunched upside down on the weedy rubble. Impossible to stop. Finally the snow abates as I leave behind the Karakax trough. I pause for a few sweet cookies. So little food left. But the world is beautiful today - all blue and silver - iron Earth is a table below a prism of blue clouds that open a delicate fan painted with setting sunlight... |
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I climb the silvery sand and pass another upended truck; its load of watermelons are spilled, cracked open red everywhere across the gravel. Finally, I reach the lonesome army depot of Dahongliutan. That makes two weeks riding so far - a total of nearly 800 kilometres. I'm sure to go all the way, despite the vast nothing of the Aksai Chin plateau, yet to be traversed. |
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The army base here seems dormant, but the army truckers driving the long convoy to Ali are lined up and waiting for each other to finish dinner and a nap. I enjoy a beer and a couple of meals. The Chinese women cooking are so pretty, and the army boys, so cute. |
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I'm in bed in the depot commune as someone walks into the dorm, unscrews the light bulb and walks away... I chase him down to get it back. He hears my curses and finally brings back the bulb. Then, an English-speaking Israeli hitching down from Tibet arrives to talk about what to expect tomorrow. Nothing. Sand, mountains and more emptiness. |
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At 6:30 A.M. I set out for the Aksai Chin. What is the Aksai Chin? It's a humped-back whale. A plateau in the no-man's land between India and Tibet. Icy mountain peaks are visible several kilometres beyond the furthest horizon. Most of Aksai Chin plateau is flat and lies about 5000 metres above the sea. To the east lies Tibet's great northern wilderness: the Jangtang plateau, one of the world's wildest and most remote natural habitats. I hope to see some rare species of antelope up here... |
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On the way, I go past the very last Uigur road commune without stopping because noon hasn't happened yet. I see these guys have something special: a large dog like a husky and also, I have to laugh, an electric washing machine connected to their power generator - which they aren't supposed to use during the day! It isn't far now, is it? I spy another truck wrecked at the bottom of a cliff, this one looks at least two years old. |
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Thankfully, the mountain is windless. The charcoal peaks hang only a few hundred metres above and they are frosty on top. I sidle slowly over and my eyes don't lie - there's an old canvas tent perched right by the summit. Outside the tent is a wooden post driven into the sandy clay from which hangs a deer carcass, eloquently rotting, and purposely hung up to do so. |
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Inside the tent three Tibetan men recline on dusty carpets, taking their noon tea. These men look so poor, dirty and abandoned in comparison with the cheery, clean Chinese soldiers who drive the shiny new supply trucks. One of them is getting on in years, a silly old fool for whom the other two are responsible, it seems... He takes some white pills for his head cold. They offer to feed me. One fellow lights his kerosene torch to boil my soup. I feel like crying that these poor fellows are going to feed me. I smile instead. Simple wheat noodles simmered with cabbage. I give them 10 yuan, twice what they ask for the soup. I leave the lonely men alone with their claim - not actually to be hunting the protected wild deer. |
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An endless gradual rise. The planet looks dead now: no plants, not even the smallest weed can grow here. At this point my senses find cheer in a childhood fantasy about driving up that huge volcano on Mars - Olympus Mons, three times taller than any mountain on Earth and hundreds of kilometres across. I'm mailing plans to Florida. I giggle and feel elated. The air is getting thinner and thinner... A big flat-bed truck sits there. The driver lies on the ground, fiddling under the engine. I'm nearly over this last, ultra-high pass, above 5000 metres. I catch my breath three times before going over the top and walking the last 100 metres. |
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As I focus my camera on the vast panorama below, I see the whole Earth cannot be captured by a single shot. But I reach with the small lens, to capture the northern reach of the Aksai Chin plateau... The driver wants to give me a lift down the mountain. What do these goofs take me for? I want to do it at speed, on my bike, through the thin wind! |
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I follow the road halfway, but it's potty, so I dive onto the super-smooth clay beside the road, short-cutting the remaining switch down the ridge. This is like the Bonneyville salt flats, but steeper. I'm setting a record! As I slide soundlessly across the hard clean surface, I spot a convoy coming along the main road. They grin at my speed. I reach a small clapboard shack - another cafe - built beside a patch of solid ice melts into a pond. Water enough to sustain life. |
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Outside the shack, I chat with a guy. I assume he's Chinese until I realize his English makes that unlikely. He tells the truckers he comes from Taiwan, but actually he's Japanese, hitching. He sits close beside me in the cafe, as if longing for a friend. He tells me that he studies contemporary Russian literature. |
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This food shack is manned by three Uigurs. One of the Uigurs looks like an old Canadian acquaintance: the visual reminder makes me feel amused, melancholy, when all I want is rest. There were so many good friends in my life and it feels weird, imagining how I'll never see any of them again. The Japanese guy watches me eat a bowl of rice, tubers and fried mutton. It's pretty good. But he says, "It's expensive." I reply, "Only 8 yuan, I have to eat..." He's either starving himself or confusing this place with a Tokyo cafe. Then his driver is calling him to go and he's gone. |
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A crisp snap in the dry dusk air tells me it will be very cold tonight. So I decide to stay inside the shack. I read my book and share smokes with the Uigurs, who are quite happy to have me. They lead me to understand that there's nothing beyond this place. "Here," says the cafe boss, pointing his finger at the soil below, "5000 metres." He turns round and points at tomorrow: "Up there, 6000 metres." More more, up to go. Okay, I'm ready. |
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So, I settle on a cot beside the door in my sleeping bag. When I get up the next morning the thermometer says -4 degrees Celsius. I pedal forth at 6:00 o'clock as everyone sleeps. It's too early for so much slow sand. I get on higher, more solid ground, stop for a doo-doo drop on a hill, smoke a cigarette and press on. I think about being alone out here in this vast empty space, and that right now I can't just get on a plane and go some place else. There's nowhere to go. Maybe you can see that in the photos: but you have to be out on the Aksai Chin, alone with a bike to feel fear and solitude contend with joy and elation. It can't be described - that solitude - in the middle of nowhere, with nobody for hundreds of kilometres. No one can give you food and water. You have to bring everything along. Being self-sufficient is related to freedom. Earthly solitude makes you feel smaller: and you become capable of more salient and humble abstractions, like the world can do without us, and that the presence of people on Earth is an accident, magical and unlikely. |
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You know, when you wonder, "Why me? Why this mother and that father..?" I'm not one to explain that fate is like the illusion with which we oppose, using our imagination, the sensations of chance or inconsequence that afflict our wish for well-being. We want meaning to mean more than the apparent and obvious content of each proposition. It's as if we crave that everything be riddled with a lovely sub-text, a metaphoric harmony must be invoked to reveal our sublime insights about the truth of being alive. Life must "come from" somewhere - and so we need certain beliefs in abstract reality, like God, a home, eternity and the like. The measure of civilization - and the value we attach to faith, life and love - all this begins and ends with the relationship that imagination has to the senses. From this relationship comes, I believe, all ideas about reality, including hard scientific and philosophical understanding as well as all higher abstractions: artistic/fictional, emotive/religious. |
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I'm not afraid of dying like the doomed Jack London hero in 80 below arctic weather. Now, I'm far from being afraid, let's be clear about that. I feel small and a little old. Good. I want very much to see everything round me, that's all. I have a visual thirst for the extravaganza of ever-changing novelty. Wilderness is the only treatment for walls. |
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I look for people and see none. The rocks peak-aboo above the horizon's limit. Too high. A creek. Fresh water flows from under ice into my bottle. The road is rough and I pass a scientific research station, an aging complex. An ache is jabbing into my left shoulder blade. The bumpy washboard beats me up. I don't care. The pain in my neck goes away at night as I sleep. For the first time, solid, smooth tracks appear by the road. I ride them as a tail-wind swoops in: 30 kilometres an hour instead of 5. Fun. A 1959 hollywood mountain is painted on the horizon. Big backdrop. |
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It's coming closer... I mean, I'm getting closer to it. At first the hill looks so smooth and even-toned that I assume it's small and close by. But I'm small, and it's huge. The subtle wash of earthen colors has no rough texture and the air is so perfectly clear that no familiar visual cues can help me see that depth perception doesn't work up here. The mountain is six kilometres from the roadside; yet, due to the clear air, and the flat plain between, it appears as near as one or two ks. Strange beauty keeps her distance! |
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Some vivid golden grass appears among shorter green weeds. Lush efflorescence of rare flora. Then I see the animal, almost without motion. Far away - and only that sensitive peripheral glance claims it. I whip out my trusty field glasses. I pan to and fro, then spot him. A huge creature, tall as a man. The antlers are straight, it isn't a deer at all. A gazelle, an antelope, an ibex. It looks my way. I'm getting my camera. I'm walking across the turf and the animal watches me with telescope eyes then walks a few paces further away. It's two kilometres from me, and so wary! It won't let me approach. I ride again. The wind is a powerful blessing. I become a sail full of motion and spot another group of animals. Three wild asses munch on the sparse grass. These brown and white animals are profoundly cautious, too: I walk at them with my camera, and the asses take a few steps away. |
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An earth-mover has gouged huge troughs near the road - to catch water. They do it on purpose to prevent erosion, and to water the animals, and maybe to keep stranded truckers alive. I need to stop here because the sun will drop in less than half-an-hour. 98 kilometres: best day of the whole trip! |
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The wind is so strong, it really wants to kill me. So, I head for a telephone pole. It's reinforced with a circle of timber piles built round it. Four heavy gauge guide-wires multiply the support. The structure blocks out the wind fairly well. I climb inside my tent to smoke and eat. Sun gone, the wind relents. But the air's freezing at almost 6000 metres. Longest ride, the highest camp - and my coldest night: July 6, 1999. |
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In the middle of deep sleep, the chill wakes me. It permeates the sleeping bag. So I curl into a tight ball: my fetal fear of freezing is real. Exhaustion douses the cold - but not my will to live. My body burns extra calories. Minus 10 degrees Celsius as I crawl outside at 7:30 A.M. With sun, the temperature climbs in minutes to 8, then 4 degrees below zero. Have to get more food today. I round a small emerald lake and am showered by a swarm of newly hatched flies that resemble termites. I pedal through, panicky, hoping I won't swallow any in. |
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On high ground again, I spot a gazelle - an ibex of an antelope - a big babe of a buck - bounding in long blind leaps to the road. He's going so fast! Two huge swords spiral nearly a metre straight from his head! The animal spots me, perhaps by the motion of my glance. Instantly, he juts forth his front legs to catch and arrest the mass of his rapid momentum. He's only five metres away! He turns around in less than two seconds and bounds back the way he came, gaining speed quickly. That animal is in fine physical shape. A few minutes later, climbing a ridge above me, I see another gazelle, or maybe the same one, or his mate - looking down on me too carefully. The stillest ibex, her eyes looking right at mine. Wait, wait - till I'm in the safe grave... |
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This small pass! Fuck, I'm slow. A truck goes by, jams on the brakes. One guy, an Uigur, jumps out and carries a watermelon to me. Thoughtful. I feel satisfied for the ten minutes, eating the thing. I top a hill and view a pure splendor - a glowing bowl encircled by smooth, sandy peaks. I'm somewhat shopworn by distances, am running out of superfluous descriptions... The lake below floats a huge turquoise table - liquid gemstone - an efflorescence. I'm going down rough, bouncing at speed, a big truck close behind me. I'm hungry, so hungry! |
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The Chinese woman in the tent diner feed me well: sweet, fatty grilled pork and a mountain of spinach and bowls and bowls of rice. I eat with a couple of the working girls, feeling like a monster. I take some water for a shave and then get out. The restaurant is too busy with young Chinese soldiers. But I want to be alone again! I so love the land, with its valleys unpeopled and the wondrous solitude, the thrilling distances ahead - all so far to see beyond! |
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Another pass. This one gives me a slight headache, but I reach the last valley before Tibet. This ethereal place evokes the full spectrum of color available to a gifted painter. The valley cuts out a large circle, much like a crater. The road rims round to some ice mountains south. The valley floor is velvet green next to the pitch black river gulch. My camp lies on the same kind of lunar sand. |
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The cold comes, but isn't so intense as before. The next day, by all estimates, I should cross the Xinjiang border with Tibet. At 3:00 A.M. I open up the tent and peer up to heaven. The Milky Way is still there. We're caught in the last, long wing of a mansion - our great galaxy - and all we can see is one wispy arm and billions of stars. How come we never see the bulbous glowing center of our galaxy at night? I don't know. Maybe we're too far away from it. But at this altitude, the stars are unnumbered. I wonder, how many intelligent creatures live out there, observing this vista from the night side of planets far across the vacuum sea? I don't see them, and they can't see me... |
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A quote from the road journal: "I've been thinking silly thoughts, trying to purge that redundant negativity which I blame on society, my parents... Resolving to read more Dostoyevsky, even Philip K. Dick. I should plot out my novels. Dreamed a hilarious dream last night. Captain Kirk was sitting on a bench in the middle of the boulevard, holding up a tasseled blue grey banner with gold stars on it. He was grinning in a sheepish yet winsome way. Then when I woke up a moment later, I realized many people are waiting for that bus which never seems to arrive and suffer their own lot, being typecast or whatever... Can you think of a better description? By being subject to a circumstantial character and the peculiarly unconscious destiny we end up creating for ourselves. I suffer from that inevitably helpless sensation I'm little in control of my own ends, letting things happen more often than I put my own foot forward... I hope I don't freeze tonight. Wonder what Kate is doing today? In four of five days I'll be in Ali, where I can rest for a day, wash clothes, shower, write a few letters and make a couple of calls." |
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Entering Tibet is memorable. The road climbs round to big lake Lungmo. I take a short cut over the hill above the lake. But I have to get off and push over the top. The dirt slides underfoot. Struggling hard against gravity, I make it. Another truck stops, and the drivers give me one more watermelon. |
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A marker indicates the border of Tibet and Xinjiang. Right away I sight some Nomad tents. They've come north to graze their herd on sparse grass. The whole area is glows lightly green. I find a tiny village. It's nothing more than a few tents and a decrepit school. Some sweet Tibetan kids look up into my face, fascinated. I give them my Tibetan phrase book: one of the girls is immediately engrossed, reading. We use the book to introduce ourselves. The kids show me to a lunch stop. The young proprietor feeds me, but he doesn't give me much meat. I guess he just doesn't have much. Some Uigur truckers join us. I pay for a second bowl while the little girl reads my book. |
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A wild south wind stops me. One, two more Nomad tents sit near the road. The people stand there, watching me brave the wind. The road descends into a narrow valley now. The same tough clumpy grass grows everywhere. I decide to camp with a Nomad family. |
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I introduce myself and they are amused by my appearance among them. As I unfold and set up my tent, the Nomad fellow, a tiny man, very darkly tanned, lame in his right foot, comes over to study my gear. He's accompanied by a boy of ten. The child, I later learn, belongs to his sister-in-law; it appears as if he's keeping house with the boy's auntie, presumably the younger sister of the boy's mother. When he sees my blue nylon tent, designed for only one man, his apparent disinterest changes to mild disdain. He's asking himself, "I live in that?" I can see. Everything about tent is small and light and flaps noisily in the wind. My dwelling can't excite admiration in him. His judgement is a sly smirk that follows a collapsing gesture of his arms - meaning my tent is bound to fall apart in the first storm. I grin, "That's all I've got." He and the boy wander back to do goat chores. |
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After eating, I approach the Nomad's yurt, a big black fabric tent. But I see they're not in yet - though it's dusk. I spot the Nomad over there, busy marking his goats with russet dye on the long scraggle of white hair on their backs and chests. He doesn't want this livestock to get too mixed up with the extended family's animals. Maybe he expects me to walk away with some of his flock in the middle of the night. He looks good-humored though, and after a few more minutes of pelt-painting, we all go inside his big black tent. |
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A Nomad tent is bigger than a typical camper's tent, but much smaller than a cottage. It's mostly woven of yak, a thick coarse wool fabric. The yarn is thick, so the warp and woof of the fabric remains loose and open. It admits air yet is tight enough to hold back rain. The entrance is a flap that opens and shuts on a pole to which it can be firmly thonged. The center of the tent is reserved for a miniature metal stove, or at least a few hearth stones. The fire is always fueled by yak dung, thoroughly dried. The smoke rises from the dung from a hole in the roof. The fabric vent is drawn open or shut depending on whether or not the weather is fair or inclement. The heavy fabric on the yurt is supported by sturdy wooden poles. Several strong ropes are attached and pegged into the earth. This yurt can endure almost any kind of severe wind. Whenever it rains, the thick fabric wicks water to the ground. |
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Inside, we sit together round the fire. The people don't know what to think of me. I use my phrase book to be friendly, ask a few questions and drink their yak butter tea. The Nomad's lady friend is shy and seems embarrassed by some undisclosed fact of consciousness. Her sister's two kids keep popping in and out of the tent. The boy wears a cameo on a chain round his neck. It shows a holy child, adorned with the yellow golden silks of the Gelukpa sect. It's a photo of the Panchen Lama. But looking again, the photo shows a child older than the current Panchen Lama - probably one of several other saints-incarnate always being reborn round Tibet. The kids do not want to taste my walnut and raisin square, but I give some to the Nomad's wife. They pour tea as fast as I can drink it. |
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Our discussions are elementary. The fellow tells me that he has no children with the silent woman who is his companion. The man shows me his deformed right foot. He puts his hand to his mouth and shakes his head no, then points at his foot again. He indicates that he had neither medicine nor enough food while growing up. So, his small size and lame foot. Do I have any magic medicine with me? I do not. I gesture as if I'm milking a mommy and suggest that he drink some goat milk. |
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I am not really an intruder, but I'm from the outside. The world beyond is something the Nomads know nothing about, except that it's real. Most days, these folks see only their neighbors. Nowadays, during the summer, the odd land cruiser slips past: sometimes, passengers step out to take a few pictures. We come from far away, with money enough to do it. When you're alone, far from everything, you don't have to tell anybody what to do, and nobody will tell you how to behave, either. |
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The Nomad man is dressed in an army overcoat to keep warm. His spouse wears traditional Tibetan dress. Her dress is dark and long. Atop the dress is a colorful, striped apron stretching to her knees. She has a few heavy stones and some gold bangles, necklaces and hair ornaments. Most women adorn themselves like this. Jewelry is a practical form of status for Tibetan women: it's a good way to keep her wealth on view and safe. Nomadic tribal society appears to have few hard and fast rules, not so much as it practices some regular customs, some practical, others arbitrary. For example, it was a custom for young men to have more than one attachment, and women are permitted to share their affections, too. Marriage is more of a practical afterthought than a necessary ingredient for wholesome society in Tibet. |
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After a few draughts of tea and talk, the Nomad fellow makes it clear that it's time for devotions. He indicates the modest altar by the wall opposite the door: the symbols and emblems of Tibetan Buddhism decorate the tiny space above the family treasure chest. He's a bit impatient of me, as the images of holy men and familiar deities are charming him now. |
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Alone in my tent, I hear the man intone several chants. He goes on over half an hour, naming his faith, repeating the invocations for blessings, peace - and I suppose, mercy, health and happiness... I fall asleep even as he prays and sings to god. |
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The charms and chants of his mantra are recognizable for their rhythm and communal passion. Everyone can feel the meaning of the chants, lifted as they are, from Tibetan tracts. For illiterate people, oral communication keeps the faith. Tibetan Buddhism has endured the tribulations of history solely because its adherents tenaciously cultivate strong devotion. The faith is genuine, and the people find it easy and natural to transmit their passion one generation to the next. The striking feature of Buddhist religion in Tibet is its universal acceptance. No other nation on Earth has enjoyed such a protracted kind of ecclesiastical society, either. While the feudalism which went along with Tibet's theocracy is no more, it's clear the religion is alive despite the occupation of Tibet by the Chinese. The way of life on the land for most Nomads of Tibet has hardly changed. |
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How is it possible for tribal people to go on living as they have for innumerable generations? In the case of Tibet, people have been fortunate to remain very isolated from the rest of the world. Their character was given to steady social rhythms, and to faith. The stark beauty and peace of Tibetan nature, along with life's rigors, inspire that faith. Very little modern influence appears to complicate the Tibetans' perceptions. Except when a john like me happens along. So, that statement is no longer as true as it was 50 and 100 years ago... Yet, traveller notice one thing first: in Tibet, land and climate cannot be taken for granted. To live in Tibet is to endure. For those who endure, faith and joy come easily: but pain and strife are never far away. The beauty of nature is everywhere and engulfs everyone, and inevitably impels the mind to sensations of infinity and divine presence. If god is alive, and hiding somewhere, Tibet's a likely place. So, the irony never rusts: life seems easy enough for god and his infinite wisdom, but it's always and forever going to be tough for we people. |
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Here's something from my journal written while camped with the nomads: |
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"...thought about writing a letter to President Jiang, suggesting that the military presence in Tibet and all of their administration and whatever - seems a lot like China under the Manchus, and that, of course, an empire never sees itself from the perspective of historical example... The people are poor here. The well-fed like me can't begin to rationalize against the well-fed Chinese army. But you really wonder when you see them build themselves a new base and drive expensive Steyr (German?) trucks. But the military seems to keep tightly to themselves. You know it's an empire colony when there isn't much give and take. Yet, suggest to Jiang that "modern" China really represents a throwback to earlier empires, like Napoleonic Europe, Alexander, Genghis Khan... What's the difference? ...Today, life among these nomads appears changeless. But it isn't. Obviously the people have some awareness and opinions about people from the outside world. My tent, for example, isn't good enough. I keep imagining Claude Levi Strauss: in his book, he didn't say too much about what the natives thought about the outside world. At the same time though, Claude wasn't too shy to write about what he thought about his own civilization: i.e..: the two types of university students - professional/social and academic/creative... Tibetan ladies here, two of them, very cute and smiley, one wears at least ten bracelets on her right arm; perhaps it's a reservoir of wealth, like a bank account, in case all the livestock die. ...Anyway, see if I can remember my anti-colonial argument: something to do with its anti-social purposelessness and also the idea of two impossibly irreconcilable viewpoints. Of course, some good must be brought by every imperialist - yet so often, as history shows again and again - the colonial power only gives enough to satisfy its rationalization of what its benevolent purpose is imagined and intended to be... The rest remains a shrug of the shoulders - as each group realizes its own unique and impenetrable identity." |
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The next day is a long way down - a new valley with little life but spikey grass. Then a fast big river. I fill my bottles beside the glacial ice. A few groups of Nomads were camped a few kilometres back, but I don't understand why they won't camp closer to the river. Maybe it's too windy, or have nothing to do except walk over with an animal and pack back some fresh water. |
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The road finally descends into a basin of sand between amazing red sandstone mountains. The road is a miasma of soft sand, pure agony. I can barely keep on my pedals. My wheels sink into the soft earth and it's impossible. No shelter from the heat. I walk and curse, then find my way off the "road" over a dry creak-bed. I stop a few kilometres short of Domar outpost. I'm almost dry but manage a cup of noodles. |
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I relax, writing in my journal, glancing now and then at a warm sunset vista in front of my tent. A truck drives along the path over there. One fellow jumps off the back end, then two others, their silhouettes beneath a setting sun. The second two men throw the first one onto the ground. He gets up, passing the other two and climbs back onto the back of the truck. The other two make him get off again. More pushing and shoving. Finally, the truck leaves the man behind. His figure moves like a boy, he's probably only a teenager. I couldn't begin to guess what the fight was about. I see the young man stop walking and sit on the ground, head in his hands. He lies on the Earth, flat on his back for several minutes, stands and walks slowly back towards Domar town. |
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Morning and Domar appears along the river vale. It's an army base and a few houses between the peaks. I eat brunch in a cafe run by a man and woman from Sichuan. I make them happy this morning. The man tells me how bad the road is and adds, "Mayo ren." "No people..." Even so, the road climbs beside a lush marsh full of white water birds. The water wells up and glints beneath the tall rushes. It's truly a miracle of spring water and green life amid the vast desert! It's that hidden paradise scientists dream of. The road turns away from the tiny groove of green and joins a vast desert plateau reaching east: two deer, twin yearlings, stand very close by the road and watch as I ride by. I almost don't see them. Yet, as I pause to look, they leap away together. |
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The road climbs and drops to a huge pea green lake stretching far beyond a ridge. Another planet: everything has color and form so strangely unlike anything I've ever seen before! No grass here - only sand and rocks. The road turns west and the neon water is gone. A rock wall reveals a big cave shaped like a gaping vagina. The huge orifice is all brown with goat turds. |
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Then I find the most idyllic camping spot imaginable. Some grass grows on some lumpy, alkali-white soil. Underground water makes a creek. Just there, a patch of soft green lawn lies beside the spring. It's a perfect cushion for my little tent. The water is clear and I drink it. Nearby, a couple of ducks are nesting. God knows how they found this tiny, living spot. Beyond the water the desert is made of bright gold sand: there is nothing much green for kilometres in any direction. A man rides by on a pony, so silently, I barely notice his passing. My good luck seems too good. Now I have plenty of water and will not die. The water feels warm, obviously a spring. I wash my body and hair. It's good to crawl naked and clean to sleep! |
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Morning promises a burningly cruel sun. I decide to take it easy and wash my clothes. After 12 o'clock, I ride up and up till I pass two small lakes, one saline and one fresh. The saline lake has a white encrustation of base material circling the entire shore. The water is saltier than any sea. Deeply green, it's transparent. A tent is pitched beside the second lake. Inside lives a man, his wife and their two year-old child. I eat instant noodles and drink beer. Each time my glass goes down, the young man fills it up fresh again. They're humble and friendly. I'm a fool... So I leave, wobbly with altitude and alcohol. |
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The huge Dyap lake, also called Panggong, appears only one minute after leaving the restaurant. The immense expanse of luminescent water is like a seascape. All around the lake shore, rising sharply from the water, starkly jagged mountains shoot high over the water. A small encampment of Nomads abides near this beautiful fresh water lake. Another convoy of army supply trucks passes by in the opposite direction. |
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The wind is very bad. Fighting's no use. I put the bike in first gear and patiently bump by the south shore. Here, spectacular cliffs and pretty sand beaches line the water. Dyap/Pang-gong Lake is nearly twenty kilometres across at its broadest, eastern end. The water points a thin finger westwards, a hundred kilometres into India. Magnificent ice mountains linger at the border. |
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After three more hours of chugging, at 5:30 P.M., I reach a unique "hotel" situated right on the south shore. The hotel is made of thirteen black and white tents. I introduce myself to four Tibetans who manage the place. They're easy-going and invite me to sit... |
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Road-weary, I'm hungry as a mongrel. The two young women prepare a dinner of momo: boiled mutton dumplings served in salty soup. The phrase book communicates again. |
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This is the first talkative bunch of Tibetans I've found so far. The language they speak is a mixture of Mandarin Chinese and Tibetan. They come from Ali town. I listen to their short-wave radio and hear about a world I've been missing. Very big street protests against dickhead Slobodan Milosevic are going on in what little is left of Yugoslavia; the same kind of march is going against another big dude in Iran. Some jokers never ever understand when they've gone crazy. |
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Evening comes on with nothing to do. The "hotel" manager confers with his pals and invites me to stay for free since I'm riding a bike. Everyone plays "21" for small change. Then Bema and Deudo, the two women, put a cassette tape into their machine and start disco dancing. They beckon me to the earthen dance floor. I dance, but not too aggressively. I don't want to scare the girls away. They stop dancing to watch me. After I sit, the girls get up to dance again. Everyone drinks beer! Tibet seems gifted with music. Girls sing their songs with the sweetest voices. |
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I get up at sunrise. Some white water birds fly over my head. They love the marsh grass beside the water. They are like sea gulls. Then it's goodbye to Panggong Lake. Two grinning guys ride donkeys over yonder into a huge, flat meadow. People and animals, horses, sheep and yaks spot the landscape as far as the eye can reach. Space is so gigantic here. Elation. |
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Being a tiny, embodied organism is a wonder intimately related to conceiving freedom: we can move around and enjoy it. |
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Some villages lie across the plain. But the main road crosses a ridge to Rutok, administrative center for northwestern Tibet. I go for a look around the market. Little shops under a sky-lit square sell clothes, toys, food, tools, medicine - something for everyone. There's a big, empty space in the middle of the market, as if waiting to be filled up with something - maybe that's only on the weekend. You can buy most practical things in the market: clothing and food. My survival basics include pork wieners, sugary wheat biscuits, slabs of Shanghai chocolate, army issue biscuits made of flour, sugar and pork fat, some raisins and nuts, and a few packages of noodle soup. Plenty to keep me going. People here smile. They're curious but shy. |
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What else is there to say about Rutok? It's a hybrid Chinese fortress and Tibetan town. The native quarter is made of low homes, smaller than Tibetan country houses, uniformly crowded together along narrow paths. Across the road, the Chinese have built many compounds with high walls. Some of these places contain clean, modern new administrative offices. Ten brick hothouses are growing fresh vegetables. |
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Another army convoy drives in and stops for a break here. I have a chance to say hello and look closely at one of their Steyr trucks... All the instructions under the cowl are written in Chinese characters. Unless the army requested Chinese writing on this machinery, a branch plant probably turned these out. I don't say anything much to the soldiers, except to say, "Nice trucks, made in China..." |
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The road above Rutok climbs into a steep ravine beside a fast alpine river. Earthen formations are like heaps of wet sand mingled with cracked rocks. The so-called road is an intolerable mess. I bob up and down over rocks as big as footballs. A land cruiser passes. Two middling American fellows gawk at my slowpoke figure. They stare so hard, as if they can't believe they're seeing a real guy riding a bike. Since I'm not worried, I can't help but grin. Like National Geographic-type pros, they appear stoic-looking and shell-shocked in the same instant. I pass a well-kept agricultural research station strung along the river. They're growing several varieties of grain, even rice, in little plots by the rippling stream. |
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I did not rest at Rutok because I have a special destination in mind: I plan to camp beyond Risum township at the Paleolithic site of Rimotang. I need to arrive before the sun sets. So I press on, finally reaching Risum. The Nomads live here because the ravine broadens into a grazing meadow. It's a busy day in this hamlet. Several market trucks, owned by Tibetans, have brought wares to the Nomads. Food and drink mostly. Two young women walk by with an older man, their father perhaps. He carries something newly purchased. All three grin broadly, especially the daughters. What has the Nomad man bought? A strip of photoelectric cells on top of a blue metal tool box, which contains a battery charger, or some electronic gizmo like a transformer. Has he spent a fortune or made a bargain? Why such a grin? Maybe they're the first ones in the pasture with solar cells and can use their radio all the time now. |
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I notice a wall round some Tibetan dwellings and Chinese style offices. The high walls have jagged pieces of broken glass stuck on them to discourage scaling, certainly not a very Tibetan tradition. |
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Then, I'm racing against the sun for photos. This afternoon, the sun is untouched by clouds. With a bottle of beer and some biscuits, I cross a long causeway over marsh and river. At the end sits a small army camp. Nearby, the soldiers practice shooting. |
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I'm looking for Rimotang. It's supposed to be right here. What is it? A few thousand years old, it's classed as prehistoric. It lives in the rocks just ahead and above this bubbling fresh-water spring. A hairy man-like creature seldom seen by anyone? Nope. Rimotang is a series of petroglyphs carved in the rock face above the road. I see it! I snap some bright sunset shots of the entrancing figures chiseled into very hard rock, a red-hued schist. |
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The images include organic ones: animal and human, as well as symbolic, ideal forms. Of the animal and human forms there appear, even to an untrained eye, two basic style sets. One set was carved at a much earlier date than the others. The early images depict very simple "stick" animals and human figures. The more recent set of carvings depict very fantastically stylized representations of animals. You will notice the difference between two examples below... |
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Bon religion and cosmology predates the advent of Buddhism in Tibet by thousands of years. Let's look at the "Bon Cosmic Egg." This special and peculiar symbol carved into the cliff face, neither animal nor vegetable, may be classed among the earlier carvings at Rimotang. There are two versions of the "Cosmic Egg" at the site. One looks much like a newly divided zygote: the two cells cling to one another. The second version shows a more boxy egg... |
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It is widely believed that these bipolar images depict an integral part of Bon's cosmology of creation. These fascinating representations of pre-creation are intended, by all appearances, to show the first state of our world. All things come from this "Cosmic Egg" according to the Bon tradition. Look how they recall scientific representations of molecules and atoms. |
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The early animal images depict hunters in pursuit of game. As in the case of petroglyphs discovered in other places, both creatures are elementary: the most basic linear forms represent the living shape... |
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Several more recent carvings showing much less wear evoke the ibex and antelope... |
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Of course, it's easy to speculate, but very difficult to ascertain precise knowledge of prehistoric dates. The evidence stands out to anyone who actually visits this site: some, but not all, of the stick style images are carved more deeply into the surface of the stone, notably, the Bon "Cosmic Egg." Yet, at the same time, these simpler images evidence signs of erosion - much more than the stylized animal images. Yet, these new-looking animals are not so deeply etched into the stone. Therefore, it's reasonable to presume the carvings were made in stages, over a span of hundreds and even thousands of years. Quite possibly, there were three or more groups of carvers. But it may be impossible to say if those who carved the bipolar images of the "Egg" came before or after the carvers of the weathered, robe-wearing men and their game animals... |
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Directly below the rock carvings, mineral water bubbles from under the Earth. The water is pure and absolutely clear. You can drink it without filtering. It flows from under the images of an enduring culture. It's a thrill to see. What is a single life but a cup of water? This small stream has enriched an eon of life, an ocean issuing from the deepest womb of our planet. Long I look at the springing water, and I feel how purely nature inspires humanity with intelligence and the wish to procreate. Nature wants us to pass understanding to all the people who will come after us. Surely, the rock carvers felt the same, hundreds and thousands of years ago... |
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Numerous tiny rivulets feed the marsh. The water is so small and tufted grass overgrows it. I splash across. Beyond is a sharp contrast, a circle of baked sand. Hardy thistles crossed with a succulent pop up among the grass and cracked sand. I pitch my tent. A group of Nomad tents are encamped within imagination's distance of the rock carvings. |
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I'm too tired to venture over and say hello; besides, maybe the Nomads don't want much to be bothered by the likes of a foreigner like me. I drink the beer I bought at Risum, smoke and write. It's a chilly night. Two or three days more to Ali town. My hands are too dry. My thumb tips are coming apart at the corner of each nail. I need cold cream. I'm a soft city boy. My semi-cleanliness is pretty good compared to the unwashed mess most Nomads endure. They're used to being grubby, but I'm not. My dry hands feel like old parchment. |
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The next day almost erases itself - and me. Up to higher ground. Recklessly fast truckloads of Chinese soldiers tumble past me. I'm nearly sideswiped by a psychotic bozo. I shout a few ripe curses after the army truck. Finally, I reach a flat place on the way over to the Indus Basin, less than 100 kilometres from the town of Ali. I stop to rest by some yurts, but do not ask for food. The intense heat of late morning makes the goat turds smell sweet and musty. I eat my biscuits. Outside one of the yurts, there's a lady and her friend, and they aren't so friendly and don't permit me inside. I see that they have a pair of binoculars. Apparently, they're the local equivalent of busybodies - and they like to know exactly who's coming and going. I grin painfully at fate even as these cruel ladies remind me, once again, that somebody else gets let in while I'm left out: even Nomads can be mean in English. But really now, I don't care who wins or loses anymore. That's all absolutely meaningless to me. |
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I must make a pass of 5000 metres over to a Ali town. I squat beside the road to shit while smoking a cigarette. |
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I feel very weak and hungry against the wind. The pass crosses a major watershed, and the Indus basin lies beyond. I have to stop and eat. I take out what's left of my walnut and raisin square. Then, I gobble up the bean powder porridge. It's dry and cold. I swallow it with a few gulps of water. |
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A jeep zooms by. A whim possesses the driver, and he turns around. The driver tumbles out with a fair-haired Brit who calls himself Paul. He's going to Ali after four days coming from Kashgar. Do I need anything? Nothing, I'm okay. I say that I forget to eat, which isn't true. I think I've been eating enough. Paul says, "See you in Ali." "Tonight," says the driver, "There's only 30 kilometres to go." Ha. I feel like kicking the driver in the nuts; what does he know about cycling a 5000 metre pass, still seven kilometres away? I mumble to Paul, "Probably see you tomorrow. I'll stay a couple of days in Ali." Stick-thin Paul runs back to the impatient jeep and bounces off, a load of empty red fuel cans clanking precariously on the roof. |
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I press on, my enthusiasm renewed by the encounter. This road is empty, I never meet anyone like that. Then only ten minutes later, two white guys are riding bicycles at me. Westerners, twice in a day! Martin and Klaus stop for a chat. They look hardened by the road, their legs are bulging. We trade information about the road. They tell me about meeting by chance on a bus from Kathmandu, and deciding to ride across Tibet together from Lhasa. They are still strong and haven't been sick at all. We agree about how changeable the winds are up here, first opposing, then pushing you on... Ali sounds encouraging. Then we leave each other behind. |
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The summit looks like a foot-racing track, strung with victory streamers. I am relieved to descend at high speed. I camp in the brilliant rays of a setting sun. Happy. Tomorrow, it's Ali. Here it's really cold, at least 6 degrees below freezing. In the morning, I pack-up quickly. It's 4 degrees Celsius as 36 big army trucks trundle past in rapid succession. Those Steyrs double as troop transports and supply carriers. The other convoys are smaller Chinese tankers carrying fuel. |
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Then I'm stranded in sand again. It's hard to make the last 25 kilometres. But I do. The road falls into a hodgepodge amalgam of people, commerce and administration, Ali. The town is also called Shiquanhe in Chinese, or Senge Tsangpo in Tibetan. |
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As I ride into town, I see a huge crane-truck parked by the road. An army truck sits in front of the crane and slams into a reverse race with me, downhill. (A memory of general Pao, asshole husband of Han Suyin, occurs to me. Why? Because - I'm riding alongside a truck that's trying to beat me down a hill in reverse; that hardly inspires any joy.) Thrown into a sudden rage, I imagine the soldiers are trying to race against my idiotic exhaustion. So I shout a few angry insults at them. (Sure, I may be too cheap, but my spirit isn't impoverished, yet.) Onward. |
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The first thing I see is a Tibetan shrine made of stones and bones. Below, Ali is a built-up town, and in the goddamn middle of nothing but sand and the muddy Indus. It looks like a very Chinese place. I don't want to be here, but I have to be here. I don't care if you understand me or not. |
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But this shrine on my right is a Tibetan statement. It's almost defiant, the last cry of a lost soul. We from the West may find Tibetan shrines a trifle fixated on morbid imagery. This one is decorated with yak skulls and pieces of animal hide; the fur clings to the bone. A modest stupa, which is a symbolic monument to the creative elements and the memory of great saints, is surrounded by hundreds of stone slices, each one deeply etched with prayers and bits of devotion lifted from the scriptures of Tibetan Buddhism. This shrine is the place for anyone who wants a moment of quiet contemplation, set as it is, above the main thoroughfares of the busy town. And upon the hilltops around Ali, you can see prayer flags and poles. The wind never ceases and the flags are frayed and bled of color. |
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I'm hungry and tired. Some Tibetans repair a broken axle beside the road. Their teeth are bared in utter delight and bewilderment. The main intersection of town is two minutes from the outskirts of town. Finding a restaurant is my only object in life. |
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Small trees with slender, shady leaves line up on the main drag all the way down to the fanciful PLA (Peoples' Liberation Army) headquarters at the far-end... Oh but am I hungry - and here she is. What a cutie - inviting me to eat! Does she look more Tibetan than Chinese? Where's the husband for that boy-child of hers? I don't think he will show up tomorrow, either. Maybe her suitors are too many and too poor, since she's so good-looking and rich herself. Anyway, she knows how to cook Sichuan-style pork and spinach. I eat like a glutton who deserves hell for it... |
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A few street urchins come inside the cafe, begging for money and food, and they were probably ordered onto the streets by their poor parents. Put it this way, work if you like it, but I wouldn't work a day if I didn't have to. Because I just don't have any respect in my soul for what's left of Puritan ethics: it's all been changed into a modern mischief - a liar's argument to work for the enrichment of somebody else wealthier than yourself. In the beginning the Puritans worked for each other and for nobody else, brother. |
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Then my restaurant cutie comes over to shoo out the poor kids. A moment later two silent and peaceful beggar men appear in the doorway. But their gentleness is suspect, a loosely wound skein of consciousness, redundant with the familiar sin and the squalor of their abject lives. It's too easy to see just how impossible it is for them to improve at all. They live to beg - so they can drink, gamble and fuck everything else... I can see that written on their lazy grins, trying for that beatific grace. |
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My reply is the classic and all-American look of the perfect dummy, as I carefully pretend not to know what everyone really wants. Yet, I sense these two beggars have seen through my look of not knowing enough. They're standing right in front of me, so I can't really hide behind my peculiar Western obliviousness. I almost waver. But I'm not leaving yet, it appears. These guys can't be guilty. Curiously, they're not asking me for anything. Maybe they aren't beggars after all. One of them holds his palms together in an attitude of devout respect. ...Okay, so they smile peacefully. Those aren't lazy grins after all. They're free, for being the lowest of human nothings. |
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It's truly strange, how the false value of material longing and achievement gets glued onto our sense of identity and capacity for self-respect. Oh I know, nobody bothers with such passed-by "big" issues anymore. For example: the sensation that these bums are trying to project, that they want to feel akin to me, I guess that means, through their dreamy glaze, they see me as a species of bum, too... As if I'm their cousin or something. But I'm not really, that's why I can't help but return their stares, and that's why they fail to leave. What do they see? A splash of dice lost against the sideboard of midnight? A dream for Tibet's tomorrow? But I know I'm not a Dalai Lama, and I'm not feeling at all like a compassionate Buddha. I'm just a grizzly looking foreigner with faint sympathy. So, maybe the world has rolled over me, buddies. I wish I could achieve your blissful, lonely state of carefree, irretrievable vagrancy. I suppose that I'm afraid of their hunger - without thinking about it. |
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I have little to give. I want to give, but I have little to give. "I don't have much," is all I say to them. I'm not the kind of bum they really need. They need a rich bum, like the real Dalai Lama, one in whom the displacement of their revoked destinies and stolen infant dreams can be wished for again and again... They really need someone who has faith in humanity. What am I good for? Nothing but reducing things to complicated, yet vegetable, excuses. Give me food, because I have money! I can't be afraid of anything - unless I lose all my money. Nerves get jolted by momentary needs throughout life, and life is given us by that clever fellow whom we constantly recreate: god isn't willing to share its plans for us. |
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Don't you know that bums? Maybe the Chinese have no plan for you! Maybe they don't care, except to rationalize their presence here on your soil. I see you watching me bums; you're just a beautiful wish that I can't fulfill. They're frozen with watching me, beyond their hunger. I'm eating. The beggars are so innocent: perhaps they don't really expect to con money from me so much as imagining what it must be like to enjoy pork and spinach and exotic Chinese rice... I haven't any solution to this problem but awkward, silent guilt... I leave them alone with their wishes. They're dirty and don't know where their children are. |
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Who's to know who is who today, in this world of lost trajectories - implacable designs - too personal, too infrequently spoken. To wish for knowledge isn't always the beginning of getting it. Wishing leads to truth and falsehood both. We ought to refresh ourselves with new ideas. |
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Ali town is busy! The street's crowded with tiny shops selling all manner of goodies, food to sundries. Many Tibetan folk on the street seem to be itinerant, as if visiting town. Some are unemployed and don't know where to go. Others travel a long way for a look. On the street most people are Tibetan, but many Chinese fellows live inside the army compounds beyond town. It's really a huge garrison. Word has it, over 6000 soldiers are stationed here. That could be nonsense, since I don't see so many Chinese guys. Maybe there are only 600. But I'm told most of them stay inside the base. |
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Oblivious as I feel, nevertheless, I run into the first strange non-local I see. His name is Oscar, seems wrapped up in his own thoughts, and says he comes from Bolivia but makes his home in Montreal. He shows me back to the hotel. How many foreigners like taciturn Oscar could actually be in this out of the way place? He's waiting with his girlfriend for a ride to central Tibet. So, tourism happens in Western Tibet, despite official decrees against it. |
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The hotel sits on the corner. It doesn't even have any signs. There he is: Englishman Paul sits on the cement, waiting. He tests a smile on me, as if he isn't sure anyone could be happy in a place quite like this. The two giggly and yet mysteriously quiet Tibetan girls who manage the hotel agree to put me in with Paul. Stepping in, I smell the previous occupant's piss on the floor of a bathroom bereft of fixtures, and the aroma is still prickly. |
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The post office is across the street, and the police station for foreigners is half-a-block up. She'll come to get me later, Paul says. Everyone has to pay the 350 yuan fine. This cop finds everyone. She's a Tibetan PSB officer, good-looking: all the travellers meet her. |
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The first thing I do is talk too much. It's the solitude surrounding me with thoughts I'd sooner forget. Paul doesn't mind my unchecked babble about the desert, how long it took, the animals, people, the rock carvings. Paul travels heavy although he's lost weight in China; he carries sketch pads and books he insists on keeping. Like me, he's playing at exile. He lives in India now and claims he finds it more comfortable than his home. I'm feeling warm, relaxed and cheerful to meet someone who enjoys living far away from home. Paul is keen about India and not so happy with China. But he's hardly seen anything of China. I guess, it's his disposition. I half-suspect that most people who love India only say so because so many Indians speak English... I've never been, so what do I know? |
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Paul lies on the bed and after getting a handle on my nervous energy, I finally relax and smoke a cigarette. Paul practices idleness, lies back to tell stories. But he won't tell them without being asked first. He's like me, sedentary and quiet, introspective, and not too concerned about the practical ways of the world. He's disillusioned without having to say so. He's resigned while pursuing freedom. He has nothing left to fight for. My kind of guy. |
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Paul and I spend the next two days talking, walking and doing nothing but look at the world together. He has a cropped mop of carrot hair. Somehow, he has clambered on top of his redbrick background. He escaped from home, I suppose, because England is such a small place. He can't fit in where he doesn't know anyone. It's a likely story for anybody who finds himself living in another part of the world, and realizes why later on. Expectations. Who we know and what we do to get what we want, as well as how rebelliously or naturally we accept the slots others make for us - all of this and more - drive people into the life which gradually seems most inevitable for them. I'm not much concerned for arguing about whether or not who you know has anything to do with what you can do - if you have talent... But where you are born, and when, has a lot to do with what you'll think yourself capable of doing. |
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Today, let's say your aptitude for social success reflects your disposition to perform a bankable act. Some people presume that you must also be willing to compete; but having to compete reflects the fact that a whole lot of people with more or less the same talent are trying to do the same thing... Competition does not come into play when you create original poetry or write a novel, if you are not calculating about how to sell it. A bankable act isn't always the same thing as genius or talent. But now, the most bankable acts almost always reflect the artiste's individual capacity for exteriorizing his or her inner drives and energies - and so - communicating them directly to others. So, the entertainer was born because people now have more leisure than ever to deal with their boredom. We really need to cultivate the vanities. Technological liberation beckons us, makes us crave excitement, yet entices us to sleep, too. The technology and commerce of the mass media supply formulae and creed for acceptable work. I'm sorry to say that that social world of approbation, and respect bought and sold, has made cowards of many writers and artists. We know the creators of wonderful poetry have always numbered very few... But today the hard-sell reigns supreme: everyone who is anyone is convinced that you have to "market" your aims, or quit. Artists who are born to make what they purely feel are often unknown. Well-trained mimicry gets much further ahead today, in the schools and in the shops. Maybe I'm wrong and overlook some of the true greats, alive and dead. But ask them if they don't feel trapped by genre, deadline and publisher-audience expectation, and then see if they remember how to be honest... Since a kid I always thought so many have danced the popular song this past half-century, while so few individuals have written what they feel... Originality and profundity have been knocked down by know-it-alls and pompous "career writers." But I suppose, with so many geniuses and sore losers like me around, we don't have shelves enough to hold all the wonderful tomes! |
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Since neither Paul nor I are much attracted to the perfectly appealing social dance, we can't help but feel it inside... I'll be content with being graceful and kind - with other individuals - maybe not the spectators. Paul is sketching whatever he sees and comes up with a beautiful rendition of the defiant shrine on top of Ali hill, captivating the eye with a bovine skull, grinning shrilly. |
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I visit the post office to buy postcards from a wrinkled old Tibetan lady. For me she wears a smile. It's nice to know that local postcards are sold in an area officially closed to tourists. I wander around for food supplies: cured meat, some cold cream and a penknife for opening packages and cutting wieners. |
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Back at the hotel, Oscar waits on the steps with his girlfriend from Montreal, Suzanne. They've given up on the improbable ride to Lhasa. Three days. Some tell them that a China Post truck can take them east. |
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Everyone is road-burdened. Oscar is dried up, and he has that forgetting-to-drink-water look that shocks the system of desert travellers. He's very much in his own dreams. His Suzanne is French-Canadian. Suzanne has pretty eyes, obviously a prime chase in her day. Oscar opens up in her presence, as he habitually mediates his thoughts through her. They've lived together long enough to read each other's minds before they speak. When you get past his defenses, the serious mien dissolves, revealing a boyish face and a mischievous, winsome wit. |
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Suzanne has iron hair and worries about running out of money. The local banks do not cash traveler's cheques this far out. The nearest Bank of China is in Kashgar, north, or Zhigatse, east: both cities are nearly 2000 kilometres away. No choice for Oscar and Suzanne, with only forty dollars cash... They need to beg a ride now. Their air of shy desperation is attractive, pitiable: everyone knows that inescapable fear of being caught in the middle of nowhere with nothing in your pockets. |
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Upstairs, Paul explains he's bound for Purang, a county near India, south of Mount Kailash. He has several sheets of photocopied instructions about hiking across the border. I tease him about the heavy load and suggest he dump everything. While he sorts, I wash clothes. Nothing to do but rest and talk. Paul likes my Kentucky-Virginia tobacco and explains Britain and India... |
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We lose the lights at 8:00 P.M., so I go out to find a candle. Ali is an all-night town. The hotel is switched off, but the disco-karaoke bars come alive, even this early. Defeating boredom is a major task for the countless soldiers stationed here. The discos are on the second floor of buildings up and down the main street. Chinese smooch music and loud electronic Western dance music pulses through the night: plenty of entertainment for off-duty guys and their working girls. On days off, soldiers come out to disco dance and get drunk with young women - Chinese and Tibetans both... Some of the girls look nineteen-fifties, with heavy stockings and ballooning dresses; maybe it's because most of them have the hefty comportment of big mamas, not the lithe delicacy you'd expect from a super-hot Asian. Okay, so a few of these girls are slim and up-to-date, sleekly draped, and wear softly painted faces. Daytime Ali wears a more ordinary face... The town is new, and its unusual variety of life completely reflects its total isolation. You can see everyone's daily routine: the itinerant poor Tibetans get up early to stand by the main intersection and wait for work even though there's almost none. Each one wields a shovel and wears his one and only set of clothing. Some taller guys wear their long hair wrapped up with the distinctive red strings of the Khampa - the eastern Nomads. These unemployed guys wait for gravel trucks to arrive, so they can try to get a day full of shovelling. In the marketplace you can find fresh vegetables for sale at subsidized prices, trucked in from a long way away. But while the shop streets are often busy with local people, most soldiers hide away in their barracks, standing guard, driving trucks, or marching around town - very early in the morning. Some of the army officers ride around on their vintage BMW olive-green motorcycles: they always sit very upright on the bikes, as if in a hurry to get somewhere fast to do something important - like smoke cigarettes and drink tea. Just like us! Sometimes you can see honchos as they are driven about in expensive land cruisers, busy as they are administering to the vast desert. Paperwork is still China's prestige occupation. |
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...I find a candle and it lights our room with a quiet glow. The gentle light disarms the mind, and warms the heart's voice. Even so, I learn that Paul has experienced about the same level of cynicism as I about the world, which isn't too bitter. He's only a couple of years younger. I'm happy just to relax my bent bones. The world can't chase us out here. Nobody is concerned for us. We can't be held accountable for each other's innocent predicaments, or for resignation to destiny. World-free knowledge is costly, and it defeats the expectations of lovers and families. A special independence. Paul studied art in England but he isn't missing anything much at home. His good girlfriend went to America. Left each other behind, dangling. |
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Unspoken life is so abundant. "Western intellectual freedom" floats, conceptually, on a large midnight ocean of beliefs and freedoms. We share a vast lexicon of readily available ideas and beliefs that comprise everything we know, from facts and figures to the capacity for subtly weighing the abstract limits of acceptable scientific or political truths. Yet, we are free to follow the world of imagination instead of the familiar routes prescribed by old laws and codes. Even believers wield a socially necessary skepticism. Everyone values understanding each other easily. So, we see how people share the secrets of a language, develop subcultures, or find security with a fashionable creed. Satisfying the deeper longing for community is important. We can feel each other out with a language quite in excess of the words we speak. It's a collective consciousness that comes before and after experience; it's made primarily from all the comforting, conventional intuitions of our hyper-conscious age. We seem to know more than we really do. |
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But I suspect our new wisdom isn't wisdom after all. It's a faith in persuasions and shared sensations more than it is any certainty based upon true insight or wide experience. We excel at the imitation of knowledge, so we can build imaginary truths from wishes and fantasies. So many experts and professionals are so named because blessed with nothing more than a great nose for fakery, or even, commercial viability. Imaginative ingenuity often amounts to a talent for monitoring the cleverness of society's excuses. |
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The feel we have for past experience is about the same for winners and saints as it is for losers and psychos. Poets, priests and politicians - all the same. The surplus and lack of residual joy and bitterness best expresses perhaps the only difference between the extremes of human fortune that identify each experience as personal. It is emotive and physical: blessed with bounty or cursed by deprivation... |
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Knowledge is made of so many agreeable and disagreeable things. In this respect, we suffer our knowledge, and we cannot simply describe its sensibility overtly; intelligence has a nature most positively conveyed via feelings of mutual affinity. Put two artists in the same bog, and they'll usually find each other... |
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Paul and I have found each other without much difficulty. It's a relief for us, since we have to knock off that familiar encrustation of solitude and lonely despair. He's unwilling to admit me at first, but maybe that's because my jabber reveals nothing about my inner man, but only distracts him with obvious, glib observations. |
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Amidst such reflections a reason appears in the glass to explain all of my mock-extroversion. This new reason is inspired by that weird experience - meeting some stranger who already "knows" me... (...that is: somebody who "knows" who I am without really knowing me, never having met me before, or worse, somebody who pretends to know me so well that I can't possibly go on knowing myself better afterwards...) Then what do I do? Laugh at myself, for I've always felt a monkey; that's to say, I've always felt all my attempts at original thought remain a derivative fantasy - a long, drawn-out sort of preparation for art that I may never be capable of producing. Now: before laughter drowns the last of my thoughts, let me point out that the selfish nature of our compulsions - like the great fame and wealth we are obliged to acquire - all these distractions that have nothing to do with making art, and all the worldly and naive motives, they collude to destroy our compass with false promises, spanning not the gulf of our dreams, but unleashing the full force of unforeseen disasters. The result: we make ourselves bad - nobody else does. |
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Without owning up to our weaknesses, we are monkeys without wanting to be. Only if you master your faults can you gain wisdom. |
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When the great Blake - that plebeian scribe who saw the world for what it really was, and didn't care to flinch or subscribe to the opinions of his contemporary betters, who much-reviled him or didn't bother to know him at all, since he had nothing to lose or win, but only an expression to create - when he put those inimitable words, "The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom," into the mouth of the devil, and into the spirit of his terrible Nobodaddy, he did it for one very good reason: only if we can see through the deceit we share with one another can we come upon true progress... The devil persuades us to follow our senses to the breaking point of human limitation so that we cannot possibly forge a return to the good soul - the inner heart of our purely natural and divine destiny; and worse, the devil wants to deceive us for having begun as good beings, and not simply as "already-fallen" victims of ignorance and emotion, resignation to which only perverts the meaning of our graceful design with forgetfulness and inverted dreams. |
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Paul isn't about to "know" me too well, and he assumes nothing true or false about me. That feels good. Paul and I lie on our respective beds, softly smoking tobacco, sipping beer and smiling our words into air that doesn't listen to us. He and I alone can hear each other tonight, and it feels good to live for that private intimacy... |
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I have said nothing about poetry and writing to Paul. Isn't he lucky! The poets are far away from us. That's fine, relax - not to kill ourselves with memories of pleasure, remorse and helplessness. (Failures are more capable of looking askance at their vocation than serious-minded successes. Witness a windbag like Nabokov when he has the misfortune to write an introduction to one of his finer novels: he doesn't care a whit for this or that writer, and he's "indifferent about the Orient..." Too seriously right for his own good!) |
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Paul doesn't need to say very much when I ask him about his feelings for India. He points out that he feels more comfortable in India than anywhere else in the world. Now, I've never been to India, and may never get there, but I do want to go. He says that India and its people - especially the way everything looks and tastes - appeals to him very much. Paul has crossed China off his list, and says he's disappointed. But he hasn't really seen the big, populous and abundant wealth of Hunan and Jiangsu anymore than he's visited the pine mountains of Yunnan or the minority villages of Guizhou. As for all those people, he only suspects a few things about them - but doesn't really have much of any clue... |
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I think he sold himself on India because he needs to feel he has a home waiting for him somewhere. He likes to visit Bodhgaya at Christmas, in the poor state of Bihar. There, he and his English buddies gather at a certain monastery, the Burmese Vihar, to remind each other, I suppose, that they come from home and speak the same tongue. I try to picture this scene, but can't really. While all people are all "the same" - and so must easily know each other - you can never imagine how others actually live until you join them. You can conjure up all sorts of images, yet those ideas inevitably correspond to how you would live in that situation if you were he or she... I imagine several thin guys, sitting round on cushions, smoking and drinking, reading books, talking about anything that comes to mind, but not talking too fast and never hurrying. That's what I want to see: people never in a hurry. I need to see Paul and his buddies being very relaxed, unfazed, untaxed, free of judgement, free of dreams and free of speech - with no worries. Pardon the idyll. |
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Paul tells me of the pleasure he got watching the world walk by, one day, maybe it was Varanasi, in the square, high on hashish. Time isn't so interesting as emotions freed of schedules and routines. He gives me no bad memories and looks forward to going back to India soon. He talks so positively about the place that I start thinking maybe I can go, too. He wants to paint postcards for money. Some of his friends keep a guesthouse in the mountains. A nice way to live, if you don't mind cleaning up after others all the time. |
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I ask Paul about the current art scene in Britain. He wants to make me to laugh. The popular people have strangely changed names. They sound like cartoon characters, actually. They are skillful at gimmicky art - one-liner visuals with punch-drunk subtexts. Fuck it. What do I know? All I know is that this kind of boring writing, unlike their art, doesn't exactly compel people to give me a lot of money for doing something absolutely fucking silly, now does it? |
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Anyway, Paul isn't missing or missed. He's a loner by choice. His girlfriend went to work in a New York gallery. A lot of attractive-bright women end up working in galleries: I suppose it's next best thing to becoming a fashion model, and one step up from being just another shop girl. In the minds of such prime beauties and money-laying successes, Paul and I don't exist. In fact, his girlfriend has already forgotten him. He won't say as much. Poor guy, he needed her. She can lead a life of disillusionment, too. |
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But men never will understand women well enough, will we? Women always know how to be wise and leave losers for winners. Even though they may not want to have kids, it's always something like a procreative urge driving them to the strongest protector. Besides, women want to feel more like winners than men, but perhaps that's because women are raised to be insecure and dependent, which is a traditionally and legally upheld paradox. (Society lives in the thrall of male winners, notwithstanding that most big men of the world really are dickheads ...ah, forget it...) ...Especially attractive-bright women: oh, they can't bear the notion of even a little bit of public embarrassment, or even imagining ever going about with poor losers. The main point is: you seldom meet an intelligent woman who is independent enough to be completely free of what other people think, unless she already believes that she's in love with you... So, nothing in the world is new, at all - ever. How many girlfriends did Dante have? The yawns happen. I start rambling to Paul about my favorites, and since Paul is fascinated with Buddhism, I suggest William James, "The Psychology of Religious Experience." As for my top five faves - I needn't mention them here... I'm a lousy student... "Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" - Walter Benjamin. One is enough. |
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Paul is a bit too certain of his point-of-view, which is normal for a man who lives to run away. I'm actually closer to his way of seeing and justifying himself than I permit myself the uneasiness to realize. Our conversation gets past good and bad memories: it flows too quickly. Not the gaze of a predictable script about the coolness of being alive, nor about the dreams moving our lives. Talk jumps all over the place: the subjects reveal predilections and obsessions. ...Age steals the dreams of youth. Are you at that stage yet: too certain about what you think is right and wrong about the world? It's like a dream: because I'm detached, and can't forget enough, so, I will remain underdone... Paul's stage wants to imagine that none of the knowledge we have gained actually leads us to wisdom. I'm closer to Paul than any certainty. Humans only pretend to genius. |
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Paul tells me one particularly horrible tale about something that happened as he drove to Ali from Kashgar. Some local police stopped them to extort money from everyone. It was night. The savage officers dragged one of the Tibetan ladies from the jeep into an office. The frantic driver collected money from all the passengers. By the time he paid off the police, the woman was brought back with bruises to her stomach and a black eye. Many Chinese people are control freaks and can be monstrously mean when they want to get something. The sick thing is that they do it with such cunning. Yet, seldom will police do anything bad to white foreigners: the Chinese play at double standards and will show all the great face they can muster for us. But with local folk, the cops are cavalier and frequently terrorize peasants - who have no option but submission to cutthroat authority. Sometimes, it's really depressing to be white and feel too privileged. Impoverished people are helpless the world over, but they are never more desperate and silently cowed as those who suffer a colonial miasma so trumped-up as China's control over Tibet... |
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I talk too fast, about the futility of being a writer, and how there are so many "bad" agents in New York City, as if I know. I know nothing about it really - but I explain how literary agents will "promise" to look for a publisher if you pay a 200 dollar fee. But what you don't know is that they already plan to send back your work very much untouched with an apology about how unmarketable it is, or that it needs "more work," or that you should come down a notch in your expectations, and other randomly generated bits of dum-dum for the usual amateurs who cannot quite grasp what it takes to transform themselves into a popular hack... |
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Pardon me my feeble critique, it's part of the inveterate puerility I inherited from growing up in a spoiled time. I'm like a bad habit that's all - a defensive rampart created to defeat fear of failure and poverty. Yes, yes, I really am one of those stupid, cowardly people who doesn't know what to do! I hate to compete and I must search for my brother among the vilest of cowards and noble hearts both - all the same... Why can't I get small and deflate myself, finally, and for good? At least I'm not the only blimp around... |
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We invest heavily in our own vanities, and we can't put up with wisdom. I mean, we're on an ego-trip about becoming enlightened. Maybe my whole stance is a vast over-reaction, a psychological compensation for claiming that our culture is mislead, is unconscious. So, I'm only pretending, right? |
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The nature of modern man was to doubt. Ultra-modern man is involved with illusions of super-well-being. We buy or die for it. We pray for it, too... Today, those of us who play at virility and finesse - we are free of doubt and so subscribe to the opposite kind of over-compensation, which leads to absolutism, greed and intolerance: in short, the unintentional fascism of huge corporations and colonial governments, and provincial little arts councils, righteous religious fanatics, gender nazis, mean school teachers, fake commercial artists - all kinds of dickheads! We're all in it together suckers: the whole professionalism of popular mediocrity is made entirely of dull cliches and platitudes, and nothing except whatever can be easily mass-produced is tolerated, bought, sold, published and read! Ughhhh! |
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The richer you are - the more you have to cough up to consume the fantasy... All salesmen impel the average you and me to buy the fantasy, too. What am I talking about? Forget it, I can't earn any respect. Because you think I don't respect anybody else. Not at all, I'm only agitated by the idiotic limitations people impose on themselves, especially when we could do so much more with imagination than exclude everything but the appropriately pre-formed. Do you have any choice? Weaned on tv and slick zines... If you want to be a somebody, if you want to rake in the royalties - you absolutely must sell through the Big Corp today. You have no choice but to tailor your style to exactly fit the desires of all the image-ready consumers, eager to buy themselves over and over again... Go ahead, buy the bland-banal, the palsy-plastic top 40. It's easily baked! Popstars: suck on that Corp for all you're worth. I'm hanging on, too... A small monkey. Kill me, I don't care. Because now it all comes down to some pathetic Pharisees grovelling for bureaucratic approval - from a corporation or a government council - same thing! The preference is for pseudo-intellectual rubbish in place of pure imagination... Got caught with lucre-on-the-brain? So what! Everyone has the bug anyway. Why, I'd sell dope if I knew I wouldn't get caught! Today, if you are glib, brashly intolerant and deliberately low brow, the rich will be happy to give you money because you won't make any trouble: just think how we're all paid to keep things the same and tame, not for thinking about how to make the world a better place! Just shut up and slave! The less you know, the more work you can do for the rich man! People will hate you if you aren't as selfish and vain as they are. But if you are very good and original, or question the order of society and really are too thoughtful, then you will have to wait a long time to become "popularized." Just remember: if you are not dead, you soon will be, and that makes the stupid bullies with power feel very smug about stealing your time. Let the glib winners pass their intolerance off as sophistication and their cleverness as "genius." If it isn't easy, it's ignored. People want to kill the fine artist today and replace him with average mass-products that make quick money easily. Manques and mannequins: don't have to fathom nothing but nothing's more important than laying another and another and another! We're airheads! The whole world's become a fire sale on dummy udders and filthy asps... |
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Can I afford the right system attitude or not? Gee, I don't know. That's all that matters now - having the "right" attitude. Brrrr! But what a sterile world, this ultramodern fantasy of freedom in lieu of the real you! Why are you so easily led? I'm not! To hell with all the shit of the world, again and again! We're all as empty as we want to be - wannabe! God help us all... But fat chance. Yeah, so fuck you God! For stressing us out leaving us on the hook forever, making us kill each other for nothing... We shall never cease being children: I haven't even told you about the abortion my girl had last spring - and I'm not going to... |
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Do you care about anything but what your audience-filled stomach tells you is level-headed and appropriate enough? Your head's full of mush - but it doesn't matter! Innocence is always the beginning of the free imagination that we grow up to crush and forget later in life. We're taught to accept ready-made goals in place of dreams. Life made uniform seems easier: it feels more secure. If the family is a natural destiny, then material waste isn't... You don't follow me? Good. Nothing makes sense. |
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Imagination is supposed to be fueled by experience, and the sheer inspiration of making a discovery. But I'll never know what I'm talking about - since I can never ever get enough experience! Still, we feel as if the fate of words remain warm: the language of insight is tucked cozily in bed with your blood. Wisdom is a hapless pup thrown into life. It's a world that pup would love to change, but she does little more than sniff up some scraps for breakfast. To buy you a lunch, darling - I have to save up. |
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Our best wishes appear to reflect wisdom. Yet these same wise wishes appear improbable; so who would want to call human desire wise? Inspired by knowledge, we should define true wisdom by our best action. Wisdom would give solutions to problems that have no solution. Again, are we capable of dealing with paradoxes? Can we finally avoid and transcend our dilemamas and fathers with more precise portrayal and analysis? One would hope so. |
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Can't remember what we said, except we fell asleep on our own words. At three A.M. I go out for a pee. The place across the street is still very busy with drunken songsters. ...Had a dream last night. Was speaking in front of colleagues, philosophers, poets... I could feel their respect, which was like a new experience, and felt as one who has never before ever understood what other people really think about you! The dream helped me escape the vain embarrassment that I suffer everyday - about not being allowed to be successful as a writer... (And it doesn't comfort me to realize that most of today's "successful" writers produce only second-rate crap: that's depressing. The current situation demands all the more that someone come up with great literature - exactly now - when it's impossible to create it!) In the dream, I had written an expressive poem, but couldn't wake up in time to remember it with paper. My literary colleagues faded and everything disappeared. I was reaching after some understanding about how I became estranged from my birth, which seemed to be somebody's fault, but not mine; then, I realized the alienation I'd created was unreal, like an escape, a protective membrane that I used to shield ignorance, insecurity and faults... Condoms anyone? I realized that I never learned how to fight for what I could do... Maybe I could've produced my plays and begged after publishers. But why didn't I? What stopped me? I suppose it seemed too ignominious a prospect. It seemed that the art spoke for itself, and the idea of promotion and self-selling contradicted the work itself! And, I guess I was just tired of working poor and being insulted by all the no-talent artsy bullies. I got sick of watching those women leaving me alone. I felt cut off, discarded. Yeah, I still had a few friends - good ones - and they loved me... But no chance for a publisher or anything normal, nothing so easy as so many other writers have their way for buying free time from corporation, government and school... |
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I wake up early and write long letters. I plan to make a phone call - but later. I hate telephones - you can't see the person. Outside they shovel extra dirt from the unfinished traffic circle into the back of a gravel truck. Around ten o'clock A.M. Carl walks in. He's a cyclist, and has come from Lhasa, all the way across Southeast Asia and Australia. He's Canadian like me - from New Brunswick. Carl can't stop blabbing, either. His good mood makes us smile. |
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Paul is silent as I question our new companion. Carl reels through anecdotes like he remembers everything that's ever happened to him; he could be talking to mannequins for all the attention he pays us. He's a perpetual traveler, cycling since 1980 around the world between brief work breaks to save money. He has no worries. He's ridden round the world, except Africa. He loves India the most. Once, he rode from Inuvik at the Arctic Circle all the way to the tip of South America in Patagonia. He's friendly and attaches himself to us with the familiarity of an old pal. I'm amused by the symptoms of long-term solo travel which he exhibits. Cyclists all turn banana after awhile. Inadvertent withdrawal from society makes us clamor for an ear. |
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Carl doesn't notice that he's the only one talking: he pushed his bike through a lot of sand; he likes the scenery and people of Tibet. About Chinese society, he theorizes optimistically, that the rule of fear is gradually giving way to the rule of law. He cites several bits of evidence: people are unafraid to speak up, an ombudsman tv program, a burgeoning urban economy... But Carl also witnessed a public execution beside the road - bang, right in the head - a crowd of peasants looking on. Seeing that almost got him deported from China. He's had more trouble with wood-ticks than I ever will. Climbing the lip of a volcano in Guatemala was wonderful, and there was that big black girl he couldn't bring himself to pop in Belize. |
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Carl talks shop about bikes, cameras, food - anything. Conversation takes us to a restaurant at noon. We eat our fill and meet another foreigner, an Australian on his way to England to pick-up a job as a lawyer. They talk about Australia. I've never been there and don't want to go there - I think they speak English already - and I know there are too many yobos - all of them as dull as any of the spicy trolls you can find in Redneckville, Canada. I've only met two Australians I liked, and one was from Tasmania and lived in Ireland, and the other one, well, I don't know what he wants, always fighting with his girl. (When are we going to grow up and to be sluts, finally after all?) Anyway, Carl says his favorite writer is Tolstoy. He can't stop talking. If he's mad, it's a good kind of madness. Like me, he's addicted to motion, which, like poverty, isn't a crime we perpetrate on purpose. |
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Carl is a fine example of one who lives without planning the details. I'm bored with the other, more conventional draftsmen; because, when you pause for thought, who needs to know the precise course of life ten, fifteen and twenty years later? Isn't that dull? I want to write another novel, but I don't know exactly how to manage it. Living ought to preserve some measure of unpredictability if it's to remain interesting. I see life as ever-changing consciousness. Life is spontaneous, and so is creativity. Plans are for old bureaucrats and sneaky cowards. True artists are bigger than the poor cash systems which so demean us... What makes it really interesting? Ask yourself. Getting what you want? Sometimes, but that's only if you want something. I want to write and make love. I have no plan. I have little fear, except for producing children who must endure their parent's divorce. (All children of divorced parents become selfish fuck-ups - period - and I don't care what you think of my opinion, snothead.) Carl naps after his meal, so I go shopping for more food to carry on to Tsamda. Dried meat, noodle soup, some fruit, some other goodies. I'm happy. This second day of rest is a day to relax muscles, ease past exhaustion and recover normal energy. Nothing to do but eat, realizing how deadly thin we're becoming. |
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Not far from PLA headquarters is the deluxe, marbly and new administrative office of China Telecom - in case those poor Tibetan guys with shovels have to pay their overdue phone bills - yeah. But why can't you place a call in this expensive new phone office? Why don't they have any phones in there? What's it for? I guess - for administering to the skinny four wire circuit running from Kashgar on to Lhasa? Maybe I can't see the dishes on the roof sending and receiving the more substantial secret spy signals. The pretty ladies in the new Telecom office lounge in front of idle computer screens waiting for people who never ever enter their polished office. Am I missing a hint or something, kiddies? What next? I go back again to the grubby old bank that doubles as the post office across from the hotel. It's about 1/5 the size of the empty new and big phone bureau. Chinese pork is Chinese pork. In back of this ugly, cramped little building is a dim-lit anteroom full of ancient phone boxes: I try to talk over the fax machine, but my girl isn't home. Tibetans crowd the single wicket and beg for a payphone. The one and only Tibetan lady managing all the phones smiles at me, despite being harried and overworked... The crew of Tibetan dudes and homesick Chinese soldiers follow me with hungry eyes as I leave them to their dingy fate. |
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A wanton stitch in time stretches taut. Waiting for evolution to happen doesn't get us very far. The great leap of consciousness involves a world most people will never get much chance to visit... Like that marbly phone office with no phones that nobody enters. Come on, people are smarter than that, right? But people with nothing - they don't know what to do next! How can you hold it against them? The poor of this world haven't anything to start with! You have to get some scratch, some capital: but it takes much more to fuel the hope of the poor than the small change of an empty, go-nowhere socialism, it takes much more than the overbearing, one-way street of the dumbly unfair Western business world, . But all this interpretation an cynical opinion is an illusion, too. Substantial direction and know-how: everybody needs them if anything good is to happen... If ever there was a god, it would have had a great problem dealing with us. Too many people are good and evil at the same time, and we never have questions enough to answer for the clues we're given by god... |
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It's late, trying to remember how to rest. Paul, Carl and I mosey over for some skewered mutton at the Uigur restaurant. The restaurant is one of the nicest in town. The Uigurs, like I say, really know how to use coriander and cumin. The Hindustani tea is good, too. We listen to Carl's tales. He's begun asking us questions, too. The evening comes on, cool and soporific. The invitation is open: we cannot refuse life. We want to talk, so we do. Carl remembers everything he's ever done. But he'll forget us - so he says. He still doesn't stop his chattering. The man is overloaded: his bicycle bags are twice the size of mine. Yet, he claims the panniers are designed for a tandem bike. No idea how he does it! Carl carries a jumbo 70-210mm Nikon lens. It has a 2.8 f-stop aperture and weighs a good five kilos at least... "All glass," says Carl. I show him my compact Nikon lens, of identical zoom range, with a little less light gathering power, and maybe weighing in at 400 grams, tops. It cost me about 150 dollars and can take exactly the same pictures as Carl's multi-thousand dollar lens. (I have a theory about camera equipment, but I'll spare you...) Carl has a dandy white-gas stove: wish I had one! I eat my noodles cold! I have so little compared to his massive supply of gear and powder puddings! He isn't losing weight and I am. |
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Skill, sensitivity, beliefs - these are the measures for recognizing the meaning that others intend. Go to sleep. Gaze into the mirror of your tv... Is she wearing size nine or ten pin bloomers? The hard thing about intelligence: it's a growing organism that re-multiplies. Knowledge depends on the cooperation of perception with intellection. Meaning adheres to understanding. The world we make begins before we think it; but we have to explain it by means of interior processes. The dual structure of thought and its relationship to reality has long obsessed and confused Western philosophy, and has lead, in fact, to whole schools and disciplines, including skepticism, empiricism, phenomenology and epistemology. |
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Literary criticism has seen a variety of conflicts arise from the form of our consciousness, too. Basically, the arguments that most obsess critics revolve around choosing between universal and subjective judgements, the possibility or impossibility of both, and the means at our disposal for deciding of what meaning consists, and wherein it resides: the world in general, the mind of the reader - or, the imagination of the writer. Meanwhile, the very best poetry is an advanced kind of psychological philosophy that communicates personal truth and wisdom about human being - and the whole universe. While some say that the "universal" poetic message intended by poets is supposed to be obvious, individual apprehension permits several ideas of the "intended" meaning. Literary criticism doesn't spend much of its time arguing about what the writer was really trying to say, but it often concerns itself with arriving at a clear understanding of what to do with a poem! Ha, ha - what to do with a poem! The critics are obsessed with the optimal approach to things. Imagine a best-selling first-year guide: "How to Recognize and Pick-up Poems in the Bar, Easily, Everytime." The accent upon awakening the potential for new knowledge is the key selling point for today's critic. The critic wants to surpass the natural opposition of reality and thought, and compel the paradox spawned by one imagination meeting its multitudinous audience to express and fulfill a universal communion! Literary critics make a living from the same condition of embodied being that we all share; nevertheless, a lot of what they have to say misses the point of literature! They get obsessed with small details and channel all their thought into evoking a certain limited perspective, applying careful pronouncements and building elaborate stances: for example, "there are no special women," or, "a reader's impressions are the final arbiter of an the author's intentions." Even more safe and effective - the critics can defend the supremacy of understanding inspired by a particular intellectual wing - like semiotics and Gestalt psychology - the choices are endless! The point is, everyone is convinced that they must persuade somebody else that their camp is right - and so gain publication rights, funding, sales and ultimately - perpetual mnemonic status! |
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We hope instead that criticism would study literature directly, especially with a view to understand what we can learn about how literature conveys human truth, and so reflect upon the merits those "truths" have with respect to the meaning of civilization. However, nowadays critics seem to be otherwise occupied... Keeping up with the Jones's of criticism is an experience as traumatizing as the competition between geneticists and physicists for position, funding and big prizes! Which branch appeals to you most? It's yours. To make a career, buy into it! Now, the advanced intellectual world stands on splitting the finest of hairs growing atop imagination. Knowledge is so fascinating! The field of literary criticism, more so than any other, reveals exactly how the desire to understand can create fantastic new imaginary realms. So now you can study and study until understanding becomes no longer possible, or you forget what you wanted to find out. |
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Ultimately, who's to know what the poet means, but the poet himself? This is the last truth that criticism only dreams of mastering. Philosophy cannot excuse itself anymore. A master only became a master having vanquished all antecedents. Ancient Greek philosophers were inspired to original expression. We've travelled too long through the era of redoubled consciousness. Hume and Descartes weren't the only ones guilty of redoing their predecessors. After all, the true beginning of modernity as we know it was defined by reflecting upon "progress" and the new self-consciousness of civilization - of moral weakness and the conflict of aims with natural human limitations. Nietzsche was good at that. Modern forms of reflection and art have relied on the conviction that we are mostly made of accretions - prior knowledge. |
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The modern world is a dawn of realizations nobody could suppress. Today, global social complexities, like the sciences, appear too widely differentiated and dispersed. We're left in suspense, as if waiting for a new moment of fertile intersection... Moments in intellectual progress made it easy for geniuses to arise, like Plato, Milton and Goethe. Nobody could stand in the way of their insights, since they were the pawns that civilizations needed to grow. Everyone wants to hear the news. The ideas we have for each other make the world. We believe the self sees all; so, the truth an artist discovers through fiction is purely a currency of human reflection. But it isn't the only one we need to use. Till we understand the voice speaking beside us. But can we listen to each other? The ability to survive and flourish will probably depend intimately on transcending ourselves through knowledge of others... So, that's one reason some of the world's most difficult souls decided to be novelists: to enrich the human estate with refined insight... |
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...Carl loves to talk about his cash. His blabber sounds like some industrialist or media mogul on a drunken binge with his rich cronies. He has three kinds of money: really big money, regular big money and small money. It's taken Carl months to perfect his monetary stratagem. The main point is to hide the really big money securely away from everyone in the deepest pockets possible, which can be opened only with zippers and knives... This really big money you hide away because you don't want anyone to see it at all. As for the regular big money... Well, Carl gives away his Grinchiness with this story, but I love this guy, and he'd make a fine travelling companion. About regular big money: he says it's a good idea to flash it around. Hundreds here and there. Carl's a ham and mimes the act of showing some hundreds to the poor. He implies, of course, that he's putting himself in a position of dominance and power over those with less, so they must inevitably respond to his demands with alacrity and subservient eagerness... He enjoys having big money in a "small" money country like China. So do I, actually. He says, "You keep your regular big money behind your small money, because usually you only need to show your small money to get things done... Otherwise, if there's a crowd, you won't get away until everyone has looked at your big money..." I laugh and laugh. Carl is a wonder of nature all to himself... "We'll never see each other again," he says. "You and I won't remember each other..." He sounds like a professional john. |
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Carl's stories, as I've said, never end. It's a pleasant coincidence, a fortuitous feeling, to meet a man from the same home. We talk for a couple of hours about bikes and which parts have broken in the past. Once, Carl had to ride a long way without a seat because the post snapped. He has broken whole frames. I vouch for my bike: Chrome-moly steel tubing. The frame is Japanese, specially designed for touring. Carl has a Taiwanese frame. My seat's all leather, sprung with coiled steel. |
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Late in the afternoon of my second day in Ali town, the foreign affairs police officer comes to get me. She's Tibetan and real cute and leads me to her spick and span office - so she can make me pay. I fill out a form and fork out 350 renminbi for a permit that says I can visit Tsamda County, Tsaparang village and the Guge kingdom. This ancient Tibetan ruin, a whole city, is carved from a sandstone mountain in the Sutlej river valley below the Himalayan range along the north side of the Indian border. Visiting it is really the main reason I've ridden all this way. Yet, I'm not there, yet: Ali to Guge is still a few hundred kilometres more... |
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What to do for our last night in town? There is a whole group of foreigners, Suzanne, Oscar, myself, Paul, an Australian named John, and Carl, too. Suzanne had a charming idea, to invite the quiet Tibetan policewoman out to dinner. Here we are: we order a dinner of tofu fried with tomatoes and momo dumplings. The power goes off so we use candles to make things glow. Poor Suzanne and Oscar are down to their last pennies and must starve all the way to the nearest Bank of China, thousands of kilometres away. Carl is quieter than usual, loaded to the gills with cash, and boasts he can eat anything. The Tibetan policewoman tells us that she grew up in the country and her parents are farmers. She went to the police academy in Lhasa. But she isn't very hungry and that's about all she says tonight. |
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The night wears out. Two or three photos of Carl and Paul, back at the hotel, I get the cute gypsy-girl running the hotel. These girls seem submissive, coy and curiously available. I like that. People on the street? I want buy some Indian incense. But the salesman is hiding behind somebody else's shoelaces. I wait a long time for him to come back to his stall. It's worth it: the incense is a blessing and masks the urine nicely. Before parting, Paul suggests that I ought to visit certain places in India, like Rishikesh, the Valley of Flowers, and the Paravati Valley. Other, less popular places, I won't mention. I'm sure it'll be too small and crowded. He also says the Dalai Lama gives public lectures and you can apply for an audience. |
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At 6:00 A.M. Oscar and Suzanne are already up and poised intently for the China Post truck to arrive. It comes trundling along as I cross the street, going for the loo. I wave "so long" and they bundle into the back of the freight truck as I disappear round the corner to satisfy nature. |
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I don't get on my bike right away, but eat a big breakfast of meat dumplings and wait for the phone office to open at 9. This time, my girl is home and I tell her I'm okay. She says little except, "I love you, I love you, I miss you, I miss you..." She wants to know if I've seen any animals on the way. So, I list all the camels, antelopes, gazelles, wild asses and colorful birds... At ten A.M. Paul and Carl help me unload the bike onto the street and say goodbye. Off I go. They watch me ride away. Paul looks wistful, as if wondering, "What's life?" Carl walks with me to the sidewalk. He grins and advises me to take it easy. Then he jog-trots beside along on the pavement, and grins, glowing love for life and the whole world we live in together. He laughs and jokes as I speed up and away, "We too got caught in a run!" I'm gone, waving over my shoulder. He's back there, smiling - watching after me! |
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The day is breezy and mildly overcast, but it won't rain too much. Fifteen kilometres from town and I'm completely flummoxed by rutty sand and mixed-up tracks over the dunes. It doesn't matter, I'm not in a hurry - I love it, alone in the huge freedom of nature! Only out here, human feeling is unconstrained, at its most natural, and is our easiest attribute. |
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Moving south towards the invisible Tsangpo River, a range of hills blots out the river right ahead, but I can see icy mountains lining the banks beyond the low hills. Mushy sand. I stop for wieners, chocolate, some crackers and orange juice. As I ride, a dusty twister pops up right in front of me. It creeps at me directly. I snap a picture. Before it can toss me, the little spinner eats itself up and disappears. |
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I cross a ridge and come upon open sand flats amid the lovely Gar Tsangpo River valley. It's a head-scratcher for a cowpoke like me... The Chinese should have put their town here by the bridge over the hill. But maybe they didn't, out of simple deference to the sparse populace of Tibetan folk living in hamlets by the water. The pointy ice-capped mountains on the southern valley are very pretty. Ice melts down and the drinking water flows among a tumble of water-smoothed boulders. The elderly people living in the old sturdy houses by the river are taciturn. So, I go up the rocky road to look for a grassy camp. |
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Not a beer even. But the spot I choose turns out to be significant, a long remembered holy place. Behind my tent I find a tussle of thistles and brambles. Hidden on the other side of the brambles, invisible from the road, is a heap of very old rocks. Tibetan prayers are carved all over. The letters and invocations are eroded; the frozen rain has held them for a long time with her chill fingers. I feel funny. How did I happen to pitch my tent near such holy carvings, without knowing they've been here fifty years, a hundred years or more? |
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Next morning comes through clouds. The day's mood is uncertain: it's almost warm as the sun rises. But thunderclouds renew themselves above the northern peaks. The river flows over a vast gravel floor upheld by the backs of two east-west ranges on both sides of the valley stream... The day brightens considerably as I travel, for the first time, due east. |
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In the north, sunlight finally breaks down the heavy wall of clouds. The new light reveals how clean the Tsangpo River valley is. Beyond, I see rain fall in great sheets below clouds upon the mountainous faces, giants standing under a shower. The terrain changes from barley near the village to a large, fan-shaped moraine made of bone-colored boulders and gravel. The white stones of the old moraine flow through the road and with them, gushing stream after stream - comes plenty of glacial mountain water. I ford several streams before noon. Most all of them are easy to cross. But these rivulets are only the beginning of a hard day. |
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Two land-cruisers come by about 11:00 A.M. One stops to say hello. They are Taiwanese. One of the girls hands me some raisins. In an hour, I catch up to them. Three land-cruisers are parked on the other side of some rushing water. I brace my legs widely apart and force the bike hard through the stream. I cling to the frame so I can't be swept away. The Taiwanese travellers wait for their supply truck to catch-up. They offer me some meaty buns. One of them asks if I'm afraid of anything, since I'm travelling alone like this. All I can say is, "The weather." When the supply truck arrives, it promptly gets stuck in the rapid, rising stream. I say goodbye. |
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The road continues and the streams are overflowing. Somehow I drag myself through each rivulet. It's tiring and the water becomes quite deep and difficult to cross. Once, I nearly lose my footing and get splashed. But I keep my balance and make it. The rivers flow quickly because the mountains are beside the road, only a kilometre away. The sheer sides are steep and the water has the full force of gravity under it. After fording thirty little ones, and five big streams, my toes are numb: the water is icy cold. |
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Later, after a brief stop at a village outpost manned by Tibetans, I press on. Another big river washes out a wide swath across the route. I choose my way carefully, finding the shallows, bracing myself against the current. Then, I reach a meadow to park my tent. Tired isn't the word. I wake up wondering if the road will be easy or hard. I pass one village: the people are busy carrying stones to patch a gaping hole in the irrigation channel over their fields. The whole populace hands the rocks, stone by stone, one to the next, until the earthwork is repaired. It's a pretty place. Rows of yellow and orange flowers spring up along the low walls. |
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The rivers abate, but then the grade sharpens as I pass Gar Gunsa, the old winter capital of Ngari, or Western Tibet. I think this is the place where the old Austrian Harrer waited for permission to continue travelling towards Lhasa in the late thirties. Some evidence of old Gartok, as the village was once known, are still visible below the mountain ridge over the river: the crumbling stupas look like pebbly haystacks flattened into the sandy soil. Some beautiful geese, resembling the large Canadian variety, maybe a little bit smaller; yet with the same long neck and grey plumage, make their home in the marshes between Gar Gunsa and me. The geese honk loudly at my approach. They fly round, trying to warn me away from their brood. Another ruinous Stupa pops up on the right and seems ancient indeed. The road climbs a ridge and finally the Tsangpo River comes up on the left and I spot a work camp. They're building a bridge to shortcut the mountains to Ali. |
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I break beside a creek for lunch. Water sluices downhill. Wind comes straight ahead. Over the ridge. It's even stronger than the Karakax valley gusting that knocked me down. This wind is coming at me directly. I'm high on top of a hill, completely exposed. I crouch and push my bike and feel like I'm punching Satan's face. I grimace but crush fear with steady steps. I know Namru town is near, the map says it is. As I crest the ridge, I glimpse a phenomenal vista. A line of vertical mountains walls in a flat washed-out valley. The hill I'm on falls rapidly to a wide basin nestled among the steep, sandy-hued peaks. |
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Namru is the tiniest, most lonely village. It seems so deserted: everybody is hiding inside earthen cottages, or gone for a long walk somewhere... It has fewer than 10 houses and no shops. One very old lady clings to her curiosity and stands unmoving near the road as I approach. She waves her arms wildly overhead. She doesn't have the slightest idea what I'm asking for. When little old Tibetan ladies wave their arms, and suppress grins with scowls, it usually means they want you to leave. "Is this Namru?" I ask again. She waves her hands again: apparently not. Two others, a boy and his mother stand still nearby. The boy approaches, curious yet silent, as if afraid of something - maybe his granny's madness. A ruined fortress stands high above on the southern ridge. |
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I show the boy my camera and ride into the village. Maybe this is Namru, since a road proceeds way up into the gorge, as is indicated on the map. But the bottom of this supposed route to Tsamda is flooded: water and rocks everywhere. Maybe it isn't the way. I ride away towards some army-looking buildings two kilometres across the valley. En route I spot a middle-aged Tibetan man lying down in the grass with his knees up. He cradles in his hands a white silken scarf, a kata, of the type one gives to holy men and important folk. Oblivious to me, the fellow fondles the scarf overhead as he lies on his back. But then he hears me bouncing over the rocks and weeds. Drunk, he struggles to his feet and walks towards me, yet not towards me, as if he doesn't want to deal with me. But I manage to intercept him politely, since he's only the fourth person I've seen in Namru - the old lady, her silent grandchild and her haggard daughter having been of no aid. |
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I ask him if that's the way, along the sodden road behind, up into the sharply split gorge, "To Tsamda - Guge?" He nods absently then looks up and points. He looks at me and nods more vigorously, saying, "Tsamda." Yes, that is the way. I retrace a kilometre back to town, walking with him. He takes me to the home of his family. It's a tiny one room hovel with no windows and made of sandy clay bricks. Inside this place sits a mother, a grandfather, a grandmother and a two smiling, quiet kids. They offer a cup of salty butter tea. I'm grateful for the rest and give a few yuan in exchange for the refreshing drink. Then I say goodbye with a snapshot of the kids and grandparents... |
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It's up to you. You're not up to me. Nobody else but you controls you. Like a jingle, this temporary feeling. A grip full of fibbing songs, already sold. I'm feisty today and feel like riding uphill. The road sluices into the overflow of monsoon run-off coming out of the gorge's mouth. The road switches right and climbs above the flood. In the flat places beside the rushing water lies space enough for barley. But the barley soon peters out. Meadows and pretty weeds make themselves at home between the ragged rocks. |
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After awhile I run into a group of travellers: two cruisers and a big truck. They offer me drinks and are gaga about taking my picture, so I have to sit as they snap away. They come from Guangzhou, apparently, but on whose money, I'll never know. They leave me feeling alone, feeling closely akin to the tiny piles of refuse scattered by the creek. I'm in no mood to stay here, nor guilty enough to burn all the paper and tin garbage they've left behind. So, I ride up the gorge and forget how kind and blind they need to be. |
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At the last creek below the pass, I pause for a good long draught of ice water. I drink a whole bottle and fill up all three bottles. The road above will stop me over night. It's well over 5000 metres up there. The path is solid gravel clay, easy-riding, but slow. It whips back and forth like a hungry serpent. Oh, I'm not complaining. I'm in good shape now; I enjoy the climb. I laugh at the vista. It stretches out forever, thirty or forty kilometres to the northern mountains behind. |
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The mountains are so still and peaceful. They seem to wait forever. What do they wait for? To be seen? But not by me. They wait to crumble, I suppose. They lie asleep, in a dreaming slumber. Perhaps we people are slumbering, and can't see how the mountains watch us. Never to awaken. Not like my old grand-dad. When he was going, he knew he was already gone. Asked my mom to write something funny on his tombstone: "The end of the road..." It was a an epitaph apparently popular with local immigrants. Never saw it myself. I doubt if they ever did chip that out for him. |
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I think I'm almost at the top... But no, I'm not. Around the next twist, I gaze up at the huge massive above. Still a long way up. Within another hour, the chill of dusk is upon me. I'm too tired to be nervous and can't hurry. But I'm looking for a spot that won't freeze so deeply. At last I find some tiny flowers on a level spot. The rest of the bald mountain is steep. Not much more than 300 metres up to the top. That puts me over 5000 metres for the night. Damn it. Once again, I hope I don't freeze... |
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First, I don all my cold weather clothing: long johns, nylon pants, undershirts, down vest, flannel shirt, my toque and wool gloves - everything I've got. The tent goes up in ten minutes. The sun has set. I eat extra food and feel a chill seeping into the night like some fatal whisper, as if bidding me relax and rest easy: death will be as painless as forgetting... Nobody bothers to mention that time will slice you up before it gives you a chance to heal. Who's to blame for your wounds, your mistakes? That's the last question. You won't know today, and probably not any time before you drop dead. I lie down now for the third night with the freezing mistress. I don't care. We all have scars. |
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It isn't going to happen tonight. My death, I mean. I'm curled up, stealthily fetal, but nobody comes to get me. I sleep through the night. Then I wake up cold - really chilled. I'm like a huge chicken breast wrapped in cellophane, I'm just waiting for some horribly obese person to roast and overeat me - so they can die of cholesterol and pork barrel funds... |
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Yet, riding a bike at 7:00 A.M. up to 5600 metres makes dying of a heart attack physically impossible. I'm in too good shape. Off the main road a shortcut leads to the top. Pushing up an agonizingly steep track, it takes an hour to pant my way about a kilometre. Permanent ice by the way watches my insect work. Small prayer flags mark the route: it's a traditional caravan trail. For each ten or twenty steps I walk, I pause to gasp for ten seconds, half a minute, then walk again. It really is 5600 metres. |
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I make it as two Tibetan trucks arrive. Everyone gets to grin and gawk at me. I get a photo of the driver, his pal and their new prayer flag. Then it's a drink from a creek and a ride beyond the snowy rain. I glide at speed into a hidden valley - flying over the sandy ruts. |
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This valley is Nomad territory. It's ideal for them: high up, with plenty of pure water - a very narrow valley sheltered by immense peaks. I rest by the first clear creek I find. The water tastes good. More wieners and sweet crackers. That's all I have. Onward, I find a group of Nomads encamped on the meadows. Three youngsters, two girls and a boy - run to me. They smile and laugh, but are too shy to get near a camera. The road suddenly turns out of the valley. A second pass lies above. I know it's supposed to be there. Below this last mountain opens the southernmost reach of the Tibetan plateau. It's only 11:00 A.M. - no trouble crossing today. |
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A Nomad tent is pitched just above the road on a steep embankment. I see an elderly woman and her family. Inviting myself into their tent, the old girl seems pleased to offer me some butter tea. She also tries to give me some tsampa, but I refuse it politely. Instead, I offer her granddaughter a morsel of chocolate. I read somewhere that it's good form not to take food from Tibetans, but to offer them food or a little money instead... She's being courteous: they get few visitors like me. What can I do? I smile and drink her tea. That's all I need to make it across the next mountain. Nothing but a tiny piece of milk chocolate. |
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The little girl seems bewildered by my offer and I see the old woman smile. What am I supposed to do? Do you know what you are supposed to do? Nobody does. We go along with whatever we think we're supposed to do - all the while wear Wise elders pretend to advise you to think for yourself, yet everyone reminds each other not to think much at all. Because almost everyone "wise" secretly believes you can't think for yourself; and should you actually try, you won't get anywhere, except into trouble... |
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People are absolutely flattened by their need for hypocrisy - to soothe insecurity. Of course, you really should think for yourself, not listen to some hypocritical old conservatives lie as if they believe they are telling the truth. Now listen to me: you should avoid doing what you're told when you know better! Above all, you shouldn't give the slightest care about what other people think about you! I don't have to say it twice. If you do wrong, you will pay for it somehow: with a heart attack, a bad or a null conscience forever; maybe you can pay for your remorselessness by turning into a solitary cold fish, and other people will wrong you because they know you hurt others. Bad reaps bad, and good, good. You have to pay for what you want... But can you really give anything away for free? Take a shit brother. You still want to "be free," don't you? Ah, but true freedom doesn't cost anything though, does it? |
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Do you do what you really want, or do you feel fear and resign yourself to other people's expectations? Because that's the funny part... All of those: 100% of the expectations other people make for you - almost all of them are imaginary and misleading. Ask yourself: do those expectations coincide with what you want for yourself? Other people's expectations are social projections, not individual thoughts that belong to you... Who really tells you what to do? Nobody! We imagine we should and could do something else better besides... But we can't hear a true voice. That fear of being yourself: that pain doesn't come from your heart, it comes into your mind, perhaps another imaginary "social" pressure... So your mind squashes your heart and the feelings and ideas you once had are trodden over by yourself alone... In the end, nobody else but you grows or stops you from growing... |
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I leave by myself everyday. What do you expect from yourself? What else can I offer you? I can't carry around every girl who wanted to die for me. Mom and dad are getting stiffer by the day. I have a pen, a notebook, some food, a flimsy bicycle, a slim handful of hope, a smile, a good view... |
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I'm living for a good view! Nothing more. Struggling up the path. Yesterday is yesterday and I really worked hard yesterday and I can't stop today... The day isn't really against me. My fading strength is against me. My body has to eat the little bit of fat it's saved. |
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The road rises, solidly smooth. How many times have I described this nonsense? I'm not getting anywhere. Maybe that's the point: I never shall! I will pass safely - unspoken for. Look at the innocent mind: the freer you are, the more innocent you will remain. The more contemptible and stupid you become, the more corrupt you will be. The logic of obvious lessons life gives refuses to forgive us, no matter how loudly we pretend not to care. You ought to laugh at yourself for being you. Righteousness and hubris overkill everything. Sadly - the imaginary grandiose - the persuasion, and the self-possession of dreams usually blinds those of us who don't care to discover what we've been missing. |
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These Tibetan Nomads, elemental people, have so much going for them because their natural intellect and spirit is unspoiled and self-fulfilling. The Nomads may feel lonely and poor, but they know what to do everyday. In cities and highly developed countries, we live, like so many half-people, full of pseudo-ideas and unoriginal philosophies, and all meant to settle our minds against the hideous compromises we are forced to make. I don't think anybody in Europe or America is really free to do what they know is best. Uniformity rules the world; individuals conform - or die... |
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None of us can feel or understand things as instinct would compel us... The compromises we make always reappear in our own minds as masks we must tear away. We are obliged to resign, but then we fill up with anger and resentment, all of it quite undirected. Start a war, and blame the rich; sure, that's what we do all the time... Tear away your mask, why not! Become who you really are! How can you "know thyself" when you can't be yourself, dear friend? Love is the first feeling we need. Pity comes afterwards, with understanding and forgiveness. Love is the most natural knowledge we have. Pity is learned and earned. Well, you can disagree... Because I know that you see too many people who pity themselves, don't you, or even too many more who are too arrogant and proudly self-assured. Of course, confidence is very healthy, all popular psychologists preach how to root yourself in parochial presumptions about knowing who you are... But everyone is a mutt, rooted in a narrow set of presumptions about who is who and what is what, bigoted and blind - all of us. How many dare talk about less popular subjects: that we have forgotten how to forgive each other. It's a real problem. |
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Let's go on. The day is cut off. For the first time in two weeks, heavy clouds have drawn over all. The sky is impenetrable, as if the final curtain has fallen upon a fantastic performance. We won't be seeing that great singer "sun" again for some time. The road slaps back and forth, and I feel like a spit-roasted chicken. There's nobody telling me to live or die today. The walnut and raisin nougat is still fresh. I have some dry bean porridge and wash it down with orange juice. A truck passes as I sit, watching the valley below. Many such valleys hide in Tibet. Though there may be few people in each valley, they stay there all summer, waiting for someone like me to relieve their loneliness. |
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On the last buttress of this last climb before Tsamda county, wisping right by me around the summit, goes a land-cruiser. In front sit two official looking Chinese; and in back, two aging, educated looking Tibetans. On a tour of inspection, it appears. The summit is full of wind and there's no horizon but more mountains slicing into a dark gorge. The south is shrouded by a livid mask: the clouds certainly bear more rain. I'm afraid of that weather. It's true, I have no fear for anything else. |
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One more truck comes at me as I descend, the two Tibetans grinning in disbelief. Go on! Don't be afraid: into the wind, into the rain! The clay sand turns to pebbles and gravel and I'm skittering. Can't stand the rain. It's so goddamn cold. I put on my raincoat and plastic pants, but have nothing for my poor feet. The rain comes harder. I'm at 4800 metres. When it rains at this altitude, you're in for it, brother. It's ice water and the wind is killingly chill. I dive down as fast as I can. Without a care for myself or the bike's leaping speed. You'd be surprised how much like a ski a loaded bicycle behaves on wet, pebbly descents. But I still have to brake for big rocks. Sometimes I fly over humps and must land without impacting the wheels. It's okay. Down for twenty kilometres at speed before the gorge begins to open and the rain ceases. |
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Some folks appear across the gorge, tending sheep. The precipitous land gives way to craggy remnants of mountains before opening into a great plateau, a grassy plain all around. The horizon is orange and yellow in the setting sunlight. Sixty kilometres away rises the vanguard of the Himalayas. Sharp white incisors and canines bite off the horizon. India lies beyond, invisible below the peaks. I speed and the landscape is more clearly revealed. I can see how an eroded sand canyon lies between me and the Himalayas. Through that canyon, southwest to India, flows the wondrous Sutlej River, a lifeline amid the desert dearth. The planet refuses to deny its own life. |
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Suddenly, I reach the edge of a sharp gully that carries a fast creek from the mountains from which I have emerged. The road forks: I need to turn left - east. Here, two Tibetan men sit in a broken down truck, waiting for help. They see I'm chilled and wet from the rain; one of them approaches with a flask of tea. I join them in the truck and do nothing but warm up and watch the Himalayan horizon grow gold. One of the truckers offers me a bun, but I only nibble. They need it more than I do. They try to explain that some civilization exists in the small river valley nearby. |
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River water cuts an immense trench into the sandy plateau. At the bottom some clever folks have made a rest stop for truckers heading to Tsamda, or back up the pass. I set up my camp in the dusk, then join everybody for drinks in the main tent. They have plenty of hot water, and my noodles are tasty for a change. |
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I use my phrase book to trade names. The Tibetan men like to tease everyone, me and their women. The guys nudge my elbow and suggest I sleep with the prettiest one in the tent. She only blushes. Later, a gorgeous young mother comes in with her son, and again the young Tibetans tease me about going off with her. The curious thing is that the women take the suggestions hopefully, as if I really should go and make them a little richer after all. |
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Night arrives and so does mischief. I go outside. It's dark. I cannot always explain my behavior. The sound of children comes at me. I see nothing but night, but I do hear kids running away. They've been playing with my bike stuff. It's nothing serious: they pulled the rain covers off my panniers and took away my tent bag. I hear giggles. I can't find the tent bag and my tool kit's inside it. I get angry. Tibetan children are mischievous. They can't be held accountable. Perhaps Tibetans are naturally less repressed than other folk, just for this reason: children do as they want and their playful tricks are usually left unpunished. But then again, Tibetan infants are tied up in bundles - so they don't freeze to death or toddle too far from home during the winter... Maybe they need to react against a lot of things in the environment, which seem to control them too much. |
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Nobody in the bright host tent shows much concern when I return, angry. One of the mischievous kids came in ahead of me too, so I jump him. I put a quick strangle hold on him and shout, "Leave my stuff alone!" He doesn't understand, but the kid is scared enough. Curiously, none of the older Tibetan fellows tries to interfere with my action, and I manage to cool down without encouragement. I'm not even embarrassed, since everyone is fairly amused by the whole scene. I have another beer and conclude that it would be considered very abnormal for Tibetan kids not to make mischief. |
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After another drink, I politely bid good night and go out to sleep. Morning is rain-free, and that's enough to make me happy. Some of the same kids are up with me in the morning. The kids are smiling at least, even if their mother seems sheepish and doesn't understand me. I take a photo of brother and sister standing in front of the tent. They gawk as I stand up, and plow my bike through the fast creek... |
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Above the gorge the plateau raises a gradual dome. After two days of leaden sky, the sun illumines a most phenomenal vista. The Himalaya mountains stride gloriously above the Sutlej valley on my right, to the south. Picture a vast open space and a range of icy mountains, sixty kilometres away, and stretching hundreds of kilometres east and west - ruling the entire southern horizon. The glowing peaks stay cloud-free till middle morning. |
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I get closer to the Sutlej river canyons, which appear faintly beneath the peaks, cutting and trenching the earth. The canyons are golden, and then wash-out to grey as the lifting sun sears the land. Here's how my journal describes the scene: "I finally found the plateau I was waiting for. The distant range of the Himalayas runs like a grey and black ruler across the south, east to west. Beyond the spiky grass plateau was the upper edge of the canyon country. It looked a lighter grey, wrinkled like the flesh of an elderly person who spent all his time in the sun." |
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It's July 21. The road to Tsamda descends along a track heading due south... "The road fell into a steady descent, and the canyons, hoodooy ravines appeared. First, they were sandy yellow, a light ochre. As I rode down they grew taller and taller, looming a few hundred metres above the road on both sides. Basically the route traces along a dry riverbed." |
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Subterranean springs give life to a variety of tough, flowering shrubs. It's getting hot here! Each metre I descend - the temperature rises. Nearby sits a clay house, its windows bricked for the summer. I guess the locals have headed up to the wetter, greener plateau to graze their herds. Tibetans often seek the highest ground during summer months. I explore the empty site. Sandstone caves make homes and corrals. Judging by the freshness of the goat turds, it appears they didn't leave too long before... This hamlet is highly photogenic: millennia upon millennia of pencil-thin alluvial layers sleep in the fine forms behind the tiny Tibetan cottage... |
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A couple of clicks later, I come to a community of little birds. They chatter loudly and take shelter in vertical nooks overhead. I feel smaller and smaller by the minute as the sandstone mesas gets progressively taller. The grooves deepen: how mother Earth has raised her eons from the hills! |
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Humanity's span is so obviously only a fraction of second. Although we see the cosmos all around us everyday, we don't know what it means for us... We're blind to a vast universe that doesn't know us at all, a universe made mostly of inanimate gas and nuclear fire; we prefer to trick ourselves with complex faiths in divine sublimity and the certainty of "purposes." The universe is there, that's all. It doesn't wait for us to make up our minds. We happen to be alive, so perhaps we should wonder what that might mean before imagining the plan god might be making for us. |
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A truck is parked in the middle of the road. Some soldiers with sunglasses stand around looking at another soldier on a ladder. He's checking the phone line to Tsamda. They're replacing old ceramic insulators with new ones. More soldiers working in the next ravine, too. One walks up. I say hello, say it's so hot and smile. Then, a flat tire. It's the first puncture in 1800 kilometres. The culprit turns out a thistle spike. Changing the tire, I feel how hot, still and dry desert air can be. It's 32 degrees Celsius. |
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A muddy creek flows by a path leading into a new army camp in the adjacent gully. I spot a farm beyond. Here are the first trees I've seen in a long while: they are tall, a verdure among the bleak, lifeless sand. Strangely remote and beautiful, but how lonesome a homestead! So many green things grow in the farmer's yard... |
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Hundreds of thick, prickly thistles appear by a creek flowing towards the Sutlej. I'm near to Tsamda town. The river sweeps into view: huge vertical buttes tower over Tsamda across the water. But there's no bridge in sight. Suddenly a truck pulls up and halts. Out jumps the same Japanese guy I met at the beginning of the Aksai Chin plateau near Xinjiang's border with Tibet. What's he doing here? We stand under a blazing sun and talk. His nose is red and peeling. I ask him if Guge is nearby the town across the river. He nods and points south. He says the hotel is okay. His driver has to go. So they do... |
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The wide meandering river doesn't allow for a bridge at this point. Along the road are several small, ruinous stupas and overhead, a few grottoes... The whole hill is the ruin of some very ancient town. Some young Tibetans are standing up there... What in the world are they doing?! |
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Happy, or unhappy, they're trying hard to smash some rocks together. Crack, crack comes the sound of big rocks striking each other. A woman sees me and waves for my attention... Some of the young men have climbed into the mouth of a leviathan and I see them chucking down stones. From this distance, it's difficult to read their faces. I cannot imagine what they read in me. Then I see, again, the woman gesture for me to climb up, as if I'm missing a good old-style gang-bang. Or their unspoken anguish. The woman still waves: "Come up to me!" |
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God must know a lot more than I do about this insane pandemonium of conflicting ideas, narrow obsession and miraculous specialization that leads to undreamed of progress! My fate is to pass you by as you pass by me - each of us completely ignorant of each other's emotions and feelings. It's my old Montreal syndrome: someone else gets read, whom I've never heard of at all... And as they run out, Dave still doles the drums, yeah. You think I dwell on being left out too much? I know, it's an imaginary thing. Because others are left out, too: just think of all your country's poor and unemployed, your unheard-of poets, let alone the rich sap who gets defeated on election day! Don't bother with other people's judgements: otherwise, how can you make up your own mind? |
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I don't want to deny anybody. I want to be free! Same as those half-crazed Tibetans want to be free: maybe that's the point of their strange behavior... Tomorrow can't arrive fast enough. Who entitles us to be impatient? What buys us the privilege to demand anything!? I would kill myself from self-loathing if I were forced to become a hand-rubbing lawyer specializing in civil suits... |
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How strange, the gross amoral conquest with which material "necessity" possesses us! Our selfish "rights and needs" destroy love, compassion and forgiveness. The corporation rolls over your rights, buys out your little local paper only to regurgitate some "new" popularized format... Then your history is x-rated, sister. Nobody is permitted to know. Oh yes, but the euphemisms will annul your pain as you sit silently before the holy seat of culture - a box full of tv - a computer - whatever. Amen, we're all good little - and silent brothers! |
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The vegetable kingdom of trivia and media personality does not lead to reflection and sound judgement. What is it you're more aware of after all, boss? Is it really enough to see, and is it really so much worse just to ignore all the bad shit going down?! A lot of big zeroes are very rich today! Like me! Plenty a suitcase full of other people's disposable incomes buy out excuses. We must quell frustration somehow, I know. So, I lease in my entertainment, too. But what does it matter - since the poor don't, can't and won't save even a few pennies. Why not let them buy your dinner again, big man..? |
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Good luck comes your way. A free election is rare today, so be glad the opposition can win sometimes. Are your blessings too few to count? What's the best solution? Our desire for pleasure, for truth and for love do rule us: we're forced by nature to accept and crave the insatiable end. How true it is! Personal wealth only breeds more and more superfluous hunger for acquisition... Do we imagine everything we need because nothing satisfies? Do the questions remain unanswered, eternally? Greed for dollars was only your unquenched longing for love? Mom and dad weren't really that mean, eh? |
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Pardon my poor memory for other people's solutions, yet it appears, in the crude language of a skinflint psychology, to resemble the compensation that never compensates enough. We want because we want. We spin in viciously square circles, biting off another chunk of something that's only going to make us fatter, blinder, hungrier! The only real solution for most of us is to fuck as much as we can! For we have nothing but imaginary desires - and they seem created especially to beggar our deprivations. |
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Am I fated to be trapped in somebody else's cliche once more? Think of all those poor graduate students sucking on the impenetrable thinkers... Weep for them, dear Lord... Endless models of theoretic and imaginary reality deck the halls with seams of coal. Is it too dusty..? An intellectual idea bought and sold doesn't seem so real anymore, especially when you see that such ideas become meaningful because they can give their creator status, insofar as it is consumed by a mass audience who then must "officially" study the ideas of that particular intellectual: if you are lucky enough for that to happen to you - then you are also liable to realize that your special idea can almost be any old idea at all - because you are likely to see that being able to sell it to an audience is actually more important for earning respect/consumption than the actual intelligence and originality of the special idea. Do I really believe that? Yes, I do. Look and look again at all the absolute nonsense that gets sold as truth today, like wanky scientology: boy, old Ron really knew how to blow smoke on them microbes... You want to buy something to believe in... The goofier it is - the easier it is to sell to people who need to believe believe believe nowadays. Astrology, numerology - all kinds of hokum does well now. ...Did you call yourself an artist, an intellectual, once? After you gave up on the dream of creating authentic art - then, did you really prefer gold instead - for itself, because you think it is wisdom? |
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At least I try to be original, even if I'm disrespected for the audacity... Put it like this: the problem will not go away: we hunger for love and prone we lie, unfulfilled. Ah, but when you know the answer to a problem, and yet can't find words for it, it's like smelling that sweet iron hint of rain just before the rain really falls... Now why is that, dear heart? Why can't we decipher the true cause of our distressing compulsions? Because we can't rise above the experience of being-on-our-knees, and lapping up the tangy cunt of raw need. Response and reaction, the active drives, physical and spiritual sensations, all of the deepest feelings - our hungry instincts - these are wordless movements: their inspiration can never be ascertained. We do create - because we must. While we wish to behave in a coherent and creative way, the internal process we go through is often something very contrary to what we have to go through, materially, to achieve our aims, (ie.: what we have to do to buy enough time to create may block pure creativity.) Ultimately, the artist must realize that the social world and the creative imagination do not get along well. But that doesn't really matter very much - because, if you really are an artist, then you will create easily, despite society's need to destroy your freedom, and the absence of culture, your mind. |
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Psychologically speaking, and with respect to our moral preoccupations, we are faced with trying to understand the interaction of all human sociocultural formation; and in doing so, we must take into consideration all lucky givens, unfortunate deprivations and earthly rigors: the demands of acculturated belief, environment, habit, educated opinion, and having grown up in a prosperous or impoverished homeland - all the shared worlds of personal and locally conditioned response. Beyond all this familiar reality, and its attending jargon, lies the simple world of being alive: poetry, philosophy and psychology arise from the juxtaposition of private, personal and internal domains with the external social reality of community and the living and mostly inanimate facts of the universe. But we know that already, without ever seeing what it means... How strange. |
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A good reason to start another paragraph is the fact that nobody knows what you know... That's why you write, isn't it? I don't know how you center the universe, nor how you need to see everyone (un)like yourself as one more idiot and failure. If you're leader of the band, chief of the local gang, a captain of industry, the accomplished spokesperson for the collective personality of your nation, okay, I won't stand in your way. I won't mind feeling lowly while you enjoy being high and mighty. |
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Because they're still cracking rocks and shouting for me to come up and join in the gang-bang... I'm just too tired, so I ride on, hoping for the bridge. It's built over a very narrow gorge through which the Sutlej roars. The span is made of hewn stone. A military watchtower is perched by the bridge. Barbed-wire scrolls round the rocks. A bluster brings drizzle down. |
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As I reach Tsamda, the sun bursts through again. It's a very small town with some redeeming qualities. Trees! They are the first big bunch I've seen since Xinjiang... The trees line the main street into town, and a large plot of them is planted in back of town. The leaves rustle coolly. I should stay for a couple of days. It's such a green contrast to the sandy barrens surrounding the place. The main street is really the only street. The Guge Hotel overlooks the old monastery of Toling. The manager charges me only 25 yuan instead of the usual 50 for foreigners. |
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Nothing to do. Wash clothes before the sun goes down. I bath in the chill spring water and it feels so good to scrub my scalp twice clean. I dine alone beside a table full of serious and even sad-looking Chinese cadres, maybe officers out of uniform. But the food here is refreshing. Back in my room, two Uigur truckers have moved in, and they are amused to find a white guy lounging about. However, I'm deeply sunk into my carapace. The shell of time that I've spent alone isn't easy to crack. I'm not irritable, but I feel that, whenever somebody looks at me without words, they see the image of a painting, like a wall of a man, denuded of all aura; it's as if they've already seen too many silent travellers exactly like me... Even so, I try to make the back of my wall smile. I feel so glued to this solitude, why bother trying to explain it? |
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Comfort is a cozy bed. For once, morning comes without letting me know. Sleep a little longer. I love to do nothing but wash clothes, read and smoke a few cigarettes. An active disposition can't stop moving or doing. Needing rest starts me thinking about lazy people. There must be a few amenities attached to the monotony of sloth... One great thing: nobody bothers you or notices you at all when you just lay about. After all, who cares whether you earn any respect? If you do nothing, and so make existence value-free - then judgements can't touch you either... |
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I don't exactly have the spiritual resignation preached by Taoists in mind either. Just how pleasant it must be to be carefree, and that means, to be above misery... To relax and forgive yourself for not caring a damn what others dream for you: to release yourself from responsible burdens, all the material cares we're supposed to share with each other. Ah, but to give up our cares is a sin in many societies. To be "free" like that is considered the ultimate selfishness, a disregard for other people's welfare. Maybe it's not. Maybe you really need to be alone first - far from everyone you know - only then may you sympathize with a vagabond's dreams. |
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Today I know nobody. I've expended so much bodily energy, and have arrived alone. Nothing can compel my compassion. What's wrong with me? My imaginary suffering reduces deep moral fables to grotesque caricatures. You can't care anymore - because you've tried too hard already, and it's as if you are repeatedly burned by the indifference of people whose experience is too unlike yours: perhaps they're only slightly more fortunate. It's an especially modern disease... How exhaustion becomes starvation. |
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I am the husk of conscience today in Tsamda. I smile when expected and hope that suffices. Other foreign travellers are here today. Some Koreans whom I mistake for Japanese travel in a group guided by Tibetans. The Koreans come into the restaurant, too. They look travel weary. But this place is so beautiful: you only need to go outside to feel it! I suspect the Koreans are depressed by the unconscious realization that they come from a city deprived of empty, open spaces. Perhaps someone's mother has died? Or maybe they don't think this banana biker can make it home alive... After dinner I see a desert rainbow blossoming yonder... |
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I talk to one of the Koreans. He's very friendly and surprised to learn I'm riding a bike. Later, one of their women comes into my room for a quick gander at my bike: and what a lithe little shopper, lush in her stretchy pants. Good at that sexy sophisticate air, too. But she flutters out before so much as wishing I can hook her... Ho well, back to fighting myself again... |
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The room gets busy with more truckers. I feel unduly shy. Then, I realize the Tibetan fellow guiding the Koreans is sitting on the bed, and he's waiting for me to become sociable... So, we talk about travel in Tibet. His English is excellent and it's nice to relax and chat... Pasang is from Lhasa, and only 23. He's guiding the Koreans. It's a summer job. He comes from a well-to-do family: he says his parents own a carpet factory in Nepal. We agree that Tsamda County is certainly one of Tibet's most beautiful places. He tells me this place sits at 3660 metres above sea level, the same altitude as Lhasa. The river valley really is one of the prettiest places in Tibet: Tsamda town occupies a broad cornice two hundred metres above the river flats. The precipice overlooks the river and green pastures, trees and thistles. The vistas are spectacular: huge and lovely sandstone mesas, crenellated ridges - the infinite nuance of light is as peaceful as any dream of paradise... |
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He asks me what I think about Tibet and its people. This is always the first question Tibetans ask foreigners travelling in their country. His curiosity is sincere, an implicit comment on the viewpoint Tibetans hold about their own society. They want to know why the outside world is so interested in them. Yet, they don't know much about the rest of the world, and so naturally enough, Tibetans are ticklish about revealing their true feelings to outsiders. Perhaps they are too hard on themselves and suffer a shame complex about having to live in this modern colony; it's an experience few dare discuss. So much have the Chinese given, yet so very much have they taken away! The fixed way of interpreting a culture - through the wall of our imagination - can only be broken down when we meet and talk to articulate men like Pasang. He's so open about everything. I wish I could meet more like him, sinofied or not... |
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Pasang asks me if I've seen the Dalai Lama. Yes, I say, on live television in Taiwan; he was fielding questions about Buddhism, explaining that the way into enlightenment was difficult to understand and difficult to achieve. Pasang wonders what I really know about Buddhism in Tibet. He explains that most Tibetans follow the Nyingmapa school, which represents the first condition of Buddhism in Tibet when it was first adopted from Indian Buddhist teachings. It's true. Translations of Indian works and commentaries inspired all Tibetan Buddhist schools. |
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But a single school, Tibetan or Indian, cannot really account for the whole story of Buddhism and religion in Tibet. Before Buddhism came Bon and before Bon came the folklore and religions of ancient Tibet. Accurate descriptions of Tibet's cultural and religious identity are only available in landmark works like those by Tucci or R.A. Stein. |
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Pasang gives me his phone number in Lhasa, in case he's at home. He suggests that I return to Tibet in future, especially if I want to organize tours for Taiwanese or Canadian travellers. I go for a stroll around Tsamda town. You have to understand that very very few people live in this western region of Tibet: outside the arctic regions, far western Tibet and the northern plateau are probably the least densely populated places on Earth. Some villages do survive up and down the banks of the Sutlej, but they are tiny. |
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Toling sits on a cliff above the Sutlej, and it's one of several monasteries established by Rinchen Zangpo, a renowned promulgator of Tibetan Buddhism. He is legendary for establishing 100 different temples and monasteries, many in western Tibet. The temples of Toling date from 1014 to 1025 A.D. Of all the temples attributed to Zangpo, only those at Toling, the Guge kingdom and in Ladakh, India, survive to this day. |
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The outer gate to Toling Monastery stands open. The temples appear well-kept and recently painted, some of them in the traditional muddy scarlet hue... I walk around but see nobody. The Koreans already told me that the buildings are closed to the public. But I find my way into an annex beside the big red temple. I climb time-polished stairs and reach a typical monk's cell. In it a portly gent dressed in scarlet robes reclines on his carpeted couch. I startle him because everything is so peaceful and quiet. He's got a radio and somebody has left him some fresh spinach. I have nothing to give him, after all, and maybe I should be embarrassed. A huge key-ring sits on the altar, but he doesn't want to get up and let me into the temples. There are no other monks around. Are there any besides this old abbot? I don't know. Since the old monk looks nervous and tired, and his big belly is a heap to lift, I leave him alone. |
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Out I go and make a clockwise circle around the site... If visiting Tibetan monasteries it's important to walk around them clockwise, because that shows respect for the religion, and reflects the progress of nature's cosmic order, too. There are two big temples, and both have been restored. One is the assembly hall. No sign of life, however. Only recent restoration work evidences renewed care and interest in the holy place on the part of official authorities. Unless they've gone travelling, no local order of monks appears to live here. That seems sad - the place seems so closed up: big padlocks weigh heavily on the gigantic timber doors. One tiny plaque is affixed to the outer wall and it mocks history. The wording will not admit remorse or responsibility: the People's Committee for Cultural Relics in West Tibet wants us to know they have restored the site to proclaim its importance for everyone's heritage... Not much mention of the destruction perpetrated by those heroes of the sixties, the Red Guards. China cannot make mistakes, even in another people's country! |
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The populace of Tsamda comprises an enclave of Chinese soldiers, administrators and technocrats. The postman is Tibetan. Most shopkeepers and laborers are Tibetans, too. A restaurant is kept by a Chinese man and his Tibetan wife; he's probably an ex-soldier who decided to stay here for climate and beauty... |
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Soldiers perform martial drills inside the PLA compound, barking out their exercise orders in noisy unison. Children walk the streets alone and join the Tibetan women folk who gather for sunset chats. A few traditional Tibetan homes and gardens are situated near the monastery. These homes are plastered white and built round a small flower-filled courtyard. Near the homes sits a modest school with a basketball court, empty and quiet. Behind the school sits an abandoned group of tiny brick row houses, not very comfortable. Towards the other end of town, the people dwell in two storey block apartments; many of the windows open onto tiny banks of solar cells hooked to battery chargers: everyone wants to light a bulb or listen to their radio. |
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One day isn't enough to give me the rest I really need, but I am excited to visit the ruins of Guge. After all, I've come 1800 kilometres by bike especially to see this most beautiful place, just up the road a ways... |
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Guge is only a short ride downstream from Tsamda. The morning sun always shines. This desert county occupies a dry hole northwest of the monsoons; of course, the rainy flood sometimes stretches over to this hidden valley, but most of it falls to the south, beyond the Himalayas, as well as further north even as the wet airstream settles over higher ground. The weather pattern of the Tsamda Sutlej is similar to the kingdom of Mustang in northern Nepal: sunny and dry, as it rains in the lands north and south. |
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On my way along the river it's nothing but towering sandstone mesas and buttes. In the narrow gorges, fresh springs flow forth, making small, but lush green pastures. Several brown and mottled horses graze on the grass beside the water. I drink my fill. I ride on but find that my information conflicts: the guidebook says Guge is 26 kilometres up the road. I forget to look at my photo-copied Chan guide, which says it's only half that. So, I keep going, failing to look for Guge's ramparts at kilometre 13... |
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I go up and up a most lunar and desolate pass heading towards India's border, less than a hundred kilometres away. I get off and push for five kilometres more. Then, I realize Guge isn't here. I snap my telephoto lens on and settle for a shot facing a phenomenal vista reaching 60 kilometres north. |
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Then I reread the Chan guide... Hmmm. Back 13 kilometres. Then I spot the lofty ruins of Guge carved into the mountainside. Its red temples stand over a tableland above the Sutlej River. The vestibule of heaven is vast, disused, and forlornly waiting for people to come in: few of us really are good enough. |
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Closer, I see the caves and red temples are hewn into a knife-edge of sandstone. Guge is a golden mountain of earth, twice taller than wide. Upon its bright face, the dark portals of civilization are legible, written by human hands, long ago. Yes, they are ruins. Nobody has lived in Guge since the 17th century. The citizens of this Tibetan Buddhist kingdom were either killed by marauding fanatics from India, or as some believe, they perished of famine. |
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The tableland over the river valley splinters to ravines and sandy flats beside the Sutlej. I dip down to paradise. I have nowhere to hide. I don't want to hide. I've only come here to be alone and enjoy life. I'm only doing what countless north americanos wish they could do everyday - if they had time... |
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I ride for Tsaparang, a small village on the river bank under Guge. The arable soil and meadows near the river isn't much, perhaps only a few kilometres. Yet, this sliver of land sustains a whole community. How, I wonder? A small stream comes from a ravine. Pure water issues from below the Earth, filtered by the finest sand. Some alluvial soil and a fresh spring keeps everyone alive. The Sutlej is a super fast river much too silty for drinking. However, if you had a rubber raft, you'd be in India before you could say, "The light is the way..." |
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The village of Tsaparang is on a rise between table and river, only a few kilometres south. That small spring has been directed into a very narrow artery leading towards the village. A green grassy meadow make a lovely bed. I camp on some soft silence next to the streamlet. The peace is perfect here. I lie on the grass, smoking a cigarette. A cute brown pony munches the lawn. She's tethered and watches me with one eye. The sky of Ngari (West Tibet) pleases the senses: it's a depthless blue, a pond for lazy dragons to swim. I'm content with a feeling of achievement, having made my destination. |
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The little girls sneak up on me. They've seen me lying on the grass by my tent. This is their home. I roll over like a dog and see them pause, grinning, silent and watchful. They heft up some bundles of twigs and sticks. Mama and daddy have sent them out to fetch kindling. They found me, too. Just as well. Burn me babies. Come on, I'll burn good. "Hello." The two youngsters smile and come near. They're happy to pose for a picture... |
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The girls go away, but will return. Children are defined by curiosity about the world, and have no need to hide their natural feelings. Before the sun falls, I walk to Tsaparang. The village is sheltered from above by short cliffs. I see one figure, an elderly woman. I feel she wants to see me. Why should she walk towards me? The lady is smiling to herself. |
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I point beyond, to my camp. The old lady walks with me. She only wants to check her ponies. I point my tent out. She smiles again. As she goes away, I have a lonely pang then light my candle so I can read myself asleep. About the history of Guge... Buddhism first came to Tibet around the 7th century, on the bidding of Songsten Gampo and his two Buddhist wives. But in the 9th century, two centuries after Tibet's official conversion to the new faith, King Langdarma of the Yarlung dynasty decided to ban Buddhism from Tibet. He was promptly done in for this affront, and his son, Namde Osung, ran away from the collapsing empire to Ngari. Here, he founded the small kingdom of Guge. Unlike his father, Osung was a devout Buddhist. So, perhaps he had some hand in his father's demise. The religious relics at Guge show us the vibrant interchange between Kashmiri and Tibetan culture, especially with respect to the inspiration that Indian iconographers have given Tibetan artists. |
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Exhaustion pulls down the shades of my eyelids... Sleep, sleep at last! Morning comes in with a grey cloud and at 6:30 A.M. I walk up the ravine to the ruins of Guge. This vale reveals a special habitat: a cozy carpet of wet lawn; puddles of bubbling water seep up among soft blades of grass. Sheep and cows graze here, too. Then Guge looms above the shoulder of an eroding bank. At the foot of the mountain stand three red temples... |
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Before I go in, I have to find the caretaker: he holds the keys. It's only 7:00 A.M. The caretaker's abode is new and roomy enough to house travellers. He sits at his desk, eating breakfast. He's a nice old gentleman with an educated air. He's quick to offer me some milk tea. His glasses sit on the desk and right away he wants to try on mine. Coincidentally, my lenses suit him almost precisely. Now I'm faced with a collision between a chance to be kind and my own needs. I really want to give him my glasses, since his are old and scratchy. What to do? He playfully asks me how much they cost. I tell him the price. He cannot afford it. That makes me feel bad, yet I don't give them away. Another regret. |
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As each day passes, I learn more patience for other people. In the past I used to get agitated because others couldn't read my mind, I suppose. Today, alone with this old caretaker, I feel pacific and absolutely free of earthly negation. I've reached my goal, and can enjoy a polite tea with a man who has the key. Nor do I ask him to produce the key. He's old and has my respect, so I know how to wait patiently for the obvious suggestion, "Do you want to go in?" Which is nothing more than a Tibetan twirl of his fingers pointing outside. After stowing away several brass cups from his alter, he picks up a pail of water and we go. He smiles because he knows I am not in a hurry. |
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The sun outstrips the shrouded horizon, warmly illuminating hundreds of caverns woven among the sandy ramparts and remains of roofless walls. The gate to Guge opens a flight of steps. City and palace were built on a principle of elevation: flights of stairs and winding trails lead all the way to the summit, and the king's palace. The caretaker first wants to show me three temples built at the foot of Guge. He walks up and I follow, because it's his morning ritual, I guess, to change the water on the alters, and check to see everything is okay... |
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The first temple, the one closest to the main gate, is dedicated to Shakyamuni Buddha. It showcases a wall painting of Shakyamuni (Tibetan: Shakya Tupa) - the original living man whom most of us calls Buddha. Alongside Buddha a cross-legged Atisha is also painted, the renowned Indian master who visited Tibet in 1042 on the deathbed invitation of Guge's King Yeshe-o, a devout ruler who sponsored the temples erected by the sage, Rinchen Zangpo. All the temples at Guge have beautifully preserved artwork on the walls. Nearly 300 years have passed since the paintings were last redone. So, all paintings of Buddha, Atisha, Tsongkhapa, their disciples and Buddha's manifestative deities are weathered and somewhat begrimed. The colors are intact, however darkened with ageless layers of lamp-oil smoke. Worse than the effects of nature and time, all the statuary inside Guge's temples suffered destruction at the hands of the Red Guards. The whole site preserves a painful, half-destroyed aura. |
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Each temple at Guge is devoted to particular deities and their manifestations. The king and queen constructed the temples to pacify their need for fervent religious devotions; perhaps they wanted to quell all the jitters associated with the adversity of living an isolated, unprotected existence in a remote land. Royalty, common people and religious orders all shared sanctuaries to cultivate their faith in Buddhism. |
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The second temple on the way up is the White Temple, or the Lhakhang Karpo. Inside, the stumps of massive plaster deities stand guard by the door. From a skylight above, a glimmer seeps into the dim space, lending some small sense of proportion to the murk. The repainted skylight frames reveal miniatures of Buddha. The wall murals show intense, intimate detail. On the right wall you can observe a clever and original depiction of Buddha's route to enlightenment. If only the huge central statue of Buddha had not been destroyed! All that lingers is a messy heap of rubble. The Buddhas of the Five Families, representing some important meditational aspects of Buddha, have been reduced to dust. One or two statues still retain their form, but their heads are lacking. These statues, along with the images painted on the walls, reveal the essence of the Tibetan "Guge" style, strongly inspired by conventional Kashmiri art fused with many traditional motifs of Tibetan Buddhist iconography. The Kashmiri style is easily recognized in the contoured proportions of the body: the waist is tiny and the torso flows into a much broader oval chest. After leaving the temple, I managed to climb on the roof from the path and get a great photo through a broken pane on the roof of a large support pillar and its colorful carving... |
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The third temple is the Red Temple, or Lhakhang Marpo. This amazing structure preserves the original wooden entrance door built upon on the occasion of its last restoration. It is heavy, weathered, yet handsomely huge and intact. This 400 year-old door is framed with three tiers of recessed and elaborately carved designs. It's well-preserved to this day, probably because the air is so dry and cool... |
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Like the White Temple just below, the Red Temple is very large and houses the remnants of some fantastic imagery and exceptional paintings. |
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The fourth of the temples was built by the queen for Guge's regent. I manage to snap one good photo of a multi-armed meditational deity who strongly resembles Cakrasamvara - and a prime example of the Kashmiri influence... |
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The friendly caretaker becomes a little less smiley at this point and expects me to make a big donation, explaining that many tourists give a hundred yuan for the privilege of taking a picture inside the temple. I put two yuan in the pot, plus a smile and a shrug. |
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My old guide has no intention of walking all the way to the top. Yet he remembers his smile and waves me up. I'm alone with the ancient city. The day couldn't be finer. With each step, the vista becomes ever more wonderful. Canyons and mountains lay far to the north. Below the citadel, the green marsh and grass stretches out like a ribbon. The city walls are precipitous. The old monastery along the eastern rampart preserves some traces of original scarlet paint. But most everything built long ago on the sandstone spur has eroded away... |
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Scrambling off the path to the left, I find what my guidebook describes as the Guge prison. It's a horrifying hole in the Earth. It's like a mouth swallowing down into a gullet. I shudder to imagine that the condemned were thrown down, to die a slowly painful death of broken bones amid a continual rot of fresh corpses. Maybe prisoners were actually lowered with ropes into this pit. Then maybe the guards threw them a few scraps of food. |
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Hundreds of caves pocket the soft sandstone. But the caves seem small: it isn't always easy to stand up straight. The people of Guge lived in tiny alcoves, some of them linked to larger buildings. The city was densely packed with folk. My guidebook supposes only 500 people inhabited the city of Guge. I would guess, if one includes the caverns below on the west flank, as well as the people living across the river and the farmlands there, the community probably supported 2000 individuals, and maybe more. It seems likely that the land was more fertile 250 years ago, and the weather, less arid. |
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Beyond the green marshes at the foot of Guge, evidence of intensive cultivation is well preserved: old furrows are etched in chalky soil, attesting to the presence of sown fields. Few people live in this area today, the village of Tsaparang is home to less than one hundred people. So, only some of the available land is cultivated: basic reliance upon animal husbandry and imported staples has made cultivation a past science... But during Guge's heyday, with no trucks to bring rice, the "desert" surrounding Guge would have been irrigated, and the tracts of alluvial land, for miles up and down the Sutlej, were intensively cultivated for several generations. |
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Guge was a bustling city, and now, very few people live here. But look at other countries in which ruined cities are found, like Mexico: the contemporary populace of Mexico greatly outnumbers the ancient population of Aztecs and Mayans. Likewise, almost everywhere, in fact! But at Guge, the present day reveals an eerily opposite study: the populace has all but disappeared. |
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A notion strikes me. Humanity can come - and it can disappear. Guge is a likely future for New York, or my home in Alberta, Canada. Were I to reappear in a few hundred years, what would I see? Jack squatting for a shit under the hull of an old hospital? Frolicking orgiasts, kept eternally youthful with help from newly implanted radiation-gobbling regeneration glands..? Nobody knows - not even God... Will it ever be possible to transfer between fates as easily as we wish to? |
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What exactly happened to Guge? Nobody knows for sure, but historians have been pointing fingers for a long time at Islamic marauders. Look it up in the guidebook - I'm tired of being a copycat. It's more interesting to see how the Guge kingdom may be an emblem for the whole human destiny. But what am I saying? Don't most of us assume the human race ought to live forever? I've spotted one of our greatest weaknesses: the illusion of species assumes the human span is endless, infinite - equal to god. Yet, nobody will be so foolish as to suggest we've come anywhere close to building a New Jerusalem... A shopping plaza maybe. But out here, with nobody around, old Guge suggests that we shall never achieve a divinely immortal destiny on Earth. Not that I don't want to see the best world for all... But we judge each other too much. We're too vainly dependent on material realities, and illusions too. We depend far too much upon the indefensible isolation from one another... You feel superior when you aren't really superior. There's no need for it. I still believe, and it's my particular prejudice, that there is a wonderful thing called great poetry, but it's rare; and most poetry today, as yesterday, is actually very poor. Today, it's all gone to prosaic, anti-lyrical, unmusical and sententious descriptions of trite, topically dull householder obsessions: meanwhile the grand themes of cosmic experience have been evicted or trivialized into tepid slogans and the sort of dull cliches which obsess jingly pop lyricists. At the same time, the creative heart has been squelched by bureaucracies of approval, which reduce the artist to a middle class worker... If you go off by yourself to be an author - instead of working or processing yourself through the middle class approval system - you will be called a bum, and that's all. But if you want to "have a career" then you must join up with the university, the grant camp crew - or sell-out to the corporation. What a laugh: you are nobody unless you turn into a civil servant or squeeze out some crappy-hack pop music from the mighty corporate anus. Popular mediocrity makes money, that's it. I don't care if the whole world goes to hell with pollution. In this mood of despair, my time completely wasted - I become just another death god - jesus wearing the mask of thanatos - and you know what? I don't give a shit at all! Oh well, I suppose they will always keep a few senior writers around - repeatedly allowed in and granted an audience... Born in New England? Then you too can be a famous - even an important American writer! Yet, how we have cultivated distraction and fashion - and what money can buy - instead of serious reflection and concentration! We have lost the music of words, and, having sold out to inferior forms of commercial art, we grow up into a world that inhibits inspired creativity: I think it's our compulsively collective need for instantaneous electronic gratification; further, the social morass of "acceptable forms" obliges that we forfeit any and all chance for letting experience give us the profound language we most need... |
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So, poetry, for the time being, has left us. Maybe it will find some opportunity to return in the future - I don't know... As for now, we're afraid to say anything that doesn't crumble as easily as soda biscuits... Literary art is so simplistic today: nobody dares a complex vocabulary. Art literature is forbidden - unless you do nothing more than study someone "great" who's already dead. Now, it seems only scientists and university dons still have the right to use a big vocabulary. But what a laugh - because everybody else who wants money for their "creative" work is forced to market hormonally reactive dross to semi-literates. Write as you please - as art and life compels you to write - sure you can, but that's asking to be ignored... If you don't write for the market, you will be belittled by the practical "winners." Because - if you don't write according to the pre-established two-dimensional genres that use plenty of grey freight action description, you won't sell! If your poetry really is profound instead of dully prosaic, you will be called insane - or too obscure - a stylist of form with an impenetrable content: whatever the pigeonhole, it will be a small one... Those few who can still call themselves artists have no choice but to beg crumbs from intolerant funding systems. At the other end, the downright fakes: the dreamy fantasy and sci-fi hacks, the hand-bags and diamond-studded caddies of pop, the romancers of pulpy schlock and the gas jockeys of blood and guts - all those cleverly square calculators are so awfully proud and superior - but only because so very many dumb people love them. They ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO write and sing according to prescribed genres that comply with simplistic and dull creative conventions! Okay, maybe there are still a few fine jazz singers, one or two poets among all the crappy sappy song-writers - ah, but so few, so few! Poetry really WAS. Money IS. We forgot what it's all for... But I'll do it anyway, despite all the shitty rich and superior fakes and their crass, shallow, fearful, semi-literate ignorance of what art is, and what it may yet be... a gloriously deep thing, intense, aware and alive with profound insights. We may yet rediscover the true essence of love... |
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Nothing's going to make us wiser again, until we relax and forget fear - the great bane of ultramodern time - the fear that holds so many under the gun-wielding thralldom of too few ideas... For fear makes us hate ourselves and kill our fellows, just as greed makes you write any old thing. It's like trying to point out obvious things that nobody dares acknowledge... For example: Arabs and Jews are exactly like spoiled brothers and sisters, twelve years old, who can't stop bickering! We need to realize so many things personally: we can't go on saying and believing that we have to fight simply because we think that's the nature of people. Rebecca West and her ilk always said that just so they could get in with the right crowd; but, I don't want to get in with the right crowd: I could care less. Perhaps devils fight because they feel it's their nature, too. ...The old sun doesn't burn for your life: it's alone and dead. The sun and the moon don't care whether you live or die. But you really can write poetry because you see that you are alive and the sun isn't, and because you realize that the difference between the sun and a cup of water has given you your mortal life. At some point, if the human destiny is to be transformed into eternal life, then we must rise up to peace: freedom already belongs to us; yet peace and harmony, the tranquility of civilization achieved - that wish abides above the lies we need to tell; and that's the truth we cannot quite reach... The good thing about humanity: we want freedom to speak, to live, and to give more than we are forced to take. Perhaps we may come to love each other more than we need to hate...! |
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I can fail! I might suffer a lapse and fall into anger and do something bad. But that isn't why I get scared of myself sometimes... I'm just too impotent and anti-social. Left myself out... Oh I know, the way things are anger us everyday... I found the weird shit written below on some nutball website, by some little loss of a whiner - a fascist. So many nutcases right now, aren't there? At least, he's probably kept under some safe kind of supervised psychometric control: a ballplayer, a software genius, a recipient of unemployment insurance, or even a big cash sweepstakes... All so he can say: "Gimme a new contract, pleeease, pleeease - daddy!" He does seem buttered-up with judgements and certainties. Maybe he's duping over injustice and unnecessary social divisions? Choose your favorite wrong judgement: he's a slime-moldy racist warmonger, a dirty peacenik unemployed bum lout, or else just one more of the very many misrepresented drop-outs who populate the earth with their perennial disenchantment... |
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"...Muscleheads of the world have been shaking hands for the past forty-five hundred years... Currently, America is the main model for Musclehead-ville and Americans do need to kill each other, over and over and over again... With svelte body-image, each free and democratic dork totes his gun under an insecure burger bun. That's crass desserts for having become tv-photon junkies. Meanwhile the Germans tend to their chic and sickly self-loathing - German babes - beggars all, they'll really do anything and brag about it afterwards; the senseless French pride - stinks like old vinegar - and ignores all but their own spawn; the rot of old-bag Russia and her barbaric stupid push-and-shove that passes for being a man... It's all so pitiful, these husks and remnants of national character that people wear as if they equaled a great identity!... Any old shit passes for classy manners now. The insular cold hearts of Canada - their stuffed-up righteous ignorance for all but Kanuckiana - a mask for hickville; let's not even bother with the snobby cruelty of liberated Scandinavia; forget the dumb repeat offenders who still rule South America; the killer apes of Africa - they don't exist - they've killed each other already; the crappy lost British and their glorious past, ruined by the last war they were - and they won't admit it; Arabs - throwing chunks of dirty meat at each other on the floor, beating their wives and then doing a lot of import whores; Jews - blind and wilful - xenophobic to the point of murderously stupid idiocy, and also jamming import whores; and let's not forget the innumerable crowds of mechanical old-boy Chinamen, wanking in unison! |
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"The brutal ways are victorious, and the gloss is sold hard and fast by military corporations quite happy to bubble-pack an insatiable lust for nice things and you're crazy and weak if you refuse to consume more, more and more money... All right! The industrial march-step, the mighty might of marketing, the selling of useless trash in place of living: the selfish pride of the rich, who are blameless, blameless - for winning the slick life of the city-borne - so we all can certainly believe themselves rightfully privileged! |
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"The diseases of our time are bought and sold in the name of love, but it's just another deceptive adjunct, one more component in the chemical soup with which we compel ourselves to sleep passively with the wish to kill ourselves, a Marilyn Monroe soft-smile playing over our lips... Dare we ask, why are we all so happy to die!? The problem remains one of hunger. How can we earn enough to buy dinner for everybody? |
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"But the poor and the rich now, they share the same pop-talk. You don't have to think too much to be a toughnut on the make. That's why I die and you don't know why. Look at the glorious muscleheads of America - publicly broadcasting the opinions of people who are already rich - that's all we pick-up on our cable link. As for the poor hunks who live on the crumbs of nothing - them that's on the street man - they's told what to do and say too, and they's fair good at sayin' the same thing, jus' in anotha lingo... 'merica, land of the free, land of the poor - same thing, man. It's a fairly middle class scene in there, man. You wanna think bout somethin' smart? Think 'bout how to get a grant, man! Gnaw, gnaw... and if you don't wanna chew on that thick wire man, you jus' get outa here boy, we don' wanna hear ya outside pissing on de street - no how! |
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"Today I'm angry, but today I am free. So - I'm free - and maybe I should stop being angry, right? I should be like you and mom, happy to be free - and who gives a shit about anybody else: bubble-gum happy inside my dream of being a shit-hot know-it-all-big-man... It's all lots of noise! |
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"I don't care if I die tomorrow, but I am afraid of dying. It's true. You don't believe me!? I'm a freestanding installation, generously funded - a public jack in a private socket - stuck-up high above my own solitude. Anger fades, is gone. Why? I'm just about spoiled enough now that I can almost sell that anger - just like you! I won a nice 200-dollar book-buying allowance. I can coat the walls of my ivory glower with your snot, too...! He's singing again. They'll just say, "Shut up, why don't ya!? Sell it for nothing! So you can hate yourself for loving me!" You can feel me for free - in about two or three hundred years - maybe! I'm getting by bald memory easy now... The sun welcomes me. I buy silence by the dozen... Forget all the above: it really really is supposed to be nonsense... Why do I feel good again? Is it merely some chemical hand pushing and stroking my lobes...? Can you reach that high better with or without drugs? You tell me what you want. Since I'm an obedient little civil servant, I'll give you what you want!" |
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...It's the remembrance of having enough fins to deal with the scene you made, and then getting nowhere... That must be it! I'm happy for the first time in days. I feel like I've accomplished something: riding all the way to Guge. I have. The sun does smile and my blindness doesn't pain me anymore. I'm waking up to sleep, and it amuses me. I have no ways and means - and never will. Good, I'm free. |
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The mountain is under me now. I can see all around... I'm going to make you forget. I'm going to change the mood: I'm leaving the country and never coming back. Okay, I'm no longer angry - I'm sad. But I'll be just like you, friend: I can smile and lie, again. Here goes..! |
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To be sensible is to get passed the distracting destructiveness of emotive reaction. The human creature is destined for frustration, but that isn't a tragedy, is it? Since we already see everything that we are, we can breach our limitations and create progress. But the key to the human puzzle is essentially one of the heart and free will. We are not meant to fulfill a special design; all the idealism about history is unnecessary. Realize this, and you can relax and live creatively. |
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We have to think our way into the future. As I have suggested, intelligent life is spontaneous and we are more creative than a being who merely reflects an innate pattern, like some fantastical sort of vegetative nature belonging to that strange, impossible world that Hegel and Kant would have compelled us to fulfill. Instead, artists usually believe in the individual creative identity that most clearly distinguishes their personal humanity: so, imagination reflects the small bit of divinity left in our nature. After all, we artists always have wished to realize more than we can achieve; always, we feel that our work was not high enough, nor so fine as we intended. The core of communal and individual aspirations all began together upon a longing for eternal significance. But that sensibility appears to have left many of us indifferent. It seems obvious that intellectual and aesthetic sensitivity evolved from a much older spiritual legacy. So, the inspiration of joy appear to have changed from communal to more individual springs: priest was replaced by artist. Yet something of old Adam always remains in us, and not in the simple way we want to believe in scriptural myths as literal truths, but in that deeper sense as we realize identity is defined by a long history of beliefs and ideas possessing us with an insatiable fascination for mythic reflections about "who we are." Because today, we still have a strong sense that the creative imagination is part of an expressive harmony, a stream of identity made conscious. That intuition makes a wish for each of us... We want to be more than we are, we want to reach the happier destiny. It's no surprise that each culture, and each spiritual denomination, has a higher end in mind: mortality, the force of gravity, space and time alone may be responsible for the peculiar human yearning for God and enlightenment. So it appears to us today... I don't think anyone really knows why we need to believe. But it is obvious that the brightest do want to know more than can be understood! Are you awake enough to be curious in the first place? |
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The universe is within our imagination. So, we are part of everything that makes us alive. Everything that seems real to us finds an easy unity only within our understanding: perceptions inform all inspirations... Yet, outside and beyond the unifying power of our thoughts, the universe remains quite independent, and meaningless, except perhaps the special part that we imagine "everything that is" plays in the dream god's uncle or sister happens to have for all of us. Truth and reality depend on the mood, the weather and sufficient nutrition... The objective scope of appearances are always underlined, defined, limited or expanded by our subjective psychic state, etc... |
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Humanity is not only an accident of nature, it's a sublime mystery. So, we write poetry and make paintings because we are compelled to express what we wish to know, as for what we feel. Everything we are is made of being alive; and we come but briefly to discern this reality. |
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...I hear the singing without really noticing at first. Several voices sing from the river. All the voices belong to men. A chorus... What do they say? I cannot see them - they're three or four kilometres away, over there by the river, south of Tsaparang village. What sort of Tibetans would sing like that? Monks? But the voices sound like ordinary men, or travellers who decided to make music. For their song is like a call, a lament, and not an incantation. It's like a verse full of sorrow, trying to invoke love and hope. The chorus yearns for peace, and I feel the singers want to leave their suffering behind, but cannot. It's the middle of morning and their voices rise louder, like a wish to carry far beyond their huge and perfect valley... I look to the river, listen and rest. |
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The singing goes on. They sing for ten minutes, twenty, then an hour as I explore the king's palace on top of Guge. The men's voices fly upon shy winds. They pause for a rest. When they start again, I stop still, listening closely; the voices are like God watching me from afar. Their emotions are so plaintive and unappeased: it's the kind of music you don't want to hear, because as you listen, the heart moves with a strange anguish. The voices are full of weary suffering, an anquish that I cannot understand, since it's beyond my experience. I get the same feeling from Greek tragedy. Their beseeching tone is like a question: they call to their Lord for an answer. But their voices wonder: how can we receive an answer? I sense they want to sing from sorrow all the way back to joy; passing through despair they can reach and believe in some earlier, forgotten state of well-being, as if it should become their truth once more. I distinctly hear a desire for joy beneath their words: it sounds like a smile seeing past pain... How long have these poor men sung to the deaf-mute valley of the Sutlej? |
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A stairway tunnel leads into the earth beneath the ruined palace of the king. Here is the private chamber of the king and his family. This cold place is a tiny hovel of four or five rooms. Only lamps and tapestries could make it warm inside. Apparently, the king and his wives retreated here in winter to keep warm behind the wind-proof walls of the mountainside. The rape of Guge was said to last several months: quite a difficult penetration. I snap a photo in back of the huge old skull. I'm looking out from the eye socket of the winter palace. I am not much bigger than its pituitary gland... |
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I read a description of the palace. Reading makes me escape the pain of the men's voices, still singing. Only one original temple is still intact on the "roof" of Guge. But it's all locked up and I can't get inside. Then, I discover a small funerary chapel in a cave below; the door is ajar. Inside the pitch-black space, I light the candle. The room is tiny, but big enough to hold a single coffin and a few mourners. The walls are replete with meditational deities in daemonic form, copulating after the familiar cross-legged manner of Samantabdhara and Samantabdhri; aspects of the deities depicted in this funerary chapel represent a fusion of Tibetan and Indian forms. Oh yes, one image is a local vision of Cakrasamvara, that curiously borrowed deity with roots in Hinduism. In the lingo of Tibetan iconography, the deity copulating in front of my eyes is Korlo Demchok, a wrathful, four-faced, twelve-armed meditational deity: he's doing it to his lover, Vajravarahi, even as he tramples evil Bhairava and Kali underfoot. Perhaps this repository for the royal dead is meant to remembrance the pleasures and conquests of life, even after that life has left us behind. I'm not an expert... Though grimy, the three hundred year-old paintings are well-preserved. Surrounding the larger images of Cakrasamvara-Demchok are several obscure, smaller ones, including a creature with a wolfish head and some other images designed to frighten away bad spirits. Tibetan emblems frequently appear among the deities at Guge, especially those representing door guards and the evocative details illuminating larger images, like necklaces of smiley skulls, dancing demons and gleeful skeletons. I capture them with my candle... |
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It's nicely chill inside this mountain-top mortuary and I'm in no hurry to go back outside to the burning bright day. I explore the ruins of a temple beside the king's audience chamber. I visit the south palace and discover a modest public square once used for royal festivities... |
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Everything is so eroded and ruined here. The vista on the spur of this little peak is fabulously 360. I want to stay, I don't want to go. I want to be the king and cannot... So I climb back down, feeling high and melancholy at the same time. I hear them again. The singers are still singing for their freedom. I'm not here, yes I am. I snack on sweet army issue biscuits. Then it's down the winding path at noon. At the bottom of the hill, all 170 metres of mountain stretches above me. I get an eyeful... Standing in the door of the Red Temple, accompanied by a male Tibetan guide, are two youthful Westerners, a man and a woman, professionals on an expensive holiday. Each wears a khaki safari suit. I say, "Hi," and ask, "How did you get here, drive up?" Maybe there's a god who knows why I don't linger to chat with them... |
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The natural lawn by my camp is trimmed by grazing ponies... I relax and write. More of the same stuff I've repeated for the past ten years. Can't escape myself - no matter how far I go. I'm not embarrassed to say foolish things... But my mind feels almost ossified, as my elder brother once warned happens to all of us - the inevitable fate of all adults - an imprint of same same thoughts, endlessly recirculating. |
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Soon, the wood-collecting girls return. What do they do all day? It's summer and so warm. I keep to myself and they stay true to the nature of all children: fearless, they answer only to curiosity, sitting right in front of me on the grass. I find something to get me busy. A flat tire. The wheel comes off and I've won an audience. Then a young man joins us. He carries a really massive bundle of kindling. He sits down and watches me closely and gives the thumbs up when I finally find the thistle spike. I patch the tube, and that's that. The young man gestures for me to follow him to Tsaparang. The kids follow. |
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Tsaparang village lies beyond a gate before the ravines, above the river. Here's a small field, perhaps a hectare, full of saplings and young trees. The same slender trees grow in Tsamda, too. The trees are almost too fragile for the climate, and it's amazing they survive... |
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A boy on the path tries to persuade a goat to move, but gives up. I find the village is hardly more than ten houses. A tiny and brand new temple sits beside the road; only a singular huge prayer wheel sits inside. I follow the man with the bundle of sticks. He passes all the village houses till we reach a public school. His apartment is next door to the classrooms. So, he's the local teacher. Lovely sunflowers adorn the soil before his house. I wander into the classroom. Empty. Nothing on the walls - no fancy maps and no pictures of anyone. A few basic Tibetan/Chinese primers lie on the shelf: tiny books with simple fables. Maybe he's stored everything away for the summer. |
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I join the man in his modest one room flat. He's busy with a gardening chore, and he pays little attention to me as I write my journal: "He has two beds, a settee, a large cabinet painted orange, green and golden yellow, with vases of flowers and lovely birds. Above the cabinet is a collection of personal photos of his family and his pals. He's got a ghetto blaster and four empty bottles filled with artificial flowers. He's got a sturdy cast-iron stove and a few thermoses and pans, and two coffee tables in the middle of the room. Not much else but a fluorescent light and an incandescent bulb. He gave me some peas and some to a little girl who's hanging around, too. She's reading a book, whispering to herself. I'm a little drowsy and it is too hot outside to go back to my tent right away. I must get up early tomorrow and go back 13 kilometres to Toling..." |
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I return to the tent by mid-afternoon. Yet again, the three girls come to me. These kids are too cute for words. Here I am, lying flat on my back, drowsily reading, and they lie on their tummies, peering inside my tent space. I give them candy between chapters. They smile all the time. Then they start to sing songs. What's that song? It's a chorus, a happy chant, and completely different from the mournful dirge that the men sang this morning... The girl song is full of thankful joy. I hear a name: so their song is about a man. The girls are pleased to be with me. After more treats, they sing again. |
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The Tibetan phrase book is useful. I ask the girls about their families and they tell me how many brothers and sisters they have. They live here in Tsaparang - it's their home. I try to get them to write their names in my notebook. They scribble and wait for me to do something. Like what? I don't know. They can't stop smiling. Soon the sun sets and they run along, toting bundles of kindling on their backs. |
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Morning and I ride away without wanting to. Fantasies about building a cabin here run through my head. Then I imagine the impossibly difficult problem of finding supplies. But I could grow a garden and do nothing but write novels with a view of sandstone canyons, placidly isolated, and completely unhurried by crowded cities, free from technocracy, enjoying peaceful solitude. |
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Is it wrong to want to be alone; is it selfish to wish for some way to cultivate a garden and develop my innate talent? Perhaps the West actually condemns individual effort even more than the East. If you want to achieve insight into the true nature of the universe, the Lamas - Tibet's Buddhist monk-teachers, have prescribed removal from the community into a life of absolute solitude and tantric meditation, and not only for a few days, but for months and years. |
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The Western world forces us to become social beings because that's how we prosper. Active participation equals winning, that's all. But all I want is to set-up far away from all that and write. So, who would dare support a crackpot like me? I'm too far from home: how could I know what to write about? That's what the clever bullies will say. Hmm. But for me, nations and creeds are only small and unimportant fragments compared to the whole of knowledge. |
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The sand beneath my wheels is slow. The dawning day feels good, because nobody watches me. I'm not expected anywhere next week, either. I want to disappear from the memory of my family and friends. My inner strife is too petty and my squabble with the material world, barbaric. I wasn't always such a mean man. I began by trying to evade misunderstanding. To be loved is enough. Yes, it is. But being loved isn't the same thing as making art. Neither is selling cheap pop. Guge is distant now... |
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The road hobbles up and I ride the plateau. I see a boy of twenty pass me, hiking in from the main road, carrying two heavy bags, smoking a cigarette. He looks at me intently: he's a close friend to an enemy in my heart; he's proud as daggers, thrown away for nothing. We pass by the silence between us. I ride back and around Tsamda - there's only one way out... Back over the bridge and up the ravines, retracing the way I came. At 5:00 P.M. I camp on lovely long-haired lawn beside the bird rookery. The wind dies as I put up the tent. |
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So many mornings alone... I've grown used to the hard work, sure. But it's still tough. My tire springs a slow leak. I patch it twice and it leaks still... I fix it a third time. This time the tube holds and I leave thistle-land forever. I take the right fork and head northwest, to Purang county and Mount Kailash. |
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How have you managed to read this far? It's so utterly boring - I don't expect you to make Lhasa. My original plan was to ride all the way to Lhasa from Xinjiang, nearly 4000 kilometres. My immediate goal, Mount Kailash, is only 200 kilometres. Then proceed to Lhasa over the Mayum La. It's a long way, still almost 1500 kilometres, at least. I'm certain that I can make it, unless something goes wrong. In fact, I'm hoping the bike will fail, so I can take a break! |
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The road falls suddenly into a deep river valley. After losing at least 300 metres of calories I get off my bike and slog way down to the marsh for a drink of water. The road above has been so empty, and it's giving me the creeps. Fate takes a fresh bite as an unreachable land-cruiser passes by above me. The next ridge lends a look at the Himalayas. Beyond, I spot the magnificent Sutlej. |
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Twice more I dip into ravines eroded and clenched between fingers of plateau that stretch out from the steep northern peaks nearby. A whole truckload of goat shit has been dumped onto the gravel road. Then I see a girl. She's tending her family's goats. I'm still not sure if this really is the right road. So I get off, call out and walk into the sparse pasture after her. I shout, "Hello, wait!" But she starts running away and won't let me catch up. No chance I can ask her anything. Seldom do cyclists come here, so I must look an odd specimen. |
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The same thing happens in the next ravine. A prefabricated bridge spans the rippling creek. Three nomad children play upon the bridge: lying on their bellies, they gaze between the slats towards the river. They are one teenage girl and two boys of five. Seeing me, they jump up and run off the bridge towards their yurts, screaming. |
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I go under the bridge to get some water and eat. A man approaches, walking in front of the kids. The kids watch me shyly as he sits with me, a calm smile on his face. Soon, the older girl inches closer and sits a few metres away. But nobody wants my cookies. I ask about the road. Yes, he says, it will join the way to Mount Kailash. |
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Few people live here. I go on and pass two lonesome homes - a yurt and a more permanent place made of earth with a stonewall corral. I reach a dome of earth smooth as a skull, and as bald save for a few blades of coarse scruff that even a goat couldn't stomach. Yet below, the plateau unfurls a wave of tender green velvet, all the long way down to the sunny Sutlej valley. Above and beyond the canyons tower the Himalaya. The mountain tops are snowy, they look like enamels ready to bite you off. The dry air is soft yet clear and saturated with sunset... |
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These titans range from 6500 to 8000 metres and more. Above 6000 metres, nature fails to erode these peaks: they are stark, frozen and will outlast all the mountains on Earth. I gaze south for two hours as I eat and smoke. A few moments of cosmic time, as brief as life truly is: that's all I get of their eternal glory. The Himalaya are taller and much more sharp than any of the mountains in your mind... |
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As I pack up next morning, a teenage boy walks up. He grins and he's in a playful mood. He helps me roll away my tent. He wants me to give him something. "Give me, give me!" But I don't know what he wants and I don't know what to give him. He asks for it too intently. I hear, "Dalai, Dalai." So he wants a photo of the exiled Lama. I don't have a single one. That's it, I'm one more disappointment for the poor kid. |
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I leave. Up to now I've been on pretty good terms with nature, having endured only one day of freezing rain last week. I've been lucky. But did you know that snow can happen at anytime in Tibet? No sign of it today; the sun shines its magnificent warmth on me. However, the road plays a cruel trick on me. After making every appearance of topping the last pass yonder, as I crest the ridge, what do I get but yet another long drop into a steep river valley before having to climb all the way up again to that last pass yonder... |
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As I reach this last green valley, the one thing that hits me is a feeling that the people are missing. There should be at least a few nomads living here! It looks like a great, wide valley. But I cannot spot any tents. They're probably further downstream... Yet, I begin to wonder: is the population of Tibet dwindling? Such a peaceful space ought to permit more folk, I think. A pure culture like this ought to prosper, undisturbed - forever... |
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I force my bike and body up to the line that divides sun from cloud. To camp near the summit risks a blizzard. Yet, as I crest the pass, the snowy rain hits me. I can only escape by facing it, and ride down the other side. The horizon beyond is utterly dark. Apparently, the mountains ahead, to the north and west, are a siphon for the monsoon. |
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Today the monsoon is freezing cold, and it lurks beyond this last ridge. Yet, the clouds hold back their wrath, as if waiting till I get up too high and cold. Behind, I feel the icy Himalaya staring at my back. I cannot discern their hidden thoughts: disbelief, indifference. Uninformed judgement: I'm a chimp to that old monkey of a snobby prof... I'm like a terrified horse, rearing my head to catch a view of the way ahead. Ask the corpse of your mother or father if they love you still... |
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Cold Himalayan rain feels is hard, like a horrible torture. I'm soon soaked. Only my constantly revolving body keeps me from freezing. A place to camp seems impossible in the wet cold! The sleety wind, a hateful spirit, holds me back. I'm almost crying though there's no real danger, only an unpleasant discomfort, and a sinister sensation of some invisibly divine and gleeful malice. I don't care if any god invoked by my meditation can pity me or not! I'm thinking of heat and hot drinks. Only two hours ago, the plateau above the Sutlej was hot and the sun so bright! Now, I think of dying in the cold rain! The sun - the sun has deserted me too soon... |
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This road was built by people who want to hurt me. Because it refuses to descend... The cold rain sprays my body: I'm trembling with chill fear. Because after an hour of wet head wind, I've only lost a few hundred metres of altitude. Finally, I see some yurts far below. I sail into the next vale. |
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Above me, the mountains age quickly, their black mantles frosted with veils of ceaseless time. The Earth offers no measure for our meagre human proportion, does it? We move too quickly to pause and reflect or even understand anything: we are made of a nature much larger and more drawn-out than we can ever clearly see in ourselves. Our sensation of the vast infinitude of true reality is hidden from us, reduced to a paltry conversation, a physical theory, a philosophic mood... But truly to perceive the awe that nature inevitably inspires - what awakening does that take? The barriers must fall away. Perception is not a pure perception if you are thinking about what you are seeing, or supposed to be seeing. What you see - is. You see through fear like you live without a plan. If you need to will it, it may not happen the way you want it to be: you need to experience the feeling purely, and yet with no more compulsion than decision. Here, we discover that the wisdom of vision is to be free of will power. The illusion of "will" is to make ourselves believe that we can make everything work as we imagine it "must" become... But not all things in our world are like that: some things you move and make, but only things of material and progress. Other qualities and experiences are simply another part of reality altogether, and must be evoked or invoked, and so - perceived... Second sight comes to you without asking for it: you may not notice it at first - but your mind is available to apprehend and articulate realities outside your body and brain, and sometimes, in the future... To see is a kind of immediate experience - for lack of a lexicon - an open window. We would hope that deeper visionary consciousness is larger than the often minute verities and capitulations of second sight: yet external attunement and precognitive sensitivity are perhaps essential for inspiring knowledge of larger cosmologic, ontological and epistemic truths. |
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Whenever we know something before words are spoken and before the reality is met, such an event informs the understanding by means of one particular type of "visionary consciousness," which is after all merely a name that barely compasses the experience... To see a real thing, person or event can be a picture, or it can flow into your spontaneous conversation. For those who have this second sight, it's a genuine experience, not madness, delusion or a dream... |
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The end of war begins at the heart of our understanding. To worship fear is to prepare for wars that nobody need fight. In the past, to fight was purely to fight for the master's wealth. In the modern time, to fight is to suffer from delusions about freedom, and sometimes, to defend against the delusions of insane men. Unfortunately, even in this ultramodern time, we still cling fast to the right of others to own our minds and hearts; we call this dumb sacrifice "having political and religious convictions." We have illusions, of course, yet precisely just as the whole idea of a nation is absolutely unreal - yet how effective it is! The state is the most remarkable tool for social recognizance that we have ever invented! For to prepare for war and to tax our loyalties along with our faith is always to hold up as social ideals the very men who can afford (and pretend) to believe that their property is the same thing as a political ideal like democracy and freedom. It does not matter that our models and ideals of democracy aren't always very accurate, and in fact, are more often misrepresentative and fraudulent, nor does it make any difference that many of our socioeconomic models have little to do with real freedom at all; it matters little that nobody understands the lies of democracy - especially so long as the shareholders can go on to make a profit from poverty, so long as material possessions evict soulful sensations even as science relieves pain, so long as the social duty for buying love with marriage inhibits realizing sexual pleasure, ha, ha, and of course, so long as the ugly fact prevails that most innocent and peace-loving people have no choice in the matter of who makes or does not make war - we shall go on killing each other... While servants always have outnumbered their masters, that hasn't mattered very much, has it? Why, I wonder? The mystique of the master is his accumulation of wealth and power, masked, always masked by a myth that has nothing to do with the actual experience of anyone - servant or master - although that myth pretends to equate our service with our freedom, and always and most significantly, that myth of freedom proposes the delusion that we must equate human rights with the "right" (or hope) to own property... What a lot of shit people pretend to believe in! |
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The power over others that we wield by means of material reality, this is a dangerous duel, yet also like a dance... This power is too often bereft of enlightenment, and brutalizes the weak and innocent; all the gracefulness we wish for is annihilated by the contradictions of our failure, which in its most grotesque manifestation, is exactly like killing other people in the name of religion. But obviously, we never actually kill because of convictions, but we kill only from material greed and the disappointed hopes associated with suffering the insecurity inspired by our idiotic beliefs and silly convictions! We need not admit that these vicious circles of neurotic obsession are misspent and mistaken. But always remember that we prefer passions to rational capacities: we are ruled not by careful reflection, but by blind certainties. We are humans: forced by insecurity to enjoy competition more than cooperation. Skeptical, level-headed and concerned individuals earn small respect because we seem boring and apparently non-committal. Ultimately, it takes a hard bit of persuasion to exchange passion for reflection. Only after we begin to think will true freedom finally dispose of crafty cruelty and hypocritical intolerance. |
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Yet we always have a good reason to kill other people. But we don't need to kill other people. Belief in war continues to equate freedom with a false demand, the subjugation of a servant to a master, in the name of a fake political ideal like democracy, righteousness and god, or communism and a national dream. Human civilization has not had a chance to grow up into the true freedom of brother and sisterhood. Maybe we never will. We cannot escape the failure of civilization until we master emotional reactions. Emotions cause war: jealousy, lack of empathy and all the short-sighted fears which cannot think. The accumulated hatred of generations is shared by people who are perpetually prevented from seeing, knowing and loving one another... Art abounds with illustrations of human weakness: Romeo and Juliet is a play; one of its themes represents the failure to make peace, and this weakness shows us the spiritual anguish that accompanies the collapse of civilization, along with the need for rejuvenation, which follows from thwarted love. |
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Wealthy democratic nations manufacture and sell the ideals of warfare and the citizens of these nations continue to live prosperously; in the same breath, countless unlucky people suffer from impervious political regimes, spiritual dearth and extreme physical deprivation - every day of their lives. For most people alive today, life on Earth feels like a hopeless frustration: and these poor folk are obliged to continue killing each other at the same time as they must remain deeply indebted to the wealthy democracies for the privilege of doing so... It's a cruel, stupid circle, isn't it? |
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...the road drops. I'm so cold! A tight left bends in front of me. Here's a Nomad tent, like a miracle in my favor. I get off and make attention getting sounds outside... "Hello?" I sweep aside the sodden tent flap. A young family gets on their feet. Father, mother and a little girl. They're surprised to see me, but prove themselves human by taking me in. I feel so relieved that they don't mind having me. I'm fortunate. Their iron stove is brightly stoked. I go out again to collect my things. I make myself as comfortable as possible and take off all my wet clothes. I sit by the stove on a sheepskin. The Nomads watch me, between household duties. I offer them snacks, especially to their cute girl, so wide-eyed. It appears she's never seen anyone like me before. The lady of the yurt busies herself with the kids. What's that? She unwraps her infant who is all tied up in a bundle of cloth. The child can't get cold in that swaddling, but he can't move a muscle, either. |
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The woman is busy and the man is idle. He glances at me and cranes his ear, listening for something happening outside - the herd of goats. He's got a whole lot of livestock out there, at least 80... Now and then, he rushes outside and shouts, "Shyaaa, shhyaaaa!" at the skittish creatures. This admonition prevents the animals from running away up the mountain. He's got to keep an eye on them all the time! Sometimes he simply shouts, "Shhyaaa!" through the tent wall. |
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The lady is busy, always moving about, making the fire bright with a fresh chunk of dung. Her fellow sits by me, rolling a cigarette made of the same yellow and green granules smoked in Xinjiang. He puts the spicy stuff in coarse paper then lights up. It takes some time for him to offer me one... We share some more food. I give them some of my store bought foods, while they give me some staples: tasty goat cheese and fresh yogurt. Yogurt is called "sho" in Tibetan language. It's the tastiest snack I've eaten in a long while: a teaspoon of sugar and rice all mixed with yogurt. |
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Evening comes quickly now. Woman and man laugh at the small wax candle I proffer. The family has a much more effective way to rid the night of darkness: a cloth wick soaked in a puddle of oil. The tiny lamp pops into a brilliant yellow flame giving plenty of light. I feed the kids more tidbits: peanuts, some cookies, a wiener and some noodles with hot water. |
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This family is well supplied with victuals: there's a leg of cured mutton and some big sacks are filled with goat cheese, grains and there's a sack full of smoking stock. They're not starving. I'm sure they are a little wealthy, especially with all those goats outside! I'm dry, thankfully. Supremely at ease, the tent is cozy and the food, hot. Enough to get sleepy. The mother puts the babes in bed. Again, I get the overt suggestion from the Nomad fellow - partly from jest, yet seemingly sincere - that I should consider sleeping with his wife. It appears that he's going outside to watch the goats all night... I laugh off the idea as usual. This is definitely a set social pattern, and I remember again that polygamy is supposed to be an old custom for Tibetans. But I'm too exhausted to think of sex. The night hugs my slumber as the fire's warmth enfolds me. I unfurl my sleeping bag on the sheepskin. My wet things are above, dry on the stove, slung over the tent lines. Pleased and pacified, I have no questions to ask of myself or anyone else... |
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I curl up to sleep. The Nomad man disappears outside to sleep in the sleet - to watch the goats! I don't know how he does it. The windy night reverbs through the porous wool of the tiny yurt. Even despite the storm, my sleep is slept in silence. In the morning, I see the Nomad really has slept outside - on a mattress of hides and beneath a heap of coats. The young family watches me collect my things and then sees me off. I feel that they look a bit apprehensive, as if they won't believe their eyes, like I'm not really here, that it's good I'm going away. Then again, maybe I always feel that way in a foreign country, watched by people who appear to have little in common with my thoughts... |
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Then I notice something. I left my raincoat hanging overhead all night to dry. While unpacking last night, I placed my money belt inside the pouch of my raincoat. So, it was in the open all night. Opening my money belt for a quick look, I see that 600 of yesterday's 1400 yuan are missing. What can I do but look at the people in front of me? Neither husband nor wife show the slightest sign of acknowledging the fact that I've obviously discovered my loss, even as I search all my various pockets and finally stop suddenly, self-conscious and almost embarrassed. I think various thoughts that do not explain the theft, and my limited experience of the world suggests that my perspective on things is very different from the Nomads. However, I do not ask them if they've taken my cash. Concealing desperation, I stand my ground against panic. It isn't easy to leave without putting up a fight. But I can't see any reason to fight, much less demand anything from these poor people. My main pain is thinking I that I have only 800 yuan cash to reach Zhigatse, a very distant place. |
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All I do before I go is to look at the folks again, pausing to gaze momentarily into their eyes. I feel as if I can share the challenging little smirk on the Nomad lady's face. But the man looks tough as dried meat: he'd stand his ground, no doubt. So, I cross the sand to the road beyond their damp campsite. The man mutters something between his teeth that sounds like English, "You don't belong here." Something really possesses him, opposing my subtle trespass across the stolen land of Tibet... |
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So I go. I'm free to give them some money, why not? I have enough. Nothing's easier than letting them have it. I ride straight into passing time. My feelings of shock and cowardice disappear... I feel the release and freedom of solitude again. Can I draw some new ideas from the whole experience? I know these people are poor. They have no opportunity to earn anything aside from tending to goats... Like a pretty black shop girl turned rap-singer, or a fisherman out of fish - not a lot of choices to be had. Some guy will always come round to steal the cash. So, maybe I've done a good thing - not putting up a fight - and given her some back. |
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They see a world completely unlike the one I carry in my mind. This journey across the void is no wilderness to them: it's their home. Any attempt to second-guess the Nomad's thoughts about me will lead almost nowhere. I see everything through the thick veil of my predisposition, which I feel isn't sensitive enough, laden as I am with heavy assumptions about everything... How could I know what they think before, and after, taking my money? The poor can't afford much morality about money. Such questions as trouble my conscience - aren't they imaginary - so much froth upon the surface of vanity? Doesn't that kind of dubious speculation about right and wrong only happen because people like me have leisure and time enough to waste on inventing morality and prejudice in the beginning? Of course, all human beings are capable of reflection, and I can remember as I ride away, that the thieving woman's expression contained no small measure of vindictive amusement and mischievous self-pleasure. She knew she was doing something "wrong," but she didn't much care about that. Because - she knew I could afford it. Who knows what she told her old man? For all I know, she just told him that she'd turned the trick after all... |
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The woman didn't need to hate me for being a coward or anything complicated like that. She only wanted my money. I didn't bother with putting up a fight, but I didn't try bedding her, either. I can't stop seeing her suppressed tension - that saucy, frightened smirk in her knowledge - mocking me - yet grateful and devil-may-care. You know, everyone is really very deep when it comes to seeing each other's hearts. It was her husband who scared me, built like a brick shithouse, standing absolutely stock-still and glaring, waiting for me to shove off... So, maybe he stole back in to take my money as we slept. I'll never know and don't want to. I'm guilty, since it was really my fault I left my lousy little money hanging there. |
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Yet another pass blooms into the sky ahead, rising above this web of narrow vales. Crawling over, basically, I've ridden back towards the main valley I left at the village of Namru last week. But this junction is several kilometres east of Namru. A milestone etches the Chinese names for Ali and Purang. I ride east, toward the latter destination. The rain is no more and the road soon passes "Bao-Er" army base. The scene appears very quiet; not so many soldiers are posted to this isolated spot. I don't want anybody to see me here, so I keep going silently over the escarpment to the river. |
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The road pursues a creek vale. It's very lovely, and I clip rapidly over a smooth clay road. The area is quite populated. The folks are oblivious to the mixed emotions I'm suffering. Naturally, I imagine they know I've been robbed, so they must be smiling because they're laughing at me. I persuade myself that forgiveness is the only way. It's just vain embarrassment, because nobody would believe I didn't mind being robbed: these hidden feelings are impossible to share or explain. |
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I've passed three encampments of Nomads. The tents are arrayed neatly along the roadway: they've placed themselves in close proximity to the road, perhaps to satisfy their curiosity and to make trading with truckers more convenient. All of them smile and seem tickled to see me alive. I'm a big joke to them: what in the world am I doing here? As the day dwindles, I pass one last camp with several tents - almost a village. |
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I find a green place to camp. The grass is soft and the creek giggles... No rain. I'm happy again. As I set up my tent, three groups of Nomads come strolling by. Each group of three families has ten or twenty yaks and a few ponies. They don't stop, but wander slowly on. Some people walk with the yaks. Their young boys ride ponies, sitting upon finely decorated festive saddles. The adults walk. Everyone is well-dressed. It's a summer pilgrimage, returning from Kailash, a whole hamlet on the move. The adults grin, as amused as ever. Only the boys on their ponies, who ride up for a close look at me; they alone seem more serious today. |
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Morning brings a big shock. Something is amiss with my rear wheel. A spoke has snapped behind the freewheel sprocket. Since I haven't the proper tool to remove that gear, I can't slip in a new spoke! This is a trauma for me. I know the wheel will go out of kilter: it's only a matter of two days before it will be impossible to ride! Maybe I can make Mount Kailash and then get a lift. The wheel holds up to Montser, an impoverished Tibetan village whose populace is said to labor in nearby coal mines. A Chinese guy from Sichuan keeps a cafe and cooks me a pleasant lunch of noodles. |
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I quite like being silent, drinking my beer and smoking a cigarette. The people here know nothing about me at all - and I like that. Beside the road sit two men, a monk wearing orange robes and wire frame glasses. He's grinning. But his companion is so very sad-looking - a young Tibetan who has the important job of holding up an umbrella to shade the holy man from the sun. A jeep full of locals passes us by. The valley widens and ends with a hump of land high enough to be a watershed. It's a long ride over, and the weather turns bad again as I reach higher ground. My wheel is getting twisted and wobbly. Suddenly, a chill rain pelts all around. Hopeless. |
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I have to push my crippled bike through the gloomy wet wasteland. The rain is turning into sleet and the horizon disappears. Good luck for me: a lone truck appears. I wave him down. We haggle over how much to get to Darchen, 50 kilometres away. That lasts two minutes. He wants 40 quai, an excessive amount. It's a cold front and he sees my desperation. I tie a rope on my bike, and with great effort, haul it up onto the truck. I get inside the cab, sopping wet. His two very quiet sons, seven and ten, travel with him. |
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Grey rainy fog. We bounce over horrid ruts at 60 kilometres per hour. I'm so happy to be inside the comfy truck. Fording the flooding rivers is difficult, but this driver is experienced. The rivers are going nuts and mounds of fresh snow lie alongside the rushing torrents. |
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Darchen is a messy concoction of worn-out buildings clumped at the misty foot of invisible Mount Kailash. Rain and fog everywhere. I unload and discover a small cafe. I run into a good-humored American girl and her companion, a feisty British chap. I order a hot meal of Tibetan goat noodles. |
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The Englishman is beginning to age but resembles a jazz singer, with a stylish goatee and rings flashy on his fingers. He's brassy but not too cynical and I like him right off, even if liable to quick judgments and superiority, like so many Brits. He's like a memory for hipsters, and that's fine with me. He's full of quips and recollects his favorite reruns, the kind of guy who enjoys reciting Basil Fawlty's best shows, in an effort to entertain his American girlfriend. We men have to keep the lay happy somehow, don't we? So, like most of us, this Brit doesn't need to be original. |
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But I don't much want to bother with this American girl; she turns out a fusty sort of half-broad, half-prude - grade A chickabiddy - the one combination in a woman I can't stomach at all. A surprise, since she comes from California, a place alleged to produce lusty free-lovers, not stuffy married types hampered by such wide-ranging prejudices as this high-hat lady cultivates... She's the sort of gal you need to "get to know" before she'll be really nice to you... She's that kind of woman who makes fun of everyone except her current lover, because that's how she feels safe and sound. She does have an athletic body, if not a little too fat. But it's her repulsive, prudish side that gets me down - preaching enough rules to disappoint the toughest hero. Light one little ciggy and she goes off: "Don't smoke, don't drink!" I'm laughing because I can see the poor British clown is working very hard to prop up his gentlemanly act, which is the only way he can keep her in bed! It's comical and depressing to watch a man squash himself, so he can get laid! Okay, so we're in Tibet, and the guy isn't likely to meet anyone else way out here. Oh, I know he thinks the woman an absolute dimwit, and he's just acting pleasant because he needs to entertain her, perhaps to defeat the pain of being alone, too long away from clan and home. So, I like him, even with his frayed edges. He manages to make the American woman laugh, sometimes. They are intimate and happy to have their communion, and quite contentedly resigned to their temporary mismatch. |
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Nowhere to stay. A Korean and a Japanese lead me to their hotel, but a frosty Austrian - what a snotty knob - has taken the last cheap room. Looking in, I see that he's already put his woman, far too pretty for him, to bed, probably by giving her a stiff rap over the head with something thick and heavy enough to make her forget who she's with... I've forgotten him and already look forward to make an escape from Darchen even as I return to persuade the Brit and his baggage to let me share their small storage room. This room is next door to the police station, a squalor of three small beds let out to paupers like us. Friends of the Tibetan-staffed PSB come and go to fetch their yak butter whenever they feel like it. |
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As I scamper through the icy rain, Darchen depot reveals itself a busy hub for Asia's most faithful folk. Many universes populate Buddhism, but the cosmogony of Tibetan Buddhism places Mount Kailash at the central axis of our universe, and represents a foundation for reality. If you want to find out more, I suggest you read Waddell's "Tibetan Buddhism." Although dated and considered somewhat blurry and assimilative, the Waddell book still nevertheless offers an interesting and very detailed study. Kailash Mountain may be described as the intersection of Bon, Buddhism, Hinduism and Jain religion. The Bons tell that their founding master arrived to teach at Kailash before Buddhism was established; historians explain that the Bonpo sky goddess, Sipaimen, made her home here. Milarepa, the pioneering Buddhist, did visit Kailash and Buddhists believe that the mountain is home to Cakrasamvara, the Buddhist "wrathful" meditational deity who evokes the tantric mood of great compassion; Cakrasamvara is actually inspired by the Hindu pantheon, and the deity is said to be a transmuted form of Lord Shiva in union with his consort. Indeed, the Hindus have long held that Kailash Mountain is home to Shiva the Destroyer; Jains believe their saint, Rishaba, attained liberation here. |
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Several Indians are here now, on a pilgrimage to Kailash. They're middle class, even rich, and these Indians travel together with their impoverished countrymen, the long-haired, scantily clad Sadhus, many of whom once were ordinary Indian men from all walks of life. The Sadhus renounce all their worldly possessions, give up their family, and thus release themselves from all social responsibilities to explore a deep and enduring devotion to their faith, wandering India as penniless beggars, dressed in skimpy rags. It's curious to observe that nothing like this kind of behavior is tolerated in America or Europe, now is it? To all Indian Hindus, rich or poor, Kailash Mountain is known as the "Crown of Shiva." Shiva the Destroyer is perhaps the most important divinity in the Hindu hierarchy, with a typically ambivalent role to play... Hinduism always strikes me with its sophistication, as it combines extremely contrasting psychological traits, taking the form of "creative powers," within the self-same deity. Shiva is a perfect example of this imaginative daring. Curiously, the fantastic tenor of India's predominant faith has made the people unwittingly fatalistic, and they endure meekly beneath their cruel beliefs; even so, they can be a most compassionate people when they choose to be... |
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Back in the room, I finally dry out. The rain outside continues and foggy humidity permeates everything with claustrophobic cold. No light-bulb shines in our room. The Tibetan guy and gals next door in the police office keep busy making the noisiest long distance calls... |
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I've done with Collins's mystery novel. So, the Brit gives me a new novel to read by a much respected Scottish lout from a very deprived Glasgow neighborhood that his rich south English publishers probably will never condescend to visit. Water leaks from the storage room ceiling, and after one of the saucy American girl's mean double entendres about there being only one drip in the room I simply turn the other cheek, cheerfully stating that I'm a loser no longer, especially after having bought a Chinese jackknife in Kashgar, and how, while I usually lose knives, I did not lose this one; instead, I bent it on the first bottle cap I tried to open: so what else could I do but, "Throw it away!" The Brit has bedded a goofy ball-buster. He knows it, too. She admonishes him after I suggest sharing a beer. Momentarily, he loses his hard-won self-control, spitting under his breath, "It's a bitch!" Ha, ha - some guys will torture themselves to no end, so unnecessarily, just to keep their little dickies hard in a hole! |
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We go to bed. The storm interrupts everyone's sleep when the poor British chap discovers all his clothes have been soaked through and through... My stuff is stacked high up above the floor and I'm hoping it'll be safe. Morning comes and the unremitting cold makes me want to get out! The rain isn't going to stop and I don't mind missing mighty Mount Kailash. The friendly Korean says he heard of a ride. It's the China Post truck, but they won't take me because I have a bike! Fuck it! I stand there, everything ready, and watch the truck go off without me. Some rich Jap girl points her elephantine camera lens at me for a cheap shot. Then she gets into a jeep with her pet boy of the year and zips away. |
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I find a Tibetan trucker going east but he refuses me - I don't know why - even after I bring over the Tibetan chief of police to ask him nicely. The Brit and his broad want to do the Kora - a local term denoting a three-day walk round Kailash. I say good luck. The Brit looks at my bike and wonders why I haven't got a proper mountain bike. Again, everything about being here irks me. The whole world has gone sour and stupid with material snobbery: everybody else has a better camera, a better bike or a better idea than you do... Why can't we simply be good to each other and not worry about rating everything? I'm nuts with the crass insecurity people force on each other. Okay already - haven't I got anything good to say? Sure, the Brit is very witty in his own right, and often appears as innocently cut-up by his natural self as I or anybody. I'm tickled, too, by his mock annoyance at having "missed" the news on his short-wave radio. He really is the kind of fellow who always gives you the benefit of any doubt he might have about you. As for the American, she smiles, laughing off our discussions of drug availability across Asia. I feel very amused by these two lovebirds - so mutual about their "need" to protect one other from my stormy emotional sea... When a young Tibetan guy waltzed into our room last the evening, I promptly pushed him back out after realizing he had no reason to come inside but to snoop on us. Now, it's the Brit's turn to be amused, and he has a chance to tell me to cool it. |
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Darchen is gloomy and frigid. The police chief tells me it's unusually cold. I've had chills enough forevermore! So again, I go out searching for a ride. The Indian pilgrims travel en masse in a big Russian/Chinese bus. I join them, overloaded or not. They're done walking round Kailash and need only stroll about holy Lake Manasovar. Then they can truck back to the Indian border at Purang. The Chinese government gives out special travel permits and visas for Indian pilgrims to cross the border at Purang, a border kept closed to everybody else. |
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Twelve affluent Indians and twenty-plus Sadhus cram the bus for the journey to Hore, a village beside the great lake along the main road to central Tibet. We go at 9:00 A.M. The people are jubilant. I've never seen Sadhus before: they're quiet and barely speak, not even to each other. Wearing nothing but tattered rusty-colored loincloths, they appear oblivious to the cold. Many of them have very long hair. They are mostly old, only a few are young. Apparently, the Sadhus plan to walk round the icy lake - nearly naked - all night! |
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The Indian pilgrims near the front of the bus seem more familiar to me. I stand by the door, chatting. They play popular Hindi songs again and again on the stereo and carry on enthusiastic conversations. Their trip to Tibet is a once in a lifetime adventure. Low clouds veil us, and the path ahead is a mushy bog. We catch up with the China Post truck, deeply mired in a muddy rut. We have to stop and help, as do all the trucks. |
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Next comes a vaudeville act as the truckers attempt to unglue the heavy vehicle. Now is a good time to get acquainted with everyone... One of the middle class Indian fellows is voluble, offering some handfuls of popped lentils. Delicious. He's decided it's important to his spiritual well-being to be kind to everyone. He's sincere and that makes me feel humble and selfish at the same time... Of course, he's far far from his home in Mumbai, but the frenetic imprint of that messy cosmopolis clings to his personality, and explains why he babbles non-stop. |
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The Japanese and Korean were riding the Post truck and they join us. After months of travel, their faces wear that glassy-eyed and serene look of the willingly lost... It's as if they've realized how immaterial time really is, and they have finally forgotten how the world hurried them so often, before... |
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The general uprising to free the rooted truck entertains everyone. The ropes are tied to a heavy truck, which then attempts to drag the stuck one out. The ropes break, so they get another line. After an hour the truck is pulled free. During all this, the Mumbai sprite introduces all the other Indians. One fellow works for a daily newspaper. He's writing a travelogue about the pilgrimage. Each one of these people is a faithful Hindu, and so they adhere to a strict vegetarian diet. |
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Milton wasn't trapped by road freight & action description, was he? Nah, he scolded his kids to their anguished beds and then wrote for hours and hours, carefree as a jungle parrot, fully immersing himself in a scalding bible bath... Perfection in the literary arts is no longer pursued today as it was then: once - art, poetry and knowledge were one whole, good thing. Now we worship all the gods of spontaneity and people lose originality and creativity to their concepts of career. Everything is sliced up into practical purposes and short spans. Oh, we still strive for ingenuity. But to worship art is considered impossible now. The fatal sovereign: she's too demanding! The artist always pays too dearly to believe in her, and somewhat less if he play-acts at the obsession. |
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Indeed - I once earned a good wage by making fun of "professional" actors and musicians! How backwards the whole world is: we fine artists are put to sleep because nobody needs us. What's wanted now is a perfectly frothy cheesecake: the media "Personality," born to excuse the fantasies of millions of self-centered savants, each dopey one of us desirous to reach some ideal and stupidly impossible life. I'm only to create. Consider myself lucky. But for such audacity, I'm actually chased away - again and again! |
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Americans won't let you criticize anything about their pop culture. They call that being a downer! Whatever makes the most money is Culture from now on. You have no choice because you don't want to be left behind, do you? Originality can be a great sin. Having a "bad" attitude is a crime. The future fate of "artists" is preposterous: we plan to conduct formal proceedings against anyone of us who doesn't exhibit a "professional" attitude. We will cast out and belittle all those who weren't raised with proper social skills, decent kinship and born-in-the-city connections... Heaven is having the correct social formation! Hell, we're conducting many a trial based on personal social failure already - aren't we? Don't you dare live in a hotel and tote round a sack full of something expensive. But I do believe we should all drop that bullet before you stick it in a child's skull. How now brown cow? Anyone who doesn't solicit the approval of the very few senior and respected artists, and subsequently bow down to the patriarchy of the public grant, any such doomed solitary shall be classed as non-entity for deliberately "dropping out of sight." I am looked down on, for being passively pushed aside and "marginalized" instead of going out, proactively, to sell myself as a "great world teacher!" Social connections are and will continue to be worshipped like a new God, while all expressions of original art or of anger or feelings of ecstasy, of course, will be safely relegated to fantasy, religious and drug modes... I'm not serious, but if Oscar Wilde were alive today, he would be officially ignored, and wouldn't get a single booking for a public speech - not anywhere... Today, it would seem laughable to hear him suggest the quality of art is more important than the ease of its mass production and diffusion to large audiences. People today will condemn such a concept of good taste. The effort behind making an original art work is now "too difficult." The past, present and future of bad taste and mediocrity is, and will continue to be, the propagation of a whole lot of dull commercial genres of fiction, pop music, television and movies. The ubiquitous uniform! New faces! Everything internationally "the-same." Consume me honeybuns! Boy what a bastard I am and don't know nothing. Whatever, keep it safe and big enough to be called popular... And I don't care what you think about me for telling you that "popular art" is all snot for thick-wits and lazy Pharisees, pretending to sophistication, sold on the idea that "good" art must find a suitable market form. |
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But as for perfection and art!? Have you ever noticed how the finest works of art denote the unity of personal insight with the expression of a greater truth..? The true artist is guilty of nothing but being himself! Herself! I'm not you: I am not trying to present myself as something you will want to consume! But you wonder: is that excuse any better for being a loser? If you're a popular hack writing the same bad horror novel over and over again, then just forgive yourself. You're only your limited self. Genius or not doesn't matter... Why not? Because people are everywhere only themselves: born with dreams... I'm not so intolerant as you think... I only feel doomed to silence, that's the worst of it. This is the meagre misery about being born a poet. In the end, I really don't care at all how you make your living... |
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...I chat with the lady sitting right behind me on the bouncing bus. She's from the south of India, Karnatak state. Let's call her "Hush." That's not her real name. She was a teacher of English literature at a college. She says that she gave up a plum job quite recently, explaining that she was fed up with the official bureaucracy and all the insidious systemic corruption. She says that it's difficult for women to get ahead in India. The society remains very traditional and men dominate everything. |
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Our drive is briefly interrupted as we arrive at Barka checkpoint. The Chinese soldiers make a handful of local Tibetans get off the bus - so they can count all the foreigners. Apparently, they have to compare the tour prospectus with the number actually onboard. Someone explains to the police that the richer Indian tourists invited the Sadhus to come along for a ride. |
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Barka. What a place! Suspicious-looking soldiers all over the checkpoint! The Chinese are control freaks. No wonder the Tibetans are so antsy! Of course, there's no telling what lack of an education can do for your resignation quotient. But don't misunderstand me, while the Tibetans are often an outwardly pacific people, they have a language and mind all their own - neither of which are much understood by the Chinese... Finally, after forty minutes, the soldiers let us go. |
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On the bus, I talk with Hush a little longer. She tells me about her wish to do something original and creative, and about being a writer of fiction herself: she dreams about starting a course in creative writing. I think she has a great idea, and I volunteer my services, ahead of my own plan, a veritable Flammonde. The Hush shows her passport to me. The cover depicts an image of the Hindu Wheel of Life, and there's a motto coined by Gandhi... But today's India is ruled by selfish, mean little men. There aren't any more Gandhi's, I'm afraid. Only megalomaniacs and their stale H-bombs! |
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The bus rolls to Lake Manasovar, one of twin lakes, both very massive, emblems for the sun and the moon. At last we unload beside a basic hotel at Hore. For three weeks of ugly cement cells, no food, metal cots and vintage busses, the Chinese tourist agency dings the Indians for a fabulous 500 U.S. dollars each. Wow, God is expensive these days! But they don't care! This really is Kailash, Tibet - the crown and bathhouse of mighty Shiva! |
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I persuade the elderly Tibetan lady proprietor to give me a room for 20 yuan a day. So you see the irony: while the Indians are five to a room for 500 U.S. each for three weeks, my 20 yuan is only $2.50. Three weeks of my tour equals 42 dollars plus one bus fare of three dollars and maybe 30 more for food. A Tibetan guide works for the Indians. I'm embarrassed now, because he's the same nice kid I pushed out the door last night! But he's forgiving and forgetting, really a very nice boy who speaks some English. He can share my room. That's fine. He comes in after I finish doing my laundry for a nap. He has on a sharp cowboy hat and looks so handsome. He's so calm, silent and collected - quite a contrast to the nervous Chinese and flighty Indians. He even knows how to take a nap while I smoke and read. |
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It's so pleasant to laze around instead of breaking my balls on a bike all day. The chill weather fuels my appetite for reading. What else can I do but resign myself to success, solitude and the blessing of eternal anonymity? |
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Dinner time and the guide disappears to eat with his "sister." Hush comes over to chat. We exchange personal details about why we all came here. She's wishing for another life. She's bored and that's why she's on this pilgrimage. Her father, whom she says I should meet, encouraged her to travel. But all her friends at the college thought she was a banana for quitting... She's proud and happy to do something for herself, which is not allowed for Indian women. |
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I'm sure the moment would last longer, but for Hush's unwitting concern that others in her tour will know she's talking to me, and which suffices to convince her that they'll gossip. She doesn't really care, but wants to preserve the social forms simply for the sake of getting along - much as many of us pretend to be sane, even after we can't possibly be any longer. |
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Hush is lovable, that's the first thing. Two minds embrace. She absorbs my confidence and penetrates my protective subconscious distance instantly. She's a whole woman. But I'm a motherfucker. Yes, and that's what she wants: to flaunt and hold the man whom she isn't supposed to have. |
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I'm a man - because I'm by myself and belong nowhere... Some foolish women are attracted to my kind, strange though they are... They're often beautiful, too. I'm lucky... In keeping with her character, she gives me 300 yuan after I explain how the Nomads have robbed me. I promise to mail her cash when I return to Taiwan. Is this her pilgrimage spirit? Must we do penance for the lonesome bed we moderns have made? |
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No electricity here, so I light my candles as Hush goes. That energetic angel of Mumbai drops in to invite me to dinner. My pleasure, and I do feel privileged. Rice and lentils done with curry are basically very tasty. |
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Night brings heavy rain and the concrete floor in my room becomes a small pond, somebody having removed the stovepipe in the ceiling some time ago... I think the little old lady put me in here, hoping it would rain. I don't care at all. My only problem is inability to forget my past. But I'll never achieve enlightenment in the Buddhist sense - even though I do remember too much. I'm not vain enough to believe an occasional second sight qualifies me... Curiously, this familiar mood of disillusionment resembles deja vu. Heedless of the water splashing through the roof, I sleep. I'm awakened before dawn by voices. The Indian pilgrims have assembled in the courtyard, and they mount ponies for a walk round Manasovar. It's 5:00 A.M. |
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The men ride ponies and the women walk. That's the Indian way. I suppose the men want to feel like tough guys. But the ladies get to be the ones who get to be tired and live longer... Their Tibetan guide is roused by his sister and slips out in a moment. The night may linger for two hours yet. I don't want to go out there! I snuggle the heavy duvet and pray for sleep. None is left, a futile wish for a different life. Dreamer I remain, today, tomorrow: unrepentant. |
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But I get up and outside: there she is again, the young woman, aging on the doorstep of her unbroken hope. What am I? A ghost to keep company with all unlikely things. Rustics like me always play at being wise. What's she thinking, with her forgiving, whimsical look? Yesterday, in less than thirty minutes, we spoke of family and love. A strange conversation - so brief - so intimate! No two individuals are perfectly matched for each other - that was my pith, sensing her wishful lust... Yes, I've a woman at home, I said, and sometimes I wonder why I'm with her, because I wished we could talk more about life. She's young, my woman at home. I know other women with whom I can speak easily on any subject. The young one, my lover, is the companion of my forgetfulness. But how can I last long enough for her? When will she realize that she was fulfilling her wish to be loved, as she granted my wish to forget? |
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I'm always a lie. My love isn't enough. I'll be too true to join the other one... I feel indifferent to my destiny, even to the love I owe my lovers - yes. Women always expect you to get to know them, hope that you can cherish and love them so much... Well it takes time to get to know you, baby... I do love my woman, but I want all women... I want to fuck, suck and duck. The unknown, lusty woman is more exciting than my old faithfulness... I don't mind falling in love with any girl, in the knowing way that happens to sensitive souls. I love the one I'm with, and I want more. So why not? I want new girls to eat them all up wet. You don't have to worry about taking advantage of those who want it, sap - not unless you already view human relations in mistaken terms of usury, theft and corruption. Free love is pure joy to those who need it. If you don't want it - stay away. If you need more honey - come and fuck... |
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Hush drinks up my explanation of human imperfection versus ideal love. She needs to believe in life again, perhaps in the faith with which she began. Her husband wasn't the choice of her intellect, either. It was a comfortable choice - the safe one. Such honesty and openness with a stranger is rare, isn't it? How can two people know each other merely by wanting to know each other? She smiles for my memory, looks closely at me. If the other travellers weren't with us, we could have gone to bed - easily... I want more women like her. |
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5:00 A.M. takes her away. I'm not able to sleep. I pick up the novel. Real life, told in a satirical vein. The Scottish have truly mastered mockery, and can deflate self-interest and communicate sense with a slight lift of their prominent chins. Yet, where do they get energy sufficient to keep it up, after all the hard labor, pissing on each other's shoes? His book actually makes me laugh aloud. |
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The sun rises without me and brings little light. I look out and scurry back to my warm blankets. I read till 11:00 A.M., when I get up quickly to pack all my belongings. Outside I circle puddles to the main street. How empty and quiet everything is. A big white tent. A Tibetan couple sells needs; but their stock is inadequate for my spoiled eyes. Where's the fruit and vegetables? How about a tin of tuna? Here, there's nothing but noodles, biscuits and beer. They haven't even got wieners and someone has eaten up the ham. |
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Two land-cruisers and a big freight truck are pulling in as I approach. Like us, they're a tour group, risking the southern route to central Tibet. |
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Someone gruffly says, "Ehey!" I turn and say hi to an olive-skinned European. He eyes me with a faint, distant hostility, as if I'm here to steal something from him... I inquire about the transport anyway. Yes, he says, they're heading to Lhasa. Can I come along? He says maybe - maybe not. Better ask the driver. |
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The driver says no - at first. But I press others in the group to help me get on with it. Who are these guys? English speaking Nepalis! Actually, all of them are Sherpas, on the job leading a pilgrimage for some well-to-do Indians and friends of the family. The group is returning to India, overland through Saga, on to Kathmandu. |
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The Nepali group leader get permission from the Tibetan driver on my behalf. It strikes me as odd, to think that I was possessed, unconsciously, to walk out to the road at 11:00 A.M., just as they arrived... Very little traffic comes this way. One of the Indians, an old lady, wants my photo before. I remember to smile. Then the pilgrims blaze off eastward, ahead of the cargo truck, in land-cruisers. |
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Bike and I clamber into the back of the freight truck with the dark European and the Nepali guys. It's comfortable, in a way: the crews' duffel bags supply some cushioning. The truck ride is bumpier than cycling. Happy to move more rapidly than a snail. One of their number, Tsering, a Nepali man of 23, speaks especially good English and talks about how tough it is to be a tour guide for these finicky old Indians... While doing the hike round Kailash Tsering had to carry four of the heaviest tourists across a stream and then retrieve a wooden box full of oxygen cylinders. He explains how easy it is to get angry when people treat you like an ox. Too young and proud to know self-control. Really clever, though. The gift of quick humor is his. |
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It's too noisy to talk in the truck. The Nepali guides go to sleep... Another person rides with us. She's on the verge of thirty, dolled up in traditional Tibetan garb. She's a trifle full-bodied, but her curves are smooth and she would look sweetly plump if you could unwrap her from all that fabric. She wears enormous orange and blue stone ornaments in her hair. |
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Dusk slips by the truck like a quiet giant. A gigantic glittering blue platter floats - a lake points back in the direction from which we came. A patch of grass. The crew jumps out to unload supplies and put up tents. I do the same thing. |
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The brusque European guy is in fact Portuguese and Belgian both. His name is Miguel and he's a most unusual number. He seems reluctant to clamber off the truck after it stops, as if expecting we'd drive all night. He doesn't have any tent. He must sleep on the "dining room" floor after everyone is finished eating. He travels, apparently, because he can't stand going home. He's often blunt, and his attempts at humor are usually rude, too. But I'm a happy idiot, always friendly to anyone with whom I have no choice but to do time. |
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Tsering invites me to eat after the Indians retire for the night. We talk and drink some very hot soup. I meet the organizer of the tour, a young woman from Mumbai. Her name is Haaren and she's a gentle, bright flame. She's already earned a master's degree in English literature. Such literate people, these Indians! I'm chattering and boring her for sure. The Nepali potato gumbo really is a delicious treat. The crew is happy to have us since we foreigners break their monotony. |
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Haaren and the Nepali group leader, also called Mr. Sherpa, discuss how to pay for the gas. There's a debate about one Indian gentlemen; he's suffering from a cold and very anxious to get down to a reasonable altitude, having convinced himself that he'll choke to death if he doesn't. The poor man must endure sickness and panic for two more weeks! |
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Tsering speaks about his favorite singer, Jim Morrison. He was a wonderful singer, I agree. I tell Tsering that I don't have any of his CDs, since I would listen to them too often if I did, and it would make me more negative... Miguel sits silently in the corner and does not talk with anyone, except to ask for more food. |
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I find deep sleep on a warm tummy. Then we break the day before it can break us. The truck speeds up the Mayum La. The theory is to go early, well before noon, and so suffer less chance of getting stuck in the mossy hummocks over the pass. Snow falls blindingly behind. Two tracks and white powder trace all the long way down... |
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The Mayum La is over 5300 metres high. On top, we pause to refuel one of the land-cruisers. Then, both cruisers leave us to lag behind in the bouncy freighter. We descend into a pleasant valley beside a rollicking blue stream. A tiara of snow wreathes the greenish tinge upon the stiff grass and hard moss, still trying to grow. |
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We pass another cluster of yurts. During summer Nomad folks prefer spots exactly like this, just below a pass, in a valley protected from strong winds, mere metres below the snowline. Bonk! The truck hits a deep groove cut through the road. The back end jumps off the ground. After slamming down, the right side of the truck slumps. We skitter to a sudden halt. A flat tire? |
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Much worse - the bump snapped our axle. It's very serious: we're stranded, just like that, less than twenty-four hours out. You have to expect minor disasters in a place like Tibet. It's a disappointment. The driver walks away, in the direction of the Nomad yurts. |
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Nothing to do, so I bring my camera and cross the meadow, a lovely place to camp. A creek flows right through. The Nomads are up. I snap family portraits... The families are smiling. I think they're used to tourists, placed as they are, near the road. They regard me as much of a novelty, something of a dirty old lecherous fake... Or a handsome prince. I don't care which. They're shy, but grin easy. I give the small children some sugar candy. |
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I walk over to the next tent, a big one. The family comes outside to say hello. Two young sisters pose patiently as I get close-ups. Real cuties. What good luck to break down here. I give the girls five yuan each. The girls hide their smiles, running back inside the yurt... |
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I follow the truck driver over to yurt # three. The driver, his pal and the big Tibetan jewelry girl. I join them as they confer inside the yurt, speaking to the family elder, a man of more than sixty, and with grey hair. He pulls open a box and wants to give everyone some wool socks. Two young women attend us. They are the eldest daughters, or perhaps one of them is the young wife of the old man's son. Together, they prepare our lunch, a bowl of fresh rice topped with a dollop of fresh yogurt - the best I've ever tasted. I sit quietly as the trucker and old man speak Tibetan. Only a few words of Chinese creep in. Sometimes the young people cast amazed, even friendly glances my way. Soon lunch is over and I'm polite, and give the old man 5 yuan for the privilege of dining. |
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Noon passes and sunlight burns through the clouds. The Nepalese crew unpacks some soggy sleeping bags and relaxes on the ground. The cook prepares some tasty gumbo for everyone. The temperature rises to 20 degrees as the sun creeps through the misty clouds. The creek appeals to Tsering who takes a bath. I copy his example. But my timing is off. As I doff my clothes, a big group of Nomads moseys by, walking their yaks. The young ladies titter and stare at my naked body as I attempt to dip in the icy stream. It's chill, but I wash my hair twice; it feels so good getting clean that I don't mind the cold. In a few more hours, the Nepali cook offers us a second luncheon of vegetable stew. We couldn't wish for a better situation - stranded so near to fresh water, with a truck full of food. |
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All day, only two trucks pass the way we came. Maybe they can alert someone in Darchen about us. The driver works all afternoon to take apart the broken axle. I put up my tent an hour before dusk. |
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Next morning brings nobody to help us! We don't have a spare axle to replace the broken one. The driver is discouraged and doesn't seem too enthusiastic about his repairs. He can never earn enough money to care, I suppose. Please note that Western tourists love to gripe about "how lazy" people seem in poor Asia... But how many of us actually bother to connect facts with figures? A running shoe company pays 400 million dollars to outfit one team of footballers; but the same bastardly company pays their factory slaves next to nothing to assemble the goods! Nobody in Britain is likely to know that. A Nepali guide earns 300 yuan, about 36 U.S. dollars, for one month's work. They do their jobs well, too. |
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Late in the afternoon another tour group comes from Kailash. Miraculously, they get a spare axle. Dinner comes and the cook works magic again. The Indians who left us behind won't be back because their land-cruisers do not have sufficient gas: we have all their fuel, in big drums. The cruisers have only enough fuel to reach Saga town where they will have to wait for us to catch up. Several attempts are made to dislodge the broken axle, but hammering the shaft is futile. |
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We go to bed early. Miguel sleeps outside on the grass. The morning is cool and overcast. Everyone gets up and takes a turn on the jammed axle. Nothing works. So, we wait. We lounge on the grass and eat three more meals. No trucks all day! Such a deserted place. |
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I should portray each person in our troupe, but I don't know them very well. Our leader, Haaren, has left us behind; of course, she's accompanied the tourists in the cruisers. I've spoken to Miguel and Tsering. The others are silent mysteries. The young Tibetan woman shows her personality although I can't understand a word she says; eating lunch, she takes up as much extra space as she can. Well, she's big and loves to spread out easy. Tsering explains that she comes from Lhasa and travels round Tibet selling jewelry at popular spots like Darchen. She's a real entrepreneur. She shows photos of herself taken with her sister: the photo shows a backdrop of painted-on countryside, much like old country photos of your long-dead great grandad. I like that dated quality. She's playful and doesn't get too angry as we call her a pig for taking up so much space. She just slaps our thighs and claims the uncut gemstones in her hair are worth thousands and thousands of quai. Tsering seems to believe her. She's like a girl. Maybe afraid of losing her youth. Maybe she was married, but isn't anymore. She looks more than alone - she looks abandoned. Ah, but that's my imagination. She's just being free. I'm trying for a really hungry woman, that's all. |
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The old ways of Tibet show themselves now and again: many women tend towards polygamy: I've seen it three times now, this Tibetan flirting, the open offering of women, by the men, and by the women themselves... Nature makes women give up their bodies. I get the impression Tibetan men are more alone than in other places. Maybe they all understand how a man needs a woman sometimes... So their friends say, "Okay, she's yours tonight..." I wonder, do men know how women need a man sometimes, too? |
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We're getting worried. Over 24 hours of nothing. The driver has given up the axle for dead. We have supplies enough for two weeks at least. So we can't starve. I picture the Indian tourists, fretting in Saga, without their truck full of food. The servants and hitchers get the feast instead! |
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At last, a freighter arrives at 5:00 P.M. - going the right way. The driving resemble off-duty Chinese soldiers, and their truck is auspiciously empty. They offer to haul us to Saga for 1000 yuan. We bargain, offering 500 now, 500 when we get there. |
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You don't know who gets to pay, do you? Me. The Nepalis claim to be penniless, reminding me that boss Haaren - who has all the money - isn't with us. Miguel has 200 yuan left... I have 800. I'll have only 300 left at Saga. Then what? We still need to reach Zhigatse, still some 500 kilometres beyond Saga. I feel sorry for everyone. Don't want to leave them behind. If the Nepalis are pretending not to have money, I won't really know. So what - we go. I pay the 500. Everything from the broken truck goes into the new one. |
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We're in for a cold, rainy night of bumpy driving. The tarp leaks overhead. I use my tent to keep warm and dry. This is boring. Okay, change the subject: I bet you don't know why Marie Antoinette said, "Let them eat cake..." Did you ever wonder about that one? She's sitting there, waiting, still in her finery, among her flowers and silks and cushions. Then the rebels arrive and she finds herself taken away, alone, and thrust into a dank, cold cell. She suffers the pain of suspense, having a fairly good inkling the people have gone crazy. She can't believe, but she knows, with a biting pang, that this is probably the end. Yet, she doesn't want it to end. She's proud, like any queen. She's an exile, like so many princesses of Europe, married to some stranger, obliged to cart herself off to a foreign land and live among people she doesn't even know. Time and again royal youngsters were forced by parents to represent an alliance with untrustworthy neighbors. Indeed, royal marriage frequently landed privileged innocents among the same folks whom they were taught to dislike since childhood. Royalty has always suffered the strangest of fates... See the woman Marie: mad, spoiled, terrified - waiting in her lonely cell. When someone comes to get her and at last she utters her final words - one wonders - how does she speak them? "...Let them eat cake..." With which tone does she inflect her meaning? Is she outraged? Is she in a daze of distracted disbelief? It appears evident that she is at least sardonic on the surface of it; but it's hard to imagine any woman managing more than a whisper, even if she does know that the peasants of France are as poor, and at least as stupid as herself. She thinks that they want a treat, and they do! Witnessing her death is the just desserts they expect. Her mortality is their only booty, like a little holiday at the end of a weary year! It's the only thrill that they'll ever win back from the thieving rich! So let them - why not after all, they'll always be beastly poor - so, let them have their treat... Is that how she felt and spoke? Probably. We can only speculate about the precise color of her last mood. Did she hate the oppressed people at that moment - as angry vindictiveness overcame her fear? Maybe she uttered her words weakly and meekly, a whisper of self-pity and mortal anguish, accepting her irrevocable destiny: to die in front of the slavering, crude masses, everything ugly, at last, helplessly terrified upon the blood-drenched chopping block... |
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Let the day break again, darling. I still wait to stretch my bones and stand up straight like a man again. The Chinese drivers rest for only three hours, then we enter some warm, cultivated valleys. The presence of people is much more obvious here, with houses and villages instead of yurts. |
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Saga arrives. Ten in the morning. We walk into a muddle that almost deteriorates into an angry confrontation. Haaren, the guide, and all the Indian tourists wait for us at the local Tibetan hotel. Immediately, the off-duty Chinese soldier driving the truck demands the balance of payments; but nobody has the money to pay, not even Miss K, or her partner, Tuhbten. All the drivers remain civil. Some painfully slow negotiations ensue. I'm tired of this: being surrounded by people who have unnecessary power over my happiness! I want to get away... I wish my bike wasn't all busted up. |
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The scene becomes chaotic as the Indian tourists skirmish briefly with Tsering; he's too wild to exercise proper tact... The Indians claim they have no extra cash for this transport emergency; in fact, they're not obliged to pay any extra costs since they signed a contract stating just that. Naturally, they see no reason to pay more now... Somehow, I mediate and help restore everyone's nerves. |
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I'm on nobody's side. But I wonder how come the tour company is disorganized enough not to have sufficient petty cash to meet emergency expenses. Who can blame the weary tourists after all? Haaren's Indian company subcontracted both the Nepali company and a Lhasa based travel agent for the trucks, land-cruisers and drivers. Tuhbten is one of the driver/guides from Lhasa. In theory, Tuhbten's boss would be responsible for added expenses if trucks break down en route... But apparently Tuhbten doesn't have any cash left over. The Nepalese guides told me that he should have extra money, but that was before we found out Tuhbten had gambled his money away while waiting for us to catch up... With or without Tuhbten, Haaren is going to have a hard time scratching enough to pay them off. |
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Haaren offers the Tibetan hotelier some American dollars for his rooms, but the man doesn't want any foreign cash! Everywhere around the world people are happy to get cash American dollars! Is this man stupid or afraid of the police? Can't he trust a friend to bring back the right exchange? |
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Certain patterns of ethos are beginning to emerge, and they appear deeply embedded in the Tibetan character... While some Tibetans are curious and friendly with strangers, not all of them are. In fact, many Tibetans are not at all forthcoming. The real challenge is to discern the cause of this Tibetan shyness. Many of us assume that the Tibetan people are largely frustrated with the imposition of Chinese controls, controls that make them reticent, seemingly because they fear running foul with the authorities. But in a way Tibetans are suspicious of all foreigners, in part perhaps because none of us have really come here to help liberate their country... Basically, most Westerners give money to Chinese travel companies. The less obvious reason for their reticence actually shows you the original character of all Tibetans... While China is responsible for "opening" Tibet to the outside world, it's clear that some Tibetans would prefer no foreigners in their country at all. Tibetan truckers often hesitate to give rides to foreigners. But Chinese truckers often give rides. I suspect that the Tibetans refuse, not so much because the authorities forbid them from transporting us, but because they wish strangers weren't in their country in the first place... |
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Somehow Tuhbten has promised the Chinese truckers further payments. Miguel and I retrieve all our belongings and we retreat to a quiet lunch in a restaurant. Now, we don't have to hurry. We have 500 yuan between us, enough to reach Zhigatse, if we get a ride. |
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What is Saga? It's a homely old town, and it reveals the juxtaposition of Chinese governors among Tibet's natives. Except for military bases and public buildings, the town appears traditional, in the style of Tibetan timber, brick and white-washed plaster. Our hotel is very quaint, I think. It has big black plaster window frames and brilliant red, green and yellow paint on the ceiling beams and walls. I wash my clothes while Miguel sleeps. The Tibetan ladies tell me to use less water. I smile at them but keep washing... |
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We eat and rest. The Indians have gone. No trucks travel east today. Miguel relates stories about a gangster with whom he chummed while travelling Russia. Then he talks about needing money, but how he never spends a penny. Money is the impossible idol of all people; it's the same narrow and aggravating obsession, as much as for those with it already, as for those who still hope to get more. How dull this world really is! |
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In the morning, after a Chinese breakfast of steamed meat buns, we sit by the road and wait. Some local soldiers blast back and forth in jeeps. Meanwhile, a big truck unloads a whole bunch of soda pop. Two land-cruisers come in, full of aging Tibetans. They are cadres, judging by the Mao picture dangling from the rearview mirror. They don't even notice us. |
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I read and drink cola. Miguel talks to some kids by the road. It's the only time he seems cheerful. A ten year-old offers me a cigarette and he knows how to light matches better than I. Hungry for some noodles, I walk back to town. Moments later Miguel runs up, gesticulating and shouting! The soda pop truck is willing to take us. One of the drivers is Chinese and his partner, a Tibetan. They don't mind. I sit in back, on the packs - for fresh air and sun! |
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Movement. But travel in Tibet isn't so easy. You may get going, but that's small reason to assume you'll keep going. Our first problem is a huge pile of shit by the road: road-building sand, good for nothing, but our driver wants weight in back of his johnny. Maybe he thinks someone will want to buy it later... I don't know, I don't care. So, the driver picks up a few Tibetans from a depot a few kilometres away and drives back to the pile of shit. Then Miguel and I help the Tibetan slaves shovel it! It's grey - horrible, wet clay... The rain starts again and the mean Chinese truck driver forces the poor, chilled and soaking wet Tibetans to keep working. He doesn't care about anything! Three hours later, we drive the cold slaves back to the depot and leave. |
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The drivers chain-smoke and intend to drive all night. We climb a high pass. At 11:00 P.M. we're blocked by a stuck truck near the mountain-top. It's freezing up here! We light a candle, eat some biscuits and that's dinner. Our drivers munch on apples and drink cola. We sit up and sleep on our knees. My journal captures it: |
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"Such an everyday occurrence, that the fellows driving our own truck displayed no surprise or agitation. The night cold gripped our limbs... The driver was immediately asleep, but he kept making strangely loud, ahhhing noises with his every breath. Mo-guay Miguel was pretty irritated by this racket and kept whacking at the insensible guy every so often." |
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By the time daybreak comes, several trucks are lined up behind. Fifteen trucks wait for the stuck men to act. 300 years later, a lengthy process will commence: first, the truckers unload all the goods from the stuck truck. Then they use another truck to pull. We waited six hours - I'd rather be on my bike! We've driven 130 kilometres in 24 hours, averaging a whopping 5 kilometres an hour. I never want to ride in a truck again! Soon, we find ourselves behind a land cruiser deeply sunk in the mud. We're good Samaritans and try to pull him out with a rope, but we only snap off his hitch, like trying to pull an elephant's tooth with a pair of tweezers. |
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Creeping behind another convoy, we wait to traverse a muddy stretch beside a river. I wash and shave. Some truckers come to collect 10 yuan for paying the rope-pullers. A hundred trucks and more wait on both sides of the muck. We wait a few hours for our turn, but not without getting mired. I join the rope-pullers to make tug of war. |
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Then we wait behind another truck, his drive shaft broken. At last he changes his transaxle. It's a lovely long stretch into a spectacular valley of most unearthly natural beauty embedded between golden peaks. A most magnificent rainbow blossoms overhead. Beyond lies Samsang village. |
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We arrive and the drivers let us off at a Chinese restaurant. The spinach and Sichuan fried pork comes. At last, a feast. We eat and observe a table full of Chinese soldiers chatting next us. They're full of unintelligible gossip. Miguel and I talk over the Dalai Lama, about the fact he's still living in India and can't come home. I suggest maybe it's his own fault: if a leader is born to lead his people, he ought to do it at home. Miguel has no particular opinion. Of course, it's impossible for the Dalai Lama to go home. But all this waiting for China to grow up is futile. The Chinese will wank empire for some time yet, and the Dalai Lama fears persecution... Everyone knows how many innocent local people have landed in Tibetan jails for crimes as great as watching videos of the Dalai Lama. |
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Someone told me that the Dalai Lama has said that there won't be anymore reincarnations of himself after he's gone. Maybe the Dalai Lama pities himself too much. Maybe he doesn't feel like a Dalai Lama anymore. Maybe he doesn't want to appear naive - I don't know. Well, the truth is, as long ago as 1969, he offered to stand down as official leader of Tibet if a free democracy could be established in Tibet. I won't pretend to understand the oriental mentality, and I never will. But change - both forced and natural - comes to all societies. The problem of Asia seems to be intransigence, a great gulf between rich and poor - and ongoing habits of repressive corruption and double standards. Chinese women are especially passive and unimaginative: everyone of them has a dream as predictably identical as the next... You gotta want babies if you want a blow job, boys. And if you want to pick up the bar/disco girl, you have to a pot-bellied American businessman with bucks, or a young gun who's so tough and insensitive that only a mean cunt would want to sleep with him anyway! Believe me - it is much easier to get laid in Thailand boys - if you aren't afraid of contracting AIDS, I guess; so, don't waste your time with the babes of Taiwan - they're already too programmed... Very little gets past the requirements of these dull, unquestioned social extremes... Prerequisite roles - yes. Much inflexible political noise - yes. Patriarchal economic dominance - yes. People haven't a clue what living freely might be. The great thing about Taiwan - perhaps because of the rigid social stratification - is the wonderful new prosperity: nobody is starving, everyone has a home, a bike, a car - but nobody's going for a walk on the beach, either. It's so crowded - people just need more space to bloom. In fact, I've concluded that a lot of Asians prefer to be prisoners, since it's easier than acting, doing and thinking for yourself... There are so many instances of how the ruling class offers little respect for the concept of freedom and equality. It's okay for the rich old man to have three wives and two mistresses, but not the middle class sucker; he has to be faithful - or wait for a divorce. Every time they pass a labor law in Taiwan it makes no sense at all. Last year the few rich men and women of Taiwan - those privileged bums who get to be government representatives - they passed a labor law stating that everyone would be entitled to Saturday off, but only if you had a government job; the law is in no way binding upon the entire spectrum of workers in society because it allows for a clause to let individual companies decide whether or not to give their people Saturday off. All of this futile, weak law-making amounts to so much window-dressing - to make Taiwan appear as if it were progressive. But the ruling class is most of all concerned with making itself comfortable first. In Taiwan, government representatives earn at least 7 times as much salary as do parliamentarians in Canada. Judging by the actual divisions of wealth and labor across Asia - and how they are maintained by might, right and theft - everyone seems taught to fear freedom and condemn social equality. Of course, some will argue the chaotic organization of the social estate permits some measure of freedom, if you are willing to work illegally - under the table... Maybe you can do that in Canada as well. The Chinese are more industrious than most North Americans. But perhaps they work hard out of fear and not really greed at all... Anyway, it's quite difficult to find anyone in a Taiwan company who dares hold any opinion different from their big boss. Thought lags behind authority. |
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As we finish eating, the waitress lets us know the sum total of our dinner, and it's twice what Miguel expected it to be. We must pay. I was hungry. It was really fresh food. I want to get out of here! But Miguel refuses to believe and wants to bicker over the price. This blows my fuse and it's comical. Miguel really is the cheapest guy in the universe, and he's silently proud of it. I know the going rate for fried pork is 15 or 20, not five or ten. So, I get angry and tell him not to be such a cheap bastard and pay up. Finally, he coughs up the extra cash. But it feels like he did this so he could enjoy being able to make me get mad... |
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We find the drivers at a Tibetan roadhouse. I go for a walk around Samsang. Obviously, it was once a Nomad camp and then somebody decided to throw up a few houses until a street evolved. Everything is spaced out: there are only a couple of stores. The biggest and newest public building is all shut up. The Tibetans here look itinerant and very poor, and they have an idle way of wandering the streets, doing nothing. |
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I walk on and see one of the most beautiful woman I have ever seen in my life. There are two women together - both wearing tribal garb. I return their coy but bold smiles... It's too dusky now to take a photo. What's her name, and where does she live? She's at least eighteen. Then bye-bye and I buy some sweets. The old store-keeper grins. In another shop, I find some cookies and army ration biscuits. The Tibetan people seem seriously sad, and yet, hopeful. They can grin at their predicament sometimes. They most of them have some food to eat. Yet, what a protracted sorrow! How silently they endure solitude. How they must conceal their secret feelings of oppression. |
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Being here among these people - it feels like I'll never be able to keep a promise ever again... To confute our real with our declared aims - that's the last failing and frustration of civilized man! Ah, but no more thought - it's time to go, to forget... We drive past the night and find an empty hotel. |
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I'm not cynical in daily life. I don't complain or criticize people just because my old man did. All right - that's a lie. When I do feel sorry for myself, I become horribly judgmental, even avariciously so... Actually, now I'm almost slow enough to behave like a gentle and caring person, when I'm not lost in a daze... |
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Once, I was walking in Peitou, Taiwan. A car whizzed past a scooter and struck the man riding it. He slid across the pavement on his ass. I was walking by, so I ran over to see if was okay. Nobody else did... Cars swerved right round the poor guy without stopping and they didn't slow down - not even a little! All the bystanders stuck to their sidewalks. For me, it was quite a natural emotion to run out and help, to feel for that pain. So, I knelt down, trying to comfort the poor guy. Compassion is easy enough. Everybody else nearby just stood and stared: the old men on the sidewalk looked as dumb as donkeys. The poor guy only needed someone to tell him that he'd be okay... |
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We only lose compassion, and conscience is liable to grow faint, the longer we do time and suffer the routine. Usually we dwell in a feeling of unimportant obscurity, that evil careless feeling that lulls us to sleep because we pretend it doesn't matter what we do, since after all, we assume things are bound to remain the same anyway. We like to imagine that life puts us in our place too often, or we imagine that it does, because we need to feel sorry for ourselves and make excuses. Belief in talent may be a good motive, but only if you really have talent... |
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...It's obvious that you must act before you can achieve a refreshed mentality. The conscience that is "supposed" to be imbued within us is also believed to arise from a higher moral dimension derived from experience and the accumulated wisdom of ageless sages. Many Western philosophers have concluded that conscience is realized like a natural fact; it's supposed to be like a pre-existing ratio that imbues reality with truths to which we are all sensitive. According to this world view, we're prone to be inspired with moral wisdom. We are subject to enlightenment if we make our spirit available, isn't that correct? Conscience really is the first thing we need to achieve a self-satisfied, civilized air. In recent times, it's the fashion to critique morality as mere custom and dogma. Yet, the philosophers who said such things only did so in the hope that they might reactivate a chance to think for themselves - and so understand how genuine moral "truths" were inspired - as if they feared the vacuum... |
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Today, I feel like performing an autopsy on consciousness. First observe: we live without conscience. Yet, for many good reasons! We have excellent excuses for everything wrong that we do, whether by accident or design. Why? Because we believe we can do no wrong. It is in the nature of the human ratio that we must believe in ourselves no matter what we do. With a view to better ourselves, we always downplay questions about the effects of our personal actions on other people. (This kind of reasoning explains the great success of military and mercantile culture, which excuses wrongs with ratios so simple as appetite, order, control, growth - ends unto themselves; a corporate or military entity is able to depersonalize the consequences of its action: truly - a narrow obsession for gain and power may entirely displace the moral faculty.) |
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In our time, the evasion of guilt becomes a sign of the highest sophistication and has long been preached by the most respectable of psychiatrists. We have earned our freedom - so why let the past overwhelm us with "outdated" precepts? We're such tricky people! We know how to keep ahead of ourselves. We know how to forbid critical reasoning, too... What's left over? Pretence to care. Adherence to hypocritical social critiques (you own an SUV but you are concerned about global warming, etc). The underlying disquiet of our better wisdom produces cynical skepticism: really, all we need are a few suave euphemisms, and we're free... |
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Well, we certainly do pay each other generously not to ask, much less try to answer, big questions. Comfortable solutions are sought and we deny all possibility of self-delusion. Evasion of identity is now equivalent to omission of responsibility... Why claim a universal theory? We only make moments of life into art, but whether we believe it or not, history informs our competence for new ideas. The human estate is hardly transcendent. A human being is an instant in a vast stream, and this reveals the most natural and beautiful paradox of civilization: even as new insights become possible, people remain dissatisfied with the flood of new knowledge! Like, there aren't as many genes as was expected in the human genome... |
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So we play a devious role, pitting wit against accomplishment in an effort to explain the incongruities and disparities between what we know now, with what we did not know before... At the same time, we wish to anticipate the future, and make great aspirations from the present state. But human civilization is confused by its many advances and gross inequalities: while we create scientific and technical wonders, witness the strange and unjust gulf between the rich and poor nations. The inexplicable conflicts between creed, politics and color go on. If progress comes - only for a few of us - can it really be called progress? I don't think you know... |
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But I know we possess too many questions and too few answers: we, who love to wring our wits for nuggets, and then squeeze out a few farts that we can call poetry. Cleverness outwits genius today! Word-spinning outruns thought... Why do we need to cultivate such an overwrought culture? We get almost nowhere with critical abstraction. Our analogies trail blind dogs, and favor the union of imagination with expertise. Suddenly, a squalid market paradigm overrides all content. We should have done better than to end up chasing such misbegotten wishes. |
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We still think wisdom should be a magic gift. Once again, we wish for an inspiration that comes from outside: the divine mover and cause of life and mind! But it's a hard-won knowledge that beckons after more heart than it can find. We wish we could come at the world from within wisdom; and this wisdom, we have believed, always must come from within our heart. Religion has connected heart to heaven with wishes, with faith. But philosophers have always been very unhappy with this wishfulness, and thinkers have always wanted to create a brand new end for our age-old genesis... Lately, god is taken for the same thing as human imagination. |
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Today, we continue to make much sophistication from seeing through those who want to know better. Refusing to believe that the accusations of your conscience have substantial meaning helps us to dismiss and forget their original truth. Pretending our qualms are falsehoods, so we need to know ourselves "better than" anyone who might pretend to know us. Human pride is wide and the well of our suffering must be filled to the brim with hope. Our time is made of lies - perhaps because we still need to believe in preserving the sanity of our higher aims. Leaky wisdom is embarrassing: we stop up the cracks and trim them nicely with fresh plaster and grease paint. The model is courage, but the action is denial. The consequences are blindness and wishful thinking. |
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I encourage you to do what you want. But don't be surprised when people laugh at you, or despise you utterly for being yourself... For we are afraid to be ourselves - in the simple honesty of knowing ourselves, as during youthful moments of inspiration. To speak what you feel is to endure the reproaches of everyone who has been weaned on pragmatic pretences to honesty. We are full of silent panic, that inhibited wish for truth, yet still - we don't have words for it... If we've never known what truth is, how can we begin telling it? |
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Ah, we're so complicated today, and we don't want to be! We crave easy explanations for every dream! So, we plan a better world. But the world isn't better yet. It's still dying. But certainly, we're going to save it: isn't that the especially human destiny!? You have to believe that life is as miraculous as it feels! Pardon my sarcasm and serpentine ways... I'm trying to show you to yourself - brother, sister... You there, you hide behind the truth - as if your truth would know you too well! |
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Maybe we know each other - that must be it! We know each other better than ever. We see through everything... It's a gift. I'm your master - but you're already mine, too. The new corporate soul is bandied about faster than we can mint new fetuses... Our collective destiny may become more than simply a philosopher's longing to understand history... |
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"Win your freedom, with us!" Their trademark, your trademark, is already registered. Knowing it all means knowing each other, brother! That's the fate of civilization after prehistory: a vast illumination of shared self-awareness... Has anything changed here? When did we first start realizing that little Johnny was born to be a painter, a poet, a shoe salesman, or a video star? People are still killing each other for nothing... It's almost the end again. There's no money left in war, especially after everyone gets killed... |
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The real world begs us to staunch the flow of blood... Who would actually be crazy enough to claim that we know what we're doing? A big step has to be taken! List your passions and crimes: can you still discover any dreams among your mistakes? The grey clay of indifference clings to our souls. We are benumbed with a plague of diverting obsessions. We refuse to think and resist all sensible critiques. Mired in the shell-shockville of man-made crisis after crisis - we're out of answers. So, we deliberately forget how to care. |
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Self-protection does booming business these days... Mount your cameras. Buckle up the turrets on your old mill stream. It's an inevitable stage for all of us - isn't it? We need to believe in ourselves most as we see through everything all the time... We cannot refine our social effort any further beyond this entrenched self-consciousness: we know ourselves as we know each other and so, we hide nothing. We talk about our problems and fantasies: we realize them, too. Unafraid of each other, we're free to play... |
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As for those whom we don't know so well, we can settle for calling one another names, boorishly confident. But in the end, we know very little about those whom we judge and judge again. Costly is ignorance. |
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Today's sophisticated lover is giddy, and sometimes rises above jealousy. Why plan your lover's life? Freedom is easy, that's what we really want to believe. Yet, is freedom easier than the self-slavery of your neuroses? Freedom means that you need to think for yourself. Illustrious, imaginative ones: to be given that chance blessing of surplus spiritual and material energy to live, to create! But why is experience so often accompanied by jaded dreams? Some of our most brilliant cats and dogs are saved, so they need to believe, by their lust alone. |
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Remember - too many of us begin with no knowledge, no experience, no means of comparing the ideas thrust upon us: and we get hurt because we know nothing, but allow ourselves to be led, stupidly, blindly into old instincts of worn-out guilt and shame. Deep down, we want freedom and joy: the lust for slavery can get jaded. Despondency comes, neither so much from committing a sin, nor so much as from making a mistake, but from boredom: we can't escape that hopeless sense of limitation that undermines the last lurking wish to get more from time and imagination... |
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We pretend to need all the things we have not experienced yet. Freedom from inhibition is the new aim. The memory of sin and guilt fades as experience and imagination lead us beyond ourselves. We refuse to believe that we can be wrong anymore, because we presume an intellectual kind of conscience: it fits the bill for the past several generations of instinct-poets, each of whom knows best. All leaders of modern philosophy agree that thinking yourself out of a hole is preferable to fantastic beliefs in grace or blessing. Faith is fine, but only if you have something with which to pay for it. We're taught that joy is an expensive feeling! But that's nonsense. Even so, despair is still held to be cheaper - and more available. How come so many of us are righteous? While we criticize this or that politician as being a liar and a cheat, we hardly ever stand back to look into ourselves... We take good luck for granted. Yes we do. Otherwise, why should we feel so strongly that we deserve so much..? |
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Our emotions, the very substratum of our perceptual sensibilities, have been transformed by modern civilization. But we guess - we still only guess! Given our magical science and the blessings of technological civilization withal, nobody knows what it will be like in a hundred years! |
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To return to my original pang about indifference, and to ask, "Why?" is to watch people get angry with you! Don't ask why today! Who you are and where you are - that's all... It's like accusing someone of being middle class, a small shopkeeper - a bourgeois... You could get away with that fifty years ago, but not anymore. Today, people will only allow you to be as glib, blase, current and to the point as you possibly can. One of our greatest "problems" today is that people don't really want to see themselves at all... |
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But I'm going to start by not accusing anybody of anything. My point is plain: we're very good at forgetting how much we need to beget fresh bloodbaths... We're careful to promote crime - even as we pretend to ignorance, or worse - as we play at innocence and virtue... This is too simple for you? You don't believe that you ever committed any crimes? So many terrible things have happened this century, and so many uncontrollable realities threaten our security, that it's no wonder whole populations are immersed in pre-programmed fantasies of material consumption and the vain wish to emulate stardom! Oh I know, the wonders are many, but the disasters are too many and too costly, and they profit too few. More than ever, we need to escape responsibilities. So we do! |
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But you argue that most people are now material realists, and so, we have no need to question the pronounced and inherited hypocrisies that we live by... We all come to conclude: "I'm guilty, just as you." The new answer for the duration of modernity has said: "We're innocent because we're human beings, not gods." So, we're more limited by our collective self-conception than ever before! We even get angry at people when they accuse us of being hypocrites, and becoming evasively unconscionable... We're allowed to be bad because we need to "be ourselves." But usually, we couch it in other terms: that we behave as human beings - even if we don't want to... |
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I feel burdened with a wish not to oversimplify, and I want to reach a particularly modern conception of humanity... We have a propensity for idealism. We prefer such things to inner truth. Because - ideas are easier to live with! Not only that, but the knowledge that makes a man cannot be spoken with words. Indeed - it is a deeper wish and a subtler value that we long to re-experience. To establish our self-conception at last. But when we can't... Idealism enjoys a revival whenever the answers we most want aren't forthcoming: we grasp it to survive. Human beings will search for a harmony of heart with universe, incongruous as that may sound to some of you. We believe that the reality around us must possess some meaning intrinsic for us, exactly because we are here to experience everything, and for a purpose - to understand it... However, we don't really derive meaning from things "as they are." We like to imagine that "reality" has this intrinsic expression. Yet, in truth, we use the mind to express ourselves, if you like, through reality... In fact, we end up giving things the meanings that we desire for them. Yes, that's true. But are the meanings that we give to each thing really true? Our greatest thinkers teach us to doubt over the "wishful meanings" that we make of the world. Dreams and desires aspire to transmute the mundane reality into an expression of fulfillment. Often however, whatever we like to call the truth doesn't really come so very close... Articulation loses a lot of what we knew to be true - as primary intuitions and elations... (Maybe you think I'm too crass? And what about yourself? Whatever you attack, maybe it's lacking in yourself... How about that?) |
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The point is - we no longer need to blame ourselves for being ourselves! We accept the paradox and still lie, but now, in the name of many personal emblems for the new age - in the names of Glory, Self, Faith, Righteousness - anything you need to believe is true... We try to beggar the truth with pride and so deny our hearts with fresh excuses. The new world is made of excuses and the mass mutual cognizance of sharing like dispositions. Being the same as each other gives great relief in many societies, especially in the far East. Westerners get a kick out of imitating each other's how-to strategies, and as we do so, we also pretend that we are clever enough to be original. So, we feel comfortable about being who we are; and we don't have to look too far for reasons not to be so good as we ought... The reason I truck circles round all this grey muck is brought on by the urge embedded in each of us: identity is a creative wish, that instinctive compulsion to stimulate creativity. Imagination gives us ideal actions... |
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Human identity responds to contemporary demands; consequently, imagination will surge or wane, and concepts of truth and error are molded into semblances of progress and sanity. We make believe that we understand the most "important" things. (Hopefully, this banal gloss doesn't sound too Orwellian for you...) I think many good examples abound... Look at how ideas for "democracy" and "freedom" are believed to equate with an idea of the good life. But for who? Perhaps only those who already enjoy the privileges of wealth can believe that concepts like "democracy" instantly deliver us into the good life... Of course, compelling dreams satisfy an adequate myth, no matter how meaningless those myths are for the real world of passions, social chasms, small plans and accidental good chances. In past times, personal and social lot were more viscerally attached to the hardships of life. Faith and fidelity were big truths long ago... But of course you can replace them with egalite and fraternite once it becomes acceptable, finally, to sleep with your neighbor's wife. You get my meaning, so I won't say it again... |
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A proposal for understanding: imagination is suspended from compassing the why and wherefore about the many belief systems that help us to conceive of all things. Dreams and traumas and obsessions are outside conscious help, too. Most of all, we are not free of ideas. We cannot usurp our natural estate, which is to suffer, and then rejoice in a heritage of accumulated and transformed ideas - ideas that compel us to complete the human equation... To sense, to believe, to act and to articulate. And yet, the human lineage is much shorter than we realize: we're made of ideas. Some maintain that all of us hold the same beliefs as ever, and that we formulate prejudices upon those values - upon the emotive interpretations by which we can most easily make "cosmic truth and eternal ideas" recognizable to our present dispositions, which are shaped from familial, socialized modes. We live, subjected to the world we try to objectify - with science and social plan. Humanity is a species of miserable knowledge. Before creation, at the foot of physical truth, the soul aspires upward to freedom, joy and perfect love; but life climbs in front of us to present us with serious limitations. Place and time of birth qualify your chances for identity. |
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Today, ugliness is the same thing as something terrifying. The amoral murder scares all of us, as does the banal acceptance of global mayhem, natural and man-made disasters - wars bought and sold - meltdowns, starvation, environmental genocide. We endure all this wrong, mostly by means of ignorance. Many of us feel it's quite acceptable to play at innocence and remain impotent. But this imbalance between the peaceful haves and warring have-nots - why doesn't it terrify us more? I don't really know... This disease of indifference inures us to the state of horror - perhaps because we have no choice but to abide with awareness and accept that we cannot change things with wishes alone. So, we escape consciousness. Many smugly pretend that escaping the horror is as easy as living in America or Europe. Maybe nobody knows the difference between a good life and an indifferent one... Then again, did you grow up in the ghettoes of Brooklyn, Detroit or Buffalo? |
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Study the dead to bury the living, dear gentleman. Earn your respect. What is "oriental resignation" all about? Accepting your lot... People in the far East call it, "quietism." Actually, oriental quietism goes back to the time when the subjects of generals, warlords and emperors needed some more sophisticated method to be ineffectual slaves and flunky dummies; even today, calling oneself a "quietist" is less humiliating than "coward." Quietism and devotion weren't merely species of cowardice: they were a sign of honor. Sometimes, remaining silent was a sign of low birth, but being too close to power was also a good reason to remain a humble servant, no matter one's overall social rank... Long ago, some elements of Chinese society absorbed the foreign idea of "Buddhist acceptance" even as, later on, the strict domestic rules articulated by Confucius were universally promoted... It does seem obvious, however, that the term "oriental resignation" is a close correlative to the status quo of subservience. Indeed, it's easy to suggest that the rigid feudal order of the ancient society explains precisely why Buddhism was attractive to many Chinese, and Asians, generally. Perhaps the desirable peace of mind, and the correspondent social equation of "oriental acceptance, resignation and quietism," were intended by Buddha to mean that no matter what you do, you'll be at peace, and - enlightened - if you do not mind whatever it is you end up doing; in other words, working a fast food grill ought to feel as okay as being a hoity-toity aerospace engineer... Anyway, I suppose the one most important thing to keep clear is that Buddhism has had a deeper impact upon the character of Tibetans than the Chinese. |
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Back to my original thought: what's this thing called indifference? What do I mean - to suggest that it's some kind of disease..? Is indifference congenital or contagious? Maybe you believe that indifference is merely a symptom of some more prolix anxiety, like vanity... If you think I'm wrong, then that's fine. After all, what could I really intend by accusing you of indifference - besides screwing your head with that inappropriate pathological metaphor? |
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In everyday lingo, indifference is carelessness, or a lack of concern. And if we claim that we really don't care about anything that happens to us, then everyone would agree that that would probably be worse than indifference. At the beginning of the travelogue, I said that I didn't care about what happens to me - but I said so just to hook you. It's like saying, I enjoy being attracted to girls who wear cheap undress: my self-negligence is supposed to be, like theirs, lustfully alluring, and as affordable, too... |
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"Use me, use me, I don't care what you do to me." Those darling, cute pop-singers say the same thing in Swedish all the time. It's true: you really are encouraged to find a girl who wants to do anything, and she knows she'll enjoy it - shamelessly! ...To speak more honestly than I can: if I say I'm indifferent and don't care what happens to me, then you want to know why... It's only a line? A mockery upon self-pity? My failure is showing? Sure. So - what if I say I'm only carefree! You tell me, doctor... |
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For the last time, look at the core of the ultramodern situation: it is defined by our personal, collective disposition. We are the sum total of two thousand years and more of self-consciousness. Today, we are in love with self-hate because we can't abide with whom we've become. My mouthful demands more poetry than this truck allows. I'm exhausted by a desert midnight all too devoid of high-fat dairy drive-ins! |
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I light candles on top of indifference and feel absolved of all sins of omission... I'm doing a good thing, producing this CD ROM by myself; only a little bit of pocket change (which I have yet, and probably won't bother, to collect) comes courtesy of the Tibetan and Mongolian Affairs Department - one small division in the bureaucracy of a renegade concept for a state in absentia on a dinky island called Taiwan. The whole idea of a nation reminds me of that dear gent, the Dalai Lama, like a concept of freedom not yet attained... Like enlightenment itself. Then again, we needn't go too far back in time, when the Dalai Lamas were obliged to turn a blind eye, and in fact, depended on the miserably unfair feudal structure of Tibet for their livelihoods, too. |
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I'm poor today and will be tomorrow. I work for almost nothing to give you this gift. That's humility, isn't it? I don't care because I don't know what else to do. I'm stupid and I know it. A program for staying afloat? You tell me, doctor. We're the sum total of two thousand years of self-consciousness. Say it again: we're fond of inversions and perversions because, using them we reveal ourselves and find a new delight, even as we imagine freedom remains impossible. |
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Originally, this universal compulsion for liberty has driven individuals, naively and brilliantly, against the repressive order of their societies; such rebels have always had a wonderful notion of personal freedom that they wanted to share with their entire society. But nowadays, it appears that far too many guerillas and rebel soldiers have lost their honor and have descended to a lowly self-serving status, becoming spoiled and greedy, out to satisfy themselves first - with absolutely no plan to help liberate their fellow citizens from the bonds of foreign domination. I suppose these times have rubbed off on everybody. We're all the same. At first, modernity made people suffer great pangs of conscience. Rage has become as normal an emotion as respect for religious icons. Wealth, intellectual and social authority are no longer tolerable as the sole regulators of personal identity. That is why modern poets were able to name themselves the unacknowledged legislators of the world: intellectual freedom grew more powerful as it became more attractive to all men and women - whatever the social place. Today in the West, after the need to rebel has been largely assuaged by a fashionable (and very slow-to-die) mood of cynicism, we remain sick because we have forgotten the original and most noble compulsions, having exchanged hope for wholly selfish ends... Selfishness displaces all reflection: the innate capacity for compassion is shoved aside. Greedy emptiness has stuffed us up; crassness displaces ideation... |
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If indifference defeats concern, then we see a larger problem, a symptom of something immensely "wrong" with us. A fresh analogy is wanted to help manhandle this beast to the ground... Entertain the notion of "distracted attention" in the same breath as its opposite, "deep contemplation." You can't... It should be: sadness-pathos and joy-wonder... So, if the human affliction is insensitivity - like a bad mood that won't let up, or a gang-boss who never smiles - then behavior gives back an inevitable reaction, the elaborate armor of the self-protective ratio. It's like some universal refrain, a maxim governing everybody: "It's not my fault..." Ultimately, the result is difficult to translate: does the inversion of conscience characterize us after all? Do man-made problems like pollution and overpopulation fail to scare us because of faith in superhuman progress? We grow, lest we collapse. But for civilization to grow is also to lose control. We witness a metamorphosis: the sense of mysterious spiritual genesis changes into a social and genetic equation for humanity. This is more than word-play dear brother and sister. It's a cry of realization that is stifled by ignorance, call it the inarticulateness of intuition. We forget our dreams, and still, we adhere to old superstitions. |
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Have you ever heard of the idea that we need to be afraid of knowledge before earning the courage of truth? But you can't just be too proud and stuck up and pretend you've earned it. Like an entertainment baron who sits on his ass all day - and still tells his minions they can keep their temporary positions through hard work alone. No sense in that kind of Pharisee. But we peons work, what else can we to do but slave? Perhaps the failure to realize our best nature is the ingredient that's lost on us - and this sorry state - our indifference truly masks... We are indifferent because we need to be. It's an easily shared social ploy. To be cool is to relax and let things be, more than ever... Since we live in a time when everyone spends all their energy cultivating such careful poses, indifference saves plenty of confusion, time and effort. If we don't care, we avoid thinking through "impossible" problems. The irony, if you can call it that, arises as we see through the pose: inside, deep down, we feel a squashed little pang of conscience. Then you see that highest measure of intelligence is a distaste - for finding yourself stupid! So we fight ourselves and realize we cannot cease being human. This pain is something we can't escape. |
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Today, we laugh at each other if we don't try to sell out. Because money is freedom, nothing else need be thought. Just like myself, absolutely everything besides your buying power is part of the past. Maybe these "cool" and sociable kinds of indifference aren't completely dumb. If we follow fashions, and pay scant attention to nothing but whatever everyone else is buying and selling, then we don't have to think any longer... |
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We may create whole new life-styles that are made entirely from communicating shared sensations. Consumer religion has arrived. Investing energy sufficient to fulfill that recognizable social form becomes an orgasmic experience. Personality rules the roost, and images seal our thoughts. This is all fodder for another essay, and involves physical and social psychology instead of a moral critique. However, I'm still fascinated by the need to protect each other with common social motives. How do the mechanisms of economy and the status quo connect to the desire for fulfillment? Do people see through their all too parallel desires, or is it obvious that we have no need to see through anything - except the fantasy underpinning our wish to escape? We suffer from "better-than" illusions. Getting ideal lovers, or the perfect career, and having the smartest child. So, we do participate in a social orgasm. The idea of the individual is now communicated through subsets of this larger collective mind: the "mass" culture of the technological era has allowed for a new kind of group approval and tolerance that wasn't possible before. At least you would hope so... (Perhaps I've neglected to mention that this grand scenario doesn't work unless you have an education and some sufficient material comforts in common first... and you'll have better luck if you grew up in America or Europe, and not Afghanistan... Or, maybe nothing works in the analysis of this social organism; maybe it all comes back to the individual mind, simply, in its infinite pretence to rule over matter.) |
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Mentality is infinitely movable... But the truly ultramodern individual, he or she is as removed as ever from having a rooted place... No matter how long we spend all our lives in the same city as everybody else, your mind and my mind may find no civic objective. Perhaps, in the far future we will link our nightly dreams and record movies together. The hunt for individual creative originality will seem like some archaic desire, a rustic ruggedness that no longer peals anyone's banana... especially after we have replaced all interior contemplation with going out on the town to satisfy the requisite and socially forward taste for novel physical sensations. |
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After the old wall, morning comes again. We wake inside a nearly abandoned hotel... Our drivers are very slow to get up. Miguel is a fool, and so, from impatience, he tries to rouse them. I lounge in bed, reading the morning away. Then I go for a walk... The dew is wet all over and a field of rapeseed is blooming. It's so pretty, I don't care to hurry. The day feels good to be alive. I'm smiling and have grown used to unsocial Miguel and his prowling about like a caged and finicky cat. Some homes and a more popular trucker's hotel lie beyond this rapeseed patch... |
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I don't find out till it's too late that a hot spring is available somewhere up the road. At noon, the drivers tell us we can't go any further with them, apparently because they don't have the right permits to carry us. I get angry, but not at our drivers - at a nosey Chinese guy dressed in a green army uniform. He doesn't say why, but he's telling the drivers that Miguel and I can't go any further with them. I get angry and shove the pushy "soldier" back a few steps for telling everyone what to do. Then, surprise, the Chinese truck driver silently returns my two-hundred yuan down payment we gave him for the ride. We don't understand at all why they won't take us; so, we go to the road and wait for a new ride. |
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A few trucks arrive after lunch. Here's a huge lorry heaped high with baggage and ten Tibetan riders, all of whom are male but two. There's plenty of room. All these Tibetan guys have long hair. The musician and his dancer mate do it for money. It's a sunny day, great for an open-air journey. Off we go, lumbering over the road, as if riding upon some leisurely leviathan. The travelling Tibetans are happy to be on the move: they shout and hoot enthusiastically. We stop near a junction and wait until another passenger truck catches up. The appearance of this second truck, heaped up with suitcases, creates an opportunity for the drivers to confer and insist upon some payment from all the riders, especially those who want off at the big village yonder... The men form little orbs of discussion and their gesturing babble goes on and on. The money talk takes half an hour, is anguished and complex, and too horribly repetitive for my powers of observation to fathom. |
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We finally set out again until we arrive at a village. A husky young woman unloads several sacks and a duffel full of personals. Her family is here with warmth and embraces. She's all smiles, yet the girl looks a bit shy and awkward, as only Tibetan girls can be, as if she has some secret story to tell of a jilting husband... We drive up the road but pause to wait for the world to blow up at a little cafe next to a gas station. I mosey over for my first Lhasa Beer only moments after a carload of drunk Tibetans carry out one of their own who, shouting, isn't quite ready to give up drinking yet... Miguel slips a cassette tape of Russian disco-pop into the stereo - a replica of late-Western electronic sex-pop - and I feel wonderful. I ask Miguel if he ever gets drunk? He smiles but doesn't want to admit vices. I suggest we ought to get drunk together, if we ever get to town... |
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Late afternoon and we climb over a pass: a spectacular sunny vista. I give sunflower seeds to the Tibetan wearing copper sunglasses beside me, plus an elderly Tibetan gent nearby. As soon as we're on top, we cruise down into a narrow ravine; it isn't an hour before the next delay happens. We pass some road workers. Somebody has left a big wheelbarrow in the middle of the road: our truck runs right over it. We stop. Another noisy discussion ensues... Everybody has to spiel their two cents at the pitiable road crew. One of the crew is a woman, and she talks back; in true despair, she wails and screeches over her ancient, ruined wheelbarrow. |
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We go on. The hulking truck descends and sways to and fro like a swaggering elephant. The driver does his best to keep us from pitching overboard. I cling to my bike and hang on to a rope both, like a cowboy on a bronco. The truck slows to a caterpillar crawl as we find ourselves driving along the middle of a riverbed. A huge construction project is underway here: the Tibetans have been conscripted to hand-build a new stone road up from the Lhartse valley. It's a hundred kilometres long and will take years to finish. Men and women both labor together. I've seen this kind of road job before, in China's Guizhou province. It's the same style: first, the workers create an elevated road-bed supported by rocks hewn into just the right shape... Constructing the retaining wall for the road is slow, painstaking work. So many hands and fingers are involved. Thousands of heavy rocks are needed, and each big piece must be chiselled into just the right shape. In what we would imagine to be true communist fashion, it's interesting to see at least as many women working on the road as men. But I'm sure there were no women laborers building the road I saw in Guizhou. Perhaps entire Tibetan villages have been imported to do this work: it's difficult to describe this scene so you can picture it. After nearly 80 kilometres of road construction, I noticed only three big earth moving machines. Most of the construction is done by hand: the laborers screen the sand to make mortar in portable mixers. Others use hammer and chisel to finish the rocks. Then the rocks are carried up to their respective place on the road, upon bent back or rickety cart. For the time being, everyone lives in summer camps right beside the road. |
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We encounter a lovely valley. The riverbed doesn't end here with the setting sun. As we drive along, we pass several motorcyclists, male and female, coming up the river. Only the Japanese would do this. How they brought in the off-road enduro motorbikes is another question I don't care to pursue. |
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Like a dream of a long lost friend: telling me about all the years between now and when... He speaks with that voice you knew ten years ago. A west county accent, with a somewhat demure lilt. A happy hello, a hopeful glint in the eye and that up-climbing tone that he inherited from his mother. Where are they - your lost friends? We remember all the crazy things that happened to us. Maybe we could even exchange our current opinions, but who knows if we could still know one other as intimately as children. That's my only regret about wandering: it makes me feel so like the lost man who knows he isn't lost. If you wander, people back home imagine that you're lost because they haven't any idea why you enjoy the wide world. The lost man who knows he isn't lost is merely a man who evades his self-knowledge. And playing the failure isn't so much fun as doing a winner. It's hard to lose on purpose, when there's no real reason to lose. It must be insanity - a crumpled-up tinhorn full of regret, a groundless and foolish resentment - to lose on purpose. I hear the accusations from the world of mass fodder, that thin world of selfish media images and golden plastic: "You are a resistance, a soil that won't raise the seed. The Earth is not flattered by your presence..." Well, I could care less, ya. Too stuck. In the dead mind of history, the mire of man-made misery forgets easy pleasure. If only we'd open to it - to touch and be touched... |
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The truck gets bamboozled as it skirts an emerald lake and we have to clamber off to pull the vehicle out of the mud, tug-of-war style. At dusk it all happens again: a big ditch right across the road sticks us deeply. It takes nearly an hour of pushing and pulling to dislodge the heavy truck - a wearisome farce. Darkness comes and we hang on all the harder, slowly negotiating the last stretch of riverbed. |
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The funniest event of the day turns out to be the police checkpoint. We are instructed to crouch and lie flat between the baggage as the policeman shines his flashlight over us. Luckily his poor Tibetan eyesight misses us and he sends us on our way. A Nazi would never have done that! Lucky us: we are free to reach Lhartse county town, called Chushar in Tibetan. Chushar is a crossroads for the civil and military administration. According to my information, it was a lot easier for the Chinese to get permits to open new businesses than it was for local Tibetans. The government made it an unspoken policy to encourage Chinese from places like Sichuan to migrate here. |
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We eat dinner late at night. The waitress runs next door to find sufficient ingredients for us. Scarcity is writ large upon Tibet. In this cafe, all the Tibetans make do with a few bowls of noodles and some tiny morsels of goat meat. Everyone is poor here. Some guys in the cafe only read the menus, but they order nothing. It's a sad scene. They are curious to see what we foreigners are like. We eat avidly, don't we? Believe me, hunger knows no guilt. Then, we're off to find lodgings. Miguel runs out of money. I lend him a little everyday, till he can get more wired from Belgium. He's desperate without having to admit it. He sits strangely upon a world that he believes is out to crush him. So, he reminds me of a vigilant viper: it's as if he wants to know everything faster than he's willing to spend the time needed to discover it. A lot of us are like that now: no patience for anything but the world as we expect it ought to be... We pay each other well to make the imaginary seem real, too. I suppose his character reminds me of that universal neuroses all artists suffer - about feeling hated, and for not being talented enough. May the gods forgive my insanity. |
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Miguel doesn't quite know what he's doing in this world, so he has to feel like everything challenges his being in the first place... Put it this way, to make friends with this guy is almost impossible. He might like you, but without showing it, and only if he believes that you're not judging him, perhaps from a skin prejudice or something. The world and his parents have been rude enough to deaden any sensitivity he may once have had. The harsh exterior masks a disturbed vulnerability. It makes me think of a good metaphor: the whole punk idiom is just a defense mechanism against feeling terrorized. |
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How many of us go around like this, seeing another person in the ones we pretend to know? Isn't it easier to meet the one we expect in each other, or the one we need to hate, and love, or compete with? Maybe we never see each other, but only whomever we think the world has made of us. But, to see the guy beside you as he thinks of himself, or herself, that is often beyond sensitivity. Miguel would become some other man if he could. He doesn't hate himself. No, like so many of us, he doesn't want simply to caress the woman, he needs to prod her - to make sure she's really there. So, again, like so many of us, he hides away his wishes. |
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This disguise of the self-martyred artist is too thin. Because the social affinities are more important, and so are living up to the pressures, schedules, decisions, roles - and getting approval - money, whatever. All of this often makes us act like we've forgotten what we really wanted to do... Forget it. Everyone may work hard, but few of us get mountains of money for all the slaving we do... Would anyone ever have guessed, 100 years ago, that fame alone would be sufficient cause for some people to earn so much money? |
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As a fledging - the one thing that didn't make any good sense was seeing the cruelty of adults: I saw it happening, but didn't want to act like that myself... I felt the adults were betraying something pure in themselves, and consequently, I got the sensation that everyone deliberately let the world down. The cruelty of society happens like a reaction, a spasm of learned hunger. But sexuality is different, it's closer, and more personal - the most natural intimacy in its dimensions than social role-playing. In the domain of sex, each of us really is an oddball. We admit normal and weird desires, and none of us explain why. I'm attracted by pain and pleasure mixed: I like to bite and be bitten! It's a paradox of being human! When children are cruel to each other, such action may appear neither more nor less natural than charm. Because they acquire it from within and outside, both. We act as we are and as we see. Animal behavior within human beings is like something apprehended from below: we are driven down into the lower fields of emotion as we grow up, ironically enough, perhaps by observing and being forced to react in what is now universally accepted as, "self-interest." Children become adults but we adults can't stop being children because our parents moulded us when we were still only children, too. A circle of lingering immaturity circumscribes the human social organism, usually in the guise of hypocritical concepts of responsibility. Of course, many astute observers will argue that self-preservation is natural, since human beings are supposedly only a small step above animals, right? That's what they think. But I prefer to disagree and hold that the situation determines the depth of good and bad character more than any so-called innate qualities. Old arguments don't get newer. Put it this way: to grab and take is the immediate reaction, while to share and confer requires a much higher form of mind, as well as courage, trust and patience... |
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The talented do win in the end. Why shouldn't it be that way? I say, create because you are made to... Create what you want to make - not because you must make money. My artistic obsession may distract others from doing good work... Because I can't win in the usual way, others may be discouraged by my example: some will immediately condemn me with an inaccurate label, for example, calling my work negative, etc, that I am a nay-sayer, when in fact, they don't know my work and have never met me in person... I am always buoyant talk easily with strangers; good-looking women tend to make me affable... Basically, most people will condemn me for despising the commercial shit that gets sold in such massive quantities... Oh, I don't want to seem too heavy-handed, since I listen to all kinds of music and enjoy it. Basically, I am just jealous of musicians who play for a few days or weeks and then make oodles of money from a CD. Scribbles all over. I know I look despicable, prey as I am to a personal way of making art: the point remains - my idea needn't be yours at all... Think for yourself is best. That I suffer frustration has nothing to do with the success of other people. I'm stuck in me. Just like you in you. All human frustration has much more to do with feeling silenced - almost as if the time in which we now live cannot tolerate free thought; everything must be narrowly confined within the domains of a marketable genre, appropriately channelled through the correct process of professional development, and according to certain career roles many need to play - so to earn their keep from public visibility. I can't help but feel robbed of my right and freedom to create! But obviously, I'm deluded, and so end up laughing at myself. I hope you can do the same thing for me, darling. This apparent dilemma is shared by many, many people. Many others really suffer silence, put in jails for speaking their minds. That is the epitome of modern horror. I'm too lucky. But nowadays, in the middle of the lonely desert, everyone clamors for worship - not talent! You don't need to know how to write - you need to sell the suckers a nice image - a good name. Vanity is more important than your poetry. After all, what is god compared to being able to bed the perfect groupie slut who sneaks all her conceit, submitting to anything you bid her do? |
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I don't care if I'm loved or hated - because making art is pleasurable. Replace your demons with a better knowledge of the human predicament. You need never accuse yourself of failing your own mind and heart if creativity is a reason for living. Ah, but you are too cynical and maybe you imagine people aren't capable of living such idealism anymore, and everyone must submit their self-respect to the paradigms of economy? So what is a good policy for a writer? Get banned to be popular later on. Miller and Joyce did it on purpose - yes they did! You'd be a stupid to think otherwise. Many other highly imaginative unknowns have already lived and died. Only a few get to be "called" truly great. Some of our best destinies probably got run over by busses, or had to sell out - ha, ha, ha, ha - before even trying to write their first great novel... Hell, they're proud to give seminars on how-to-fuck a potboiler. I'm sure you can only write a great novel because you want to - and only if you set deliberately out to do it... Nowadays nobody but nobody sets out to write a great novel: instead, almost everyone deliberately tries to write something that they hope will sell easily! Ah! Such wisdom! Anyway, original literature, written purely and imaginatively, and with no formal strings or demands prescribed, cannot win that elite audience of inspired intellectuals anymore: we no longer have so much natural interest in the play of language, that special kind of sophisticated society, thought and imagination that first inspired the finest authors to write exactly as they pleased... Literacy is too hard for most of us. So the potato-heads win big; it's easier to be a sack of cliches, or full of torpid cynical presumption. It's no coincidence that small-minded minimalists and dull, middle-of-the-road pop-authors, writing in their pseudo-postmodern styles (but actually very stuck in archaic forms and various hybrid genres of unoriginal mannerism) have figured out how to suck the government/corporate tits more successfully than everybody. Do it quickly - and keep it as simple as possible - otherwise nobody will bother reading it! |
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...Amazing. Morning in Chushar is warm summer sun and waking up very rested in comfortable feather beds. Feather beds! I meet yesterday's truck driver on the street and he makes me cough up the forty yuan I still owe for the ride. I'm only compassionate whenever I see a trying human dilemma: Miguel can't eat without me and spends his last pennies on the bus to Zhigatse. But at the same time, after only one week in his company, I only want to be alone again. My compassion is pretty thin, too. Yet I am getting older and slower now, and impatience is something I've tried to forget. Right away, Miguel and I nab the first bus for Zhigatse, a powerful vintage Isuzu rattler from Japan. It zips across the wide valley of Lhartse, which is fertile with ripening barley and rapeseed. Tibetans have lived in this central area for two thousand years: the land is broad and relatively abundant. Zhigatse is two hours away. The driver lets on a passenger or two. But this is an express and he doesn't stop for an aging couple of country folk waving by the road. We find the next valley is more narrow, but just as green. Here comes several mini-busses: they carry grey and grinning Western folks: I suppose this forbidden land is equivalent to the quest for lost innocence... |
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Zhigatse appears as a prolific bunch of trees. Big on the left, up pop the golden roof-tops of ancient Tashilhunpo Monastery. This monastery is considered one of the most brilliantly preserved and prettiest monuments to faith in all Tibet. If the sun should shine, it can't be missed in Zhigatse. The bus conductor drops us at the "Orchid Hotel," right across from the monastery. The place is busy with foreign travellers. But not only Western tourists come here, so do the Chinese, many of them students on summer holidays. The Chinese man lodged in the four-bed room with us is a bit older than the usual student types; he's watchful and asks one too many questions about our situation. As Miguel and I stroll out to eat lunch, I suggest that he's probably a secret policeman, since China crawls with them. |
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...Doing laundry is a good occupation for a warm day, so I do it. Then I catch up on my road journal. I decide to walk uptown and look for bicycle wheels. It's a busy place, with many Chinese and Tibetan residents. I once read a piece of fantastic travel writing by Eric Newby, or maybe it was Bruce Chatwin: the scene involves a bustling public market. That writing stands up vividly in my memory, not so much the exact words, but the evocative mood. He drew the reader deeply into the scene around him and made me feel like I was standing in the middle of that village market. He was a much more interesting writer than I. ...A truly excellent and evocative travel writer makes you forget everything but what he sees around him in the real world... You get that actual feeling of being in that far-off country, even though you would never go there yourself. That is the credo of travel writing: recreate the scene and place the reader in it. In the case of the writer I'm remembering - his mood was inspired by each perception. After reading that perfect piece I cannot forget a certain love-hateful sensation all writers experience upon finding some excellent work beyond one's own powers. We all wish to write something as fine, since, after all, we can easily see how the writer puts descriptions and conversations together with ideas - so why not just do the same thing ourselves? But we simply haven't that talent for magic - nor enough mnemonic power to transmute the literature we have already read along with the life we have already lived; and so, we can only faintly reproduce a vague image of the insight that experience gives us. Clear thoughts and deep themes are always beyond the plans we draw for articulating them... We are so pitiably blocked by ourselves and we see nothing and write only a scratchy, fleet memory. Even worse, the minimum standards of genre-publishing impinge on creativity unless you already write better than that - and most of us simply aren't even capable of mimicking market expectations well enough to "open the eyes" of the greedy publishers... Everything today conspires to make us miss all finer chances for evocation - as our talent and motives are divided by some mystery-meat asshole publisher who puts a motto like this on the web: "we look for talented but profitable work." What a weird and unnecessary contradiction are the many inhibitions that get placed upon imagination passing for fine culture right now... All writers become really very tired with this augur boring a hole in the boot heel of profit. Publishers and critics are no better than a gang of policemen I don't want to know. Oh, and the authorities keep in such close touch with each other! Such lucky people they all are: they have friends, colleagues and easy-to-publish-in-journals - all around the world!) |
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...Let's get back... Unlike boring me, a great travel writer can forget entirely about his own predicament and give you a precise feeling for how the world really is... Some of our greatest stylists make the most of what they see by filtering it through an original impression, for example: "The fruit sellers of China are often thin and serious-looking," which lets you add more: "The fruit sellers of China often appear thin and bottled up; whether old or young, they always seem to conceal an impatient wish to do something else - except they can't..." |
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The neighborhood around the Orchid Hotel in Zhigatse is sparsely populated. I head east, past some inaccessible yards full of lovely green trees. The new street is quiet and empty. Finally, I reach the phone office on a busy intersection. The ominous gloom inside suggests that they seldom let anybody actually use the phones. Luckily for me, the wicketeer thinks I'm cute enough, so she assigns me a booth. I want to call a tourist hotel in Lhasa. The fellow in Lhasa promises a room. Satisfied, I leave the phone office. The remnant of a potted plant, oppressively dead and ugly, sits outside the door. Nobody has bothered to remove it yet... |
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Continuing, the street becomes older, more pleasant. Suddenly, big trees proffer shade and the buildings resemble the ones found in the middling quarters of old Chinese cities. Instead of ugly new white enamel tiles, these buildings glow a soft ochre yellow, made of a plaster that blends in with the boughs and delicate leaves of the older trees. Many small shops open onto the ground floors. The street vendors blink attentively, wishing to sell: they stand as still and eager as sentinels behind their heaped-up carts. There are a lot more Chinese people in this town than I expected. Oh, but that's inevitable, fifty years after; at least people abide peacefully together in Tibet. The fruit is good-looking, tasty and not too expensive, although it must be driven in from very distant reaches of the empire and India, too. The vendors always want to sell you much more than you can buy, and show disappointment, humility or contempt if you only buy one, instead of fifteen peaches at a time. They are men and would rather be in my pockets. |
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The antique shop that doubles as a department store on the corner has no new bicycle wheels. Across the street on the next block sits a beautiful shopping complex. It's so pristine and clean, I don't bother trying to go in. Turning left, the architectural style instantly changes from old urban China to old urban Tibet: heavy buildings, three storeys tall, with thick walls coated in white plaster. The lintels are painted black and always, the frames taper gently up to the top lintel. Within these pediments quaint little panes of glass are set in wood. This old street is crowded with stores selling canned goods and bottled drinks. Two gloriously lush touristic damsels wander there - ahead of me. So young - their golden hair is braided into tight, long pigtails. They look so young and clean. They feel my eyes fall on their tight blue denim short shorts. Eurobabes so fine, twenty-two or three years old: two dart quickly inside the entrance of a tea-shop, hoping I'll follow or fail to notice their presence. ...If it weren't for my broken wheels. |
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Then my magnet finds a bicycle shop near the market. The shop has wheels just my size. But they won't sell me anything but a whole bike, and it isn't worth it. I give up and go to the street market. A young woman sells fried potatoes fried in tumeric oil; she sprinkles on spicy chili and curry powder. It's too tasty. A different aroma engulfs me. Some older woman sells lengthy sticks of incense and cedar-like fronds. The white smoke is dizzying, has an alluring, soporific balm that subdues anguish and makes you forget... But the smoke cloys and then I'm choking, moving on. |
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Tiny stalls are heaped with new clothing. I need a new riding hat. The choice ranges from the Chicago Bulls in red to the Chicago Bulls in blue, green or gold. After much searching, I finally uncover a rare Charlotte Hornets cap. The young woman lets me have it for nine yuan. Plenty of sellers, but not many buyers. These stalls are big on children's clothing and have a lot of socks and running shoes. At least, people have access to the things they need to make life comfortable. But I don't think many folks can actually afford very much of anything. Only one little piece at a time. I put on my new cap and some smiley guys in an adjacent stall start tossing orange peels at me for fun. I grin and duck and shake my head. Then I'm at a stall loaded with folk music recorded on cassette tapes. All these tapes feature local Tibetan singers. Their singing is accompanied by a twangy four-stringed instrument like a ukulele crossed with a mandolin. The rhythms are always the same, but the cadence varies a lot. The voices sound warm, sincere. You find this real Tibetan folk music on home-made tapes in the markets; meanwhile, the government produces fancy CDs; but all the official and professionally produced music is strictly Chinese language, informed by Tibetan "folk subjects." It's strange, and a prime example of how squarely stiff-necked official communist culture is. Maybe they will relax eventually. I don't know. A few years ago, the Chinese put a young Tibetan man in jail. His crime: making a tour around Tibet to record the folk music of his people. He's still in jail. A sad, backwards predicament, and a glaring example of how unfairly cruel Chinese authority can be. |
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The street corner is hung with hand-loomed rainbows. The Tibetans know how to weave their dragons. You can still find several examples of traditional Tibetan floral motifs bounded by zigzags. The marketplace ends. Not far north of the market, the ancient Zhigatse Dzong (fortress) is carved into the grey slate looming over the town. Locals walk to and fro, carrying loads of clothing and firewood. I'm not so sure if their big smiles are meant for me, but they look happy to see me run off the beaten path. |
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Beyond the market square, the back street is no more paved and cobbles give way to gooey ruts of muck. A group of townfolk surrounds a lady selling homemade treats: a rice flour paste made into a mushy bun is filled with red beans and topped with some sweet chili sauce. At the hotel I learn Miguel cannot cash his Eurocheques: so, he's wired for extra cash. I lend him another hundred yuan. His visa runs out in a week; the local police have refused to extend it. They say the upcoming festival in Lhasa prohibits his going there. No logic in this denial, except maybe the police think the city will be too crowded. But Miguel is clever: he tells the police that his bank will only wire money to the main branch in Lhasa, which is true, so he needs an extension to go get the money, after which time he promises to book an exit tour to Everest and Nepal. |
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Then, washing up in the bathroom, I encounter a mild gent from France, a high school teacher. He's got a bike and loves Tibet, too. He grumbles about the police state and warns about the high level of control on roads south of Lhasa near Tsetang. He's surprised to see my detailed maps from the Tibet Map Institute: he knows the man who produced the maps personally. It feels good to feel the small world and share a lifestyle with this unassuming fellow. The Frenchman mutters one last time about the unassailable technocratic morass blinding humanity... Yes, we all know what's wrong, but nobody knows what to do about it... |
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Two whole days in Zhigatse. We have a look at Tashilhunpo Monastery. The "Zhoton Festival" in Lhasa is rumored to be a big draw for tourists, so we need to arrive the day before to get a room. Zhoton is the "Yogurt Festival," a Buddhist feast of plenty and it happens each August. We go for dinner at a hotel beside the market. A group of eight people sit and speak musical, Parisian French. What I wouldn't do to exchange a few words with a pretty accent like that. She's such a throaty purr. Any freaky fucking eye-tai - or a creamy kooky frenchy swiss cheep-cheep, all will do. So, I lean back and say, "Excusez-moi, avez-vous une cigarette?" The comely blonde obliges most politely. Then I turn round to Miguel. I could use a hotcross blonde like that. Impatient and hungry, I grumble, "Where's the fucking waitress?" |
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Miguel and I discuss the police. All foreign travellers in Tibet have to protect ourselves, and that's equivalent to a filter of Western ideas and habits. We are xenophobic. Usually, we pick on something crazy to critique instead of something uplifting. Why do we overlook the good things? I can vouch for the innocence of the Tibetans. Nobody wants to live in fear. Freedom is natural feeling, surpassing what money buys. |
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We both agree that time will see China evolve into some new form of inequality even more modern than communism. One thing seems certain, even after they get rid of communism, they'll still have the police to screw things around... The Chinese are smart enough, and despite their chaotic, despotic tendencies, they still have a fairly good chance to learn how to be free. Although it's supposed to be a free country now, look at how far Russia has yet to go: it's still hard for certain Russians to gain permission to travel abroad and the government repeatedly muffles the journalistic media. Many of the old communist state's illiberal structures are still in place. |
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One thing should be made clear about the structure of authority in Tibet. The Chinese have long promoted a "positive" theory of assimilation as a means to transform Tibet from a colony into a new province of China. In an effort to accomplish this, schools were established years ago to train local Tibetans in the art of police work. Almost all PSB officers are Tibetan and one of their jurisdictions is to deal with foreigners like me. Many other Tibetans have ascended to positions of nominal authority in the governing technocracy itself, at local and national levels both. Obviously, the assimilation of Tibetan people into the official administration of Tibet by the Chinese government is already very deep. But at the same time, glaringly, thousands of Chinese troops are stationed permanently all over Tibet. What do you think their real job is? Officially, they protect the sovereignty of China's borders. But their main job is to exert Chinese control over the Tibetan populace. It's difficult to imagine the continued existence of "Chinese Tibet" without the presence of these troops... In Tibet it's easy to feel that the land will one day become its own country once more: eventually the Chinese troops will have to go home... But of course, not before China and its imported rules and culture have caused some irrevocable changes. |
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Tibetan rebels demand independence, and with good reason; the Chinese have always been brutal in their rule over the helpless. But it is difficult to imagine how the Tibetans can gain their independence. The colony has been evolving since the 1950's and even if the Chinese walk away, certain structures established by their rule would generate inevitable complications for the whole society. For example, would the Tibetan police officers trained by the Chinese be ostracized as quislings, or would it be a simple matter to employ them in the new, liberated Tibetan state? Only the Tibetans themselves could resolve this question. |
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Further complications lie in the deeply rooted communist administrative bureaucracy, comprised of both Tibetans and Chinese officials. Opportunities for local people in the present system have had mixed reviews. It depends on whose story you read, and which media source you choose... Chinese newspapers and television programs are full of happy reports about successful Tibetans whose enterprises were aided by the presence of China's liberating system. Meanwhile, exiled news sources report frequent instances of police brutality and horror stories about jailed and murdered innocents. Everything is true! The Chinese have brought development, but they have also brought an unjust rule and have forbidden, in typically Asian style, all freedom of discussion. Consequently, the Tibetans are prevented absolutely from determining their own destiny. You see similar nonsense happening today in Myanmar, Indonesia and Malaysia, because of their cowardly rulers, all of whom are desperately afraid of free speech and open elections. |
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Inevitably, other issues complicate the circumstances of Tibetan independence and liberation. The Chinese have overseen the development of the present infrastructure in Tibet. Were the nation suddenly to become free of Chinese control, the people would inevitably suffer from unprecedented material deprivations. The price to pay for a newly independent Tibet would be very high, and it would take some time for the nation to get on its feet. It's also true to suggest that the Tibetans are already suffering from such deprivations, and that resources are hardly distributed equitably, with the lion's share going to the Chinese rulers and their army. |
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Dinner arrives and the beefsteak is a little black, but tasty enough. Night leaves us alone to wander aimlessly around town. We pass beneath a nightclub and the Tibetan woman singing upstairs has a superstar voice. She sings Tibetan songs to the tune of Chinese music, which sounds odd. Next stop is the phone office, but it's already after the auspicious hour of eight, so the folks behind the counter don't let Miguel call Europe tonight. I let him alone and retreat to a tea-shop across from the Orchid Hotel with my notebook. My favorite Tibetan beverage is sweet milk mixed with Hindustani red tea. Tibetans play card games in the next room. They are very drunk and noisy. So, I flip the house cassette over. The folksy singer is a lusty lament. The tea-shop ladies look plaintive and disbelieving as I get up. They are sorry to see me go. I promise to come back again. |
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Next morning I do laundry. It's too rainy to visit the great monastery. A manager chases away some kids who wander into the hotel's backyard in hopes of stealing into the overgrown apple orchard behind. He kicks their asses hard till they run away. Speaking of funny things round the hotel, it's weird: there's a little Tibetan boy who walks out, looks straight at me with a few words of thankful dismissal. He's all dressed up in a shiny cowboy outfit complete with six-shooters holstered round his waist... This kid resembles the "officially recognized" Panchen Lama. The experience lasts less than ten seconds. |
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I buy my bus ticket for Lhasa. Then Miguel and I visit Tashilhunpo after lunch, surreptitiously, without having to pay. The monastery was built in the 15th century at the foot of Dolmari Mountain by the first Dalai Lama, Gendun Drub. During its heyday, this Gelukpa monastery housed nearly 5000 monks. Today, it's the home of the famous Panchen Lama. The monastery also doubles as a mausoleum, the final resting-place for a long line of spiritual leaders. The "Red Temple" enshrines many relics and memorials devoted exclusively to particular Panchen Lamas. In the past, the monastery maintained four colleges for educating novices. Today, only two of these colleges remain. A new and larger building, either a college or a residence, is presently under construction. A sight to behold, it's built with traditional materials, massive stones and gargantuan timbers. |
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While the temples of the monastery are kept in magnificent shape, many of the age-old college residences are extremely decrepit on the insides, which proves without a doubt that there are far fewer monks living here than in earlier days. The outward signs of foreign sponsorship, and the expensive new mausoleum for the last Panchen Lama, cannot relieve the impression that being a monk isn't so easy or popular anymore. For those who do undertake this path, Gelukpa novices must spend their time studying Tibetan Buddhist texts. They also practice a traditional method of dialectical argumentation, reminiscent of Socratic dialogue, in which an interlocutor confronts one or more listeners in an attempt to impress points and face down challenges; in the Tibetan version of dialectics, clever argumentation often comprises a terse question or pronouncement, and each proposition is punctuated with vehement arm-swinging gestures and a loud hand clap. During all this loud action, the interlocutor leans over his listener, who is seated on the ground... |
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But today we see little sign of any such activity at Tashilhunpo. Most of the monks are hidden away somewhere. Maybe only a few monks actually live here. In fact, as we progress inside the place, we encounter more tourist groups than residents. Most tourists are middle-aged Germans and French. Together, we enter a spectacular temple housing a 26 metre bronze Buddha: I get a photo though I'm not supposed to. One of the attending monks smilingly prevents me taking any more photos... |
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Each temple at Tashilhunpo has an altar decorated with a photo of the previous Panchen Lama, the thirteenth, who died in 1989. Most of the big temples double as mausoleums for previous incarnations of the Panchen Lama, too. Naturally, a new photo of the current, "official" child Panchen is also present on the altars. Surprisingly, someone has set up photos of both boy lamas in one of the mausoleums: the first photo pictures the boy who was chosen by the Dalai Lama et al, this unlucky child was promptly detained indefinitely by the Chinese. Beside him, decked out in similar yellow silks, sits the official photo of the boy selected by the Chinese government. This same photo is seen in all the other temples of Tashilhunpo. |
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The mausoleum temples are well-kept. Recently, the monastery was able to build a golden, expensively huge resting place for the last Panchen. My favorite place in the complex is the ancient and cozy assembly hall, with its row upon row of prayer couches and the lovely, subtle glimmer from the skylight above. |
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As I climb the hill in back of the monastery to take shots of golden roofs, an elderly monk, perhaps seventy years old, joins me for a walk. He's trying to show me the easiest way down to the bottom of the hill. As we walk along the back road, we meet three young monks. They want a look at my face. Now, I've been growing whiskers for the past five weeks. One of the monks, barely out of his teens, comes up for a really close look. Are some of my whiskers really grey? The boy reaches to tug at the barbs on my chin. It hurts. He looks too serious for his own good. I laugh and shrug before walking down the hill beside the kindly old monk. |
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That's all about Zhigatse. The police do permit Miguel's trip to Lhasa. We get on the bus the next day. But I lose my temper because the police and driver are impatient to move us along, hustling us to load my bike faster than humanly possible, as if our mere presence will cause a riot or something. Control freak nutballs - crushing the Tibetans with their fear of freedom! The valley road to Lhasa is precipitous in many places. Everyone on board is local, except a few Japanese travellers. The little bus is so crammed, I wish I was back on my bike! |
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Lhasa is five hours up the road. Beyond the new Chinese sector in the west-end is the Barkhor, an ancient borough at the heart of the old city built around the Jokhang temple. Luckily, the bus terminates right along East Dekyi Lam, the street nearest the most popular tourist hotels. I'm due for a leisure rest. Time to read and write and talk to strangers. All I want is a good wrench so I can replace two spokes. Then, I can visit Samye, Tibet's first monastery. |
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Most of the tourists in Lhasa seem very clammy about finding beds. I go from one hotel to the next as the silently grim American and Germans pass me by. I go to the Yak Hotel lobby. Nobody's talking, except behind my back: an aging but still pretty blonde appears and start to rant nonsense as I wait to meet the desk clerk. Perhaps the woman is suffering from toxic tourist shock - I have no idea why my present failure is so important. When I finally discover that the Yak Hotel is full - I leave - silently managing to ignore the insipidly rude and vain woman. |
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Lhasa is too full of tourists! I've never seen so many fat Germans, American students, Koreans and Japanese at once in the same place! You have to go to the Canadian Rockies to find a zoo as touristy as this, and while Aspen and Tahoe may be far more cramped, at least they suffer mostly local traffic. I make the right choice at last, and ride into the gate of the Banak Zhol Hotel. There, I dismount beside a sad looking professorial type, probably an Italian socialist; he stands gazing fixedly at the hotel bulletin board, which is mounted upon huge portraits of Tibetan door guards painted in bright colors. I mumble: "The more mediocre - the more they hear..." |
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With this cryptic greeting, I go in and try to book rooms. At first none of the women behind the desk recalls my attempt to phone for a place. It's just too busy now. Then, Miguel and I are placed in a four-bed room with two Korean girls, one of them a sweetheart who resembles the Disney character, Mulan. She grew up in America, and she's very civil and talkative: the girl even summons courage enough to whisper a few hints about being hungry for a fuck, having been locked up in an all girl dorm in Dalian, China for months and months. Her youthful deprivation is so cute. Her travel partner comes from Korea, and they speak Korean as well as Chinese together. I always smile at girls of twenty-three because they look tasty. Can't help being polite and eager... But Miguel is hopelessly gruff. It's not worth repeating how this guy takes perverse pleasure as he irks them with senseless comments about the feud between the two Koreas - perhaps so he can make himself feel lonely and unwanted... |
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Across the street from the hotel sit three email cafes. I start writing letters to my friends and family. Buy souvenirs, then I'll leave. A tourist: face your fate, brother! Kiss your dollars goodbye and pray to your fantasy of the unique and unforgettable experience! Somebody has already written this book three times over! |
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I get up well before dawn to cycle up for the Zhoton "Yoghurt" Festival at Drepung Monastery. Busses wait outside the hotels for sleepy tourists. As I reach the outskirts of town, I'm blinded by the dark. The air is chilly. Hundreds of locals stroll up the path to Drepung. Daybreak seeps through the torn veils of smoky mist... |
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A mood of going forth to a destination possesses the ten thousand feet rising together upon the early dawn... Everyone walks in a single body - upwards. Only the Tibetans know exactly what's happening. They're not so mystified and they smile a lot. It's a festive day. Others look seriously humble because it's a holy day, too. Some of the local Tibetans are confused by the presence of so many strange foreigners at their show. What do we have to do with their land and religion? Fifty years ago Tibet was still firmly closed to outsiders. For over ten years, she has welcomed thousands of visitors. Undoubtedly, the money we bring is welcome. But take a close look at the faces of Lhasa's folk: you see surprise, shyness and fascination, and many other emotions - sour and sweet. Many seem to enjoy watching the fair-skinned strangers wander their streets. The Tibetans must think the wide world a strange place: that we should have so much money, time and freedom to travel so far... We must appear somehow narrow-minded... |
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The dawn gives in to the day. I find an old lady selling incense sticks and snacks: she keeps an eye on my bike while I walk up the rest of the way. The Zhoton draws the biggest crowd of the year. I'm also sure that more Western foreigners will converge here today at Drepung than ever before throughout the whole history of the Tibetan nation... I run into an acquaintance at the monastery gate, a Japanese who wants to cycle to Nepal, but only after his ankle has healed. A dog bit him, and he neglected the wound for two weeks. Now, he's taking antibiotic shots everyday. Twice, in the hotel, I warned him to take care and wait until he had recovered fully before travelling. |
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We pay twenty-five yuan to get inside the monastery gate. Most don't bother to pay. The Zhoton takes place outside the grounds, on a rough hillside north of the monastery. We clamber up a sharp rock face upon which is hung a huge covered image of the Maitreya Buddha, the "future Buddha," and the next incarnation destined to appear in this world. Sunrise must happen before the monks can reel up the white fabric covering the huge tanka. The mural is massive, at least thirty-five metres deep and forty wide. The Maitreya Buddha is symbolic, perhaps for the enduring faith of the Tibetans: Buddha cannot die, but will always return to help save and enlighten humanity. The Maitreya holds an orange emblem that bids us to free ourselves of superfluous and upsetting emotions. But it is still hidden, and all of us, tourists and locals, must wait. |
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As we stand around, my Japanese pal and I run into Miguel, and we see a few more familiar faces appear, including the Lacedaemonian Youth - the Brit from Darchen. Sans the wholesome California mama - he's quite alone, and he tries to smile down on us, but looks rather mincey and tight-lipped. I don't recognize anyone else. A whole bunch of knobby tourists are here, each one toting a fancy camcorder or a big fat camera. So obviously, I'm witnessing a lot of aging "professionals-on-tour," each and every one of them redolent with subliminal phallic memories of something lost forever, like that lonesome blonde years ago, encountered that first time wandering away from hearth, home and wife. Years ago is as good as today, if you are an older gent on holiday. Actually, there are plenty of young Japanese and several very old Caucasian ladies, too. Tibet is the perfect surrogate for that untenable fantasy to touch the pas - right now. |
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Certainly, coming to Tibet does reflect a fascination about something exotic, which we imagine has remained untouched. Why do I always search for irony behind embarrassed dreams? This dream's no longer possible! I can see the elderly monks of Drepung appear amused and shy. Some of the younger ones on top of the ridge appear annoyed with the crowd. Many smile, too, enjoying the excitement. We're too many strangers. So they march slowly and shyly from the main monastery across the ravine to reach the tent pavilion beneath the veiled Buddha. I'm tickled - because each foreigner seems to ignore all the other foreigners present here: maybe that's just because all of us have cameras - and so we look too identical. Ludicrous. |
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The eldest monks finally take their places in the pavilion and begin to recite their tantric-mantric chant, much amplified over a public address system. "Buddha is an expensive camera," I say to Miguel and my Japanese friend a moment before one of the elders smiles and drones, in English, over the PA, "You've got a big camera..." The sum monetary value of all the high-tech camera equipment with us today on Drepung hill exceeds the combined income, for at least five or ten years, of all the local Tibetans here this morning! It's true - believe me. |
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One of the local Tibetans observes that he has never seen so many foreign tourists at the Zhoton in previous years... People, enthusiastic for blessings from Gelukpa elders, crowd round the pavilion as the old gents chant on. Their voices are deep and resonant, spoken in a rolling grind of words rumbling in circles upon nonsense syllables followed by the names of faith. The elders pay scant attention to onlookers who press in for personal blessings... |
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In the vanguard, tall young monks push the crowd back several times. Sometimes, these monks employ long wooden sticks to whack at the zealous devotees. Even so, some people, especially women, surge forth and reach out with donations, imploring the elders to give some sign of blessing. Today is an auspicious day. But the sun rises behind grey clouds... Fifty young monks begin hauling up the fabric masking the great Buddha. His blue curls and yellow aura are revealed. Then the people toss silky white "kata" scarves onto the image... |
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It's 9:00 A.M. and I realize that the hillside is very crowded. I want to get away. The crowd confuses me and I feel the inexorable panic of agoraphobia threaten me once again. As quickly and as calmly as possible, I make my getaway. Old American, German and French wives step most gingerly up and down the difficult paths. I get around them. But below, a bottleneck blocks the way out: a stone stair is built between the monastery and an old wall ringing the premises. Here I am, squeezed in with everyone else, just like some ooze from a tube of toothpaste. I experience nightmarish memories of news reports about people crushed in football stadium stampedes... I swallow my fear of crowds and try not to look right or left, but only straight beyond the thick press of bodies. No escape - try not to push or fall down. Thank god's holy shit nobody shouts fire! Somehow, I squish out the exit despite the horrible, chest crushing cement-like flow of idiotic people. Outside, hundreds more still hike up. |
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I encounter a couple from Germany at the hotel. They want to look at Lhasa before riding on to Nepal. The southward route to Nepal is most popular with cyclists. However friendly they are, nobody has the tool I need to remove the freewheel so my broken spokes can be replaced! |
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Feeling alone is how I come home to what started in the embryo. I suspect my mother smoked then. That's why I don't smoke, except grass. (Mushrooms and clouds give you sounds unreal, because cats can't talk... Baby blue she used to call me, when I was still dreaming in jazz, and forgetting the rent. I'm not free of the rent, yet.) Today, being able to take a nap somehow signifies the end of my long ride. Then Miguel tells me that the Tibetan chambermaid wants to give me a massage... So she does, quietly methodical about it. I can tell she is dying of curiosity about my white body, my white sex and all I think about are bluesy metaphors: society is a killing floor... Maybe American blacks were the first ones ever to have made emotionally truthful modern music. Only a black man can make me hop to that chopping block! |
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I'm happy despite having to "go back"... I'm a tool too. You're free, aren't you? Since you were far too scared to buy me, right? Lying in bed all day, a chill, it's the cloying sweat of the shits... The misery of eating something wrong lasts twenty-four hours. Makes me forget the money I don't have, because I didn't want to die too soon, a young-blood drunk on my own voice, paying for every new girl... My room is padded with her slippery skin. I'm as near to being a Read Indian as I'll ever get! |
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Miguel fucks up at the Bank of China for the third day running. He's trying, but can't talk, and doesn't know how to get the clerk to check if his mail order money is in yet... I don't care - he can't go anywhere, and I'm hanging on, too; so, I email for two hundred fifty, which is enough to feed a family of Tibetans for a couple years, and I'm out in two weeks... |
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You don't have to throw away everything and go live in the barrio. Give me money to write more? Who should do that - the reading public? But who are they anymore? Do they exist? ...Maybe they do?! Okay, then the government - the government should feed me? Since nobody reads anything after all - we writers should become civil servants, too! Sure! |
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I'm feeling out of it in a party that gets me nothing but a fresh lay and some laughs - if that. Acting like someone who is like someone else who belongs to a particular class, and playing the role... We don't have to define rules of behavior to live freely. |
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Some people must always appear to be responsible citizens, like politicians, just as other types of people will laugh at each other if they act responsibly at all, like jazz musicians, poets and painters. The roles we imagine have very little to do with what each individual actually does and tries to do... |
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People should talk to each other - no matter what kind of image system they heat the security blanket with... I still don't want Fulbright or Canada Council grants: I hate the idea of depending on competitive approval systems and the government - just so I can pretend to be a "professional." Do I want to turn out just another puffed-up ingrate-on-the-make? So, I'm indifferent to all forms of technocracy and bureaucracy associated with the arts. The focus of the art bureaucracy isn't on the content of art, but on who you are and who you know. Your grubby little CV is all that counts. Forget about what you actually wrote or painted - you are only a pro if you can get somebody to give you money and a name with it. Some of today's finest living artists are left out in the cold because their national art systems are too staid and conventional, and everybody who gets involved stays involved because they are allowed to: usually, such systems are usually interested in "training" new artists only. It becomes another safe middle class job... But what about the born genius who needs no training? How can such individuals fit into an official system which panders to the average, to mimicry, to the schooled - the unremarkable? What is the literary genius to do when he sees nobody wants his work because everyone is fixated upon movies and pop music only? Perhaps the official university/government system arose because nobody really wants art anymore. Yet, a tragedy arises: the pure creativity that inspires art is obstructed by a system that demands the artist get approval for a creativity that doesn't understand why! What absurdity! Approval from who? For what? Why place the author in a university, and force him or her to teach what can't be taught? What for? Fine artists have never needed to ask for anyone's approval! The best art is spontaneous and unplanned - it springs from the imagination of sensitive and capable souls, like a seed full of themes finally grows into a full flower. Meanwhile, technocracy only serves to collectivize an easily shared compliance that really undoes creative originality: quite unwittingly, spontaneity and imaginative freedom are undermined... Not only that, but the technocracy is so limited in its resources that the same artists get let in over and over again, and almost nobody new gets a chance to have their "national" career. So, if you refuse to participate in these unfair and impersonal public systems, and you can't bear the mass mind of hollywood and pop-music and genre-publishing - then that's it - you cease to exist... People will go out of their way to ignore your work;, at best, the few people who may be interested will have to rely on old, second hand reports of your life and work. Maybe the left out and the dispossessed - those of us who are unafraid of poverty, ridicule and solitude - perhaps we alone have a chance to write fine novels. |
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But the point is: rich or poor, city or country, that doesn't matter to art. Keats was a hick and Rimbaud, a filthy peasant boor. Look at Dostoyevsky: after rebelling against those in power, and imprisoned for it, Dostoyevsky had no choice but to become a sycophant to ideals and powerful people he didn't really believe in; consequently, he became a frustrated and monstrously bigoted xenophobe. Of course, the perpetual mental anguish resulting from the forced departure from his original instincts into a prison camp with ordinary folk, and later set free to return home again, all that subsequently led to several original insights about the transformation of modern Christianity, the Russian character and the true nature of all humanity. |
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Yes, but the truest sincerity comes from eternal vagrancy, the waiting to be damned, the wish for redemption, the hunger for good fortune and the lust for a love that you never had. Oh yes, I'm a slut-fucker too... All women would be sluts if they let themselves go. But men won't set them free! You have to wear a label: a slut/whore, or a wife/mother - but you can never ever just be free! |
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You icy mothers, you slimy double-dealers - all of you who imagine the life you live is the life you deserve. Do you actually pretend to know what you are talking about, too? You just let in your kids! But as for true artists? What's that? We're over. We crawl and race, biding time to bolster pride. You've got your nod, he's got his signal... Expensive classed-in sleep - better get it. You need that slumber-party, it is well-earned..! You still think the nature of humanity is to compete, and dumb survival is the best we'll drum up!? But animals are the only creatures that compete to survive! People have to work together before we thrive! |
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No more dough than for a bottle of something tasty enough to save my soul: nothing's keeping me behind but your need to steal my cash... You must forget my memory, sister, before you can love like thunder again... I won't be coming back home tomorrow, either. I don't like your fake mercy, I don't want your insipid patriarchy of application forms... I just don't need it. |
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But I don't mind being born - although I'm unwanted. My spill is worth my old man's seed. How many of you really are bastards, and don't even know who your old man is?! The twentieth century of irresponsibility is over. The memory we have for morality has never been more fake or put-on than ever before now. You don't believe me!? |
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I walk circles round the market - without buying a thing. I can't play the guitar. You can, sure... I don't mind - please, enjoy it... I'm slower than the snail on the path? Yes, I'm pretty thick, aren't I? The dons think I'm a dunce, a vulgar boor, no doubt about it... Question remains, why did she need it? I don't know. Fucked too many guys and grew up in a Catholic town or something. Women can scream their guilt away. Really, when are we going to understand that a girl should fuck because she likes to do it? Why else? We're human beings, not rabbits. Why should I bother to ask God to forgive my pleasure? Priests are dinosaurs! |
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You know how crazy it is today: zombie Italian bunnies hire killers to put-down their much-hated fathers. Why? Maybe so they can afford Majorcan dungeons of their own: keeping up with the idle is so important to today's demi-dames... I know you don't care, but I have a theory about fashion: people who live by appearances are likely to be unhappy because they can't simply be themselves: they're always worried about what other people think about them. Blahhh. They just caught that ol' market scold; but no, that cold really can't touch the safely dead poet! Those of us confined to our little middle class cash scenario, the iddy-biddy profs, the creative writing instructors, the goofy starlets, the hack manques: we all are forced to find some "safer way" to reach art - exactly by not being artists ourselves! So you see how it is..! Thick TV writers and formula novelists, editors with too many rules and presumptions, and slack arts technocrats with big salary and juicy expense accounts. Go ahead and study the dead revolutionary till your blood turns blue sourpuss sister; but don't you dare try to be a poet yourself - because you'll be alone - with nobody to respect your poverty and absence... |
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Clean up the Mediterranean? Why bother? Buy a new car instead. You're so inconsiderate as to throw your trash everywhere but where she belongs - in my bed! Another inappropriate tangent: naked, her pink nipples are pert, and she's moist-muffed, lying nude on what little is left of the beach at St. Tropez... Ignorance is the deadly force of fear; while new knowledge alone lets us take heart... It's true. |
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Yes, wait for reincarnation as a splendid multi-orificed member of the machine-bank, processing 1000 orders simultaneously... Lend me your mythic fibre, connect me to that fluid crystal tree... The computer of the future - it can't be imagined yet... A lazy louse of a French poet called Paul well-predicted that we'd touch and feel images within seconds of wishing to see them... Software designers and hardware engineers have truly mastered the art of wish fulfillment. (But all the girls are waiting outside the network parlor, wondering when the girlie-boys are going to come fuck 'em...) |
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You don't have to believe a word I say. I feel quite good enough about myself to do nothing but wait to get fat and even slower than I already am... Maybe I'll have an aneurysm, since one ear is beet red, and the other, pale as cream cheese. ...Still, I'm sick in bed, sick in bed... Is your diet a terminal one? Can you raise your leg higher than your eyebrow? Play it again for the 4,000th time, dope star. Inspiration began when you were alone then was squashed by the group, the good-for-nothing corporation. But the cheques and TT's never stopped pumping did they? So why break-up - after all? |
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Tomorrow makes me want to live, sure it does. Another day to lie in bed writing my road journal, fast and uncluttered, not so elliptically unfocused as this hard-to-read shit. The reason I'm writing is simple... I don't want to be a jesus freak, a nazi, a deadbeat - not any more than I want to end up another cramped little bully-boy at the artichoking uni - a fakey form-imitator. Instead, I'll be a stupid zombie working for a big dickhead corporation - and I'll be lucky if I escape with pennies and brain intact enough to write even one half-good poem, let alone three novels... |
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Anyway, I'd rather be a nothing, a no name. A somebody-only-for-myself. You won't ever read any fake jam spread all over me in some dim dunce celebzine... Yeah, yeah, yeah! Yeah, yeah, yeah! Come on! Come on! Hey, we got too much "come on" for so many years now! I want to forget this trivial stupid civilization! |
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Put it this way and leave it alone forever: I'm not you. You're you and the world isn't your idea of it. The world is beyond ideas. Science gets closer than your ideas. So, fuck your foundationalism, screw your dispensationalism, your insane objectivism, your old fascism, your blind anarchism - all so stupid fanaticism, no-trustism and finger-pointingism... So-so speechlessism wins, yet again - because because - you just can't cook up some all-new-gism-ism exciting enough to make some dummy pay you for giving it a new name! |
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~ Miguel comes back from the bank again. Is this the second or the third day of overdue waiting? I'm losing my career-track! Afraid to tread upon naval snakes? Yes. Behold the official birthright of the fascist prince of paramilitary-ville. He's dumber than us all - and they stamp his ilk out by the dozen. So, what you gonna do about that, peace-lover? |
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I'm waiting for the pork fat to melt. I'm still a fool? Okay, so it won't ever melt. We're betrayed by our aptitude for paying attention to prime concerns and then jailing ourselves, in service to wishful lip service... Boredom and formality - not really any need for practical plans and private intentions made public, not at all - just a cloying habit for abstraction - that's what drives us into the mean bureaucratic go round. We have no choice but to subscribe to the bureaucracy because we can't think of anyway else how to do it. Nothing to do but fuck your boss up the ass. Oh, but if you only had the chance to sister, you would! |
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We the peasants protest - because we always have to pay more to live than we can ever earn back! So doesn't that really mean that we can only just afford to pretend that we care, too, Mr. President? Moguls don't live in the same world as the man-in-the-street. Choose your narrow stand Mr. Social Man - and babble meaninglessly. You're rich and you don't have to be in touch with any reality at all! Let's all work together to help preserve the unbalanced structure, let's make sure global inequality, oppression and injustice goes on! Pretend that the hungry poor can afford the bad news, too! |
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I'm another leper, wondering why the heroic and lousy bastards of the world have no obligation but to say that they still care - without any risk - since none of their rich asses can end up in a jail cell? It's easy to promise a springtime for humanity, but when's it coming? I have so little to give you - only thoughts. Maybe thoughts can inspire a desire to act... But if you were to follow my example, you'd end up in some jail, kids. |
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A laughably ignominious hypocrisy, a frustration that all poets, philosophers and politicians suffer together. We end up realizing that all we have are small small thoughts, dreams and words. Sometimes our words happen to be wise and beautiful. But "reality" assumes its own shape and seldom does it do what we want it to... Then think of reality like this: humanity is reality. You are we and we are they. The pronouns end in I... We are you. We have to be stronger than wishing. That's the key to reality: action isn't planned as we imagine it ought to be. Inspiration is a gift that gives to talent the magic of speech and lyric song. What else do you need to know? I'm never coming back. |
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Time doesn't begin for us. I'm not going to claim innocence ever again. I'm not innocent, but I'm not damned either. I'm still sick in bed. |
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Miguel tries, "You
should go there. Talk, get your money." |
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He's right. Over the phone, the tour boss guy did admit that Tuhbten really is slaving for him out there in the wilderness. But it's a matter of only fifty U.S. bucks. Money is smaller than us, believe me! Okay, money is bigger than us when we don't have any. But my anger is small and insincere, too. All right, I'm going to give the bastard a try... Just to see what happens. The market is driven around the corner, and I haven't caught up to it yet, and I'm not going to... The boss of the tour company Tuhbten works for keeps an office in the Grand Hotel. All the new tourist hotels are in the west part of Lhasa. A big driveway, a glitzy marble lobby. The desk clerk obligingly directs me to the great Hun's travel office. |
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So I go up and Mr. Flying Leap is in, and he sits behind a wood-grained mactac special with lockable drawers. He's talking on his phone to a potential client. His secretary is a young Tibetan woman. She looks terrified of her boss. Today, I will have a good chance to find out why. |
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As I listen to him speak to his customer on the phone, Mr. Leap sounds like a real gentleman, full of professional promise: he offers his services and extends his enthusiasms to a potential client, but he seems obliged to spend an awful lot of energy assuaging the usual doubts with which Westerners challenge their Chinese hosts and partners. It's a tiresome racial chore that all Asian businessmen must endure - only to develop sufficient trust. Flying Leap gets a trifle frustrated and takes a mild swipe at his client's alleged prejudices, and speaks quickly into the receiver, "I know you Americans don't like us Chinese, but..." |
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Mr. Leap is built on the defensive. He looks Mongolian, huge and husky, like a linebacker - very much the pugilist and killer. He wears a sharp crew cut. It doesn't take any sensitivity on my part to fathom that he won't be inclined to humble himself and cooperate with small fry like me... |
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Actually, I feel like
laughing, but say, "Hello." Then, I test my nerves, "So, is Tuhbten back yet?"
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I get up to go, numb but not angry, yet. I turn and bite at his bait, "What kind of businessman are you - a good one or a bad one? This has nothing to do with China or America. Your company owes me." |
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He starts up, whips off his jacket, ready to attack. The secretary jumps back. She glances fearfully from me to him, him to me. Flying Leap rushes me back to the door, clenching his fists, ready to punch. He wants to scare me away for good and won't be afraid on his own turf. His best pals are probably army colonels and police chiefs. But I stand my ground, "What are you - a businessman or a monster?" |
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"Yaaarrrhhhh!" Musclehead rage doesn't have to be very articulate... He gets ready to punch me. I duck and dodge back. He's only faking, trying to frighten me away, and it's working... I shout the same thing, "Are you a businessman or a monster?!" |
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Then I see the hallway has filled up with tremulous Tibetan chambermaids wringing their hands, looking anguished and shaking their heads, wishing I would get out before my pretty face gets ruined. |
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Monster Mr. Leap really is much bigger than me and his penile brain needs neither language nor heart to process his chalky blood supply... So, I turn tail and walk out. I exit the lobby peacefully, as if nothing particularly bad has happened. Maybe I managed to bring the greedy bastard one step closer to a premature death by zealous rage and heart seizure. Oh well, I hope not. Live and let live. I'm in the past - what I say or do doesn't much matter... |
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Content to have my dumb old block still hanging on my shoulder, I walk outside and spy a group of middling Tibetan fellows. They squat on the sidewalk close to my bike. All of them wear very nervous smiles. I pause and lean over into their faces, smiling at them. I shake my head, punching my fist into the palm of my left hand... Fuck it! |
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That's done. Miguel laughs, figuring I should try to get the money again. I swirl a finger round the side of my head. It isn't worth it, now is it? (Believe me, one of these days I'm going to change the subject and write something new, even if you think I can't...) |
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Was I scared, facing down that big robber snake? Not more than I was angered. There's a big difference between fighting your so-called "enemy" and being afraid of something. |
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What's to be afraid of anyway? Not men, but nature, certainly. You know, I always meet these girls who love to ask silly questions: "Have you ever had a near death experience?" Then, I reel off a tale about how I almost bought it..! In fact, I've had at least three near death experiences. The first one is embarrassing, and the second is a sure best-seller. The third close call is harder, because you can never figure a slavish Slav like me. We say we're coming, but never show up... |
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None of these events which follow will ever happen to you as they actually did happen to me. It appears to be part of my destiny to live through improbable disasters. That's me - the knob with nine lives and a feckless giggle to mend each mistake I make. |
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My first near-death experience took place around 1992, in Canada. I was riding my bicycle along Whyte Avenue, a busy thoroughfare. It was a beautifully crisp spring afternoon, sunny, brisk air. I had to turn right onto 109th street. Two pretty blonde girls stood there in short skirts next to the TD bank. I couldn't keep my eyes off them... So, I didn't bother to check left as I rounded the corner. I didn't see any traffic lights. A small city, but a busy corner. I felt a big something whump me from behind and I somersaulted through the air. I landed on my back and the back of my head knocked against the asphalt. I was unconscious for about 10 seconds and then woke up. I hurt, but nothing was broken. Then someone helped me up. I picked up my bike and went home. An ambulance whisked me over to the hospital. The doctor said I'm okay. |
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The second near-death experience happened only a few years ago, in 1997, during a cycling trip en route to Chamdo, capital of eastern Tibet. High in the hinterland of northern Yunnan province lies a delightful Shangri-La called Tiger Leaping Gorge. This natural phenomenon is etched between two peaks overlooking the Yangtse River. Believe me, it's a really dangerous place to go for a walk unless you're as sure-footed as a billy goat. That day, the day I almost died, I had already ridden 70 kilometres up the main highway from Lijiang. I was still faced with a 20 kilometre hike along the path to Walnut Grove, the village in middle of Tiger Leaping Gorge. My first mistake should have struck me as ominous rather than innocuous: I ignored a local lady in the village restaurant at the trailhead. She vociferously tried to make me leave my bike behind with her so I could walk up the path instead. After I'd set out, some way up the path, a repair crew almost stopped me from going on as I reached a big heap of house-size boulders fallen across the route; and yet, I insisted on hauling my bike over the rocks. |
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A resthouse appeared not far beyond the massive landslide, so I ate some noodles and downed a beer. Rain is frequent in the summer, and I encountered some slippery mud and wet gravel slides. I was tired and wanted done with the remaining ten kilometres to my hotel. A recent fall of scree crossed out the pathway ahead, except for a thin trail. Not so easy to walk a bicycle along this thread. I made the first of these tiny paths, no problem. But I still had to negotiate another, then another. |
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I was exhausted and dizzy. You never know when you might faint on your feet. It really did happen to me. There I was - plodding along. I fell asleep for a tenth of a second - enough to lose my balance. Falling woke me. My right hand shot out as I landed on my back. Does this sound like Reader's Digest? The fingers of my right hand caught a rock and gripped it. Miraculously, the rock held me, even with the heavy bike laying across my chest. I would have slid backwards off the sharp ledge if it weren't for the rock in my right hand. I rolled my eyes back and saw upside down: behind and below my head the gorge fell away at a killer angle, at least 80 degrees all the way down 300 metres to the river below. I had to remain motionless and was trapped, since the bike lay heavily on me. What made things worse, the tiny ledge upon which I lay was tilted about 30 degrees down towards the precipice only inches below my head: one false move and I'd slip over. No kidding, this really happened and it was definitely a lot more real than any big budget thriller! |
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What could I do? Nothing but cling and lie there, gripping the rock and the bicycle frame. I thought for a second: how odd that my heart wasn't pounding! I felt no panic or fear. There had been one instant of reflex and adrenaline as I fell. But now, lodged in this upside down position, with no way out, I only felt annoyed and angry with myself. I could not simply crawl out from under the heavy bike! At least not till I thought about it and could muster some strength... My right hand did have a firm grip on the rock, but I could not slide my legs left or right without upsetting the delicate balance. A couple of minutes went by, lying like that, helpless. Then, I saw a young man walking along the path, a Chinese road crew worker. He carried an empty glass teapot in his left hand. He hurried up when he saw my predicament. |
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Still holding the teapot, the boy reached out and took hold of the bike frame on my chest. He hauled it up. Then he grabbed my left arm and held me so I could scramble up to a new footing. Giddy with relief, I gave the kid a hundred yuan right away and took his picture. Man, did I feel like a fool! Do I ever hate being a goddamn idiot knob like that! |
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I made it to Walnut Grove, exhausted. The new morning felt like a gift. As I lay in the soft hotel bed I shuddered at yesterday's memory - a memory that inspired a fantasy fear much worse than the real experience! I kept picturing my calamity over and over again: had I not grabbed for the rock, I would have fallen, scraped and battered on the sharp rocks, down into the river gorge. I would have drowned... It's impossible to imagine a more horrible death! |
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Unwillingly, I repeated this incredible story to a pretty French art student who happened to show up at the Walnut Grove guest-house. This particular airhead started to giggle as if I was telling a joke. I said, "It isn't funny. I almost died." She stopped laughing. Since then, I've told the story three or four times in company. No more. Now, I want to forget. Because each time I recollect, I see myself holding on and then after being skinned alive, I plunge beneath the rapid water and dye. Pure vertigo and fear: an awful memory. |
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The other near death experience happened in 1999. You don't know what an earthquake is. It's horrible - the world's biggest monster. You don't want to meet one. It's more frightening than a horror movie, and during the quake, I was much more terrified than when I lay clinging to the rock in Tiger Leaping Gorge. The earthquake woke up nearly everyone, and killed many, at about 2:00 A.M... I dreamed someone was shaking me. I half-woke up, flat on my back. My girlfriend woke up, too. I still thought it was a dream. Then, as the intensity of the quake increased, I wasn't asleep anymore! |
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As the whole room shakes, you feel helpless. I was paralyzed - trying to gauge the monster. My girlfriend clung to me and whimpered pitifully like a puppy. I muttered, "It's okay, it's okay." |
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The trembler approached its crescendo. Together we cringed and clung together in the predator's path: the beast leered hungrily at us for a moment, as if deciding whether or not to spring. Twenty seconds - all rumbling and bumping up and down. Then, the shaking grew even more violent - a mighty and destructive earthquake! |
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Helplessness pierces the heart until it speeds into fear. The apartment block jerked around so much that you could feel the entire structure whip-lashing to and fro, and up and down - right through all the floors below the seventh... Funnily enough - my fear and adrenaline surged even as the earthquake was subsiding, perhaps because my frozen system needed extra time to saturate my body with hormones... I hugged my lover girl and whispered, "That was a big one." |
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A huge disaster. No electricity and a steady pulse of aftershocks rippled through everything... The morning news told about hundreds buried alive. But nobody knew how extensive the damage was because the quake was centered deep in the central mountain range. My quake fear did not go away for weeks and weeks afterwards. Things shook under my feet as the quake perpetually seemed to revive again. The mind cannot understand its inspiration. So, we tend to blot out whatever shocks, confuses and bewilders us. |
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On this account, I used to call myself a "mystic rationalizer" - or, in more modern words, a skeptical unbeliever... My main hunch wanted to accommodate the obvious fact that human beings need to invent ideas that "explain" everything with no issue, cause or reason. So, we have many ways of believing. Modern philosophy was confounded by the efflorescence of science and thinkers were obliged to deny many good ideas. Our essence became a mute point of sorts. Instead, we have become occupied with ideas inspired by our immediate awareness and we count ourselves most limited by "ignorance of the facts." This ultramodern state of constant apprehension imbues living consciousness! |
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Although we are aware that we are alive and part of nature, we do not fathom what life and nature really are... That's the central paradox of all philosophy. We have intuitions that answer and frustrations that fail. This relationship with reality gives us the human dilemma, and reveals our imperfect intelligence. Perhaps what we are is actually at the heart of what nature is! Most of our gods would have us believe so... |
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But we dare not whisper our psychological knowledge. For it seems that those truths closest to essential knowledge and deep faith are unutterably nameless - borne upon the moving shapes and shadows of insight about progress and meaning, too quick to catch with the voice. Write the poem as soon as you wake up. A minute later will forget it for you... |
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Truth becomes apparent to us as the object of reason because we believe that the form and content of our experience reflect the source springs of all nature - as the purest reality. This idea is not readily intelligible to the Eastern mind, which seeks beyond expression, reason and response for an absolute reality quite unavailable to the senses. |
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Think about how necessary natural life is for experiencing philosophy: the subtlety of our conceptual world and the discerning eye can only be permitted by living contemplation - the spontaneous contents of awareness. The differentiation of life from the being of all things leads to the articulation of awareness. From the human perspective, life is congruent to the development of intelligence; at the root of intuition we feel this. Individual embodiment provides the clues we need to understand how we come to believe in things. The dilemmas of existence inspire familiar assumptions that have donned the guise of solutions. Christ assumed that God wanted all people to aspire to infinite and perfect goodness. The ratio of this wish evolved into the active cultivation of responsible morality. After all - exactly where did morality start for Christendom? Significantly enough, in a garden symbolizing the beginning of life's irrepressible growth and the development of higher consciousness! The inevitable growth of deicentric and anthropocentric habits of mind led Christianity to assume that God intended humanity to embody His identity. The development of Christian psyche is necessarily complicated by "the fall" and our seemingly inevitable departure from the garden of eternal life; Christians and Westerners have always viewed themselves as very much short of the perfection presumed to reside in the great Deity who created us. Perhaps wisdom reveals that we perpetually depart from the garden; for as we advance, we apply the knowledge the garden inspires in us, for the garden is nature. It is no small irony that we are able to believe in the Divine inspiration of things, especially as we realize that everything we have achieved comes through evolution and learning; yet, it is so obvious that we have only grown so wise, somehow because we began in a former, more stupid and nature-borne state of primeval being... We forget our beginning for new ends, ends generated purely, of consciousness itself... |
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Meanwhile, in the East, long ago, Buddha was persuaded that the sense-world is illusory and distracts us from the peace of true insight and release. In fact, most Eastern creeds conclude that the culprit inspiring our agony is the material reality all around us - which imposes grave care and suffering pain. Hunger, privation and lust drive men down into the animalism of small-minded and selfish craving that fuels the murderous fear and pride forcing all of us to fight for empires and so defeat our own hearts with the worst of misled passions. According to Buddhism, the physical world is founded on nothingness; in Hinduism, appearances only deceive us with shrouds upon the essential nature of reality, and these veils conceal the true being behind all material things. |
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To understand, to become enlightened - this natural goal is equivalent to the experience of truth. For Buddha, wisdom is a peace free from care and anguish. For the Hindus, true understanding is knowing that Atman really is Brahman... |
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Human intellectual advance inspired new kinds of religious beliefs in the West. Inventing words and mathematics gave us our sciences. Because the early modern philosophers still believed that God was responsible for everything, these thinkers concluded that the divine intelligence behind nature must also be reflected in our talents, and even in the structure of knowledge. Even so, it was only a matter of a few hundred years for humanity to apply science. New systems of philosophy gave us a chance to "realize" that we are the playthings of DNA. Yes, we are created by nature, we know that most certainly now. God may be behind nature, but he or she certainly need not exist at all... |
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Today, as in every age, no matter what you believe, human beings feel a subconscious identity corresponding to the present level of civilized advance; in fact, talent makes up your mind for you, and we realize that humanity may be aptly described as the self-created species. We do rule our own destiny, even if we agree that we aren't very good at it. |
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It's crucial to see that creativity generates new and very imaginative ideas, especially convictions about what truth is, and what we think that it cannot be. Compelled to explain everything through a precise expression of our relationship with reality, we seem to be embodied beings living within the being of all things. So, truth as we now know it ultimately depends upon the conceptualization of human being, which is like claiming that identity rises from a natural and an obvious expression. Humanity wishes to use intelligence to express an alliance between the heart and those instincts exactly acquired to articulate truth. |
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To begin when there is no more beginning? We can think about what truth may be. But what kind of question is that!? If we do not really know what truth is, or how to recognize and feel it, then do we want for more knowledge? We certainly don't want to live forever with endless conjectures! Speculative thought is for fabulists, cultists and those who want to sell a lot of books. Instead, we hope to ground propositions in some elemental thing, like an intuitive certainty, or better, a demonstrable proof. Some kinds of knowledge are not easily shown, but that we experience them also does prove that some levels of consciousness transcend the embodied demarcation defined by the five ordinary senses: you dream about something happening to a family member, and it happens the next day; you say something and see it in print or hear it in a movie later the same day; and that bizarre coincidence as you think/speak and then hear your words coming from the mind of another living being... All of these kinds of preceptive sensory events have happened to me, and on many occasions. Let's just say that we haven't developed the physics to explain the vast worlds encompassed by the mind - at least, not yet... |
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To get to the deeper certainty that our instincts demand, we have to be open to receive nature's conceptual designs. We have to feel for truth, not like grasping in the dark, but as a sensitivity to harmonic chords. We have to hear the difference between good and bad, true and false. We may see it, too. Reality is our awareness of it. To touch the tree or taste the wine - we know only this first kind of truth - that of our senses. Philosophers and mystics have long wished to intuit certainty about other realities: ideal, sometimes divine domains of absolutely solid value - Greek forms, the afterlife and God - invisible and beyond experience as they may be... But why do we always expect such unlikely truths from the simple physical reality laid before us!? Perhaps just because we sense the impermanence of things, and can't shake the unease of mortality. On the other hand, infinite equations may reflect a subliminal sense for a larger whole that we haven't a chance to articulate. |
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Perhaps we must "make believe" things are true because we desire that the apparent necessity for something's truth is sufficient proof to equate the conviction with knowing certainly that it is the truth. But, we moderns have discounted this idea of truth. Convictions are merely conjectures; for it appears that faith depends on fabulously rational and irrational circles of logic - and very little evidence. As for those who do espouse beliefs, they fiercely exclaim that their knowledge of faithful truths needs no more evidence than having a strong claim for knowing "what is right." We see also that faith has forged an intimate relationship with morality, especially in the West, where it has been explicitly articulated, again and again. It is very different among Eastern creeds, which express morality implicitly: if you understand life as the Vedas and Sutras explain it, then you must see exactly how to live rightly, too. |
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We have intellectualized the spiritual sensations. For the scientist, evidence outmodes inspiration: we must pay for our certainty instead of getting it for free. Perhaps we sense the idea of absolute truth no longer resides outside us - as science would have us believe. Our sensation of truth may yet reside within. Yet one thing is certain: we have lost many absolutes, and as we shed their support, heritage breakdowns into more easily mixed elements; the new compounds arising from mingled traditions help us to realize that experience appears quite subjectively rooted within the understanding of the human mind. Any knowledge of external absolutes has already undergone a lengthy process of distillation, believe me... Unfortunately, competition between divergent propositions and theoretical viewpoints is responsible for scaring people into power-lusty reactions and counter-rebellions. The overspill of scientism has inspired a new hunger among those chilled by empty and cold ratiocinative paradigms - social, economic, scientific - which are supposed to replace our spiritual side... Observe this strange fact: ideas, like everything we produce, may be bought and sold according to the preferences of our collective mood. Surely it appears that whatever we think is right, must be: people no longer tolerate those things which are not agreeable to their concept of what "should be" believed in... Even if you dispose of truth and absolutes, you end up with a shadow of certainty and must filter everything through an ambivalent sort of cynicism, a crude political faith, a stance for the sake of holding opinions, or even a bland and typically crass indifference... Today, it's all a bit too black and white: god save you, or devil-may-care. It's as if the sensibility of subtlety has suffered. We moderns have often sacrificed each other to the need for preserving common perceptions, as if sharing some taste and adhering to a mass movement might save us from the stresses of "too much" individuality. |
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Let's go back in time and put it this way: we inherit and share our disposition to believe in truth and right. Others inherit a need to rebel against chronic contradictions and hypocrisies that, for instance, disguise taking with giving. Yet no matter what our personal disposition, in all such discussions about the possibilities for truth, the relationship between imagination and nature reveals that the scope of the human mind always holds itself responsible for trying to fulfill the most desirable conceptual world. |
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I'm all done with philosophy - because I'm positive that all systematic philosophy fails if we also assume that it can lead to some precise, absolute formulation of the truth: the nature of reality eludes the singular descriptions and theories so deeply emulated by famous idealists and other sentimental philosophers. Let me tell you one more thing before coming back down to Earth: I realize what the problems are, but when I can't discover their answers, I lose interest. Poetry is more satisfying because the language and the play of free ideas make us intimate with the artist's sensitivity: we are lead to imagine what the poet might mean for ourselves. So, poetry is more likely to give us a feeling for truth than philosophy will. Poetry gives us a very direct message and invites personal sensitivity to open up. As we read the poet's knowledge, as with the emotional and intellectual response to music, metaphor and moving musical evocativeness frees us from having to integrate each and every gram of meaning intellectually, which, on the other hand, you absolutely must do with each and every word while reading philosophy - if you want to understand it properly. |
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A great poet will give you to understand - purely, directly - and you can't miss it. You know and you feel what he wants you to feel. Poetry expresses the highest mind because it balances, synthesizes and expresses the essence of life experience. |
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...I lived through the earthquake and I nearly fell off the cliff. I enjoy being alive even more than ever! Oh, but I still have to go to work and pay the rent. I complain and forget how good things are for me - to be alive still. Our era has deceived us with promises of becoming much better than we already are. But we don't really need to be better than we are! Staying healthful ought to be enough. It's funny to suggest that we could "be better" than others... Better than what? Perhaps a commercial product can be better than an older model; but people are just people - we're born with imperfections. To holler about making yourself and others "better" is at least as horrifying as it is stupid. Perhaps this confusion of mercantile with psychic decrees merely evidences the reflex that tries, helplessly, to compensate for the decay of nobility and sensitivity, broken down as we are by the savage material lies of our unworldly, ill-bred ways. Now, if I complain about other people's illiteracy or disinterest, that must be at least half as much snobbery as it is a real problem in the world. What could we do to help settle it? At least we could begin by admitting that we permit wrong motives to invade and rule our most intimate relations. Animal cruelty sees to the defeat of compassion and love... Such meanness is popular and does great business today in many spheres, from easy-dimwit advertising to the horribly snobby world of art, literature, cinema and music... (mediocre snobby - superior snobby - popular snobby - money snobby - success snobby - snobby!) Maybe you too can learn how to win. Follow while pretending to lead: you'll be okay. Write your best-sellers! |
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Of course, we do tend to believe that the quality of life improves as we increase production and consumption, and the economy grows enough to permit the deep diffusion of resources and educational opportunities. I'm all for food on the table and technological tools... But I'm still afraid of humanity, that recklessly selfish being, built so shakily upon gross appetites and mean competition instead of good ideas and mutual encouragement... The world is very strange, and I wish it was different. I wish people were more capable of optimism and positive attitudes. We spend too much energy scaring each other, and then we turn cold and mean. How to revive our hearts is a challenge facing us today! |
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I have too many ideas, yet, I feel governed by too few assumptions. I suppose that you expect more refined notes for a larger more well organized opus, certainly something more than free form thought. But that's what you all want now: a narrow compendium that you can slot away under its appropriate categorical genre of "genome research," "perfect religion," "anthropological methodology," "leftist criticism" or "technological philosophy." Sorry. But it came out like this. I was sick in bed for a whole day. Nobody could see how dizzy and faint I was. Hey, I once read in a newsmagazine that 90% of the people who buy the books of currently famous "literary" authors never actually read those books, but leave them untouched on the eternal shelf; presumably, most of us simply do not have any time left over after all the dinner parties, business meetings, hard routine labor and television watching... |
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~ Morning in Lhasa promises sunlight instead of the usual rain. I want to see some sights. But I feel lazy. I've been here nearly a week. I haven't been to the Jokhang or the Potala yet. I'm not too cynical a person, and wouldn't exactly say that people like me are ruining Lhasa. But this town wasn't built for us. |
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All the Tibetans keep quietly to themselves. But you have to wonder why: is it because you are a foreigner, or because the Chinese are their bosses? Technocracy controls the populace. Foreign tourists - we with all our cash - how do we influence the character of the Tibetans? Maybe we make them worry about how to make a living themselves... We tourists oblige them to reproduce their culture for consumption. Have you ever been to Bali? Go and see what I mean. Tibetans know we are somehow curious about their "original" state. Most travellers come and go, and remain very much locked up in themselves. Tibetans surely know that tourists come from rich countries and pay a lot for life back home. But here in Tibet, we buy only what we need, and most tourists grouse if things seem more costly than the "third-world cheapness" we are led to expect... What do you think the Tibetans think about that? Do you think that meanness makes them like us? At the same time, Tibet has become a fabulous fad in the West: everybody wants to find out about its culture. Pretending to care about Tibet is a big business now. But only far away, in Europe and America. Having no effect is the actual result of that pretence. The present disenfranchisement of Tibet and its enduring religion fuels the fantasy life and the sentimental dreams of many Westerners who yearn for a lost (ie.: repressed) sense of wholeness and clear identity. Touristic fantasy merely permits us to forgo finally admitting to our worst mistakes... |
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Naturally, Tibetans must find our fascination with their culture somewhat odd, since after all, can you picture them going to the San Diego Zoo to see businessmen and orthodontists sitting in cages? |
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What's with us, anyway? Do we really believe that the Tibetans possessed the last untouched country on Earth? Maybe 100 years ago. What kind of vain illusion was that? Maybe only febrile intellects fret overmuch about cultural "authenticity." But how has the presence of foreigners in Lhasa changed the ideas that Tibetans have of the outside world? People in Lhasa are always trying to smile, and they show infinite curiosity about the people who come to see their city in summer. But they often remain very reserved in their contacts, as if they remember something we won't learn. They can only make a little money off us. Say no more... |
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If we could imagine the life of a Nomad and a tourist hawker, and then suddenly see ourselves from their point of view... How would we appear? Small and afraid of the big world we are trying to visit? Too cool and snobby? Rich and miserly? Carefree and adventurous? In a big hurry? What would a Tibetan guess about us? Crazy, blessed or possessed? Maybe we look like careless hypocrites and magic supermen. I don't think we want to see ourselves as others do... |
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...I once read that the Tibetans had a legend, an oral prophecy spoken long ago. It was about a stranger coming to Tibet. In this legend, it was foretold that when this foreigner arrived, life across the land would be changed forever. It was an apocalyptic vision about social transformation. Whoever came up with the prophecy was well aware that Tibet was unusually isolated, and knew that a wide world existed beyond its borders. Any change to Tibet was understood as coming from outside. With the establishment of theocracy in Tibet, it would be difficult to imagine it changing from within, so the legend must have taken root long after its first utterance. From the viewpoint of the people everything seemed stable. But behind the walls and up in the towers of the Potala, the frequent internecine struggles between the ruling elite, of which the history of ecclesiastic Tibet abounds, might surprise you... Tibetan Gelukpa regents and monks, plotting and scheming, are believed to have murdered no less than three Dalai Lamas while the boys were still teenage children. These events are reported in Waddell's detailed account of Buddhism in Tibet... Nevertheless, the Tibetans have long cultivated a deep faith in their God-king. China has actively tried to terrorize the people into giving up their dreams for independence. The poor and illiterate experience a special kind of faith in their collective destiny. It's a wholly unusual comprehension of life which you and I find difficult to imagine. Everything about their lives has been permeated with religious significance. One could even say that Buddhism long encouraged resignation to the feudal destiny. Today, some Tibetans try to accept the Chinese presence and find a new livelihood; others invert their unconditional reverence into a silent, enduring resistance. That may sound like a lot of nonsense, but I don't care. |
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Most Tibetans believe in their gods and God-king. As tourists, when we go to Tibet, wearing our jaded history of denatured wishes, our wishful nostalgia, our poetic and spiritual failure - many of us visit because we see that the Tibetan people have preserved their faith intact. Witnessing that profound faith, many of us yearn for an experience of deep faith - and yet be quite incapable of it! We don't even have to say it aloud to hear the echo, "What's it like to be that woman over there, prostrate in prayer?" None of us know. |
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All of us lack a secure and fair-minded critical capacity. Modern times have helped us to acquire habits of ignorant cynicism and self-serving contempt. We belittle and judge everything foreign to our own illusion of right and identity. I suspect that our deep contemplative ability is gone. The appreciation and creation of fine art was long ago replaced by dull material snobbery. In the West, this apparent "decadence" - which is actually only a paucity of sensitivity - parallels the gradual replacement of a Christian-inspired religious ethic with more practical, mean and self-serving kinds of "faith." I have in mind that especially righteous type of "self-conscious morality" - and it's more liable to excuse than deride everyone's inability to imitate Christ in all his humility, wisdom and frailty... We moderns wish for the god in man to be much stronger than we really are. We refuse to admit that we are weak - and we pretend our complaints show how strong we are, ha, ha... Isn't it odd - how we abuse ancient creeds, appropriating them to rationalize the need for everything from owning a handgun to grasping for cash? It will take a long time for us to become good again - and I do not think we ever will - unless some miracle of science gives us back a little bit of our lost smarts... |
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...I remember, on an early visit to New York City, as I stood on the steps of a disco waiting to get inside, the doorman would not let me in until he voiced his opinion of me... This particularly tough doorman called me a "bullshitter..." I should have known my fate right then and there! I should have seen my destiny laid out before me! The only that fact remained for me to realize was that today's mass-mind does not really want to hear anything about the situation of a culture. We allow ourselves only vague allusions to problems and clutter everything up with euphemisms and a rationale that leads nowhere. |
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Really, we're forbidden from doing anything about problems. But it's okay to make money. I still want to make love instead of buying a gun, dummies! To quote an old nobody: "...isn't the American language, humor, ideals and prejudices, in by a nose as the most nontranslatable bundle of menace ever?" |
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Even if the modern critique optimistically proposes that civilization has come full circle, and that we have replaced our literary sensibility with fresher, more accessible myths of visual and aural language, this new image-driven consciousness still feels untrustworthy and insufficient. Everything is either hot or cold, wet or dry - near and far away... What does the texture of our sensations have to do with anything? After all, it's easy to get very jaded with all the critical hair-splitting that makes us seem so sophisticated. You ought to transcend the ugly delusion that you are a deserving and gifted writer... You just look selfishly cramped, living in a protective shell made of sales and ego. You decide to buy a taste of "reality" outside artificial culture. Become a tourist on the way to Tibet, imagining that we can retrieve something we forgot from the childhood of our lost culture and withered love... You can still see Orson Welles whispering after his Rosebud, can't you? Today, all we really believe is that material fantasy, realized, can make us happy. Money is exciting and let's you travel anywhere you like whenever you want to. But each one of us is quite capable of suspecting that money isn't the same thing as happiness. Money and prosperity relieve much pain and strife: it's true, nobody need be poor! But greed is a different thing, and the deprivation of many to enrich only one or two individuals: how can we defend it? Wasn't the crippled delusion of a "sacred right" to hoard property the inspiration that compelled Marx to write Kapital? Stale hypocrisy overlooks exactly how our earnings are generated. I am so sick of all the experts: if all the lazy, outdated socialists had their way - we'd get paid to complain and nobody would have to work... Okay, we're autonomous beings, and naturally selfish. But after realizing that it isn't reasonable to expect the owners of property to share it with you, then you need only answer one last question: who least wants to share their property with others? ...those who already have a lot? ...those who already have some, but want more? ...or those who have none? |
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We really need to look at our civilization. The advance of material progress - it's all the cars, computers, and the stereos - the tv's and soft chairs sedating the pain and anguish. But we never completely escape the hardships of life: that's our mortal destiny. Scientists and technicians, brilliant novelists, painters and distillers of fine Scotch - and certainly not economists - they have given us the more satisfying answers. |
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...I mentioned an oral prophecy - sparked by an intuition that permitted an ancient to perceive a crack in the future: a single human being would lead to the collapse of the existing theocratic order in Tibet. Of course, if this prophecy were true, some would say that it has already come to pass: Tibetans can point their fingers at Chairman Mao. He promoted an irreligious society. Dumb social control was all that resulted from his sloganeering. Maybe all the communists really wanted was to make sure that people wouldn't have to starve anymore. Good and bad comes with all revolutions. |
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But I do not believe that the Tibetans have lost their religion. Many retain a very strong faith, but they simply cannot picture the future as a reality of their own design. |
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Inevitably, whether they understand each other or not, many Chinese and Tibetans have grown used to living beside each other. In the city, Tibetans and Chinese people are quite capable of talking. They can respect each other. Sometimes you see a joke brought on by the incomprehensible differences between cultural character: one old Chinese soldier wants to know why the Tibetan waiter is so slow to bring his tea. Cultural flux and separate identities are not so simple to defend and explain. The idea that our cultural heritage must be preserved and promoted only comes easily to those who have no trouble getting their fingers into the pie. But to those folk who are completely disenfranchised and jailed for daring to breathe even a few words for their own identity, the idea of a "heritage" becomes a memory. The present is frustrated and the past is a source of painful nostalgia. Life seems lost in the maze of somebody else's wishful fantasy. We comfort ourselves with the notion each civilization has a genuine essence at the beginning of its cultural and religious tradition. Even amid continual imaginative metamorphoses, an eternal value is supposed to be feasible. We still hope to link the past with the present - so we can adhere to a sense of comfort derived from sublime continuity. Things of spirit and identity remain cohesive and need to "make sense" if we are to believe in ourselves. |
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This instinct for propagating a particular cultural interpretation in the interest of heritage is a good example of civilization's self-preserving security blanket; and it's pretty easy to laugh at this kind of conservatism because we never ever want to understand that such insistence upon changeless social consistency and uniformity also happens to be painfully unimaginative... Is there only one eternal spring? In place of all this inertia of heritage and selfish conservation, can't we promote some instinct for wonder and inspiration? Well, imagination is exactly the thing that most free thinkers in the West imagine ought to take the place of religious piety. (But most of us just want money and we don't care about much else.) Simply enough, faith in God has been quite insufficient to satisfy creative curiosity. Now, we are supposed to cultivate faith in our own minds. Indeed, the abstractions of intellectual progress have given birth to a wholly new emotive and instinctual world. Since we never forget our beginnings, even as we carry all time within us, so we will always know more than we can ever verbalize. Ultimately, we will lose faith in our imagination, too. Oh well, faith may become possible for some of you again... But not for me... |
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The Jokhang temple in the heart of Lhasa symbolizes the current of eternal faith pulsing through the blood of the Tibetan people. I happened to visit it on the morning of the Zhoton festival, a religious holiday. I joined throngs of Tibetan folk making their annual pilgrimage to this, Tibet's eldest and most respected temple shrine... |
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The Jokhang temple was founded on this spot about 1360 years ago. It was the heart of a series of temples comprising a physical image of the "Ogress," a mythical character symbolizing the origin of Tibet and all her people. Each temple in this series was placed in different locales around Tibet, and the was believed to protect Tibet with magic potency. Songsten Gampo was the king of Tibet at the time of the Jokhang's construction. Today, he is the most revered of all Tibet's ancient kings and, like Padmasambhava the saint, his image is found in temples all over Tibet. In the seventh century he formed an alliance with the Nepalese tribes, marrying one of their princesses, Bhrikuti. It is said that her wealth built the temple. The site was chosen by another of Songsten Gampo's wives, Princess Weng-cheng. She was from the east, and her marriage to Songsten allowed Tibet to forge one of its first strong peaceful contacts with China. The consecration of the Jokhang temple was a very important event for the nation. The city of Rasa, meaning the "Place of Goat," became Lhasa, the "Place of Deity." Ill-mannered peasants became cultured kings in one fell swoop! |
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I enter a courtyard at 9:00 A.M., alone. It isn't the main door. There's nobody here. The only thing catching my eye are oil-lamps. They sit, three rows up and down. They do nothing but wait for someone to light them. They burn peacefully, identically, silently. I want to be an oil lamp, too - an inanimate hope - a thing that nobody can judge or dislike. |
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Like a much-read book, or a favorite jazz standard - even if antiquated - I could feel as loved and wanted as the comforting associations inspired by one of these prayer lamps... The shiny brass looks gold and the warm flame flickers upon the oil. Joined with this image of brass upholding the tiny ephemeral light, is a symbol for the brief physical reality within which eternal life is embodied. The lamp reminds us the world is beautiful. The lamps suggest that our world is only one world among many. So, the lamp light promises us other worlds must exist beyond this immediately visible one... There's something very idealistic about the imagery of Tibetan Buddhism. This temple yearns for spiritual perfection, peace and eternity. Ah, but it's too easy to mislead yourself with wishes and interpretations... Such images may produce a different impression upon you. |
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I find my way inside. Since the monks aren't manning this particular side door, I don't pay the fee. I enter the inner courtyard and it opens on the sky. Two monks sit near the main entrance - an ancient double door opening on the West. Outside several pilgrims rise then fall prone upon their tummies. A private incantation recycles. The chanting enthralls each individual's concentration. It takes a long long prayer for a true pilgrim, finally, having circled the Jokhang all day, to enter inside. I retreat into the cool dark archway that conceals the protector deities, all of them blackened with years of incense smoke. |
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In its heyday, this temple was known as the Rasa Trulnang, meaning, "the magical apparition of Rasa." This gate faces west in acknowledgment of Queen Bhrikuti's generosity, since her home in Nepal lies more or less in the direction of the Jokhang's front face. The entire Indian Buddhist meditational pantheon has found its way north into Tibet. Chapels here are dedicated to Indian and Tibetan versions of Buddhist deities. Several Tibetan clan leaders and kings like Songsten Gampo and Tsongkhapa also live here. Everyone who was anyone in Tibet populates this temple: images and dedications to Amitabha, Shakyamuni and the Buddha of tomorrow, Maitreya. Without a good guidebook, it's impossible to figure out anything. Since its completion in 647, the temple has been renovated at least ten times. |
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Beyond the old podium throne reserved for the Dalai Lama, the Shugtri Chemno, the roof is held up by some ancient stone pediments and pillars of dark wood. In one of these columns are embedded two polished stones. If you get up close, you can see them. They are black, and no bigger than a palmful each. Allegedly, they were once thrown "into the wood" by two devotees. |
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Like these two stones, each Tibetan relic has a fabulous story, eliciting magic. Throughout Tibet you will discover many sacred emblems left behind by famous exponents of the faith. Hundreds of years ago these saints and great teachers are said to have imprinted their feet and hands in solid stone; you will discover displays of their clothing, hair, bones and walking sticks in shrines all over the country. Even the skulls of famous masters are preserved for all to see. Yet, when you actually see them, it's apparent that these emblems are not really skulls, nor were those imprints made by real feet at all; they are all man-crafted symbols of faith. They provide surrogate evidence, and pass as emblems for faith rather than true artifacts. Such symbols preserve the heroes who propounded the wisdom of eternity for all... |
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Visit Samye monastery and observe a whole cabinet full of mythical emblems. The "skull" of Padmasambhava, the famed Indian master who brought his knowledge of Buddhism into Tibet, appears to grin broadly, as if he has just cracked a good joke and wants us to laugh, too. Then again, maybe the artisan who crafted this "skull" wants us to smile as we realize that we're looking at an emblem, not the brain-box of a real human being. One is likely to have a very distinct impression about the Tibetan mentality at this point: that it's possessed of a joyful sense of humor about life. Cynical critics are apt to misinterpret this kind of idealized skull emblem as another kind of resignation, and a dilution of myths. But I prefer to see Padmasambhava's skull in a completely different light: the artist's smile on the hero's skull suggests that we must see through the immodesty of mortal attachment. So, his emblem projects joy before solemnity. Personality must belie his sanctity: the man was merely a man, not a god... That's really what the teacher's skull says to me. He may have been wise, but true wisdom wouldn't need to be proud... Padmasambhava was happy to share what he knew with the Tibetans. |
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The inner sanctum of the Jokhang is dark. My eyes are fond of bright light since I like to see what I'm looking at. I walk slowly inside; many people are here with me, walking ahead. Almost everyone present is Tibetan. It's a holiday. Can't get inside the side chapels because locals are lined up into the entrances and out the exits, too. They all wait to go through and pray in them. Everyone's Tibetan and they smile and look sheepish. I get the feeling that they've crowded into the chapels so I can't get in! Maybe I'm a devil, and they don't think it so wise to let me in...My paranoia vanishes because the Tibetans really look quite happy today. It's a wholesome duty for them to come here and pay their respects. The ancient truths of a culture always reflect its sublime continuity. I'm superfluous, a great nothing. Nobody is going to judge me, least of all the Tibetans. That's what I like about them: they're free of the false prejudices that afflict people like me. Their only complaint comes from being victimized... Westerners look at the world darkly and often complain about imaginary and very small problems. But Tibetans preserve some innate modesty, a simpler way of acceptance. They are beyond me. |
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The assembly hall is crowded yet silent. Usually, it's a place only for the monks to gather for daily meditations and prayers. Imagine melting some dairy butter for your popcorn and then forgetting to clean up the pot: the butter lamps smells too ripe, it's a pungent odor that permeates deeply into the nasal passages. Despite this, the Tibetan faithful lug around big yellow bags of this stuff, imported from India and labelled, "Ghee." Replenishing the temple lamps is part of their devotions. |
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Some monks are present today. They live here, in the northeast wing of the temple. One young monk sits at a low wooden table. He has a serious mien and writes on some scraps of paper. He scrawls prayers in Tibetan script. Then I see he isn't doing it for himself. His verses are made especially for pilgrims eager to pay for the privilege. I don't know what they expect to do with these prayers, perhaps recite them as they walk round the temple. |
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I pause beside the entrance of the main image housed in the temple, a statue of the Buddha at age twelve... |
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As with so many of Tibet's sacred relics, this statue has a history longer than any single dynasty. The original version dates to the time of Songsten Gampo. It's believed to have been damaged or replaced and maybe buried in the sand as power changed hands. The rulers of Tibet were very fickle in their favors; so, even if a contemporary king was adored for his reverence of Buddha and the Jokhang, the next one was liable to spite his memory by shutting up the temple, plastering pictures of drunken monks on the walls outside while reverting favor back to a Bon style god-shop. Tibet's history is longer than you can imagine. Buddhism was imported much later. Folk religion and the Bon faith predate the influence of India by several hundred years. |
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On the way upstairs I meet a friendly young Tibetan boy. He speaks English and offers to show me round the temple. The boy is sixteen, wide-eyed and talkative, as if he knows how curious I am. Instantly, he relieves all my anxieties about being alone. He offers to show me all the little shrines. Of course, with a companion, I cannot behave inconspicuously and conceal myself in a slow shuffle from one dim-lit room to another. (This clamor for self-promotion beggars my dreams... The integrity of personality is all that an artist can wish for. But we're forced to distract ourselves from good work - just so we can sell something - so we can succeed. But all we "succeed" to do is to remove ourselves from what we really wanted to do. Forget it...) I'm walking up to the third floor with my new friend. He wants to show me the chapels upstairs. There's room to move. Groups of ladies go in and out of the chapels to pray. Turning down their eyes in humble submission, they place their hands together then bow quickly forward. They scamper away to the next chapel. |
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Finally, I discover the most important shrine on the second floor: the Chogyel Songsten Lhakhang, dedicated to Songsten Gampo. It is small. The life-size king stands straight between his Chinese and Nepalese wives. In front of him sits a huge pewter flagon for his ale. It's difficult to fathom how this shapely vessel could have been preserved intact for so many hundreds of years. A small trace of a smile plays over Songsten's lips. Did you know that some scholars attribute the flowering of Buddhism in Tibet to his wives? |
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A group of ten aging Tibetan ladies has gathered in front of the chapel. They're all dressed in neat aprons and new dresses and stand in three rows facing the image of Songsten Gampo. One grey-haired old lady steps forward boldly. She's a little shy and hesitates for half an instant. Then she breaks into song. Her voice, like all Tibetan female singers, is smoothly high-pitched and joyful. What skill she has! The other women join with her singing and rapturous smiles play over their faces. I listen to them sing for ten minutes. The song celebrates the long-dead king who so audaciously married the world and invited a new faith into Tibet. They sing his name longingly, as if he gives hope to them. I wonder if that song isn't all we need to be happy... They stop singing and seem shy. Some women even appear a little nervous, as if they don't know what to expect... I guess they think that I don't know about all those innocent Tibetan people in jail, some of whom ended up there merely for singing freedom songs exactly like this one... I wonder if we can really care about people who are so far from our own way of life? |
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We are born with names and faith. We don't need to go further than the place we're given by birth to know who we are. I feel that's what their presence says. Maybe these women can do nothing more than uphold a memory of what their home used to be, long ago. But they are brave women. Even if Tibet is no longer theirs - their hearts reveal a deep resilience, like a pure innocence. |
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How can we go on without facing questions - without feeling lost? People are proud - too proud - to be who they are. To each individual it can't matter much that the modern world is mad with fake politics and unnatural social coercion. To be free is still to be caught in the beautiful predicament of life. But to be imprisoned in a jail is to live without hope; in a prison you miss freedom until you despair. But if you're a typical law-abiding Westerner, never having been deprived of your liberty, lucky enough to have a job, you cannot possibly understand the predicament of Tibetans caught between economy and the dictatorial politics of China's ideological technocracy. People get left out and opportunities are few and unfairly administered. Corruption is rampant and the local people must endure the butt-end of that frustrated self-repression so inimically unique to the stiff old Chinese. |
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Imposed from outside come the rules and decrees, complete with their administrative overlords. Technocracy combines with the many social and cultural presumptions to displace the freedoms and ideas of the Tibetans' inborn, naturally independent character. The imposed social forms have become more entrenched, and the technocracy sends down its artificial roots and grapples the souls of the common folk with an enforced order of impersonal institutions. Inevitably, this Chinese system employs the newly imposed social-group identity to defeat the Tibetans' original cultural identity... The Tibetans are forgetting who they were. |
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We could simply try to abide closer to each other - if it were possible to appreciate and respect differences as beautiful, instead of assuming they are something low, fit only for replacement with your familiarities... Yet in this, many Asians seem horribly behind the times, and the Chinese will refuse to see others as they are, since their regime so needs to shore up their ideological isolation and blind racial faith. The rigid and official character of intolerance and the sheer concentration and centralization of authority is too deeply ingrained among most Oriental and Indochinese societies. Sometimes these societies appear lawless and chaotic - exactly because expression is perpetually repressed among and between individuals and their communities. The uniformly sanitized lines of ideological "truth" cannot mask the soulless and crass hypocrisies upon which they have been erected. The centralization of control and the breakdown of power into splinters of desperation and despotism is nothing new. It's a hard, vicious circle, that old and sadly dumb grip on power... |
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It's a great mystery to me, this insecurity that comes from differences of creed and color, time and place... We need not be the same. What would be the point of making someone become more like you? How could that "free" anyone? Any such idea is already defeated by being one individual: you. Considered in such a light, the desire to convert people from one religion or ideology to another new one appears horrifyingly pointless. Socially speaking of course, among the mass movement of people called Asia, harmony is often conceived as a reflection of social homogeneity; and the outward semblances of stability are usually equated with uniform behavior. Pretty dull. |
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As suddenly as they began, the Tibetan women cease singing for the second time. While I've had enough of chapels to last a lifetime, that singing could go on forever. I want to hear their melody, that sweet, high harmony - again and again. But they have stopped. So I leave, climbing to the roof of the temple overlooking Barkhor square. Some women will love you no matter what: but you have to find them... |
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I'm only one more poor artist. There are too many of us. We're all deadly boring. We all suffer from a big head that doesn't make up for the talent we lack. As for those of us with even a little talent, we try hard to ignore the funny fact that we outnumber one another. As ever, the artist and failure prefers to imagine that solitude, imagined integrity and insignificance reflect the fact that we may live a life no longer possible anywhere on Earth! If you want to understand exactly why I'm thinking and writing like this in the first place, please read the next section... However, if obtuse, monkeyish and critical discussions of art don't do it for you, just skip to the end... (I know - it's either good or bad art - we can see that. But it comes as no surprise that bad art does so well because the career of self is more important than mere content, talent and imagination. Performing the all-important, "professional" role is more than everything now...) |
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~ When I started calling myself an artist, as a child, I was sure about it, not a doubt entered my mind. That was age 12. I didn't know anything, except that my goal was to explain what we are, and why we are here... To know everything would be the same thing as being able to tell it to everybody. |
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Each time I ponder the question of being an artist, I hit the dilemma of social roles. Many times I have encountered a ripe incomprehension, and even a cynicism, among people who do not know what an artist is. Moral, amoral or immoral - no matter the background of your claim to espouse a personal enlightenment - or a freedom from beliefs - each of us is very much compelled to judge and assign a name and place for the people we meet along the way; and each of us needs to protect our faith in the imaginary models of social order we most cherish, a plan usually suggested to us by upbringing, and which we receive through the attitudes and ideas of our elders, and we further develop according to the good and bad things that happen to us, especially as we are obliged to respond to the opportunities we create and the failures we endure... Yet the fact remains that we seldom bother to question our prejudices even though education and reflection may tempt us to rise higher than the emotions and assumptions repeatedly instilled in us. |
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I want to return to this topic later - because the socialized evaluations about the roles we play connect to the feeling we have for security and esteem, especially in the sense that we expect a developed and open society to condone the freedom we need to do as we would, if only we could honor and trust ourselves and others enough... Ultimately, the artist and the quality of his or her work depends upon talent alone, and definitely not upon the approval of consumer economy, funding systems, individual mentors and schools... |
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First, let's look at the idea of being an artist, but from the point of view of the artist, not the society. I would like to define the artist's experience as a unique, perhaps incommunicable identity. If you are born an artist, you will know it with a certainty, a pure feeling of ease that frees you to create. Even if you are sexually inhibited, socially cruel and verbally frustrated - you may still be able to create freely. As you mature, it's to be hoped that your art will help relieve your other frustrations; and it will, given time, patience and some luck. To be born an artist is to know exactly what you are capable of making, and then you go out and do it. The artist is not a personality. We are creators first: our whole being aims at communicating our world to others through work. |
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But, in modern times, artists tend to be defined as social beings, entities who are supposed to be responsible simply because we can explain what's going on. Like folks from other walks of life, we are obliged to play out a public "role." But artists are not liable to enjoy thinking about themselves in the third person. We are always "I" first. We act, not because for others, but because we want to create for ourselves. If we do create for any reason besides satisfying our wish to understand - then it's only to give pleasure to others. The artist is not first motivated by objectives in the outside world, except with respect that we want to communicate an understanding of it. We must begin with an inner vision if we are to reflect the world. Because, to explain the world is really to show how we are made - as beings who see everything... Art must respond to the universe's identity in the larger world we make from nature. I'm not talking about "naturalism" here, which merely implies the observation of things through an inaccurate and limiting filter. Really, I only want to point out how important it is to realize that the composition of being conscious puts us into a particular notion of the universe. We must understand that our imagination is first governed by physical being. Embodied experience has lead us to a particular form of intelligence: our spiritual inspirations result from the agony suffered, and pleasure inspired, by physical experiences. If you are an artist, then you must always come to terms with what you believe about the universe first - simply to know yourself... One thing is certain: it's risky to assume superiority over nature since we always lose sight of the fact that everything we know is only possible because we are made of nature... |
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Artists are selfish because we have to be creative. We are selfless too, because we ask for nothing but attention, and give our work away for nothing more than understanding. Some artists are driven - compelled to create as if their life would cease if they were to stop. Some artists love to share their understanding of creativity with others who hope to learn. Others keep to themselves and never breathe so much as a whisper about how they create - as if they were superstitious about the inspiration of their imagination. One thing is certain: I think that artists are seldom motivated by the desire to win fame alone. Respect, sure - even if its unlikely. However, the artist acts quite autonomously and is free from the rigorous confinement of customary ethical mores and the dissembling complexity of social conventions. All the imagination is on top of the mental plane, visible and conscious: the artist acts freely to create something intelligible; therefore, the artist's work is free of ulterior objects and desires or anything except the most easy intentions. At least, this is the way most of us would like to conceive of creative objectives. Of course, talent comes through the spontaneous subtlety of creative consciousness, which envelopes - within limitless levels and layers of meaning woven into the lyrical whole of a poem - both conscious and subliminal knowledge: the artist may or may not become aware of the profound unity of a meaningful theme until long after the artwork was finished. |
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So, what I'm saying is obvious: I cannot fight myself too much "on the surface of my intentions" if I am going to create an uninhibited expression of all my knowledge. Naturally, the artist will deliberate about truth and its possibilities in the course of creativity. The compulsion to ask questions - reflecting a deep interest for life - only this compelling trait inspires us to address the impossible and fascinating dilemmas that make for great literature... One of our biggest problems today is the barrage of preconceptions aimed at our curiosity. Too often we tell each other to shut up should we dare become curious about the actual circumstances of our situation. Perhaps that is why everyone is so cynical, "wise" and naive today. To play the correct role for economy is very crucial to fulfil the fantasy of Keynes et al. But our conformance to social forces is inadvertent; just as my words sound naive, they aren't really - that's part of your training - to receive me as someone who doesn't know... But I'm not a bozo or a mere student. I'm an artist and my own man. I'm not the only one to observe that artists often suffer an unwitting displacement from the curiosity which ought to fuel our imaginations and compel us to create exciting new work instead of the stolid grey freight that "sells." The creative energy in all of us has been laid low. But by what, exactly? Onan? TV? Lack of concentration? The absence of art movements and compelling schools of thought? The dominance of clone-like market forces? The dependence upon technical prowess that displaces individual effort? The dominion of vain personality in place of creativity and spirit? I don't know! But we used to write long detailed letters to each other, we used to talk more deeply, too... The structure of our relationships has become less complicated and we are more readily available to each other; at first glance, this appears to be a good liberation from inhibitions... But a second look reveals that we depend on glib perceptions and don't need so many difficult complexes, perhaps... Perhaps we are satisfied with the brainless modes of familiar relations that demand no deep converse about anything - only that we behave exactly alike and found all our personal motives on economic goals - getting a house, a car, a wife... But do you know why you behave as you are brought up amid the "needs" that you accept without question? |
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For the sake of making you uneasy, let's throw out some more ideas about the situation of writers. Everyone says that an artist lives in a social milieu, especially because he or she must communicate knowledge. The evocative musical language of poetry has always meant personal wisdom. But nowadays we are far too worried about being misunderstood and failing popularity - and not having a "career." In fact, we seem to have lost and repressed our lyrical spontaneity, exchanging talent for stock forms. This trend, I want to suggest, is only happening because there are so very many writers writing today; it appears that certain commercial criteria are reduplicated. It goes without saying that people are not quite so deeply literate, or at least, not quite as literate in the same ways as the truly literate once were... Many of us respond more positively to easily processed mediums, like music and movies. Writing has to be simple for most of us, or we lose interest. In fact, I would go so far as to say that our curiosity is blunted and spoiled by forms of brevity and knowing-too-much. Look at the instantaneousness of modern communications; it takes too long for you to read Proust's mighty novel: so most of you will never even begin to realize what I'm driving at now... Success has become synonymous with applying and copying stylistic norms. Writers and artists of all kinds have been encouraged to make private, innate and deeply idiosyncratic aims into socially intelligible ones. Nowadays, talented rebels and innovators are not usually found among the ranks of successful artists, but instead, among the invisible, marginal fringes. Some of us produce original work, and some of it is very good, if not too cynical and typecast. But most of the people who are small and unnoticed actually produce a great deal of mediocre snot. It is despicably bad, fake, copycat, cynically-motivated - and they only go about doing it just so that they can call themselves artists and get funding, etc... Too many of today's "artists" would be better off as dental technicians, as advertising draughtsmen - or working in a shoe factory. Anyway, I'm one of the lucky exceptions to this rule and I happen to be very talented. Surprisingly enough, almost nobody knows very much about artists like me - despite all the wonders of easy diffusion available to us now! Most of us are content to watch games, drive a car - and get fat! |
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Among the contemporary painters, writers and poets who are supposed to be innovative - it's all too obviously pathetic: far too much non-mainstream work actually suffers from a low-level of imaginative cohesiveness... It's as if everyone who wished to say something new still hasn't figured out quite what to say; consequently, those who "would be" original usually do little better than to fall into a sort of glib-camp stratagem that qualifies them as being "officially involved." What they actually have to say comes second, like a lukewarm afterthought - not half so important as the motions they go through in pursuit of a viable career. The CV is more important than the fucking work! All too often that eager-beaver-wish to "appear" original and counter-cultural actually masks a lack of talent. For example, we see a good example of the glib-camp stratagem exhibited in the crude assault upon poetry known as the "in-your-face," or "slam-poetry" style. While punk music may be exciting, just because it's music, the horribly bland and prosaic language of slam poetry should qualify it simply as a misnomer: slam poetry isn't poetry, it's bad stories told to an obnoxious, deadbeat rhythm... It rarely gets above smelly low-brow name-calling - exactly the kind of crass snobbery I despise! Such thick-witted stuff builds an insularity and leaves out any idea that doesn't pretend to be one tough monkey. Slammers were all "No" to brainy balls, but "Yes" to a frothy rant. If angst were a reason for being, maybe... But if you hate the threat of nuclear war, economic insularity and harm to the environment - you might as well try to be clever rather than simply brutal in your expressions of dissent... I must add one qualification: some of the most clever rap music comes closer to poetry and uninhibited expression than slam ever will. The rap genre is a perfect illustration of that fine line between bluster, fun and freely expressive beauty... |
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Other "writers" have as dumbly followed other idiotic trends, too: certain popular uni-authors "crafted" a dopey, empty kind of minimalism made popular ten, twenty, even thirty years ago. Today, young writers are still trying to mimic this plodding, plot-based, idea-bereft form. The small magazines get grants over and over again, merely from sleeping on this same-same dross, diligently behind everybody's times. Outside the cramped little world of the lit-crowd-bubble, in the even more shallow (but "real") commercial world of trade fiction - perhaps the most hilarious example of mediocrity, with big audiences, are the romance, mystery, science fiction and fantasy genres. Precisely here we see lousy writers succeed by modelling their universes after some stupidly divine fascism. These kooks are chock to the brim with insipid ideas: they really can and really do make a good living from the gullibility inspired by flat massness of semi-literacy. |
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Today, most everything passed off as avant-garde does not meet the definition at all; instead it's fakery designed to open purses, to wed the high with the low and the popular with the snobby. Avante-garde art was supposed to be innovative. ("Innovative" is supposed to be synonymous with intelligent, original, idea-oriented and linguistically imaginative - not merely exploitative, imitative and gimmicky.) Writers and poets, unwittingly confined within the grant-camp university-government systems - limited in imaginative scope and distracted by innumerable causes for spoiled complaint - end up cultivating the inflated but "under-funded" ego of the hip, know-it-all crowd; and so we artists become ready prey for the most minute fixations, inadequate subjects of literature though they may be - but that's what gets the grants easily - safe, dim and trite topics! Collectively, we have involuntarily promoted simplistic and grossly limiting concepts of appropriate style. In this way, "Everyone Who Is A Somebody On The Make - and Needs To Be In Right Now, OR ELSE" can easily feel comfortable about being average and alike instead of having to be a brilliantly original individual. Today, the attitude of obligatory compliance with socioeconomic norms-and-forms translates into meek-minded conservatism; and so, hardly anything written and painted today comes close to bold inventiveness... Instead, it's often hurried and chimpy... |
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Mind you, literary writers understand that they have no audience outside their peers and students - so nobody will really know how good or bad they actually are; it doesn't matter much to anybody if their art work suffers from the refusal of originality and quality in the interest of levelling down the approval process, and in so doing, satisfying and perpetuating the collective nature of the bureaucratic mechanism; since, after all, the mass-mind is already quite pleased to consume low commercial fiction, American movies, sports and pop music only - so why not become a popular writer and get down into that dirty dirt, too? |
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But I still feel it's worthwhile to point out some painful ironies before giving up. Instead of growing up to express and create, we are told to win approval and find a way inside something: a technocratic process. Yet please note: the true poets and best authors never cared about pleasing anyone; Du Fu, Li Bo, Dante, Shelley, Joyce, Lorca, Thomas, Hardy and Lowry were consumed by their art and could have cared less about society's expectations. If we do own up, and confess our "sins" against attitude, and then allow ourselves to be put on trial for it: even as we sacrifice a professional's freedom and perks, all we win is laughter and nobody will know us. If we put on the dunce cap of the mass-mind, we win millions and their love. Writers who wish to "succeed" tend to imitate already successful artists. They do not write spontaneously, but with too much calculation. So, the immediate future of writers and the content of their "art" today follows a predictable scenario. The long-term fall-out from this cautious, greedy, illiberal and crowd-induced scene is a certain slowness of stylistic and formal development. Already we see far too much undue control over the imagination by means of economy, appropriately correct fakeness and the similarly caste-like class designs of saleable genre. This nightmare is topped off with the inevitably unwarranted and dangerous fear of pure artistic originality. True art is squelched. It has been squelched for decades - most especially by publishers! If we look for inventiveness in novels today, we will not find it at the core of the whole work: instead we see writers trying for clever plots and recognizable stylistic gimmicks; the want for linguistic audacity and thoughtful intelligence is awful right now... The language is barren and sketchy - as if writers have resigned themselves to making outlines for much more complex novels which they haven't the guts, artistry or brains to create! It's all bland and two-dimensional. Perhaps writers have glumly accepted the fact that their audiences are incapable of reading anything upwards of a 2000-word, "action-man-sex-kill" lexicon. |
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Yet, it feels as if we are stuck in some other century, or several centuries thrown together, call it the "ultra-modern affliction," an overbuilt awareness of everything we have already done - which should neither daunt nor confuse us - but does! Small wonder how so many of our "best" writers take conscious refuge in wholly archaic forms, poorly disguised though they may be as "original" works of "medieval historical fiction," etc... |
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Put it this way: twentieth century literature remains a cuckold to the nineteenth. We can only hope that the twenty-first, or perhaps, the twenty-third, shall finally sue for divorce. |
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While we have seen several great literary firsts in the twentieth century, there has been much more regression and floundering - wastrel art and a squalid mass reproduction of impoverished language. So many cowardly and ill-educated imaginations are bent on producing fake art! All vying for the support of a limited public purse, equally bent on selling their crappy pop big-time. Blame it on the displacement of imagination with forms imposed by new tools and techniques; or, just shrug and dump on the mass media. Blase pop musicians really need to sell their devouring egos to hungry hard-working people! Who would deny it's far easier to jack-off a jingle than to compose a good poem? Fuck you all to hell if you think I'm some sort of snob: poetry takes genius and pop only asks for a little "talent." I can compose my own tunes at home in the comfort of my living room - and I can sing them very well, too. It's easy... |
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As for novelists, I sincerely believe that there are too many people who want to write who are not born artists! Many of these mechanical authors have become successful commercial hacks even as original minds can find no place and no audience for their work. Many fine artists are ignored, flounder and give up. Some of us even die. We see the institutionalization of a few lucky names and the building of walls instead of the free transmission of open thought. (I don't care about somebody else having no choice but to subscribe to a parochial regionalism, nor do I care about "having to demonstrate" my social class: such stupid things have nothing to do with creative authorship.) Perhaps more disgusting than all the mimicry and low-brow writing is the insularity that locks in those few university dons, who pretend to be high-minded, but who are much more tightly tied up inside their privileges than they are concerned with thinking about artwork. Too many of us are loth to share our rights with the crowds of poor peons and unknown outsiders wanting to see their creative work paid-for and diffused, too. |
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So we see at last in the end that the only difference between a commercial hack's corporate publisher and a literary artist's government is about how you get what you want: the hack makes "art" and gets paid just like stealing candy from a baby; meanwhile, the impoverished idealist coward-poet begs and submits himself to the whims of a frumpy old grump of a father - the public art councils of the narrow world... |
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Now, why should I adopt this very critical stance towards the current milieu? You may imagine that I am terribly illiberal. Actually - I'm all for respecting everyone - if only everyone happened to respect original, free creativity! Obviously, each of us is who we happen to be, and we cannot force everyone to read stuff that bores them to death! Poetry and philosophy are interesting to those of us with like-minded sensibilities. Ultimately, I don't care about promoting, rejecting or approving anybody's work. But I would like to help make everybody more receptive to all kinds of original work - and not merely the work which gets approved officially by the government, corporation and university! And perhaps I excuse my creative solitude with an inspired sense of self-pity, a sort of long-standing soap bubble that results from being disconnected and rejected - unfairly. I'm a coward and cannot face abandonment. Oh yes, that old market is a wonderful thing - because - for most of us it really does appear to be free and open, even if I am absolutely certain that it's all too closed, stratified, over-controlled, safe, pre-programmed, and therefore, all too prole-ish/vulgar and snobby/insular for my free and imagination hungry taste; so, my labor is lost and divided by classes too split and predictable to suit my taste. |
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I suppose that I really want to persuade you that my frustration has roots in real problems that threaten art and free imagination everywhere. But then you would call me an alarmist! We always see some flowers trying to grow among the ruinous effects of technocracy; but then even the natural chems and weeds in our minds sometimes choke off the most brilliant of aspirations. As crippled as we are today, the gift of human talent still stands a small chance for receiving fresh inspiration - no matter how much we are forced to promote mediocrity in place of art. |
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Obviously, written language will not be lost. Consciousness revolves within us like the Earth about the sun, as our hearts, our minds. We cannot forget who we are, and ultimately we are destined to progress. This is almost the best time ever to be a living artist, because I think we are free to say exactly what we like... |
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More importantly, we have new tools and several avenues for communication available to us. Technology opens the pathways. Now we see that the prophets of science were correct: freedom can become a material necessity instead of merely a caste privilege, simply because nobody can stop you from learning everything that you need to achieve an independent mind. |
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So, why have I said that novels and stories are suffering? Despite being jealous of all those with publishers and audiences, I believe there are real threats to my free creativity, because I am wary of the limitations and censures that have been imposed on me in the past. If we transcend the various forms demanded by markets and fashion, and face ourselves, we will find imagination liberated from fear: ideas will grow naturally as we create art inspired by contemplation of meaningful questions. But if we prohibit original minds and allow no venue for independent work, then what is our society but hypocritical and lame? |
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I'm not afraid of imagination. True independence of mind is actually quite respectful and tolerant of unique expressions. An open imagination hungers for novel impressions and desires new forms of creativity to wake up ideas. Everyone thinks that we know more than we can learn, but do we ever stop to realize that we are completely ignorant of almost everything except whatever relates us to the dumb-fuck dollar? I don't care what you think about buying and selling. After all, isn't the finest art priceless? Like you, I suppose that I end up a hypocrite who prefers a sleepy pretence, an independent pose made of cynicism. But what am I in the end but uninformed and cut-off from the community? Why? Just because I don't want to waste my time trying to teach zippos how to write a literature for which they are ill-prepared to create? Today, everyone wallows in a sophomoric hubris - complaining and planning instead of going out to do what they want - and this disease afflicts too many of the young-yet-aged and all-too-wise among those who would claim to be creative... Everyone emulates the little bureaucrat entangled in the web of proper forms and connections. The free artist is swallowed whole by the corporate ban. She remains an unknown. He approaches extinction. |
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As you wish: accuse me of suspiciousness, an over-reaction bred of silly and unnecessary dreams, a hopeless mismating of impiety and misanthropy, perhaps inspired by a wanton and ruinously wrong sense of homelessness. I'm not really bewailing a "lost" language. Eventually, I suppose I'll write a neat moral fable set among a non-allegorical domain of free-form poetry resplendent with tomorrow's best metaphors. I may even have to reinvent the science fiction novel, then attempt an improbable treatise on aesthetics - all simply to translate my vast confusion into wishes fulfilled... |
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But before I do that, let's reiterate and broaden a few themes to help us understand the point and remember this discussion... |
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~ The artist starts with a drive to create. Creativity is an intrinsic compulsion to articulate personal understanding. We want to know who and what we are: without being able to address these important questions, the artist suffers panic and anxiety. Some artists say that their creativity is like a vent for the pressure of being alive and human. Art is the first consequence of human intelligence, of our sensitivity to all things. In this respect, art appears as a spontaneous growth, a response to the world, an outpouring that reflects the nature of reality and our identity. Art is an expression of things we feel and know, elementally, the truth of our inner mind, heart and soul. Art shows us a way to place ourselves in a world that we can understand. But the world all around, partly of our own making, and partly as we happen to discover it, cannot be easily apprehended... The reality of life seems too intangible without the supple imagination of art, which helps us to portray emotions neatly as well as to order the multitude of thoughts we all experience... We have invented art to condition consciousness positively, and to explain everything. We need to create truth so we can become happy. |
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We use the "idea" to conceive of certainties. Ideas are intended to equate the apprehensions of imagination with the apparent truths nature presents to us. We can liken the action of creativity to remaking the world we already know. The world we already know, however, isn't the world we can say most easily with words alone. That is why we have found so many different ways to express ourselves, with painting and music. Art is a joyful compulsion to reproduce the image of our whole being. Art reveals that human being is infinitely capable and sensitive. We need to satisfy ourselves with joy, soothe our despair and hope for enlightenment. If blessed with an inborn curiosity about life, we tend to transform the innate aesthetic sensitivity into creative action. Poets and dramatists are responsible for developing the reflective element that generate all civilized community. Merchants and warriors have played a smaller role in the history of advancing consciousness. Artists were the first to help liberate humanity from the microcosm of survival, freeing everyone to step into the infinite cosmos of identity, reflection, creativity, judgement and compassion. Nowadays, the scientist has replaced the artist in many respects, but while the work of the scientist has become implicit to our development, only the artist's work remains explicitly conscious, at the front of culture. People have imagined that art and religion saw their origins in one and the same impulsive and essential inspiration! A wish to explain life. All things unknown equal to God. Putting sense in the head. ...Yet today, we merely forget the "divisions of labor and imagination" that artists have provided for modern community. |
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The artist, while creating the human capacity for reflection and opening the way for civilized progress, never really belongs to his or her community. In murderously modern language, the artist appears to serve no "practical purpose." Of course, this is a nonsensical and misleading distortion. The artist is the collective consciousness (and unconsciousness) of the entire society. His or her knowledge represents everything that we know, including the unpleasant and delicate things many of us need to forget. So, the artist is often mislaid. An artist must fight to win time and freedom to express the understanding civilization needs before it can progress. |
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Poets, musicians and painters are faced with more avenues than ever before to transmit and diffuse their work. It's a great time for artists. More people than ever before in the history of human civilization are able to make their living from creative work. |
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Yet, several tendencies are confounding the finest of artists: we see a general tendency towards the uniform commodification of everything that we can produce - including artwork - and for a few basic reasons... [ Note: reasons 1) and 2) below are inextricably complicated by each other, while number 3) is less easily explained by the first two... ] |
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1) reproducibility |
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2) need for mass diffusion / selling |
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3) demand for comprehension / compliance / acceptance |
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Today, accessing mass diffusion is supposedly equivalent to the reformulation of consciousness as a marketable phenomenon. This sick situation is almost as hilarious as it is chilling to the natural artist. (I do believe that I speak for the artist, too.) We artists can justifiably argue that, right now, imaginative creativity is being swept aside by forms of production that tend to confine mass consciousness to certain limited but "marketable" genres of art. |
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Concurrent, parallel and sometimes in opposition to the phenomenon of this commodification follows the entrenchment of public and private community support for the arts. Suddenly, the artist finds that he or she must "belong" to a community - or remain left out in the cold. Of course, the wish for a healthful community is wonderful, but only if that community truly wishes after the finest, and not the lowest or most easily diffused kinds of work. Nowadays the artist must become a socialized being: that means - someone who aggressively responds to the current paradigms of creative form and content, as well as someone who seeks to share the same mediums of dissemination; sharing the creative strategy becomes essential for effective communication and the evolution of a community. A socialized being also means someone who is able to get along with a particular in-group's behavioral codes; being accepted or left-out now often depends upon whether or not your actions adequately excite the creative predicates expected by one's new confreres. Public and private support for art tends so to accommodate these subtle codes of socialization, which have nothing whatsoever to do with the essentially personal effort of artistic creativity; in this social way, the modern communal milieu has come to have expressly bullying and distracting effects upon the innate talents of almost all artists. While the author should be at home reading and writing, he or she is obliged to travel about giving readings and lectures. Popularity costs much precious time! Perhaps the truth is more obvious than ever: the born artist needs no more training than he does approval from an impersonal bureaucracy to achieve self-expression and social integration... |
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(Not surprisingly, we the middle and rich classes, untalented as we may be, often call the tune by consuming crappy work. Not only that, but we tend to despise as much as admire the true artist for being possessed of independent judgement, innate artistic ability and original ideas; consequently, the artist becomes a pariah and earns nothing but disrespect - unless he is willing to knuckle under and participate in one of the various socializing systems, which do little more than duplicate the staid middle class modes of approval prevalent everywhere. Artists know that these modes clip the imagination. Nevertheless, we are forced to exchange originality for "popularity" and other inaccurate measures of creativity. If the rich pretend to admire the successful "let-in" artist, for example, that's only because the artist has won the "right to sell" his or her art in mass quantities. But admiration for the big-seller corresponds to the small and hypocritical parsimony of our modern "value" system; the same people who admire the rich pop-artist will resent everything pure and natural in the artist with integrity - just because he might not be able to sell one thing. But think about how senseless such disrespect is! It is a judgement built on economic evaluations alone! Such false judgements put the artist in a bind and force us, unnecessarily, to question the natural springs of art: pure talent and its inspiration. Why can't we bring ourselves to admire someone who doesn't satisfy the mercantile paradigm? Why? Because we will always be afraid of those deeper things that we do not have and cannot acquire: talent, genius, developed expression and original ideas. Anybody can sell something - but few of us can MAKE something new and original. Few of us are blessed - that's what you think I believe? Well, I still feel somehow damned, even if I can tell Yeats from yeast. I'm just another drudge, lying in front of some pitiful videos and dvds...) |
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The present situation takes a way of life and reproduces it as a "role." The earlier idea that the individual artist was blessed with an inborn gift is being disregarded and belittled. In its place, we see a community of "trained" or merely "copycat" artists, very successfully integrated into the social-market schema. They are often masters of production and their creativity is channelled into skillfully satisfying the techniques of production. This situation suggests that imagination takes a poor second place to the demands of successful production, and all too often this new criterion forces the artist to limited his or her work to a specific and recognizable style, which is easier to market and sell. |
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Aesthetic inspiration and contemplation trail behind in the current situation. So, the desert is bought and sold while paradise is laughed at. The true artist, who needs no channel or avenue of diffusion to create his or her work, seems to suffer under the stigmata and frustration - but I hesitate to use the word for fear of being misunderstood - of obsolescence... |
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For the sake of talk, let's suggest that the artist tends to be displaced, not so much by having to acquire a properly socialized imaginative disposition, but more so - by the apparent obsolescence of certain "timeless" traditional concepts of artistic evaluation and creative action like authenticity, personal imaginative integrity and the educated receptivity of an audience... |
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Everyone has always argued that the artist is an artist just because of his or her individuality: the world as we know it appears transformed, uniquely, through the mind and heart of a particular artist as he or she knows it... This special juncture between the personal idea and the universal communique defines the very face, heart and nature of pure art, doesn't it? A work of art is always a vision of one mind, and it is the effectiveness of that vision which inspires us to exclaim that the artist's work is perfect. Genius is always defined by originality, completeness, unmistakable meaning and deep insight into human truth. Genius in art, while an individual phenomenon, is readily available to our natural sensitivity for understanding. This is why a simple yet brilliant piece of poetry, like a Blake song, a Catullus bawd or the Dickinson lyric, can rouse intellect and feeling in anyone. Genius communicates a truth that evades and can even chase away the dull platitudes with which we usually endure the conventions of civilized life. |
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(But you want to interrupt and ask, "Why do we need art after all?" All right, because we want to be civilized beings. Because art permits new ideas to grow. Because we need new ideas if we are to outmode bad habits and the rational propensity to defeat ourselves with the perpetual rigidity of prescribed social and economic behavior, which seldom encourages any alternative way of doing things and often merely serves to help entrench unjust social situations. Art and philosophy gave you freedom. Look at how people and journalists take their freedom of speech and press for granted in America - while in eastern Europe - in a country like Ukraine, the press has suffered under a Draconian species of control enforced by nothing less than an outdated legal coda and a fatuous, perhaps terrified judiciary, which is forced to process suits enacted by powerful interests against individual journalists and their newspapers; in eastern Europe, the victims of power are forced to pay stifling fines. Some have been murdered and nobody is held accountable. The situation is so grim that newspapers in Ukraine refuse to print stories about crime or political corruption! In communist China, or chilly Burma, the newspapers always print the line stressed by the current "government mood," and most editorials are righteous enough to promote the "correct" ideological faith... Let's look for a few examples of communal irresponsibility and injustice that we can experience closer to home. Pollution is caused by our need to buy prosperity. Is that irony, comedy or tragedy? The problem of the human condition must address this question: why do we seem to stop with realizing what our problems are!? We need to go much further and find a way to redeem the world we make from our appetites.) |
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...The original topic...? A work of genius inspires us with its insight to think and feel our way into a new world that we did not know existed before the poet or painter revealed it to us... Great art work is redolent with thematic integrity and appeals to sense and imagination, immediately and compellingly. The genius, in the act and form of expressing the content of creative work, realizes what is most necessary for receptive individuals to understand... Receptive is the key here. But what makes you receptive? What turns you off? |
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Art cannot be denied. It shows us the heart of human soul: inner spirit is revealed. So, this is the artist's "job" - to reveal ourselves... |
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~ We should now contemplate the differences and relationships between inspiration and realization, talent and technique. These codependent types of conscious effort reveal the inner mind manifest in the world around us: the articulations they afford place the artist's soul among claims to knowledge and feelings for beauty. The work of art always abides outside ourselves. Because the world appears external to us, it draws out creative action... The poem is imagined, but is only remembered by the paper upon which it is written. The poem is permanent: the amazing and beautiful thing about art is just this - it's a living thing we can share forever after. |
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The lateral, associative mind is closely linked with imaginative depth. Creativity is often measured by the degree to which an artist integrates the effort of expression with its effective evocation in the receptor's mind. The audience's imagination must awaken to the new truths that the artist has struggled to express in his or her artwork. Intuitively, talented artists excite interest with easy-coming ideas. In this domain, writers and poets often lead the way because of the precise and immediate communication of specific ideas, feelings and thoughts. |
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Obviously, fine poets articulate the moods and prevailing ideas characteristic of their time. Skillful painters and sculptors generate an immediate feeling for the human predicament, as well as evoking our most sublime identities; Goya represents the one extreme and Michaelangelo, the other... |
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Today, painters offer us recourse to a subtler intellect, as we must sort fine abstractions from dross; we retrieve elaborate theories of understanding from the process of perceiving the diffuse and "metamorphic" forms of syncretic art with which painters attempt to transmute reality and express the present situation. Modern painting chooses to ascend from reality, and perhaps to defy presumptions, by appealing to your purest perceptions. Beyond the reflexive tendency to place a recognizable pattern upon the free shapes and colors, it takes time and patience to make yourself available to perceive abstraction... That's one way to articulate the issue. Of course, what we will "see" often depends on what we believe about art before we even glimpse the actual work before our eyes. Despite the many negative prejudices against us, nevertheless, we artists wish to be possessed of intuitive grace, a meteoric subtlety, which signals messages like a ray of light erupting through consciousness like a pure, whole experience. Yet nowadays, many of us have no easy way to process an abstract image, since we are trained "a la pavlov" - according to strictly "realistic" and pragmatic paradigms - which absolutely must not be blocked by unexpected answers to the conventional expectation for only accepting familiar faces and forms... Ah, all that means is we are less curious and receptive than we might be - since we have bought too much hard and fast certainty, identity, and insist on expanding upon our bad case of megaallionimmaniappsiposdrompsytatis - we can all chew up five millions of syllables to prove we know what's right... (But are they buying it, Sally?) ...Maybe not exactly, we remind ourselves now and again - as your good pal doubt arrives upon a light tread, a tickle: After anger should follow laughter at yourself - unless you're a killer or mean enough to be too hasty in your judgements. So. Contrition, for the lucky. Those whose disposition banishes fear tend to feel happy about the human destiny... We lead optimism to believe we can do it, so we do it... It is good for us: to discover that there are more uplifting viewpoints available to the emotions behind our need to intepret things as we expect them to be... Yet always, other minds are silent to yours. You must travel far beyond the confines of a seed before you see the flower in your life. Others have their own anguish and special elations, too. Can you feel other people's emotions as your own? To speak, to reach for the loving touch... Your tender heart has only the mind and other people upon which to rely. Chasing after spirit still wishes for certainty and absolute knowledge... We all know that the expansion of industry need not lead to absolutism... Let's trust that we are smart enough... but I can wait till the day after tomorrow before you rip off my balls, sir. Get on it now: most people living in the developed world have many more chances to access data and knowledge from a greater number of sources than ever before... We can search with care and intellectual discrimination to satisfy the quest for truth. Your understanding is only limited by its lack, and so, should excel upon its wish for new knowledge... (There is still some lingering incuriousness: inspired by the collective propagation of shared desires, mostly for the sake of "security," instilled in all of us and reinforced by habitual behavior, market creeds, government, culture cops and cons, what have you, and the inevitable belonging to some identifiable people...) Yet, notice how the finest artist wishes to remove all the preconceptions imbedded inside. The artist inspires us to think and talk about the world around us... We need to replace preconceptions with perceptions and thoughts. This is perhaps difficult for most of us to understand... But perhaps we can only see something as it is if we stop asking what it is - and look... |
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In recent times we've seen another inevitable trend that defies the truth-quest of all art, and it has sprung a new hybrid life-form: marketable, or, "commercial" art... Curiously, to adjudicate or finalize an impression of quality, wholeness and harmony in such contemporary art forms, the decision often depends on the artist's apparent finesse - his or her mastery of creative techniques and modes of reproduction. Are the lines clean and the whole work sealed in itself - properly smooth - just like a completely seamless package? Yes, that's what is wanted in the office today! Even newspaper art critics, though paid not to, laugh at heaps of sand piled up in the corner of the gallery. But nowadays, most art critics are so lost that they will usually rave about anything that appears smartly done, expertly executed - finely polished. This cautious sensibility is a curious statement about the expectations we put upon our perception of formal entities; even minute imperfections in the unity of the whole are not tolerated. If there are any obvious faults, then the artist's only defense is to claim a "concept" or a "conviction" that can excuse the weaknesses as "intentional, human, comic" and representative of the semiotic ideal - or the syncretic node of orgasm squirting through the psy-wave of cosmic truth, brother. What have we? The precise and the finished idea is loved very much today; meanwhile - incomplete, non-conceptual, unstylized and disunified themes are scanted as amateurish... Yet everyone knows that uniform vinyl wallpaper grosses more income than wild abstraction... |
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Abstract art and most expressive forms of art appeal to the contemporary sensibility because, with the advent of modern "human omniscience," people have also come to worship the synthetic ability of the human imagination. We succeed whenever we inform art work with new unities and novelty draws upon sources that were previously disparate. A good way to explain the wondrous sanctity of this human-godhead-made-of-synthesis is the imaginative process inspired in us as we understand a metaphor. We see how much the inspiration of ideas and emotions depends upon associations! Abstract art is often an interior effort: it represents the imagination in its most pure expression - and shows creative imagination meeting with the external world. Abstract art inspires a metonymy for pure imagination that springs up as something very real: the art object is possessed of a raw actuality that symbolizes the meeting of imagination and perception within reality - yet a special reality: the humanly creative objective. The metaphoric power of the plastic arts is unlimited, because there are no rules to follow, only sublime ideas, forms, shapes and colors to achieve. The modern time has liberated all sorts of new content in a wide variety of fabulous forms: in the world of music we see the principle of spontaneous creativity come to the fore most especially during this century - with the effusive invention of jazz. |
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The only question nobody has been able to answer very well is this one: exactly what stimulated us to achieve such an astonishing capacity for artistic invention? Did the egg come before the frying pan? In effect: was the liberation of intimate relations and the breaking down of class strata into familiar see-through refrains - was that more likely an impetus for new art forms than the discoveries we made with science and the consequences of applied technology? The answer isn't forthcoming, unless perhaps we abandon the compulsion to demand a cause and effect scenario. New tools may have opened us to express the imaginative freedoms already given to us by an advanced scientific era; also the era gave us a sudden, new sensation of paradox - that technology was actually going to be an imprisoning liberation, and which conditions us to depend on it, occupied as we are with living and working, members of a specific class, inside the factory... |
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I don't care if you think I don't know what I am talking about. The point is: I am free to write whatever I like! I'm smooth, and a big mouth is my only blemish. |
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~ While many claim that knowledge didn't used to be equated with personal power, the respect for unadulterated "might" has been largely displaced by conventionally civilized goals. However, these good and humane ideals remain little more than hopeful rhetoric: the knowledge we have of the way things "ought to be" has not exactly found any means to relieve us of the more practically instituted disasters and civil wars plaguing our selfish world. Many of us do insist that the human condition has "awakened" in the modern era, especially to create exciting new forms of art. Witness, at the onset of the twentieth century, the very conscious rebellions of dadaist and surrealists against the prosaic, dated and dull "bourgeois realisms" and "art for art's sake" camp. Perhaps the real reason that artists have needed to rebel was inspired by the concern that forms and ideas are already used up; so, artists share a very natural compulsion to discover new ways to evoke experience. Rebellions allow us to transcend the limited feeling many artists suffer about having to repeat the same dull round... The point is that new art isn't necessarily closer to the truth as it ought to be, but only closer to the methods, ideas and moods with which we can deeply feel and spontaneously communicate the world happening around us. |
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If you are confused about what you want to do, or what you think I am trying to say, then remember only this: the true artist responds first to creativity - his or her urge to create - before conforming to the tastes of an audience. This need for creative and imaginative integrity often divides the pure artist from the commercial artist, not only because their motivations are set apart from one another, but also because the essential mediums, ends, ideas and final works, including their content and reception, must inevitably remain quite different. The creative, pure artist is concerned with truth and transcends fashion, opinion and illusory social space. On the other hand, the commercial artist is concerned with making a living, and his or her work leaves no chance for the truth to emerge, except that the work shows itself up as a platitude or cliche that, at best, rehashes the same old "marketable style." |
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While critics and art lovers may not appreciate the work of commercial artists - corporations and condo developers always do; so, the commercial artist also has every reason to ignore all criticism - because his or her main concern is no longer making art, but earning an income. The commercial artist has an interest in making a "successful career" from his labors, and therefore has very small say, and very little concern, about whatever he may happen to create. "Play it safe" is always the motto of the commercial artist; but this attitude is completely meaningless to the creative genius. |
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Artists, especially musicians and painters, were accorded a living because of their genius and innate creativity. They had the right to practice their vocation based solely on talent alone. Today, this traditional concept seems stilted in the eyes of the many individuals assiduously working to transform the artist's "role" into a rigorous career made of appropriate conventions, like popularity and the professional CV. We exchange our respect for gifts with a need to rationalize, and now that means to "socialize" all human activities. But the artist, if he or she is to create freely, ought to remain free of conventional social obligations and expectations because they might interfere with creativity. The artist qua person, as pure identity, can have no role, career or place: we artists live beside the world we wish to understand; and we don't need to fight, much less compete, to create what we love. |
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My main point is that everything a pure artist does is an effort of original creativity. An artist cannot remain true if too worried about critics, audiences and their demands for something that reduces or demeans the higher intentions of creative integrity. |
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The world wants and tolerates all kinds of art today. Good and bad, highbrow and low, we can all get along. Yet all artists do suffer from social coercion - whether they admit it or not. For one thing, the artist cannot be "called" an artist today, so we are told, without an audience. Having an audience is the same thing as having a career, and so, to be a respectable middle class burgher who earns his keep and fulfills the new role; this social advent corresponds with the need to win social approval and respect... We all need to do the same thing, after all. But nowadays, if you go have to stay alone, and you need to go off by yourself to create a novel for yourself only, then you're more likely to be called a "bum" rather than a writer. Incidentally, jealousy gets us nowhere. Only hard work and daring imagination frees us from the crude, sycophantic infantilism of fashion... |
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For the selfish careerist, brought up to be as deadly dull, big-headed and serious as can be - yet always waiting to escape a society he imagines is even duller than himself - to such individuals only the spirit of variety appears to supply the essence of boredom relief. We have only to change the channel, buy a new magazine - stare at another new image. The medium was the message, but today - you are the message. Have web-cam - will chat! |
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Yet look! We are told what to do and what to believe. Everything is going to be okay, but only so long as you marshal your finances and aren't afraid of contraception. Despite the soft cliches and easy social euphemisms with which we help each other get along, certain odd effects arise from the happy kingdom of self... |
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Nowadays, we don't need to pay any attention to each other because we already know what we believe and cannot be touched by the world about us. A self-protective mechanism organizes your defensive reasoning: then you can make it through a difficult world of individuals, each one with essentially inscrutable motives and thoughts. How sad, that we fall so short of our depth, as the capacity for compassion is quashed by the fear we force upon one another. We must merely survive, instead of thrive, because we don't know how to share. I'm guilty of ignoring others, too. Sometimes, I feel so alone and unable to connect with anyone that death seems more appealing than life. I'm not afraid of saying things that I honestly feel. Are you? |
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Fantasy life is so individually differentiated that people now need to externalize and share obvious motives in common, but only as a means of finding another point of security - the life goal - which, if several of us share it in common, must amount to a sign of sanity and harmony. In the past most life goals were prescribed by the society and we had no opportunity to choose what we would do or believe. Long ago, we did not have any chance to ascend into some other class, either. The fact remains that people only feel secure whenever we subsume the individual's will into the communal one. Nobody ever gets ahead by selling individuality. And please don't forget - doubts and insecurities are the exclusive and very profitable territory of insurance companies! |
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Even so, everyone in the West is big on the personal ethic that attributes supreme value to the crude belief that each one must be proud to fight for himself. The failure of socialism only serves to satisfy our suspicions that people, no matter the system they claim to work for, inevitably end up working for themselves. Socially integrated individualists, whether working alone or in the big corporation, still feel proud about their unique ability to "accept" and understand their "true" human nature - which is to compete - every man for himself! Those who do not automatically subscribe to this primitive jungle ethic are snookered away as being incredibly naive and destined to lose. (What do such staid, identical businessmen have to do with art? Nothing. They never read books and couldn't begin to second guess the poet's motives or a painter's dreams...) |
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Most of the attitudes that we use to win or to steal leave little room for compassion and balance. We focus on singularly narrow goals and ignore the whole situation, and we still remain quite proud of our "realism" and its wilful blindness. Dare to speak up for the oppressed. Then stand up for an idea that is selfless in any way. Everyone is quick and cynical: first we condemn and then we ignore. Nowadays the powers that be are more clever, broadcasting subtly tinted opinions, while carefully leaving out the whole picture. Even this style of writing is meant to show the limits of upended interpretation... She likes wearing gauzy sheer things, below the waist... |
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So, why are we so afraid to be unlike one another in our social goals? How come our great, rugged individualists have failed to see how monkeyish we all are? |
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Supposedly, correct behavior, not thought and reflection, wins the key to success. You have the right attitudes and beliefs, then you will be promoted. If you still want to do something creative for yourself, well then, you had better hope that you're "lucky" and "connected" - otherwise you'll become one of the millions of losers who, at best, thought they knew what they were doing, too. |
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The sad fact remains that we have too small a span, slight ability and sparse concern for anything except some superficial stanching of our communal guilt. We need to believe in a social philosophy, but none is to be found. Instead, we have incessantly stupid racial wars, cults and cults upon idiotic cults of technology and crude phantasms of hokey religion, and dumb followers wishing after costly corporate deities - narrow predicaments all - but believed in by millions and millions of gullible, ill-cultured and silly people like you and me. ...and we as they - for we are all they - we are all too eager to exclude the rest of the world from the fantastic dominions of our microscopically right religious, political and only-ways of seeing and understanding the universe! Why have we become - so susceptible? The sheer increase of knowledge overwhelms the discriminative capability; consequently, we latch onto some fixed idea that appeals to our particular weakness: the hungry psyche hatches a quest for security and comfort, if you will. Some of us choose hybrid marijuana, while others, the lastest UFO cult. Oh, I don't mind... Believe in your faith, meditate, demonstrate and go to jail for your beliefs if you want to - but never pretend that you actually know more than the next guy, unless you prefer the straight and narrow intolerance of righteousness to the open suggestion and fascinating ambiguities of the truly natural world... |
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I believe that nine out of ten people suffers from a great need to escape from improbable responsibilities and a profound sense of personal futility into a utopian dream of fulfilled ends. We all want to be loved, too. We are nothing new, of course. We long, alone and as nations, for the fulfillment of the mother's tongue, which includes establishing a recognizable identity: we all want our own ways and means. ...In life, I may be fraught with uncertainty, but do not show it to my friends. I am so over-confident that I really don't know what to do next! By projecting a masked image of conquest and self-assurance, I can retain some semblance of mystique, and pretend to some private identity. Only you know what you really believe! On Monday, maybe God is real, and on Wednesday, he's a headache. Don't tell your friends what you really believe - in case they decide to remind you next year. Ha, ha, ha... |
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Today we admire and pay the specialist to do his job and tell us what to do. If you attend the university - you have no choice. Knowledge that is considered deep is focused on a specialty. This is fine, unless you are liable to be bored with scholarship, and having repeatedly to study the same subject. Oh, I suppose that the intellectual generalist does survive somehow, but merely as a public pundit - a remnant of authority - and certainly not the keystone of new and ground-breaking work... |
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I want to understand all there is: that wish excites me now as it did when I was a boy. But we are told, again and again, that we cannot learn all there is to know. In fact, prevailing prejudice links the best chance for wisdom (and success) with specializing first; and only after we know everything about one thing, can we return to pronounce about the whole thing! You have no choice but to follow the rules, ha, ha. Well, I doubt that this fashion for the largesse of induction can outdo the pure intuition and genius that inspires original discovery... |
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The scientist begins with an idea, almost like a suspicion about the world. Besides the wondrous advances it has given us, there's one really terrifying thing about science: that is, how easily it can make mistakes. This problem remains serious; because there's no room for error when we are dealing with the destiny of humanity. |
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Human beings have proclivities and passions. We are subject to no law but our own beliefs: and many of us need to believe that the depth of our faith equals the degree to which we have achieved humanity. |
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We cannot manage without our ideas for each other. Our science, in this light, is a reflection of the wish to assert ourselves: identity is made of intentions proved. Science in the twentieth century has come to mean solution instead of discovery. Yet, for all our medical advances, we have also invented death for millions of innocent people through manufactured war, new poisons and waste products. The ground of creative imagination, which we believe hallowed, is not sacred at all. It's tainted with vice and crime. The scientist has done wrong and will not learn willingly from his mistakes. The scientist has been paid to kill at least as much to create, and nobody seems to care. It hardly matters that we all agree scientists should only be paid to create: because mayhem, that dicey thoroughbred, is still a big profit maker. |
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We cannot forget that the scientist begins, like the artist, with an obsession for knowledge, an almost Faustian compulsion to arrive at perfect agreement with nature, at any cost. So we see the perfect model of amoral man is the scientist; ever since poor Mary Shelley, we still await another novelist who can arrive at an accurate portrayal of such characters, divine and evil, together on the same stage, living out the end of modernity, investing their lives into a faith in knowledge without end, irrespective of all questions about good and evil. Oh yes, a domain without rules is worth exploring, isn't it? To find a novelist capable and heroic enough for such a wondrous, terrifying work! |
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Maybe we will need more time to get the imagination we need, the perspective of another couple hundred years or so. At this stage, all our science fiction attempts to project into the future based on the present state of civilization; we have yet to attain that higher ground of wisdom, as from the point of view of a god studying twenty thousand advanced civilizations simultaneously. Put it this way, even the best writers of fiction have imagined nothing but one more idea of what we already are! To get beyond ourselves we must imagine whole new worlds, organisms, religions, art systems, cities and sexes... But we can we..? |
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Let's get back to today. Yes, we must live with specialization. The expert earns respect among his peers. It's the sheer joy of knowing what nobody else but your peers know! Many of our most brilliant snobs make a living from their "know-how" appeal: we enjoy a very modern desire for that mystique with which privileged knowledge imprints the quest for intellectual and social status. Witness the strange phenomenon of the literary critic - a most hard to understand species. He or she wants to know what writers and poets are writing, but instead of doing that, studies what other critics are writing instead! The literary critic is happy and very important, especially since he or she learns a special language that authors and poets seldom acquire themselves. I ask you to take a look at my way of writing analytical prose. See that I want to speak to you, not through the subtext, but here, on top of the sentence: my words lie on your lap, my queries and prickles invite you to think of your own ideas... I do not seek to mystify the English language with befuddling technical jargon so complex that its objective translation and comprehension is rendered nigh impossible by virtue of there being far too many neologisms and obtuse words in each sentence! Of course, Mr. Critic, the lexicon is infinite, no doubt: that's the true nature of human imagination, yet we ought to find our meanings directly, and if we find that linguistic reality is a series of layers, then you ought to explain how we arrive inside those layers first before throwing them at your reader as if you assume we already know what you are talking about as if we lived inside your brain! Your world is real for you, but when I read it in lexico-lesion-lingo, I am not in a real world at all. So it appears that a lot of today's criticism is a camp created out of wishful air, completely detached and unconcerned about the literature it never pretends to begin critiquing in the first place. But why!? Because, it seems the critics need to make their world appear legitimate enough to make a living, too. There, I've said it twice. But how many critics are actually smart enough to analyze literature and civilization simultaneously, as Frye does? Hardly any. Now, onward. Let the critics stay dim and in, praying to their selfish obscurity - bah! |
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But we can use this example of the critic to point out, simply, that our concern has arrived at a curious juncture of modern metamorphosis: the rise of the "specialist" whom nobody can understand at all... Why do these individuals attach so much importance to their activities? Because they have persuaded themselves that their knowledge is made of authority. Fine and dandy; but why does it seem as if authority arises out of exclusivity alone? |
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Wisdom, authority and knowledge are never the same thing unless you speak with the voice of a godhead... The human being does not need to inflate itself up with so much self-importance and pretence to absolute knowledge! All of our specialization amounts to only the tiniest little fragment of truth. It's fine with me if specialists believe that their work privileges a living, and I don't care if the expert should decide that my work is insignificant to his studies. I suppose that he'd better, if he wants any respect from his peers... |
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I am quite happy to remain anonymous and to content myself with absorbing, retaining and using most of the ideas I've absorbed over the years - from all spheres of knowledge. I'm also happy to experience other cultures and to combat my congenital xenophobia and self-serving resignation... The results I offer may be mixed, but nobody can hold trying to express myself against me... |
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Artists always have been left alone to beg their betters for approval and handouts... But true art needs nobody's approbation! That's why so many great artists killed themselves! |
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So what do we have? A ripe and ludicrous end to our age, the age to cap all ages: the scientist, a bitter king who cannot trust his motives; the artist, either a crabby pauper nobody knows and who must beg for respect, or a flimsy egomaniac selling the same crap over and over again. |
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Face it - so many bums call themselves "artists" today. We want to be bums, and respected for it, instead of admitting that we hate to work at some dull job... Is it ironic that nobody will call you a bum if your technique of artistic production mimics those of dentists or auto mechanics? Stylistically, I suspect that people have begun to fear every object that doesn't look as if a machine stamped it out! But believe me,: I don't want to be a robot, much less a slave... |
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So, I lose, too. But at least I know what art really is, and what constitutes a viable subject for literature, and I know how to write it, too... |
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For the sake of annoying you, let me suggest that I think there's something lacking about the current mentality: the only way we can be admired and appear tolerable to one another, and so - get publicly promoted - depends upon whether or not we act within forms of behavior and create art possessed of the least stimulating level of idea content. You think I'm wrong, maybe I am, but this shit isn't exactly going to be a bestseller, and it's all ideas... (I don't think sentiment without supporting ideas count much towards writing a deeply thematic novel - whether satiric, serious or comic. A great novel always portrays character and events in a story that simultaneously evoke precise and deeply moving responses in readers. Emotions reveal a particular social reality; note that fine authors work hard to balance the emotive and intellectual contents, placing their fictional characters amid conflicts inspired by nature and other people, weaving an artful plot. And so, the emotions of the characters become caught up with the deeper thematic aim that each author has in mind, and which guides the whole creative effort... It is important to observe that a somewhat more condensed and amorphous unity occurs within poetry, which always depends directly upon evoking emotions in the reader.) However, without much idea substance, you are the perfectly leadable, readable, silenced and shoutable. Who needs to contemplate a profound concept or a deep theme? Nobody wants to read Dostoyevsky. But I happen to know that you are likely to remain pretty stupid unless you do! Today, the biggest selling novels appeal to the most basic emotive reactions: lust, fighting, wishful fantasy, sentimentality, puppy love and fear of the killer. Action description needs to leave out themes and ideas. You think I exaggerate? Of course, you're a rich publisher who prides himself on being able to make business decisions; and, without having to know a thing about literature, you do make them! Or, you're a big-selling hack author with plenty of hard-earned time to write just what the proles want; you've won just enough freedom to look down on the likes of snotty little me. Shit, all you need do is to point out that human beings have always been this way to justify writing trash. Go ahead, give your seminars on "how-to-write-the-perfect-pot-boiler..." You already know so well that aggressive competition is humanity's answer to the universal craving for self-security. Hits and blockbusters only! Everybody else - die! |
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Professionally tame and predictably managed, we are certainly most intellectually sinister, profoundly lacking interesting and intelligent opinions. Those who have already sold-out to productivity and mass audience become cynically rich: some bastards become so garish and rosy under that pride, squeezed out of some stupid dickhead shit called "business savvy." But you tell me, after all, what does making a deal have to do with creativity and imagination? Nothing! Maybe just a little bit, but mostly nothing and nothing again... Show business is just money you donkeys! And how do all self-convinced "performers" measure everything that threatens their selling-identity? They say: "I don't buy that..." They don't read it, either. (What do I know!? The dry rigidity of feeble minds like mine is built upon how much really fine work I can ignore!) The few creative paupers left, those few who can still actually write well, they only become bitter, quizzical, benignly enlightened and eventually - indifferent and careless - and left alone like me, very much alone, not at the party, but kept in the dark. At least we don't have to pretend that we're important enough to deserve a prize... I don't really have to admire clever people who contrive to get big hand-outs, just so they can satisfy their desperately grave right for attaining to a tiny class high above us, the mere workers of the world! They are correct to look down on me for not having enough time to write my thirty novels and 150 short stories! They are all sitting there, waiting to be written - but I am not allowed to get any time at all - not even a little bit. Not even a little bit of admiration or respect. Where I live, the illiterates haven't even the slightest clue about what I have already created. Not even a trace of an inkling! We who would be "artists" are actually attaining to a merely synthetic and imaginary idea of what an artist is supposed to be. That's all... You're a tv-moviestar-rewriter. Wow! That's it - little biddy starlet! Hey starlet: do you know that they plan everything out for you, and you don't know it! They decide exactly who you are gonna fuck next week and next year, too! Yes they do! It's all charted out for ya baby: you may not know it, but your agent and the studios spend a lot of time and effort figuring out how to maximize the profit they intend to make off you! So they hire shrinks to figure out just exactly the right kind of guy to lay cross your path - only those ones who have the highest likelihood of making you "happy enough" to guarantee the studio big money over the next five years! You don't think those boys are set up to bed you baby? Don't kid yourself, you cute little slut! But don't forget, after you're through with your little Grecian holiday, what are you expected to ask him, bitch? But of course: "Who you got lined up for next week?" Then you both fly back to America in time to sleep with the next one. Shit, I'd do it, too. I get pretty bored with the same doll after a couple of years, months - days... Go ahead! Live in your predictable dreamland, kiddies... Why not, we should all have as much fun as we can! An artist is unclassifiable and certainly nothing but a fake if forced to adhere to a synthetic image of middling-high class behavior and success... If you get bored of fucking the next brave, you can always enjoy a breakdown, darling... We'll pay for that, too! Those poor guys have a right to win, dear God! Me too? I don't know. I don't think so. Those guys in Boston and Toronto don't really want me to read their magazines... They can ignore me more easily that way! Oh, but I can still pretend to laugh along with the dim parrots of professionalism! I'm not a complete bore - yet! |
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Artists - especially at a moment when civilization should be growing up into a broad tolerance and respect for pluralistic social, ethnic and faithful currents - are being degraded for having ideas: we remain invisible and insulted, maybe because our work isn't easily digested and challenges the limitations of corporate money-making forms and all similar structures of social control and "growth." No publisher wants to hear about the unpleasant effects of unjust economic dominance. Oh yes, I forget about all the good things that happen mr. president - after all - don't we got some food on the table? But so what! Artists like me are forced into positions of ignominious sycophancy in order to buy even a little bit of time to create. So, what do you expect? Sometimes I'm obliged to hate society - and everyone in it, for forcing me to waste my life - (especially when I know that I've done a better job than the ones they already let win.) I'm exaggerating? I'm so free but I can't see it, right? Right. I have it good. Yes, I see that. But I have no time! I'm working when I should be writing. You can pretend to hate me, too - I don't care. Ego-edifying spleen: the soap-bubble is inflated because I don't dare ask anyone for respect. Nobody wants to understand anything. So, I will have to resign and accept the fact that literature, even the best, is never deeply assimilated by any society. The silent peace of the safe grave is all I can hope to earn... I feel good about being anonymous and could care less what you think about my work, my behavior, my attitude - especially since you've never read anything I wrote... I suppose all that I want is to wake up and write everyday, and forget about paying rent. So what? The world seems laughably backwards to me. |
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Try on this one - then just throw it away. The saddest thing about today's big men of power and business is that they really really believe that selling is the be-all, end-all of existence. That may be okay - but only for them! For the artist like myself, such beliefs are anathema. We have no wish for selling-power: we only want to understand the world. Yet, how strange the world is today! Serious artists who agree to play the roles laid out for them are automatically shunted into the pipes of vast bureaucracies and they get properly locked up in libraries, universities and galleries: and all participants have to assume the appropriate stuffiness, carefully balancing the snob appeal with that of their peers w - in order to give every appearance of having that special freedom of the ingroup, that especially informed and carefree life - all because nobody wants to worry over that pure, useless artistic creativity even as it fails to trigger the mainsprings of economy behind all successful social life... Nor does my thoughtful art work stand a chance for reaching very many, not up against the instantaneous reception of movies and pop-songs, which require little processing or reflection. We can pack a lot of CDs into relatively small boxes, friends. Benjamin was right about how we are quite accustomed to a distracted life, having replaced concentrated effort with slack habits... |
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All artists - crude and profound both - all of us begin with similar aims: it's always something that we desire to create, to achieve and then to give. Writers want more truth. Painters want more beauty. Both want emotion... Actors want more emotional truth than abstract possibility. Sculptors want to make their insights into a gut-wrenching knowledge. Each artist, acting from the natural affinity he or she may have for a particular kind of creativity, is able to intuit a direct connection with the receiver's sensitivity. A great painter knows what will move his viewer most deeply. A truly great painter will be able to convey the same moods and thoughts he was feeling about the scene or personality he saw and imagined as he created the artwork. Realistic impressions and insightful abstractions can lend us that warm sensation of affirmation: we live in the same place together, so we know and feel the same things... With respect to painting, I've always felt a quiet elation, an ecstasy and sorrow each time I view fine works inspired from pure ideas about human essences: with ease we read their symbols of emotional truth and so absorb unified themes and meaningful metaphors. (Example: you can see and feel the emotions upon the expression of the face of that anguished old man holding the skull of his dead son. His visage exactly matches the title of the painting: "Remorse." It reminds me of Herodotus, and one of his many clever lines summing up the motto of a military campaign: spare the sons - but kill the fathers...) The insights of literature and painting convey how shared sensitivity gives us depth and offers a chance for a progress that the simple animal under each of us would never begin to feel and imagine - were we not also human beings! |
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You do aspire to wisdom and a good life... Writers always make much about the belief that only language (poetic or musical) can effectively communicate complex experience. We need to excuse our late compulsion to "explain" behavior; it's only because we need some outlet to tell others about the wisdom we have realized. |
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The author dares to discriminate in favor of truth; however, our imaginations sometimes take us further than we can understand at all. Instincts drive us into crudely wrought or wildly sensational evocations. We have no excuses here. The poet's thoughts appear on paper in the same instant that we realize them. Intellectual poets are especially prone to feel that all human consciousness is writing the poetry for them - not one's own self, which is much too obsessed and cloudy. In this instinct, then, the pen feels like an instrument for a larger cosmos enveloping all life. |
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But of course, the creative writer is always the first one to define truth as a sensitivity for articulating it! So often, the language of poetry is all about life knowing us better than we can see and articulate in our conversations. We communicate life in many ways: by invoking thoughts, describing fates, by showing the cause of emotions among the amorphous yet shared plexus of familiar sensibilities - and a hundred other ways. Poetic insight isn't a purely subjective sensation, either. Familiarity is made of moods and common ground; shared ideas and kindred dispositions are inspired by the world we have made together. It's all as very real as our own wives and fathers. So, poetry is very attractive because we share it spontaneously. Ideas and metaphors connect heart to situation, sensation and soulful hope. |
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(One more aside: personally, I feel that one of the worst things that can happen to any artist is the nationalization or gross politicization of his or her creative work. When people feel oppressed by their minority, or by the presence of others possessed of their own special xenophobia, then we become vulnerable to false idealisms. In particular, fascism preys upon the emotions of desperation, insecurity and persecution - real and imaginary... Result: the same social disasters are always repeated... Intolerance is a disease bred of misunderstanding and fear. We may need to believe in a "home" and it's good to love our language, but it is wrong to use them to control other people... False ideals replace the cool, rational facility for fair judgement. We cannot descry the solutions to our differences: barricaded behind a mere chance of birth, we are unable to rise up and embrace forgiveness and so release ourselves from that fear of others who also hate us for no reason... How many situations in the world can you count which involve people who hate without having to hate each other - because of religion, or worse - gross nationalism, the old mistakes of history and military posing? Irish Catholics and Protestants. Serbs and Croats... Hutus and Tutsis. Koreans, north and south. Taiwanese and Chinese: I've seen the white-washed attitudes - the irrational, dumb-hearted preconceptions and judgements that come without knowledge or contact. They have prevailed for years and many people are still infatuated with their local brainwashing. People around the globe are bound by prejudices, all of us unable to change - young and old - the same... We've got angry Fijians and Indians. Do you buy your booze at a white or at a black folk's shop when you visit Georgia? The problem of blind bigotry is gravely serious... Does the dean of your philosophy department permit the study of Nietzsche or Sankara? Why not? When so-called poets adopt a hard line against other peoples who speak different languages, or whose ruffians have oppressed them, the compulsion to build impossible walls by means of unjust and oppressive ideas offers no issue. So, be wary of politicizing your work. Sing freedom songs, yes! But forget the songs of cruel superiority and leave hate and malice behind. If you're jealous, you're not balanced. The tragedy of freedom fighters is that we are always liable to be murdered by fascists from the other side. Poetry and art can help to analyze a political situation. But to propagandize isn't the same thing as to fight for freedom. Lies must never be told to excuse the ways and means of a power struggle... Freedom must reach for justice and individuals must not sacrifice their integrity to an imaginary social symbol, for we will lose the freedom we sought to gain as quickly as we believed that we had achieved it. To fight for freedom is to love your brothers and sisters.) |
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The real world is very strange now. It isn't real enough. It's too real, too far away, too close... Too! We are certain of very little, except that we live in an artificial organism, the city habitat. Self-sustaining ideals for the good life are built upon accretions of scientific and technological wonder. Turn your head the other way and both the inanimate and living sides of the natural world - water, mountains, trees, birds - shock us with a peculiar contrast to civilization. Perplexity arises because of the difference between the man-made and the natural worlds; each of these worlds, while being completely alien to one another, becomes infused with a human wish - to seek for a reflection of each within the other. But what is that instinct really looking for? It's the ageless wish for peace of mind - to make the head come home to the heart! Comfort and reassurance - and elevation beyond fear of solitude and soft embodiment. So we see the whole world as depending upon our intellectual judgement, the passions of belief, the wishfulness of being... The complex world we have created makes it more difficult to know ourselves - and that only makes us want to learn more! Eventually, we conclude that the desire to see masterful identity reflected in the creative power of nature, as the intent of deity, is merely a consequence of the wish to remain created, spontaneous and completely "natural" entities - so as not to become artificial and automatic. Although we are not the only higher order being with an innate propensity to development, we humans presume uniqueness in ourselves first: the human self-concept identifies its personal reality with a certainty for faith in god... See how long we have struggled up to the light, without knowing how we learned to believe! Being is imbued with intelligence, and ultimately we haven't a clue what we can achieve. Poetic prophets can't find fit words for the future. Scientists write in the impenetrable epigrams of microbiology and physics. |
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~ We do live in our machines. The wonderful magic of technological solutions swallows our appetite for knowledge... We must try to be even more humble than before - because the line between success and failure is now reckoned according to how many solutions we have for the problems we have already made... We are much too responsible for the success and failure of civilization: this fact makes us very uneasy - so much so that the men with the most power ignore the most obvious evidence - like the assault upon the environment by man-made pollution. Santyana spoke of the whole of life and universe as being one vast combustion. But today that notion might scare us, and tough men do not want to be scared. |
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Technology is subconsciously assimilated because we use it easily. But with emphasis upon "using" tools, we have little knowledge about how our new tools are put together. Instead, we exult in the extension of human facility and enjoy the simplicity of effort that represents new-found creative sophistication. Instead of cultivating the old standby, faith in pure understanding of "what is," the contemporary ideal tends to focus upon concepts of process and modes of efficiency. |
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Technicians are heroic for giving us wondrous innovations that unwittingly liberate our culture - like this amazing CD ROM that saves so many trees and shows a hundred lovely pictures instantaneously! So, if you can read this, chances are you dream at night about solving problems instead of having to scrounge up some food for the next day. Of course, we need more solutions to the problems we are afraid to face... Like starvation: so many have next to nothing, and very small hope to relieve their poverty. |
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We are proud but really deserve nothing more than we can make ourselves! Creative success is a personal effort. Artists have a purpose! We must work to understand. But what becomes of artists when technology is too full of solutions? Technology does leads us into new concepts that help to mollify some imaginative goals. But technology can relieve us of creativity, too... |
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Some of us ask: is the artist being outmoded by the technician? If we can see so much dependence upon stylistic forms, tools and fashionable guidelines like, "plot, plot, plot..," then isn't the interior action, the creativity, being swept aside in favor of something entirely thoughtless? I hope not. But hope isn't enough to make wonderful art... |
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No artist can be persuaded that his or her creative world is about to be replaced by automatic systems of production, socialization, distribution, etc... However, such systems, as advocated by technology, economy and governments, do tend to offset the original schemas of aesthetic appreciation. Imagination is reprogrammed to do a new job. Today, getting connected is very important and processing that acceptance may tend to displace an artist's quest for integrity. Buying into the "appropriate" motives is the same thing as mimicking the favored styles. Having to "fit-in" sometimes causes the imagination to lose touch. But since we all believe that, "art cannot die," we obviously assume that making art, and consuming it, must continue to fulfill our need for conceptual play. Without imagination, we would be duller than ever. We are liable to become worse off if we were no longer able to decide what constitutes good and bad art. |
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All musicians know technical proficiency augments talent. But technique is nothing without talent. The development of musical skill, and technique, comes with practice. Talent comes from nothing but nature: it's a gift that needs a chance to flower. Great musicianship, more than all the other arts, except perhaps the art of the novelist, depends on time: we devote ourselves for prolonged periods to reach our goals. The musician depends on technique while learning, but without talent, cannot reach mastery. All artists apply a creative technique, and today, the notion of this technique is often confused with one's "artistic style," which is actually another thing. For the writer, a technique may comprise writing some notes and then outlining a plot, a theme and some characters. Technique for writers may be preparation - a way of thinking during the creative act. Some writers insist that their favorite technique is to write as fast as they can, then rework from start to finish by cutting out the bad parts to make the whole thing more "readable." But the fact remains that most writers and poets cannot explain how their creative and "talented" consciousness functions during the act of composition. |
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What about the difference between the artist and the technician? Let's say that the artist is first responsible for the content of the artwork. The technician is responsible, potentially, for the form of the artwork, usually equivalent to its reproduction. If the form of the artwork and its techniques of production become more important than its content - (as so often is the case with the non-paintings in our offices, hotels and condominiums) - then the artist is outmoded by the technician's work; that is, by someone who never needed to know how to draw, paint or sculpt in the first place... More than one artist has been superceded by someone else's better connections. |
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We see a strange metamorphosis of active roles today. The artist has always been responsible for the content of artwork, but our growing dependence on the technical methods of artistic production may be pushing aside our fascination with ideas in favor of creating "appropriate" and recognizable forms of expression. I would go so far as to suggest that some of us are afraid of things that appear as if they were actually produced by the human hand instead of a machine. Many of us shy away from works that do not reflect some kind of mimicry or a recognizable school. I don't much care about how you do things: let the familiar genre and unimaginative mannerism rule your work if you like. But I'll keep singing with my voice, thanks... |
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If the artist can still manage to exert some imaginative effort over the content of a piece, then we will see the form sublimated to its rightful place, and so effectively combine with the content's meaning to fulfill the artwork's expression; consequently, the art work properly communicates deeper sensations and hopefully - new ideas - maybe even the artist's original feeling. |
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We need technicians. But artists must not become technicians! Technicians can help with the excellent reproduction of art. However, all the work that goes by the name of "art" must begin with the human mind, heart and hand. By the way, this discussion isn't intended to be taken for an absolute stance, but really as a series of analytical propositions, as a way to help you think about what art is... About all that I know for sure is that lust reflects the deep beauty of physical sensitivity. But that isn't enough to make you say, "Yes," either. |
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~ Beautifully, laughing in our faces, culture is a sly whore. She is too expensive for me. I chase her and she wants someone else. She taunts and tantalizes my supposed morality and mocks all my inhibitions: she would understand everything I might choose to confess... Exchanging your dreams for onan is easier than ever before, ha, ha. What am I talking about? Nothing. I really want to point out that we've built a great snob appeal from past and dead cultural icons; they are still strutting about hundreds of years after they've died... Which is great! I am happy we respect the best art. We read great novelist's books, reproduce their paintings and try to imagine, "what the artist was like as a man..." We never bother to recall if they were loved or hated by their contemporaries, or that hypocrisy drove them to live anonymously in sunnier climes, where perhaps it didn't matter so much that they had little money, and nobody would judge them for growing older, or for giving up (or for not giving up) their work. Why do we romanticize our dead lights only after they died? It's the imaginary aura of a name. But what about understanding? Nowadays, everyone likes to say that we don't need anymore dead artists; you are a viable entity only if you can drop as many currently popular living names as possible! Does it really matter that I haven't a clue who you and your friends are? Even if I write the world's best novel next year - I wouldn't be permitted to publish it... So how the fuck ought I feel? |
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Today, the ways and means are everything to those who imagine themselves to be qualified professionals. Nothing is romantic or funny, and everything is gravely important (or completely unimportant) and so serious to the professional artist! And we have to be professional, and remind each other everyday - or as everyone knows - we cease to exist! Oh, but it isn't right to crack jokes like this - not to the serious professionals! Not unless the joke makes fun of my unimportance - since I'm not allowed to be a professional. Remember, the professionals know that they deserve to be professionals, and to suggest otherwise or that it isn't fair is just wrong! The professional has so much free time to create! He makes the loser like me appear deservedly left out. |
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But what's it about? The artist, whether professional or left out, is entangled in a vast complicated mess made by the structure of society, techniques of production and, nowadays, the evaluation of viable, acceptable work... To liberate a personal vision, the artist must rise above society's goals, and other people's judgements. We would all agree with the assumption that if ingenuity cannot be frightened off, then of course, artistic genius may prevail. We only need adapt to new mediums. (Should human civilization chance to prosper, what kind of art and literature do we see coming in future ages? I believe a close relationship may develop between latent psychological powers, as yet largely untapped, and creativity. Exactly what form this might take is anybody's guess. Evolution may intimately link the minds of individuals. Technology may find a way to broadcast the nightly dream for all to see. Perhaps we can reach ecstatic illumination and spiritual communion. Maybe we can learn not to kill our early innocence and child-like aesthetic ecstasy. Perhaps not. We may even fulfill the ageless longing that inspired the finest poetry - the wish to get to know one another, and be loved. To peruse the ringlets of your lover's hair, grazing her ear with your lips - instead of changing the channel. Perhaps love will be so perfect - poetry and song will neither be needed to express thwarted passions after all desires are finally fulfilled. Only joking.) |
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You cannot think unless you accept one chance - that all things may be possible. Let's start with some compelling illustrations based on some myths central to the Western psyche: perhaps the one thing in common between the faith of religion and desires of poetry is the wish to attain to desirable feelings - of harmony, awareness and ultimate reality - knowledge and understanding combined. The scriptures named the wisdom of god, "Grace." The beholden wonder of eastern enlightenment is perhaps a higher form of emotional wisdom, too: perfect peace and release from care. Human feelings of love, grace, lust and love are always discovered poised among a garden of delightful pleasure... Yet realize: we need righteousness only so we can leave it behind in paradise. We honor the law only because we hope for divine grace. Faith is supposed to grant us our every wish, but mainly a free passport back into paradise. But the human way, of life amid our sensitivities, emotional and physical, transmutes the spiritual command into the coupling of two lovers - because we are made for physical intimacy. So, the divided sex of men and women is united by hunger lust. We do not pity without first loving. |
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We know what we want, but we still suffer from a desperate inability to reach it. We're human beings: that's why. Money and drugs, sex and cars - pretty clothing and homes - knowing that you don't live in a slum... None of these things will bring you perfection and joy... But you experience the wish no matter how many mistakes you need to make, to know yourself, to remember your weakness and exercise your strength. Desires for transcendence... if only wisdom would simply dawn on us. Great teachers suggest we need only decide to behave ourselves, and so come to wisdom, too. Instead, we bear the burden of expectations; self-centered and mutely desperate, we crash through the world. Wondering what to do, you wish for the end of your imaginary hopes - and so maybe you might give up, never to write or paint again - if only that simple resignation would make peace with your heart, at last... Because we're human, we suspect ourselves overmuch; inevitably, the foolish wish to surpass ourselves, even amid the failure of self-trust, reveals but one more key to help figure out an insatiably human design. |
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Enter the conjecture like a mortal... You enter her instead... Ask yourself: why are there women you wanted to know - but never got to know? That puzzle supplies some inclination, stirs up uneasiness and makes you look suspiciously in the mirror... You want to trust yourself, so you do. The self is unwanted and yet indelible, the only thing you need to escape - but can't. Yet, the only thing you can give to someone is your self. Your soul is the myth of a belief in a god. We need that too, because God, if it is, must make us ask questions, and through us, must know the truth, too. |
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Your poetry, your musing, your deepest love, all of it belongs to you - because we know nothing. Wishing to see can't see enough. Somebody tells us "vision" is a misnomer, and it's only the history of mental derangement. How sad, that people shut off to talent beyond their own... So, why do we feel so hung up by presentiment, as if we were already told what we were supposed to learn - but never do figure it out... I think that it isn't disappointment or failure - but misapprehension of our true ends... We only wish for wisdom and cannot live long enough, alas, to actually achieve it... Oh, but that leaves you hanging too much; you want someone to tell you the absolute truth, right? Sorry brother, maybe come back next millennium... |
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You laugh at yourself. Ten thousand years from today, human being, ah, how unrecognizably the same you shall be... Ah, but maybe not! Art forms do make the future, so how can we predict them? Right now, the future tends to make us dream of improbable things... The future is made already - it makes us make it, in fact... Everything we can learn tomorrow is already suggested by today; at least, that's the mood of the 21st century. But 10,000 years from today - perhaps our progeny will be happy to have forgotten us. |
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Today, the telescope, the calculator, this computer - use them and think... Everything we can learn proves that we are not so small as the universe makes us feel; the knowledge we possess is as vast as all there is, for all the universe is contained in the imagination of one who resembles us, too: a friend, your mother, your god... The advance of knowledge begins to see that the human accident does have some design to it... The universe appears made for sparking life even though the space and matter actually occupied with life takes only a few molecules from the whole of corporeal matter... How lucky we are - to be living dust... Can't you see that? We are alive, not cold and luckless as moon rocks or wisps of dead nebula... |
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Are you at one with your guesses, happily at home to your credit card appeal for blessing and equality? The universal equinox of debt and forfeiture, that holy day, blessing all appeals forgiven, the salubrious yes of your superstar neuterdom! We're all the same in our wayward wish for truth... We cannot be deceived anymore... Can you honestly let the light go out on all sincerity before you beg from the bottom of your heart? |
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I'm a man and couldn't forgive you without squeezing your taut nipples first. Religion only wanted to remember sex. But the question today remains - can we forgive the useless repression of religion? And how can you love me? I want to punish your pussy with my frustration and spit on the tender pearls of your genitalia. I want to make you wail sweet hymns and beg for nursery rhymes, slapping at your cunts till they sting red, till they go numb. I'll siphon my piss up your asshole before sucking and fucking you to orgasms explosive as supernovae. I'm without shame tonight and shall die, unforgivably, of my hard on... |
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Wake up! A dreamy mare prances her wish for retribution, redemption and transfiguration. The crucifix lies between the breasts of virgins; they wait for some loving mouth to engulf their breasts. Once the great writers are gone - who can you turn to? Those who know how to make sound business decisions? The big literary publishers have been consumed by multinationals. Now, they are called, "imprints." So, forget about publishing your great novels, kids. ...Poetry of the future, art forms of the future? They need privacy and concern such as we aren't likely to win, even with our sedated, complacent, accept-anything lifestyles... Ha! Please, I'm not really drugged enough to hope for impossible things. The future remains unknown. The measure of wit is the inspiration it gives. Anything is possible: literacy may yet occupy some new, unanticipated dimension, and the written word may become simply an artifact of early human progress, supplanted by some more rapid, deeper and direct kind of communication. |
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Perhaps the future will free us to "read" whole books instantly. Maybe we can impregnate our brains with the fountain of all human wisdom, and remember all of it. Oh, but I doubt that's likely. Literature will continue and we will still have to work hard at finding new ideas, too. There will always be cycles of intellectual ferment and terrible stagnation. |
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Far far in the future... What is the future - is it really 10,000 years away? Can we imagine that I wonder? I don't know. Humanity is a stream of water flowing into the abyss. That rainbow will not disappear if the water doesn't end... In the distant future, mind may be transformed into some sublime form. Maybe some world awaits us that doesn't depend on embodiment; but whether we are destined to discover it or not, how can we know? It seems unlikely. |
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To articulate poetry is a gift. Imagination that lasts forever comes from a brief physical sensation. Poetry proves we don't decide to understand things. We are given to know. As for today, human being remains a span between the foolish will of desire and the sublime hope for wisdom. We cannot abandon our dreams or forget what we are. Beyond the appetite for material possession and appetites already satiated, the human being may one day become perfectly free, but not until, unabashedly, we have achieved an as yet untried sensitivity for creating ends in goodness and harmony... |
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~ I'm still locked up inside the Jokhang temple. Her accent was a drawing of straws. She lived to drawl because her luscious body tolerated anything silly you could imagine. I was daydreaming in auburn since nobody else was listening. Meanwhile, all the other Westerners in Lhasa planted themselves in the cafes - most grimly determined not to know me at all... But when I approached them, everyone turned out to be quite friendly. |
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Language happens to you - this is what makes you great, that and your ability to put some ideas into your gift... I laugh and still can't understand how posing coolly, coldly or dug under could help anybody to write well! Fine poets have always rejoiced in their obscurity, an inglorious stigmata that begets pride, joy and shame. One and all of us are confounded and inspired by the comfortable disregard of mostly everyone who has neither time nor psychic physiognomy to understand us. The odd poet makes it big; he or she is usually a coincidence between a fortuitous thirst among the public and that specially gifted artist who can read as well as write... Very popular and gimmicky authors, on the other hand, always have to play their cards upon soft sentiments, hard urges and human curiosity: the love for pets; fear of immanent and brutal death, and easy sex with perfect sluts... |
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...Today in Lhasa, I'm wondering how many of those Italians and Germans gave any cash to the legless beggar, the energetic one sweeping the dirty puddles from the sidewalk, raising his scratched and filthy palms in helpless appeal for bread? Not very many: those Italians and Germans seemed even more seriously worried than the mean Canadians with whom I'm familiar. I didn't give the beggar much money, but I did give something... Because the beggar was looking into my eyes and so pathetically sweeping, sweeping aside the puddles from my path. Seeing that - I want to die! Yes, I know: rich men, poor women and unloved kids kill themselves everyday... But that legless being wants to live! Tell me if you understand anything at all! |
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Ah yes, you're so angry. Laugh at this formless, senseless panegyric against nothing but frustration. I'm not crazy. I'm doing this on purpose. Perhaps you are a past master at the art of self-pity... You also knew why you were really singing, or travelling, or painting, or trying to write an original piece of fiction. I never stop running away from everything I never understood. Why did I end up alone, surrounded by so many people who insisted they were so much more sincere than I? My clownishness wasn't for them and I didn't want them to watch me! Now I'm on my knees before the presiding magistrate, begging for mercy. All the evidence is heaped up so high against me. My defense is nothing new - genuine befuddlement... I had a plan. It's my secret - I'm entitled to one. |
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I want you to tell me why. I'm still in Tibet, wondering when I can see my mother again, and if I will, before she dies... Why are all these monks looking at me as if they know that I've just realized I'm only one more tourist? At least some of the monks are smirking. But some look even more serious than the average Tibetan in the street. ...Perhaps they know what I am really thinking. How many masters can you serve before you have to be true to yourself - to discover what you believe? Maybe these monks expect me to know something, or tell them something that they should know. Like what, I wonder? |
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I'm just not the bright sun. I'm slow, confused and arbitrary in my tastes. Like all my brothers in the city, I've been born into the age that makes a real world of fantasy and it's pretty difficult to escape back into real life. I shudder at this comedy of imbecility that we call civilization! But you won't catch me putting on any false sincerity. I'm bread crumbs. You really think I just want money, like all the rest? That I'm one more Pharisee with no intention to admit it? All right, I tell you the truth, for once: I'd take her money, sure I would, but only after I fucked her up good! I'd tie her up and spank her bum bright red. Not very original, am I? |
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I'll go down, climb off my solitude, yes I will. I'll stand there between the vendors, and not buy a thing, and see if anybody comes close... Like a zombie handed the gun to kill, or given a chance to deny a poor, thirsty slit - I was like a new prototype with power to spare... But wait, wait - till the last minute... |
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Outside on the roof - everyone vanishes. I find the stairway out, forgetting all. I can't bear to glimpse another statue or carving! I'm the jaded minion of intransigent dreams. I know why people are afraid of fellows like me! I'm untouched by expectations. I've cast everything aside - adrift, waiting for answers - silently, patiently, a man without any home. But this wish to be uprooted and forget the past is so unforgivable. Nobody needs those who have nowhere to go back home to! This deliberate solitude cannot come off as eloquent or chivalrous. Besides, "people like me," are viewed as invulnerable to any chance for seeing how others see us. Maybe I'm gifted, but that doesn't matter much. I appear backwards - dated by dreams - imagining that community is sometimes an enemy to "integrity." So what? I'm entitled to my personal delusions... You need only understand that I disavowed conventional hopes, perhaps to get passed disillusionment. |
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I only persuaded myself that I was a fine artist. But why? Only to go on - not to die - that's all there is to it. I'm just another big head... The fib after the last lie beefs up the inertia behind my idea that creativity is the god of imagination. Mooooo! Milk me mama, I'm holy too..! Like hell! My toothless wish never to stop writing seems narrow, not heroic. All this work, this whole CD ROM is a silent, inscrutable wish to save my heartland. For this disastrous devotion to art - I want mental release - not forgiveness! Because I was afraid to fall apart; or worse, into laziness, slumbering away - exchanging dreams and work for emptiness, abandoning my lovers, running away... One who goes blind only wants to see again... |
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Perhaps I have always been blind. First, I need to satisfy the senses. The aesthetic natural inside the poet may have a very sensuous imagination, yet remain untouched - spiritually... |
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~ Invisible among the city-dwellers. The folk of Lhasa always know how to look humble - more dispossessed: they know you were liable to end up feeling responsible. Yet it's okay - we were so unable to help them... Wise people grow up to expect little... But maybe nobody is wise any more. |
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I buy some white chocolate from India, hard to get, but they do import it! Riding my bike along Dekyi Lam, I see somebody with a chrome mountain bike. He also spots me, and waits to intercept my conversation, an aging American. His smirky gaze fractures mine with a certain awareness. So I stop. |
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"Hi, what's your
name?" |
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So we meet for breakfast the next morning. We talk and talk. Hutch is a living verb, a fragment eager to tell you everything he knows about life. Not your everyday unoccupied chair, he's all ideas. Each of his inklings chases out the next. He's non-stop, rolling around in his head. You could say he's a man made of infatuations. He loves vitality and has risen above weighty care... |
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Hutch is made of a million unfulfilled dreams. He percolates everyday sensations through his wishes. It's a pleasant surprise to meet a man nearly sixty who hasn't given up on human goodness. That's one of his most admirable traits, and one prolific among the more lovable Americans, a sincere optimism. Okay, maybe the best anybody can do now is a light-hearted pessimism - but he has a really positive mindset quite foreign to the imagination of Canadians, Europeans - and most others who are too sure about the shortcomings of everyone except themselves... If something collapses, Hutch remains unfazed and walks in the other direction. He has a natural way of getting around the frustrations that stop the rest of us. He seems untouched by the kind of annoyances that get us angry, only to make others laugh at us. |
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Now that I stop and think, I really much prefer writing about individual human beings. It's easier, more true to life to reach for universal human traits through the individual example. Making vague and probably misleading interpretations about the social milieu is one of my many weaknesses; yet, I think this need to over-generalize compensates for that wish to know everything - my childhood longing. |
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Hutch appears to defy all the worst congenital cultural defects that America usually bequeaths to its dandies. Hutch seems opposed to the trademark American sophomoric intellectualism and blind bluster. He isn't too aggressive and remembers more names and everything that's happened to him. He swims through experience, eats up the action: he has to replenish those muscles, that reservoir of pure energy. He's an American who wonders to himself if he's lost. But he can't lose too much sleep worrying over it. Nobody could tell him to get in line but a traffic policeman! He's comfortably adrift, exactly the sort of man whom nobody needs to know back home. Probably, he could never get anywhere, except on a bike. He doesn't much mind that other people will look askance at him, with the usual cruel, stupid and class-induced superiority that assumes wisdom is inspired by the dull, hollow certainty that all civilized life is based on planned acquisition (ie.: professional education) as well as the pre-established mechanisms of social security. |
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Like almost all of us, Hutch has tried, so many times, just to be himself. He managed to work enough to save some small escape money. This guy enjoys reading you and responds in kind. Hutch would never step on your toes. Not that I'm not civil, but Hutch is with you because he loves being alive. He sees the wonders and relishes them. He spent a lot of time with a camera, flying in a helicopter over the jungles of Vietnam... But he doesn't mention that now. |
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I feel comfortable asking questions and we talk about everything. It's the tone of voice, the wandering life, the past places are still present in him. His character is mellow and mild - as if made of ongoing reflections. I admire a man who can relax and speak. He's very verbal, a modern flow - a natural orator full of sharp anecdotes and opinions. |
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Hutch honestly made me feel good, that's all. He was pleasant and open - ready to assume good things about the world. Still, he's difficult to write about, since he doesn't have a great heap of diverting success behind which he can hide the less savory aspects of his character... But he wouldn't show any nastiness, since he already knows better. He wants to be good, that's all. Mild, deferential... |
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Do you know anything? Think about how many fine writers were actually mean jerks. It's true, believe me - I know what they're like... Hutch could never admit to being like that, so he pretends to be kind and nice. It's too hard to explain, so forget it. Americans are never ever at home while away from home. Remember - appearances are reality - for your public! Put it this way, if he once was mean, he isn't anymore. With me, he's innocence, a most gentlemanly hobo. He wouldn't fight anyone, ever. Lies aren't necessary for him, either. That would make some people call him stupid, I suppose. He's got that bird stature like so many cyclists and most of his hair has begun to snow. He doesn't have to be the second coming or anything: content to be only himself, he won't be a trial for me. |
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We meet for breakfast again to talk hooey about bringing in tourists for cycle loops. It's possible. Anything is possible now. Innocent Tibetans go to jail as the tourists pay top dollar to visit exotica. He got tired of living in Nepal, and gave up all hope for his project to start an agri-business... So, like everyone now, he's cynical. The Nepali government is a favorite target. Apparently, the red tape was not geared to individual endeavor. The bureaucracy of development works hard at the mimicry of sunbathing iguanas, stacking up papers high in the process of doing very little. Same thing with bureaucracy back home, only we just get more money to burn under our butts than third-worlders do: in school, corp or government agency - it's the same. I'm a stupid do-nothing, too. Nobody but nobody wants to be the first to take responsibility for making decisions. Everybody above says "no" while everyone below has to say "yes." Welcome to old Asia. ...I deflate my first impression of Hutch's idealism somewhat as he starts harping about Nepal: perhaps he's a bit too glibly stocked with one-liners about knowing better than the locals: you can't get anywhere with the government unless you're an international aid agency with an overflowing purse, etc... |
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We agree about so many things. Me and Hutch have spent too long away from the homes we needed to forget. The man is Caucasian like me. So, we are both quick to take shelter in cozy, unspoken prejudices about knowing how much the East isn't the same as the West... And then we believe ourselves "less bad" than those selfish Westerners who typically brag about never ever wanting to leave their perfect home in Fatville, Canada or Wasteburg, USA. But I happen to know that they brag like that because they can't become professionals anywhere else. So I don't care either way you go, up or down... Staying close to the main drag is part of accepting your class lot, I guess. They pretend not to feel too confined. I know most of you look down on and even dread the poor. And wanderers like me are stupid freaks... Westerners are happily ignorant of everything outside their necessary preconceptions about how to live the righteous, supposedly good life. Around the world, people are too identical in their persuasions now... Security mechanisms? Nothing but broken locks rotting on the casks of shattered dreams. Oh, it isn't so serious: we only keep each other out! We need to feel smart somehow, I guess. You in your expansive and eager social circle. Me in my quiet hamster cage. You repeat for the EC circuit again, or ride the heavy ticket of America's dreams. Hang on tight. Block busters and big cities. I haven't thought of a good enough pseudonym, either... I keep leaving for good. Can't wait around for old lard to say, "Yes..." |
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What am I doing here? Waiting for bicycle tools that won't arrive. All I need is a very simple device with a socket on its end, like an ordinary wrench, designed for removing the damned freewheel sprocket. It's the myth of a perfect solution, isn't it? A medicinal herb. Like a poem that explains the prevailing mood of a whole people. |
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Breakfast is my least lonely meal of the day. Because I can forget my stagnant illusions. I smile at lost time and enjoy the conversation. Hutch shows up late, wearing a yellow and black jacket, looking exactly a cross between fire fighter and ordinary wasp. He has a history, but doesn't speak it. He imagines today is freedom, as if he were still young. He believes he's young. So he is! He doesn't need to live in the past. (I think most old men doddering through this world actually must be dwelling in the past - dreaming of their young wife, or their young chums killed during the last war.) Some people manage never to have any big regrets, and so stay in good shape enough to live a long time. |
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Our freedom to act began a long time ago, perhaps as a positive evasion of (repressive sexual) morality. Today, we imagine that free action is the highest end because it pretends to satisfy immediate physical fancies and obviously defeats inhibition. We are such hunger-borne, touch-driven beings. |
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The retreat into a spiritual desire for goodness is a response made from seeing the repeated mastery of all nature and ourselves. Within this conflict of heart, our innermost inviolable self always revolts against the crimes we commit against each other's integrity, innocence and freedom - simply because we have to love someone, and make believe the world works... The human soul longs to grow and be free, even if escaping sorrow and endless slavery is improbable... |
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Hutch alludes only to some crime he once committed against woman. It's a crime that I perpetrated, too. But not intentionally, not maliciously. I do not behave without scruples. Only crazy mean people hurt others deliberately. Not me. Men like me claim to be artists. We're all just too selfish. We make women love us - but only to steal their youth and time. We men justify our mischief by any ratio that we can muster. For some reason artists expect, almost subconsciously, that a woman "ought to be" self-sacrificing. But none of them are anymore... After all, most artists are just too dirt poor to satisfy today's status-sucking clones... If their "artist" doesn't resemble another middle class clown, working for the same system as everyone else - then he's just a bum - and she won't touch him... What a dead fucking world it has become! But I don't care. I know a thing or two. Women should fuck us because we are attractive, challenging and tempting. Forget what pity once was. If you fuck a man out of pity - you are screwed up good, sister. What about women who are consciously submissive? What's wrong with them? Nothing really, it's just a childish fantasy that needs acting out... Adults forbid free play time and again, so we need to devise outlets. Now, a lot of girls have become too complicated for men. A lot of men still often expect the more out-dated models - the ladies who will let you get away with anything while they keep their stupid mouths shut, or how about those dim-witted ladies who always pretend that they want what you want! I don't fight with women - almost never. If I start to fight with a woman, it's time to say bye-bye! I mean it. Anyway, we should know better by now - how to behave together. Despite women's frothy ploys (like saying they want to work when they'd rather stay at home) and their serial cock-teasery - many ladies really do want the same rights and privileges that men already possess. Well, why not? But most men won't understand that... |
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When men use women, we give it a euphemistic name, especially because women almost always expect more love than we have to give: men always play up to the feminine expectations... (Sorry, I don't know about your happiness: my frigid deficit isn't universal.) Even so, I still think the rule of social nature - of male over the female - has made men hopelessly selfish and, consequently, has taught women to enjoy and crave "giving in" to us... That's why so many women love to fantasize and read innumerable romances about being taken by the ideal manly lover, especially for the first time... So they can be loved as a man must love them - to hold them, cherish them - keep them safe. It's a true cliche. It feels good to hold your lover woman: then she feels secure, and you both feel tender warmth, and it's love. Whenever it feels like the only real thing you can experience is love, that's love. Most of the rest of the time, now, love is lust... |
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At breakfast again, Hutch reveals that he studied economics and we slip into some talk about governments... I sketch an older me in this apparition sitting there. He's real enough, even if this isn't literature; it's a memory for dreams. |
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The funny thing about your first creative efforts is the ease and assurance for getting it on paper. As you get on with life, and realize a few of your many great schemes, you begin to wonder what you really are capable of doing. Not so much as you want to do. It's always the same. Success is a compromise. A job is about all you end up with: the routine genre, the same old reading, the smiling audience... Stolen time can stop you - but that's only an excuse. |
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People will hate you if you would rather write than work. Maybe because they've already lost their dreams, or didn't have any... The real tragedy is when you wake up without any inspiration - and you recall how easy it was to turn those dewy dawning words into poems when you were a kid... Age often brings on a painful sense of futility if talent should atrophy. So, the "giving up" phenomenon is commonplace: budding authors suddenly realize that they "haven't got it" or can't make a living "at it." In fact, we're taught to give up and take the easy way out... |
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If people hate you without reason, then they obviously don't know very much about you. If people you don't even know seem to love you, it's only because they imagine you could love them, even if you don't know a thing about them. |
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Most of the world's best writers began by saying: "If I don't do it, then nobody will!" So we waste all our youth and half our age alone, writing in silent solitude. Yet, social aspirations and greedy motives seem silly beside a writer's ambitions and desperations. Because, a writer can't and won't do anything else. The artist's dream always seems beautiful, but in practice, it's often a miserable mess. What do we really have in common? Nothing but the identities we imagine for each other... |
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Hutch explains that he hasn't had any luck finding a waiter who knows how to shell an egg properly. Sometimes the waitress here at the Banak Zhol Hotel remembers to do it for him, when she isn't in a hurry. Hutch says that she only did it once, the first time, and only after he asked her politely. Hutch says that in most Tibetan-Chinese restaurants, the waiter's usual response to requests for egg-shelling service is, "I'm sorry sir, I can't do that for you." |
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Now, it does not strike me as a particularly large issue whether or not the restaurant staff can peel our egg shells for us or not. Hutch is only trying to illustrate his case and point out that we, the tourists, are not very well understood in Lhasa. Good service is an exclusively Western concept. So, the egg always gets peeled in Nepal since the locals have been long inured to Western colonial expectations. Not so in Tibet. |
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Hutch is still trying to find some way to grasp Lhasa, China/Tibet. He explains that he has met with several local cadres - to find out how he can do business. He's very gregarious and likes to find out how a place works. I appear lazy and lost in myself by comparison. I'm far too shy to be extroverted unless tuned directly to some lusty need. Language comes last. Get in bed quickly, or not at all. |
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But I feel so thin in the head with genetic, social legacies. I want to release my past. It isn't mine! This burden of responsibility is put on me! My ancestor's misconceptions are no longer my own. We teach that the future is made of liberating discoveries. So, I don't have to lock myself into a weak lyric, a poor caricature for living an unpleasantly cold vein for standing over things. ...But it's such a pain in the ass to figure out how to suck even a little money out of things. Especially when all you're good for is writing difficult stories and poems... |
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At least I am almost going to become completely free from making the usual old money by exploiting the modern world's bizarre respect for intellectual dishonesty as a means to acquire a salary, however unlike so very many cowardly university professors, corporate hatchet men, neurotic political fanatics and pathetic, yellowy journalists! What do I know? Not enough - obviously... |
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I stand beside my dreams, my ideas. If I could figure out how to write and to fuck as many sluts as I could before I get too old - I would - I really would! Already I'm feeling too old, and my life is wasted and I can't think of how to escape all this useless waste of energy and time... The depression, the bathetic anti-climax only reverberates - bitterly, idiotically, hilariously - whenever I contemplate the impossibility of making a living as a writer. Even if I did take a couple of months to write a schlocky SM-porn thriller - they wouldn't let me publish that either! I want to write good novels about real life. I want to write fantasies extending the imagination far beyond the everyday myopia that keeps us so certain, so narrow and so insecure! I'm never going to go back: my home is now a past era. Not yet the last of my myth: I'm another of many men born to be forgotten. Because, I really don't care if there's a heaven better than hell! The prophecies are all misunderstood - or plain crazy! |
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You can count the real poets who doubled as popular singers on the fingers of three murdered whores. |
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~ This old has-been - Hutch, the soldier-poet - he should be the travel writer, not me! I'm anti-social by creed - because of an inexplicable coincidence of self-limitation put upon myself as I grew up. You don't need my father. You need a campfire to warm up. Poetry laughed at me, then left me behind with a non-descript imagination. |
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The main thing is, Hutch has found out that it's possible to start an enterprise in China, and you can get permissions if you want them... You must swim through several layers of people in order to grasp that paper... He talks and talks, yet doesn't really intend to do anything. I like that. (Better than making deals only to end up with another bad blood and guts thriller! American cinema is so limited by its production values!) He isn't afraid to fantasize out loud... A coffee shop with books - his idea is great. We all make plans, don't we? But most of us keep them quiet... I want a small guesthouse in the Himalaya, staffed with eager Scandanavian and Czech sweeties... |
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Another morning comes and we break our fast over talk about Inuit and Amerindians, old girlfriends, camping trips, changing money, whether or not to see Everest, go home, or go to India and write novels for ten years... I'm eating too many pancakes and they're getting smaller everyday. |
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"Don't stay too long in one place..." But that just hands me a fractured fate. How can I learn to be content? My little girl waits for me at home. She's sad without me. I don't even have to call to find out. |
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Years ago I realized that I was to be left behind, officially, by laughter, and by the sheer horror of those jealous ones, who could only wonder in small sub-conscious whispers - I'm happy not to be him! Some wished that they could be me... But only a few. They looked at me so seriously at those Montreal parties, conveying their silent wish to be possessed with my "immortal talent." Sure they did... But at the same time, they didn't want to know me - except for the really uncontrollably sluts and dreamy darling poetesses - the rest of the usual staid crew of nay-saying CV flakes and other well-trained nobodies - they don't really want to know anything new at all! They just have to remake some old play they never wrote... |
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Today, what do we boys get? Just some smarmy cunt yelling at us: "Get a life!" Sure, a few girls said, "I'm proud of you!" or, "I love you." Maybe six girls, like my mother; about two freaky Canadians, a few Chinese babies and a few I don't remember. All women really want is somebody to buy their sucky wucky little pussies. |
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I'm going, I am gone, and won't be back to trouble the timbers anymore. You can get lost by looking back. A's a tropic plant - good for nothing but flowers... I'm not with anyone... I'm walking downstairs from the art gallery. That astutely humble painter knows how to sell paintings with refined manners alone. |
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To the boomshelter is born - a holy-wad... Yes, they knew how to choose them for their graces... I'm only thinking quietly - isn't that allowed? Nope. I was thinking - that big aura thing scares me: I don't want to be the magnet of a motion picture, a stereo voice - severed from the machines playing me back. Do it live, in person, always - if you can. That's the only way... |
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I want a woman in my arms so I can know her before she starts to act - before she starts to pretend she's being seen as she wants to be seen... A woman is more near to me than an actress... Ah, but movies are so much easier to get inside than paintings... You need to contemplate a painting. A painting begs too much and makes us think hard through the mystery of what we're looking at - and most of us don't know where to begin. That woman made of subtly colored oils - she can't tell you who she is... |
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You must forget me. I'm too simple. You will remember her instead. I want you to squeeze some more lemon monsieur. My drink is dry and I need her. Women want to do it, even when they pretend to be hardcore feminists, even when they're too repressed: they just need a guy with size or character enough to fulfill their particular fantasy of easy-taking... All women want men to love them. If you really begin to understand that first, you begin making love to a woman as soon as you begin to speak... All women wait for you to find the key to her need. First start by thinking: she likes to imagine that you can see who she is; or try the other extreme: she knows that you can't possibly understand her. A woman will not admit anything about what she thinks of you... Subtle entry or aggressive lust doesn't matter. Loving to fuck has nothing to do with the character of her preferences for men. How she sees you depends in large measure upon whatever she imagines you want, or what she desires for herself in her ideal man. Does she know you at all? Does it matter? That preliminary game is only a mood she expects you to see through - to get from imagination into the pants of action. |
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She's walking across the courtyard of the Yak Hotel, looking holes into the pavement. Crossing her path, I'm almost asleep, quite unimpeded by superstition or desire. She's there - like a mistake. The weird thing is that she's happened to me before. I feel the subtle psychic wave as I tread the tarmac before her subconscious. It feels as if she's coming for me alone. I've run into women, coming into and out of doors, and they looked as if they wanted to see me. That connection is real, like a pure desire of nature. Her name doesn't matter... |
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I want to be evocative. She wears a velvety dress, orientally long, as clingy as a flower pod - appealing to man's wish to entrap the feminine form. That's the history of Chinese female wardrobe: it plays with a woman's curves, especially the broad back swooping into her waist like water into a gorge. The hips open a winsome flowers. Caught in her tight ankle length sheath, the woman walks constricted steps, moving between her legs, one butt cheek slipping over the other. Maybe god will forgive her for being very capable of orgasm, a child of pure pleasure, and for loving herself more than he... She always wonders where I am... Look - here's another lovely Chinese girl from Chengdu - I don't know her name and met her in a disco a few years back... |
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I'm over here - see me, darling? Not yet. She's lugging a huge suitcase - but does not expect me to make the intercept. I can't help it. I'm too timid, harassed and skeptical to open my eyes anymore... I can never get what I want! She's still pointing questions at the earth, using her toes and nose. I can see she likes my complex, man's mind. She looks into my eyes... |
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We talk. Her room is only one flight up. I take her heavy bag upstairs. She wants me to. As soon as we enter her room in the old wing of the Yak Hotel, I have to think about what she looks like. She dissatisfies her hair, frazzling her perm with a hair dryer. But she does have a supple, athletic physique. |
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I'm sitting in her grandpa's armchair. She watches me as we answer each other's questions. I see the compact size of her body. She's Ms. Y, independent business lady. Her way to make money is to sell candy, flour and sugar in shops from Sichuan to Tibet. She's a real live sugar mama, with a perfect swimmer's bod... She goes swimming every day! Immediately, I sense she's looking for a replacement hubby and already thinks of me. She doesn't know that I won't like the idea of going to live in Chengdu, her home. |
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~ Stop and ask, "What's admired today?" People who are good for nothing but selling guns and ammo to any old bastard country. |
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You have to wait three hundred years before you dare to admire my work. I don't care. I'm already 38 and need something to lift me up... Maybe a joint, but haven't got one... These fucking morons on the radios and tv keep calling me an "in." Horrifying! What's an "in?" Insane? I am not that bad. I'm terrified and I really want to die - but only because they call me an "in." I don't know what an "in" is... So, I write a poem about it that you can't find in a book, snook! Got an English name? They won't call you insane! Work all day and all night for nothing. Less money than you are promised, and zero respect. But my mind is mine and I don't owe anybody a thing... What's this nonsense? A screwy memorial to all the Sarahs, Mei-meis and Kates. I want all of them... |
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...Her cellular jingles and she answers. This is business: she speaks briskly and nicely to the man - at first. Then she leans over the phone, like it's a root growing from her deepest need into her greatest fear. Apparently, the crook businessman at the other end, a Chinese, is lying and is running away with all the money that he owes her. Meanwhile, I sit here as she gets all riled, like a suckling pig to the needs of all the men she so wants to use... But she can't use them, poor thing! |
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She's the kind who looks for love without knowing it. The onus is now on me to oblige her. I am made too conscious of her expectation - so I decide not to... I don't want to have sex only to help a woman forget her sorrow. It might be fun once in a while, but not as the prime motive. I'd prefer doing her from the first. I dream of virgins, or sexy wives - because they know their husbands are cheating on them! Yeah - then they can remember my sex forever. Really, that's much more satisfying... |
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The man on the end of the line refuses to pay. She's in a humiliating position. She barks out a few angry demands but gets excuses. So she hangs up, now quietly disgusted. I watch, agape, feeling the full humiliation of my loserly and superfluous presence. Because - I can't help her! But this lady is so simply alone... Sometimes the loneliest woman is the biggest turn on. Other times, she makes you want to run fast and far away. On the outside I appear, as usual, the calmly collectible hobo-for-hire. Her simple mastery of fate laughs at my imaginary freedom. She doesn't need to care about anything, not with a bank account like that! |
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This is mainland China/Tibet! How could a successful businesswoman even happen here!? Questions and history wait in slow queues. Women wait for us to ask the right questions... "How did you become a business lady?" |
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"I was an English teacher until..." She divorced, retreated home and then started her business with ten years of savings from teaching. By work and luck, she managed to create a successful distributing firm. She sells flour, sugar and candy. She moves it from points east and south to Sichuan and resells. She has two houses and at least fifty people work for her. She claims that she's lucky. She's completely independent with an income that depends on how much she can sell. She reveals the double structure of independent and government economy prevailing in China. |
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The people who work as party cadres tend to have a fixed official income no matter their position up and down the ladder... Perhaps this growing discrepancy between independent endeavor and the fixed system of government economy may help to explain some of the social chaos and weird economic disarray in China today. The cadre has power but begins with small money in his pocket; so, he uses his power to funnel more money into his purse by means of favors. Meanwhile, the honest business lady Ms. Y doesn't need to play such tricks to earn her privileges. She only needs to discover a market. But if the communist cadre wants that house and a new car in his name, he must make many more friends than deals - and some enemies, too! The more corrupt cadres must also learn how to pick the pockets of the public coffers... |
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There's nothing new about giving and receiving money and privileges in China. Study the old society of two hundred years past: simply read the novel, "The Scholars," by Wu Ching-Tzu, then you will see how the academic proficiency test, along with connections to money and influence, allowed some few individuals to purchase their positions of power. They earned the right to sell them to others later in life. The man destined to become a provincial prefect, he would need to be born with some extra cash and the right friends. Quite simply, his father or uncle was likely to have held the job before him. We still see this rigid progression of familial destiny upheld in the strict hierarchy of Oriental society, especially in Taiwan and China. Although the communist revolution dispossessed the old order in mainland China, it created a new variation on the old hierarchy. The communist revolution in China, like the revolution in Russia nearly a century ago, was born from pure frustration; its impetus arose among an educated class of individuals who believed that things had to change if the country was to develop into a modern power with a liberated citizenry... These intellectuals inflamed the peasants to rise up - and they really did! It's like a miracle when you think back on it. I admire the Chinese for their courage and their ability to tear down an old order and then slap together a completely new one... Many people explain that the democratic movement inspired by Sun Yat Sen, and the subsequent communist revolt were inevitable... Patriarchy and feudalism, corruption and starvation, and perhaps most of all, brutal authoritarian resistance to all progressive change inevitably gave birth to determined revolutionaries. Unfortunately, all too many of the new Communists tended to retain the same national characteristics of those they had to defeat... Historians have said that the Communist revolution in China saw a very simple change take place: as the indolent city-born intellectuals and the careless rich men who supported the last dynasty were swept aside, they were replaced with ill-educated country boys and impractical theorists who in their turn were locked up in the city. None of the revolutionaries knew anything about developing China properly. Then again, nobody else inside or out of China knew, either... For several decades before the revolution, China was a disorderly, poverty-bound mess. |
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But while that's all past now, we still observe an old order of behavior in Taiwan and China today. Legalism and technocracy have come to Asia, but I might add, democracy is a new idea. Most educated people in Taiwan today rely on a sort of "import ideology," an ineffectual rhetoric that ignores and fails to take into account the deeply engrained socio-psychological characteristics of the Oriental-Pacific body politic which inhibit the progress of equality, fraternity and democracy. |
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(Of course, democracy doesn't really exist anywhere in the world today except, at best, a nominal "reality" denoting a non-existent, and rather dreamy social ideal. The West is responsible for over-rating democracy to the point of blind stupidity, perhaps for the sake of securing the election of a narrow caste of rich people to high public office. Democracy has seen less development in Asia than almost anywhere else, except perhaps in Africa. Meanwhile - American, Japanese, Chinese, British, French and German corps go on dumping their cheap dangerous drugs, their toxic chemicals, their military weaponry, and their fake ideology - whatever. What do you know? These heroic, democratic Western leaders aren't called terrorists by economic journals anymore than by the Nue Jork Thymes, nor even ignorant punks on the street deprived of all chance for getting a good education, much less a first job.... The world stays horribly unbalanced.) |
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Oh I know - there are plenty of good old boys who will want to impose a sentimental analysis upon the remnants of their genetic heritage - the grandiose post-feudal-patriarchy - that cozy club made of a legal education, a corporate stewardship, that ol' money-talks-cracy. Everyone pretends it's "democracy." Overlook the negative and accentuate the positive - so you can cling to power and find some excuse for the lack of any progressive social change. Ignore the weak rights of workers, and the huge concentrations of wealth among very few individuals. A downright Oriental rightist would exclaim, heartily, that the fewer super-rich power barons that there are in the business world, the better, since the inherent stability of authoritarian (wealthy) patriarchy depends directly upon how concentrated its forces can be hoarded among a few powerful friends. These power cliques inevitably "stabilize" (paralyze?) the society; stale intransigence becomes the highest virtue, at least according to fusty old Confucius. Maybe not if you are a woman: but that point of view doesn't touch the old men who are quite content to run the Asian world... (Yes, and my analysis is unfair, too. There's a creeping tendency towards more transparency and free play among Asia's would-be democrats, but an awful lot of sticky old cronyism isn't going away next week.) |
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Never before has the Western way of thinking and doing business exerted so much influence over the "development" of China; however, the substructure and the underlying fabric of power and the concentration of money - they tend to follow the old patterns: a few are very wealthy. But most people are obliged to work silently for very poor wages to enrich the wealthy. Taiwan has seen the rise of a much more robust middle-class than mainland China, but that's because nearly the whole island has evolved into an organized, urban society. But the whole of mainland China cannot develop in the same way. |
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In China, as in all societies around the globe, there are deeply engraved patterns of ethno-genetic and acculturated behavior. The social character of a people is perhaps nowhere so pronounced and deeply engrained as among the Han Chinese of China. While it is truly fascinating to examine the wide variety of minority groups who coexist in peace together all over China, only the Hans, with the exception of a few isolated pockets of Mongolians, have drifted into the remotest corners of China: Sichuan, Yunnan, and finally, Tibet. |
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On the whole, the Chinese have a very difficult character. With each new wave of ideas and techniques imported from the outside, you will find an equally old way of entrenching it under a system of authoritarian, patriarchal control. Even as things change and industry develops under the influence of Western progress, more often than not, things have developed after the manner of faulted mimicry than from inspired and original adaptation. Sometimes we see an attempt to unite a Western and an Eastern way of working: the electronic sector flourishing on Taiwan is a prime example... But as a rule I would say that most Westerners are usually blinded from understanding these inimical people. The Westerner cannot understand why everyone is kept on a short leash, nor why everyone is so pushy, autocratic and pointlessly mean. Rights and equality are meaningless concepts in such a cramped place. |
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The best thing I can say, in an effort to capture the "character" of the Chinese people, is that their individual personalities are strongly shaped by their immediate social milieu. Simultaneously, there is a pronounced psychological streak towards violent and chaotic behavior in the Chinese social organism. This need to rebel and fight, results directly from their authoritarian history. China has for a very long time been a "fear-driven" society: discipline and authority are rigorously imposed from outside: the warlord and emperor have always exercised complete control over everyone... There is "no escape" from this Chinese psychic disposition, as one or the other authority must vie to assert indisputable power over neighboring social forces. |
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Chinese people, and most Asian peoples, have been horribly repressed from self-expression. All Oriental peoples occasionally need to rebel against the permanent structural defects of their society, call it the "over-control" of centralized authority, familial-paternal-maternal - the external absolute overlord - all of whom have debilitated individual personality, the development of imagination and inhibited all attempts at social liberty. (For example, in the eyes of many Western females, Chinese women appear very simplistic and narrow in the scope of their social credulity, and the women appear to lack broad ideas and personal aspirations. But at the same time, that Western envy tends to ignore the subtle feline grace, spiritual purity and gentleness of the Oriental woman - traits which most Western women very much lack...) With every surge of collective or personal frustration, the history of China shows us that chaos ensues in the form of rebellion, revolution or a warlord attack. It is reasonable to suggest that the evolution of Chinese law and Confucian thought was also inspired by fear of the inevitable, and represents a congenital social reaction to the "over-control" of arbitrary central authority. Small warlords and chaotic rebellions have repeatedly crushed the society into lawlessness. Rules are imaginary and power has so often held nominal forms as frustrated centers clashed to assert their being and right to thrive. It seems that the only way to thrive in China has been to be the one and only central authority... Strange paradox: that only single, very powerful emperors could give the appearance of unity to all the many Chinas... Unfortunately, revolts and civil wars led to flip-flops, and the conquest always established a new order that behaved much as the former one, mercilessly repressing everyone. The harsh style of centralized control exercised by present-day Chinese communist authorities is nothing new, and clearly reflects the great fear of the chaos innate within the Chinese soul. Monarchist, theocratic, republican or communistic Chinese rulers have always behaved in the same silently diffuse, yet chillingly over-bearing manner. The result is a vicious circle of central authority in opposition with frustrated, murdered and otherwise cruelly silenced individuals. Not surprisingly, the people of China have long suffered from a great fear and hatred of authority; simultaneously, they have often given blind admiration and selfless devotion to their strongest leaders... |
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The main problem with China's authoritarian social character is its stagnancy and negativity: people in such a society are not really able to blossom - they are afraid and pressured by inequality to slave for almost nothing. So they go crazy or become criminals. Independent thought is not encouraged. Those with too much power become selfish, cruel and savage in the possession of their privileges. There is no chance at all for equanimity to emerge, but the imbalance between privilege and injustice grows as individuals take on the same old roles of mean control and subservient impotence... It's no wonder at all that so many eastern peoples have taken to Buddhism with a passion! To resign and give up the individual will is actually the same thing as expressing indifference to repression and authority: the result appears to be perfect freedom for the individual - exactly where none seemed possible before! |
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For one such as I, living in close proximity with China for the past six years, it is frustrating to listen to Western authorities, all partisans of some infallible Western political tradition, entirely foreign and unintelligible to the Chinese, as they speak the language of their faith on behalf of a future made of "democracy" for Asia. First, realize that American and European intellectual and political authorities make a rich living simply by following each others' hypocritical form. Being professionally two-faced is a surefire way to inflate their vast spheres of influence, as well as to keep the owners of property in control. Americans and Europeans are such perfect people; we never ever need to leave the blindness of our own home to control the whole world! But of course, my words are all too tainted with that deliberate lack of perspective that all social critics must project in order to be well-paid... (Except, I'm not well-paid - I'm washed up.) Even though there are some people in America who believe that forbidding all imports from China could save a few jobs, the single main thing to understand is that "global economy" also means the deep entrenchment of global inequality... Travel to Asia and see the vast material space between classes... Yet, strangely enough, even the rich winners of Asia often look and behave exactly like mean peasants, too. I can't understand it, and you won't either. (Work there and see. Work hard and live to regret it, mack. Often as snot, the slavemaster will take your money and then find a way to enlist someone else's blame against you as a way out of giving you the due for your hard slaving. Once a cheap shit, always a cheap shit: that's the unspoken motto most multinationals apply. As for women - they'll cramp your style till you get as small as they need to make you feel! May as well change your name to Ham Sucker... Forget it.) |
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Too many American pundits are still obviously in the pay of the careless and the greedy, all of whom imagine themselves to be very clever, but none of whom are actually distinguished by anything more than being able to value a fat wad of cash over all culture, enlightenment, fair play and true progress... Neocolonialism is a hard fact of life in Asia today, no matter all the positive gloss about freedom and economic development spewed by magazines and papers. ("The Economist" will never run a detailed feature about international money-laundering and its real culprits - the thieving depositors and the shut-eyed bankers? No, because the editors mingle among the same small crowd of criminals who rule the world with all the hubris that comes from hoarding unjust privileges. It's a very closed system of control, a super-rich circle of deception. It's like wondering, will a supermodel sleep with a poet? She's only allowed to get a football salaryman? I blab too much. Complaint is a breed of self-excuse? Poets get the waitresses. I'm a square. But handle me with a dish. She's ready. I never tried hard enough and I'm lazy! I know, honey. Classy culture has been completely recreated by money, many times over: it's all predictable, in-line, pre-classed and safe. Look: my name is j. b. insular... I'm an Incomepoop... ) The West will go on exploiting China and other countries in the region, as in past centuries. The establishment in each Asian countries will do their best to exploit their people for themselves, and of course, on behalf of the West, too... |
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Today, "economic development" in most of Asia enslaves workers to sweat out their whole lives in substandard environments so that impersonal corporate entities can satisfy their need for making profits. The critical thing to note is that the profits made by the sweat of Asians on products manufactured for sale in America stays right in America and Europe! The money is seldom returned to help develop the infrastructure of Asia - except perhaps to build some hideous new factory to employ more poor sheep at wages less than they need to pay the rent and buy food for their family. The wages for all the Asian factory workers in a major Western running shoe firm amount to much less than the same company's annual advertising budget... No imported, imperial boss from the West should ever have to wonder why Indonesians and Malaysians are so lazy and ill-motivated... It's worse than domination by local capitalist military dictators... It's the oppression of you and me, brother... |
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In collusion with the economic powers of America and Europe, the richest Chinese and Taiwanese, and the rulers and industrialists of Malaysia and Indonesia, Myanmar and Thailand are hard bent upon preserving the old orders of their local social and militaristic complex, which implies above all, absolute concentration of property and power in the hands of the mighty and the few... (The situation is a lot like a provincial literary journal or a small "national" publishing house: only the locals who know the other locals let each other in, and at the same time, the locals can only acknowledge a handful of international names at any given moment: only those very few are permitted to do good business and get big hand-outs, standing in line together, buying and selling each others' names.) |
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...In Taiwan, model of economic development and social advance, democracy only exists as a wishful fancy - a desire of the people for a truly progressive and free society. But the island society, despite all its wealth, free elections and social progress, remains an authoritarian state. Family and friends mean more than they do in America. Worker's are discouraged from speaking up for their rights. The more sheep and the less people - the more "stable" things remain. Only the owner's of land and large enterprises are truly rich: meanwhile, the middle class is obliged to spend most of its money as soon as its earned. It's conceivable that the Chinese and Taiwanese will outgrow their stunted psychology of repressive and oppressive behavior, and at last transcend their long history of chaos, and finally make a society in which corruption, bossy bullying, gross environmental pollution and arbitrary oppression are no longer necessary. But such a paradise is likely to be a long time coming; indeed, perhaps more than two or three generations - maybe one or two hundred years. Maybe - never ever... |
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Do you even appreciate the fact that almost all Asian countries are little more than militaristic technocracies? This truth is too simple for CNN et al. You don't have to pull the wool over my eyes by condescendingly urging me to: "Keep up with the times..." These are prehistoric times. So thanks - but no thanks... I prefer to be blind and poor - and only a little bit greedy... The rest of the world's dwarfs can invest in some expensive superstitions, useless jars - or whatever they need to inflate and justify grand delusions of all-powerful self-possessed importance... But all you want is to make a living, too? Okay, I can't forget about that. The hypocrite doesn't know he's living in slipperyville. She gets wet when she rains... |
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It is good to work hard, but it's somewhat silly when people abuse you from jealousy or thwarted desire... If the babe could only make you stick it in... If you wanted her enough! (But if you want her too much - then she doesn't want you!) That's why the Pharisee as often ends up a crippled clown as a bluff and stupid brute. To be a man is hard, ever since old croesus suggested the institution of a marketplace would be a good way to make men into women... Replace war and save your skin with commerce. Now everyone shares a desperate wish to invent creative cooperation. Today, the world is made of individual effort. Still, we have family-inherited money-power, inherited political might, mass enslavement, mass poverty, limited resources, mass liberation - and of course - the automated, fanatical and hasty politics of informed rhetoric - left and right, up and down. The practical results are often silent deliberate thought, violent behavior and chaotic arbitration... Ask yourself: where is sense before you touch it, and the mind moves your heart? So few raise their voices above the silence to speak sincerely for peaceful change towards equalizing the world's economies - the one and only positive advance that would benefit everyone... Not much need to be angry. Think about what to do. Doing is more enjoyable. Pleasure and accomplishment make good company, and they make a home and make you love. But your good life and dreams won't stop the bizarre contradictions written through the headlines... And where is the world that lives in a quiet verse? A path walked alone forgets its familiar arteries... It's okay. Few want to live below the road, in the roots. Whatever you know comes up from the below from which you grow. The only thing against gravity is you. Above - bright levity lives ideas of goodness, of thrills and the escape from madness. Feisty and laughing - certainty comes - despite the chilly predicates of love left alone. Lying lorn, feeling melancholy, wistfully wishing for her return. We always get sad remembering wasted love. The time you want is lustier than you. Where is she, your last lover? Were you good to her when she left you? Had you time for a last, lingering look? |
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First, I suppose a lot of innocent people are going to die of starvation, civil war and thirst... Thousands of Africans are dying from AIDS everyday. Does anyone give a shit? The practical demands of material progress do suggest that development initiates only as capital can be concentrated and then used to create a more prosperous community. But of course, many people have made a good life from almost nothing but a grunt and some exertion. At the same time, we ought not fear to criticize the rude over-concentration of material interests in the hands of too few, who obsessively heap coin at the expense of justice. Today, we see too few "utopians," and too many selfish people occupied with motives and actions quite free of any moral consideration at all. It's as if the modern "secular logic" of action, implicit to the psyche of those concerned with development and profit, has become a godhead superior to the originally innate ability to assess the good and the bad in our activities toward progress... So my stand is with the masses of poor people in Asia who have no means of articulating much less any chance to act on their frustrations. |
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The last word is simple: Europeans and Americans have the moral quotient of livestock. So do the Chinese. Perhaps, so do all people! Because words mean nothing to how we behave... What's a wonderful "democracy" all about after all? A ghost of an idea! An empty, meaningless word! For after we Western wolves have gobbled up all the game, only then will we begin to suffer ourselves! The first world may be the last one to die off - but we could all become extinct a lot faster than it took us to advance to our present sophistication. Unless the miracles of science can save us from ourselves. |
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Europeans, despite their unconscious assumption of innate moral wisdom and cultural superiority, are also the most xenophobic people on Earth. Perhaps that xenophobia results from an historical demand: many European intellectuals have needed to react against the distinct sensation that their long-standing superiority was outmoded by sensing that people everywhere in the modern time really are equal before the chance of acquiring culture, aesthetic discrimination, earning money and gaining social grace... Some few anthropologists actually discerned that "primitive cultures" were also possessed of uniquely sophisticated ethical codes and articulate conceptual refinement. Yet today, it's all too easy to suspect that the privileges earned for you by your ancestors' past glories seem as meaningless today as the notion of "authenticity" appears to those popular artists and critics who are obliged to emulate the mysterious profitability of technological mass reproduction... |
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Meantime, Americans still suffer from a very strange collective madness: faith in their destiny, a murderous yet glorious dream about privilege, identity, equality and righteousness supported by nobody less than God... Superficially, the American Dream does appear innocent: it makes no claim to some particular or complicated political froth involving difficult and socially impracticable rhetoric (unlike some kinds of socialism and text-book anarchism... I'm not a fascist, either, are you? Basically, politics, like the law, does its best to keep people sane... But we can't help ourselves enough. Yeah, we heard as much before, too. Nowadays the government is shooting innocent fanatics because there is a structure to perpetuate. Let me grow some more beans and lilies, how about a few of them amateur acres, have some more dippy strews and watch that notime news! I want a lady with nothing on underneath.) The American faith simply wishes to enfold a dream for personal identity and success in the same fabric with all the positive ideals of modern democracy: equality and fraternity, etc... There's nothing wrong with humane ideals - but only if all the members of the society really do strive to achieve them, collectively, and with a willingless to share with everybody else... But when people depend on their prejudices instead, as most of us love to do, national dreams seem charades, a flimsy-fakey and insincere ideal... This criticism may apply to older and less flexible societies. Or, maybe you can compare something like carrots with lettuce. Sticks and goats. Because the fact remains that "class" doesn't have much to do with with how Americans are conscious of each other. In the eyes of Europe, Americans lack social grace. But Europeans appear chilly because they're too hermetic. Some of us can subdue the protective gloat, the uncaring resignation, the blithe excuse, the flippant reply, the nodding agreement, the shrug, even the shrug... But not often enough... Release from world. Religions lets go of what philosophy wants to grasp... The folk are bent over backwards... There's a girl under every wet rock... The cliches fizzle and we seed our chickenfeed again. I am past your ideas of maturity. My freakish wit. All I had left. I swim pretty hard sometimes, bunny-buns. But say nothing about your fear of you. Sleep with me anyway. I'm not that costly. The lady was shapely. She likes me. She made me get on a sinking hip... Another burned out cliche! I come home the detritus of sharp sand and powdered coral under your feet. Not quite there yet! I'm feeling the hot embrace a summer thunder cloud. But wilful and collective bigotry seems to be second nature to the character of most national peoples: we seldom question the opinions we love to share, especially if those opinions engorge our self-security mechanisms. No matter how weirdly unreal things may happen to get, it never much matters. Middle class people in developed countries hoard their privileges at the same time as they see themselves left out in the cold by wealthy political, corporate and legal managers. Many of America's middle class and poor get by just fine, oblivious to how everyone makes each other believe in the same wrong things, and oddly enough, without ever having to wonder why they are so misled... You got to get a gun; better build another new jail for the black man; brotherhood and liberty for everyone but those illegal immigrants - whatever - it's all contradiction now... Consequently, Americans have unwittingly become the most cynical people on Earth. Freedom Americans do have, yes, and most of them believe in it. But too many Americans have acquired their wealth, might and right by stepping on the little guy, without being willing to admit it. Most everyone knows that, too. Nobody wants a boss anymore. They're relics of the past... Some of us are just too smart, and we don't need people to tell us what to do: we can figure things out for ourselves... (Unless you're too dreamy to try for a real "career" - like me.) These Tibetan guys look free enough, don't they? |
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America and Europe would do well to export finer knowledge and humane technology instead of exploitative economic ideology, class racism and the same old forms of industrial domination that continue to perpetuate mayhem around the world. |
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The "better wisdom" of today's technological era is little more than a frustration that gives birth to contempt and cynicism. We complain all the time about everything... Look at my line: to feel good about being so grimly selfish today, we put ourselves to sleep, and replace all profound culture with a rigid march made of buying and selling. That's it! But nobody bothers to think about what we should or should not buy and sell! Nobody in a corporation is allowed to care about anything except maximizing a profit, at the expense of even the slightest traces of humane scruple... The corp doesn't want to talk about it five years later. The poisoned minions always do though. A rioting Viet Nam vet can crank out a wild tale that can teach you a lot about living with your own headcase. Just keep it well-padded and you can call yourself Rubba-Dubba. But believing is not having been there. Plug me into it directly. You have to go places to be aware. (Of course, I am exaggerating - just jerking your chain a little. The munchkins are through with me and you knew it, too.) I don't know nothing or nobody. That doesn't matter much. Laugh with me darling. I want to make you. Used to. Still do. I don't know the young woman very well. But sometimes I meet someone new. The world of crackerjack causes leads to small effects. I already know that, smartie. But smartie isn't wearing my pants... Maybe she wants to. Let's hope so... |
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My main concern wants to answer this question: is being self-centered and fantasy-driven important and good? Does a lust for distraction compel us to avoid the fear we have for each other? Do we teach each other to grow? Does obsession with trivial appetites manifest our fear and incapability for addressing serious questions? Conquering your neuroses is nigh to the knowledge of how to open the flaps on your little box and go out for a look around. That's why a lot of mobilites get off doing physical things - to assert their independence of mind by using the body to express love and knowledge. But don't drink too much coffee. I'm trying to find a way out of myself. Don't let yourself get angry when provoked (especially when the cheapass shit is doing it on purpose so the big corp can turf you to save a few extra dollars.) That's very important to remember. Diplomat eunuchs get higher salaries! Work for really big companies. Come from a really small country. Ha, ha! Anyway, it doesn't matter. Writing's an escape. What the fuck do I believe in? A form of life... Sometimes things make us look as if we wanted to become stupid - because we were afraid of knowing what's best for the real world we are supposed to be responsible for making. All we really want is "Business and Sports..." I do, too. You don't need to think about nothing... I don't want to either. I was swilling and now I'm told to chill out. Ha, that's easy. Swell enough to make her laugh. Meanwhile, so many people around the world can't get any scratch, or even a little bit of learning, to make any development happen. The world is oppressed by sleepy habits of doing no more and no less than buying and selling. It's a great way to live... Only among the people of the already developed world: rich to rich - to each other. When Americans and Europeans visit the poorer side of the planet, they stay locked up inside their bubbly dreams... Well, why not? You would to. Marry a local girl and you're busy all the time. A freaky bitch wants you to figure her through. Then when she loves you too much - you don't love her enough. Then you gotta go. Or you loved her too much and she gets bored and falls off the routine. Woman has that knack for flowing her own way... She expects to annoy you and then a month later she walks back in. They have fire hydrants for hearts... Hydraslass can get too high too. Have a cup of memory. She wants this and then you got to beg her nice for the same... A sensitive heart is something you give away and hope to get back! But Bunnycomes - where has it gone? Hardupwhat? All guys and girls forget themselves for each other... Remember when you were chasing me with the rubber crop? Because I wasn't hard enough? Ha, ha. That never happened. Only once! I get hard just looking at you the first time. Then when we get bored - wake me up with your wet mouth. I eat first. You always come fucking, too. |
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Real life is good to you at last. You can make peace with all the guys who had it first. You can be big if you decide to. Women will love you for being you no matter what you imagine is right or wrong with yourself. Human beings are very young compared to the infinite universe that bred us... We're not something holier than... A dream for wisdom may come as close to sanctity as we can get. But do we really care about being good, or the identity of god, even as we proclaim selfishness as the natural prime of our human condition? Those who pretend to be important have concluded that not one word of poetry can actually change who we are for the better. I don't entirely agree, but I'm still not optimistic about literary artistry: the poets - the unacknowledged legislators of the world have done precious little good so far as I can see. We have put whole cultures in touch with their emotions and then encouraged sensations built upon spirit and intellect. We have given great ideas and evoked the tragedy and the comedy inspired by mortal existence. We know a lot. Even so, I have to conclude that we have encouraged sophistry of sensibility, and not enough sublimely practical insights... We poets - we actually do very very little... So, like the best of my breed my solution is plain: lie low and try, very hard, to forget the flat liars and simple cheats... Maybe - after I give up all hope to save even a few coins - only then can I find time to write another story, a new novel. |
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Here is something to really think about: if we are destined to evolve positively, accident is likely to have the upper hand, and less likely, design... The accident of discovery leads the design of the scientific and artistic imaginations... We have yet to clone our first man-made person. It hardly matters if we can do that or not; because, for the time being, too many human beings born naturally today are destined to perish under conditions of disease, hunger, poverty and war. The real problem facing humanity is how can we ever get the over-fed and the under-fed to unite? The West and all its brilliant lights live in a bubble of intellectuality and ideals that do so very very little to resolve real problems in the real world... You wanna be a man? Let me tell you something. If you are a man - you don't sleep with, work with or hang around with nagging women. Got that shit? No nagging, no fighting. Otherwise - move out. Find someone else to make love to. Take no bullshit. If you flunk, you're a dump, too. Go away and be free. That's all. |
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~ I hold the woman in my arms. She's dreaming of her Teddy bear and needs me to remind her of love again. I'm locked on these young things sixteen to twenty-eight. To hell with the rich old ones! Ms. Y is nearly forty. Sensitive, intelligent. Warm up honey! Call me insecure - Mr. No Tanks. Great for talking, but she switched on the aircon three years ago... I'm too the left overs in back of the fridge. So, I leave her alone with that sad wish for getting a new hubby... But not before we agree to visit the Potala tomorrow. |
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Last night I ran into British Paul, the fellow whom I met in Ali in Western Tibet weeks ago. Paul was unable to hike to India from Purang. He did hike around the mountain and almost perished of cold rain in the process. We sit on a couch and chatter about keeping alive under harsh circumstances. I say goodbye in front of a hotel. He's going back to India in a few days. What else? Miguel ran into Hutch at the Bank of China. The aging American did him a good turn by asking the credit manager, whom he had previously befriended, to recheck the record of recent TTs. ...Lo and behold, an oversight; Miguel's money has been waiting for days... Wow! It's time to collect the small change he still owes me! He returns the 600 yuan and he is genuinely grateful. That's nice. I feel content. Humans can be so good for each other. |
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The next day finds Ms. Y and I climbing the Potala... The broad stairway is empty and quiet. Before the twentieth century, and the skyscrapers of Chicago and New York, the Potala Palace was the world's tallest building. Majestic isn't the word. The place is mighty. It's a massive fortress - a heap of huge rocks. It was built to last forever. The Dalai Lamas wanted to be the greatest and the eternal rulers of Tibet. |
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To the apparently modern mind, Tibetan theocracy inspires mixed feelings of skepticism and deep curiosity. We have difficulty imagining such a national entity. Theocracy and God-kings, all of that sounds very like ancient history, like Egypt in the time of Ptolemy and Cleopatra, when the imagination of emperors and empresses built whole nations upon fabulistic faith in personal divinity... |
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The Tibetan ecclesiastical theocracy created by the Dalai Lamas was the culmination of turbulent rivalries lasting hundreds of years. The line of Dalai Lamas, who all belong to the Gelupka sect, were intended to represent a harmony of wisdom with power. Feudalism peaked and theocracy stepped in, not so much because it wanted control, but as much because the people of Tibet really were religious and devout. Let's say it seemed natural that a ecclesiastical state should evolve, one in which monks shared rank alongside feudal chiefs. While still a child, the Dalai Lama is taught all about his religion. He does not need to become selfish or possessive: he's a monk and brought up to revere pure faith and knowledge. Learning how to meditate and achieve insight into the absolutes of Buddhist metaphysics are always more important than the power he possesses as a national ruler. The Dalai Lama is not supposed to need to exercise power at all... He's supposed to lead by virtue of the reverence shown him by the people and the evidence of his divinity. The theocracy, in benevolent form, shows peaceful advantages over the more chaotic and violent types of primitivist, not yet ascendant society... (White trials. Black seas. Poor sports can hit front to back as well as you. The sun rolls on and the leaf grows over you after you die. Become a tree. But what about all the buts! A fresh face is hard to find...) People still respect this God-king. In the past, the Dalai Lama was revered. Today in Tibet, he's absent. The people of Tibet long for his return, as if he alone may answer their lost dreams. To avoid the calumny of seeming dull-witted, some few Tibetans might joke - but only because some may feel naive and others, frustrated beyond anger. Some Tibetans are exhausted, baffled and hapless - maddened by trial. Some are exultant because they are conscious. Others are plain helpless and have no money. What about the profits? Money pours in but doesn't come back out. Except maybe some of the cash sucked away by those with power... My scholarship is atrocious, granted that. At least I'm not hung up on a mad theory or a specific prediction! The fact remains that you could subdivide the money earned by most Tibetans by the modern colonial standard: take a string and tie it to a pencil; then tack it to some cardstock - and then draw the pencil completely round until you get a nice big grey zero... Some flat land to build some big buildings on and a lot of Chinese people running about worried about the infrastructure and how to control! It's weirder than you can picture. So, the psyche of Tibetans is complex and individual. The committee doesn't know much about that. Neither do you. (You have to meet many others to know anything. People share ideas, wishes - and everyone is ordinarily moving along the same paths to love. Nobody likes to suffer. If you are sick, there is nothing you can do but get well. If you are unhappy? It doesn't matter. Someone can make you laugh. Never be afraid. There is nothing hiding behind you. Slow or fast doesn't matter, and neither cool nor hot stands up to slippery and smooth... ...I give up! My hands are firmly extended over my head. There's nothing in my right hand but the limp dick of history! I get up to girls easy, queer or not! What do you want!?) For most Tibetans, the Dalai Lama is a memory. Today, China divides the faith of Tibetans with development projects and enforced education. But the presence of China has cooled the local people off. A vociferous spirit cannot be silenced forever. Tibetans who hope for something besides colonialism must travel far - and break Chinese law - to visit India's community of Tibetan exiles. |
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Today, the Potala is white-washed and kept very prim and proper. On the way in, Ms. Y tries a little diplomacy on me, pointing out that the huge, ancient mural inside the entrance portico of the palace residence depicts the journey of Chinese princess Weng-cheng to Tibet over one thousand years ago. Tibet was obliged to forge an uneasy alliance with more powerful China, and previously evicted her army and chiefs. That was a much different Tibet. The Potala now represents the effects of a sinofied, controlled Tibet. The palace is empty, except for tourists and their guides. This fact seems odd to me. As Ms. Y and I overtake a group of German tourists, I can't help but open my mouth to cast an aspersion on our presence in this holy palace: "To think that Tibetans used to live here - before the Chinese drove them away..." It's the wrong thing, because Chinese Ms. Y is being so nice to me, having paid my way inside. But she simply acts like she doesn't hear what I said. |
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Not so long ago the Potala palace was the seat of the Tibetan government. In fact, below the apartments of the Dalai Lama, the minister's of his government had offices in the buildings all around. All of that is silent and shut up now. One open door leads up heavy stairs to the palace apartments and mausoleums. |
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The roof-top abode of the last Dalai Lama emits modest grandeur, preserving its original state. The apartment is finely appointed in brocades and carpets, but modestly cozy and not very big. It has windows facing east and south, plenty of light and a wonderful audience chamber with exquisite paintings of deer and deities. The study room of the God-king is particularly golden and warm. It must have been a quiet, sunny-windy and pleasant place to grow up. Opposite the former apartment of the current Dalai Lama is the apartment and audience chamber of the previous Dalai Lama, number XIII. Its walls are lined with shelves and cubby holes filled with precious religious manuscripts. Several gleaming statues, venerated for their singularity depict the god-king in full lotus. Everything seems very well-preserved. More deeply embedded within the Red Palace wing of the Potala are various funerary stupas. Here, beneath massive metal domes adorned in glowing gold leaf are interred the mortal remains of most Dalai Lamas. |
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At one point we discover a plaque remembering the visit of China's present leader, Jiang Zu-min. The plaque commemorates a United Nations decree naming the Potala Palace a "World Heritage Site." I'm a bit confused by this plaque... It's always funny to imagine that heritage sites feel as if they indicate the past history of civilization. A lot of what we call "heritage" back home is supposed to be considered contemporary currency. Living culture doesn't have to grasp at the leaf tips of memory... It makes the most of its predicament and leads you to prosper - as who you were born, given a tongue and an idea... Nobody needs to change you into someone else. Your own ideas are more interesting, because they come from what you learn, and that should lead you to thoughtful consideration... Perhaps a little sad to realize that such an official commemoration serves to underscore the sensation that the Potala, and everything it represents, have been relegated to the past - officially, by an official United Nation's body! I suppose you could say I'm stupid and that the declaration promotes the Potala's life... Well. But I mean it has to come back to live, because it is empty now. The proclamation seems odd. How many people actually die for freedom anywhere in this world? We are told that people die for freedom. Most people caught in wars die for someone else's persuasion, madness, drive, choice. In life you make love most naturally first with the one you know. That's a good thing. I wonder. How could this be? The Potala and all it represents is now a poignant memory - a monolith, and nothing more or less; obviously, the Chinese government welcomed this U.N. declaration - because it appears to shed a good light on their administration, at least the Chinese felt that the light was warm: what else could "international recognition" be except something good? But it could be seen by those outside official China as a more subtle thing - an enduring recognition of patience, a waiting dream: one day Tibet may reassert her heritage and forgive the political education, the enforced development, the mean domination and suppression which have so changed the country... From gentle to mean. I believe if the meanness can fade away, the gentleness will return. Maybe the Chinese, finally, will get to know their minorities as brothers... To behave as brothers first - now that's a big challenge! Ha, ha, what else is new? Is it God for you - or do you prefer women? Guys? You tell me... I'm slipping by. |
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Gazing at the plaque proclaiming the wonderful heritage of the Potala, I feel something like it was as if the whole world is completely agreeable to the disappointment of Tibetans in order to satisfy the developmental destiny chosen for them by the Chinese! Fine, things are going to grow, but it's going to get a bit weird. The young lady and I hurry out from the palace, leaving heaps of ancient manuscripts, the innumerable bronze icons and effigies, the darkened yellow paintings on the walls, the hidden dark corners, the crowds of wandering tourists, the absence of monks, and the lurid sense of desolation and emptiness of a place once bustling with thousands of individuals, as if memories alone are free to settle here. The Potala is a ghost-palace, silent and lonesome in his empty home... I'm sad and want to go. I don't understand how this could be? I hope you enjoy going over everything in detail. Life, mortality, family, how your lover's made love... Silenced hearts chill me and I go. I want the warmth of love, the thrill... I want talkative girls around me. |
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By the time Ms. Y and I return to the entrance at 11:00 A.M., the tourist hawkers have set up shop by the way. Ms. Y wants trinkets for her girlfriends back in Chengdu. The vendors squawk their loud pigeon at us, "You look. See. Me cheap deal." Me too, and I want to flea. But Ms. Y doesn't. So, I swallow their eager and watchful eyes like some strange medicine. Assiduously, I shop for turquoise bracelets as if I'm doing a good deed. In the back of the taxi, I give Ms. Y one of the bracelets and she's happy. I say goodbye then and there since she has a plane to catch right away. |
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At the hotel again I meet the German cycling couple: male engineer and female elementary school teacher. They are impatient to leave. They have already come from Golmud, along the northern frontier of Tibet, and must reach Nepal by the beginning of September. Luckily, the young couple introduces me to two very pleasant fellows, computer programmers, from Germany and also riding bicycles around Tibet. These two guys have all the gadgets you could ever want for a long bike trip. Tools are us. In less than an hour we replace two broken spokes and tune out the wobble from my wheel. I thank them profusely. I've got to get one of those cranks and stop feeling absolutely an inept fool. |
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I've time to book a plane ticket for Chengdu, departure in two weeks. Time to watch too much tv? Not anymore. Tomorrow, I set out for Samye monastery, not far south of Lhasa, in the Yarlung River valley. |
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Actually, there are too many good-byes. The Nepali crew from Hore to Saga showed up here in Lhasa a few days ago. I promised their amiable boss to join them for a beer at ten o'clock. The Nepalis are going to guide a group of Americans around the lake country north of Lhasa. Tsering explains that the local police moved them to the hotel because they were forbidden to stay at their employer's house. My last evening is spent eating a wonderful stew of vegetables, mutton and noodles. |
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In the morning I say goodbye to Hutch over breakfast, again. He's suave and ever the smiling gentleman. Actually, I've met few men so pleasant and well-finished, a living contradiction. Hutch has had a varied experience. Success and failure both. He has gleaned ideas sufficient to add and to subtract from his stock of prejudices. Here's a man, almost set free from his culture's mindset and that's rare anywhere. Does anybody ever get to know him-herself well enough to be free..? |
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I go at 10:00, and aim to reach the river valley south of Lhasa, home to the Yarlung dynasty, the heartland of ancient Tibet. The mighty Tsangpo River flows south into India, becoming the Brahmaputra, "son of the creator." I pause to send an email to my pals, and tell my girlfriend about the souvenirs that I plan to buy on my way out: a couple of hand-woven carpets and some turquoise jewelry... Riding out, I spot Miguel walking. I pause to shake his hand and say so long. He's visibly moved and I sense that the man will be alone again. He doesn't relish that prospect at all. It isn't often that he makes a new friend. |
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It's strange how solitude creeps upon us, sometimes we get used to being alone. It's more interesting with people. The old jews were right about that. But it isn't easy with women; they expect everything and more than you can give. You can't be alone. It isn't easy, making your supposed enemy fall in love with you. That's the hard part for stupid people like us. After she's left you, how long till another slips into you and your bed, girl? Meet a friend and take time to know each other. What happens? Solitude gets lost and we hate its memory. Thrust back into solitude, we suddenly feel as souls bereaved... We don't want to be alone again, especially if we revile ourselves for having grown "used to it" before. Like ghosts we are indifferent to the cancellation of sensitivities... Until someone else wakes you again. But there's no choice, alone, far from home, travelling amid nobody we know... |
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The solitude of homelessness makes a good man grow meek. I think it drives everyone else crazy. Odd, isn't it, how lonely men always appear to be very good or very bad men - monks and marauders. Because, those who are alone sit silently, unnoticed, protecting themselves from everything outside that refuses to understand... Nobody can know them. If nobody can know - then there must certainly be something especially good being kept secret - or something very bad that has to be hidden... |
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Now that I think on it, I've seen that look before - that furtive need to hurry, yet unwillingness to depart; the moment that leaves you behind in your companion's mind. In Hutch's eyes, for example, I could see a bright light. He's what's called a "good American" - a man made of hope, the pure and original impetus of the more wonderful and healthy side of American culture. Guys like Hutch built their nation from nothing but sheer optimism, strength and the astonishing inspiration of virgin soil. America watched itself grow up during the same epoch that saw Europe experience a self-conscious process of aging and frustrated rebellions against unassailable identity. So, while Europeans cultivated the progress of hypocrisy, Americans had no way to experience, retain or even need to evacuate any accumulation of guilt. While the French and Germans basically went crazy, the Americans never had much concern about differentiating right from wrong. America just learned to eat shit - and like it. Such is the destiny of a power too great for its own good... |
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When I see Hutch for the last time at breakfast, he says goodbye from within the silent depths of his gentle soul. His goodbye is an acceptance of the natural human estate. Miguel is a young man and an unhappier one, because he can't get by the inhibition upon sensitivity that hampers intimacy. He's the man caught in a trap purely by parentage and place, as if awake and yet severed in half at the same time. |
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I'm past my need to choose class and labels. I see people and hope to find individuals beneath the assumptions, masks, roles. Miguel has dropped all defenses and self-loathing in knowing me. But I'm not about to forgive him for being a poor man to himself. We're all made so cruel and blind today. Why not be gentle and humble, simple and kind? I cannot be as I wish... Miguel is gone and I'm going soon, too. |
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If your children are going to be happy and whole, they must believe you love them: only a conscious tenderness can enfold them away from the inevitable alienation that you suffer from yourself. We try to protect them against the common bewilderment of love between wife and husband: to transfer affections from the young lover in your spouse to the new "you" in your offspring - that's the same thing as robbing the child of its mother or father. The lover is no longer a lover! We all end up alone, again. But we don't see that paradox of affections until it's too late. To love your child more than your husband or wife is really a symptom of selfishness, caused by the unconscious, inalienable identity we must suffer, being alone within each of ourselves. Notice that your child feels closer to being one with yourself than your spouse can possibly seem. The child is a source of creativity that inspires us with the awe we need to feel if we are to love life. How strange to realize that happiness depends on chance and nothing more. ...If our parents were able to show us tenderness and affection during early infancy. Some children seem ruined by want for love, and their misery is unquenchable. Others grow up to run away from their parents' frustrated love, because that same love ultimately refuses to understand the object of affection isn't the same person as the mother and father imagines he/she ought to be... This blindness to reflection upon containment within separate identities perhaps accounts for the exceptional variety of human character. We love, but we know no one. |
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The city people smile at my pathetic figure, riding a bike, slowly leaving. Only the pretty Chinese girls who work the edge of town appear a little sad today, regretting their chance for a taste of white meat. Then, I am gone. |
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One or two neat little farms appear by the roadway, for a moment, like some quaint European country. I ride southwest, along the Kyi-chu River, which flows through Lhasa south until it joins the Brahmaputra River and the broad valley leading into the heart of Tibet... |
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The most astonishing thing that I see are two naked and wet Tibetan girls giggling at me, toes in the air, tummies on the hot pavement. They were swimming in the irrigation channel beside the highway. The next surprise I see is the rising level of the water in the Kyi-chu River. At its juncture with the Brahmaputra, the water is a torrent only half a metre below the road... Everyone says it's unseasonably rainy. |
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I reach the bridge across the confluence of the two rivers by mid-afternoon. After lunch, I press on. The scenic villages and undulant fields of barley are lined with young trees. The local people smile. |
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At last I find the Gongkar Monastery. Night has fallen and I'm hardly able to make out the English sign. The monks of Gongkar will be amenable to my staying overnight, so said the French cyclist in Zhigatse who gave me tips about the Brahmaputra valley. A bright light emits from the ground floor. I'm ushered into the gate-keeper's lodge. One young novice introduces two elderly monks, enjoying some butter tea on their mats. They invite me to eat some dinner and I politely accept a cup of tea. Then a young novice appears with a religious disquisition written on a long roll of brittle paper. He hands it to the eldest of the monks who begins to study it carefully. The younger sits silently at his side, waiting for a response. I see the elder smile to himself as he reads the text. After some time he makes a few comments while the younger silently studies again what is written, as if wondering how to do it all over again. Nearby, an aging manservant reclines on his carpet, dozing away. |
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This gate-keeper's lodge at Gongkar is an ancient room made of polished timbers. Two hundred years of lamp smoke have blackened the smooth and supple-seeming wood. The monks offer me deep-fried fritters made of rice flour. I munch them and drink tea as 10 P.M. approaches. I try to remain innocuous and can't dream of disturbing their peace. The hour passes slowly by. I don't know where to go and sleep. Finally, the young monk who shows me in reappears and leads me to a spare cottage within a grassy courtyard. It's quiet and peaceful. The guest room to myself, I enjoy writing by candle light. |
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I wake at dawn. The young monk who greeted me waits outside - wide-awake. His glance pierces and he very much wants to show me around the monastery. His pate is shaved bald. So, I follow him politely with my camera. He takes me into a temple full of icons picturing elderly and boyish lamas wearing yellow robes. Up on the roof, the Gongkar valley stretches golden green beneath the early sun. Far beyond the barley is the ruined Gongkar Dzong, a fort built ages ago by local feudal lords. Nothing much remains of this great fortress, only some collapsed walls gently merged into the steep ridge. On our left, the valley rises southwards into an abundant expanse of ripening crops; a sharp wall of peaks closes up the rising green space. The clear air of Tibet helps you see easily across great distances. Then my host leads me into the main assembly hall. The Gongkar Monastery is a fascinating relic because it is one of few well-preserved examples of the Sakyapa School in Tibet. The Sakyapa constitutes a derivative sect of Tibetan Buddhism arising in the 11th century west of Zhigatse town. As the teachings of Padmasambhava were inspired with newer ideas, the Sakyapa school arose as a syncretic faith combining the original Nyingmapa teachings of the 8th century with 10th century movements. The Sakyapa pantheon includes the popular Tibetan guardian spirit, Hevajra and the imported Indian deity, Cakrasamvara. The development of Buddhism in Tibet represents a rich history that saw at least five major schools of monastic discipline. |
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The most fascinating thing about Gongkar Monastery, built in 1464, are the old paintings decorating the chapels of the assembly hall and on the second floor. The paintings have been well-maintained and redone. They depict emotional portrayals of deities and demons among a black cosmos. Some murals show the suffering we can expect in the Buddhist hells... Most of the creatures are stick figures, depicted in golden lines upon a stark, glossy black background. These pictures of hell are sure to provoke anguish, panic and fear in anyone who views them. Jamyang Khyentse Wangchuk originated the "Khyenri School" of Sakyapa painting in the 16th century. Stylistically, the paintings are evocative. Their imaginative flare is fantastic and highly original. These symbolic images of ultimate destiny inspire a certain deja-vu for some of the modern schools of the sort we characterize as being sincerely unsentimental, that kind of painting intended purely to rouse spirit, exactly like the shocking types of naive realism so popular in the 19th and 20th century; the artist has made much of the angst consequent upon being born in an age too limited for the freedom of mind that ought to be possible. The murals do look redone, or updated. The portraiture of various monsters and hells makes me wonder: what would happen to us if we could believe that the worst of fates was no longer something we had to worry about? We would be more than free, we would be enlightened and peace would reign everywhere. This Sakyapa art reminds me of the Hieronymous Bosh painting I once saw in the Prado of Madrid: it emits a spark that feels closely akin to Bosh's early modern spirit. One portrait depicts an elephantine Hevajra as he projects a gleeful, terrifyingly grotesque horror: his devilish eyes bulge and blaze over his blood-lusty mouth. I suspect that these disturbing paintings were created to inspire the poor monks to concentrate on their devotions - as if meditation and Tantric chanting alone might help to obliterate the bleak fate implied by the menacing emanations over their heads. Unfortunately, I don't have any photos of the paintings. I suggest you pay a visit to Gongkar. |
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As we enter the main assembly hall, a dozen monks are up already and vociferously chanting religious tunes - keeping busy. My host leads me upstairs to a smaller room that contains a shrine; on the back wall a mural depicts the most gruesome Buddhist hell: guilty souls are depicted as grisly corpses, grimacing and skewered on giant thorns while birds, dogs and snakes dine on their doomed entrails. Another classical painting lays out the original plan of Gongkar Monastery; my tour guide points out that most of the buildings shown in these painting were destroyed by the Chinese Red Guards during the nineteen-sixties. Anyway, here's a photo of a well-preserved monastery near Dege in eastern Tibet... |
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The morning stays sunny. Feeling charged with fresh hospitality and vision, I mount my bike and aim to reach Dratang and Mindroling Monasteries. It's only ten or twelve kilometres to the modest airport from which passenger flights connect central Tibet to various points abroad. The airstrip lies on a bit of very flat earth adjacent the Brahmaputra River valley. I stop in town to eat some steamed pork dumplings. |
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This main road east is less busy than I thought it would be. A few busses, the odd black Volkswagen and one or two grey Toyota land-cruisers make their way here and there. But there are no huge convoys of military trucks like those of western Tibet. One big tourist bus is parked by the way. Some European fellows stare at me as I glide by. Soon, I meet a group of Tibetan boatmen standing beside their Yak skin boats by the road. They wait for a truck to come and take them to one of the flooded villages along the river. Most fields are intact, but the flood plain glitters with telltale signs of inundation. |
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At noon I reach the county seat of Dranang and eat lunch. The restaurant does the usual Sichuan delights. I follow the signs to Dratang Monastery. I pass a shop-front cinema blasting a kung-fu kill-film at full, ugly volume; smash, bang, crash, yell - the bad movie sounds as irritating as it is frightening. Then, I reach the temple. Not long after I clambered up the steps inside, a policeman is quick to follow me inside. He's a Public Security Bureau (PSB) officer, and a Tibetan. No wonder every person along this road was looking so cagey, and wondering what I was doing here. I've turned off the main road for only two kilometers and I'm already off limits. |
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The Tibetan policeman looks at my papers and informs me that I must get a permit to visit this area. He wants me to go with him, so I tell him sorry and then beg him to let me go, adding that I'm on my way to visit the big town of Tsetang, where I can try to get a permit... (I'm telling lie, because I know that it is impossible to get a permit there: carefully herded tourist groups only are entitled to such privileges. Secretly, I'm still planning to go to Mindroling and Samye monasteries, which are on the way to Tsetang.) The policeman warns me not to visit Samye before I get a permit. After the policeman lets me be and goes away, the elderly gate-keeper of Dratang opens up the main door so I can wander around inside for a few fleet looks. This place is also a Sakyapa monastery and the black, gold and red paintings of the Khyenri school also predominate. Like Gongkar, the imagery throngs with fierce door guards and ghoulish grinning skulls; living death is an important motif for the demonology of Tibetan Buddhism. Here's another monastery, Sera, near Lhasa... |
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Back on the road, I forget the policeman and make time towards Mindroling Monastery. Soon, I spot a dinky sign written in English pointing up to Mindroling. The path is made of rocks and sandy clay. It leads uphill into a luscious agrarian valley. Farmsteads, some of them very cozy and ample, dot the fields all around. I struggle to climb up the last hill, through the pretty village of Mondrubb. Then, four or five boys help push my bike up the last steep kilometre to the pearly gates. On the way up, a boy surreptitiously swipes one of my water bottles and disappears. I don't notice this crime right away. When I do, I quickly instruct two of the boys to chase him and retrieve the bottle, explaining the reward will be three yuan each... Five minutes later, the boys return with my water bottle and I give them three yuan, failing to hear their pleas for double... Above us glow the rooftops of Mindroling Monastery, the sun, very soon to set. |
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Mindroling is an old monastery, but not so ancient as many others around this area. It was established in 1670, primarily as a library for the Nyingmapa School. The Nyingmapa comprise one of the oldest sects in Tibet; as such, they are responsible for preserving the earliest Tibetan Buddhist traditions, dating from the first translation of Sanskrit texts at the time of Padmasambhava's mission to Tibet. Not far away from Mindroling, at Samye Monastery, the establishment of Buddhist monasticism took place a thousand years ago. Much of Mindroling, like the Tsuklakang, the Sangak Podrang, along with the monks' cells along the courtyard, are all kept in decent repair. But the whole place seems to be half-deserted and supports a smaller populace than it did long ago. The heavy flagstones of the courtyard seem much less worn out than this dull prose. |
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I get my towel and soap and join two monks by the ancient stone well for a wash. The spring water is brisk and cold, but I need to rinse away all the dust. A monk approaches me and he wants my name, address and 10 yuan for the privilege of staying the night. Then, he shows me into a room next to the entrance. I make a bed from some floor cushions. But the room is very cozy with a pleasant big window. |
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I come out to sit on the steps. A monk volunteers to show me inside the main temple. The imagery of Mindroling's art work is a world apart from the Sakyapa monasteries. The most vivid paintings are found upstairs in a rooftop chapel, the Lama Lhakhang. Here, the yellow and red images show a long line of disciples along with a vivid portrait of Samantabdhara in union with Samantabhadri; the male and female in sexual union symbolize two aspects of a single identity, the subjective and objective correlatives of the "primordial" Buddhas who comprise all reality. Fascinating and complex metaphysics are at play here - and understanding depends on which interpretation you emulate. The history of Buddhist philosophy, I feel, is inextricably mingled with Hindu influences; after all, the same folk invented both religions. |
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I need rest and eat my fill in the dim light of a candle. Somehow, I find energy enough to write myself asleep. |
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I suffer no apprehension as morning comes. Blue sky, a bumpy ride - I'm free. The high water upon the wide Tsangpo river is like an estuary. It's only twenty kilometres to the dock for Samye. Below a steep mountain, the levy is wet and water rises to a restaurant and shops. The ferry is ready to go. The boatman beckons me aboard. A man with big black sunglasses and a PSB badge asks me if I have a permit. I say, "No, I don't." He shows no reaction but instructs me to pay ten yuan to the boatman. So, I'm lucky today. |
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The old flat-bottom boat carries twelve of us. All of them but me are Chinese tourists and local Tibetans. A few villagers accompany us: an elderly fellow in possession of a new hand scythe, silver in the sun. The distance over the huge Tsangpo River is three kilometres, but the boat chops slowly against the current, and three become ten kilometres. The Brahmaputra flows quickly upon us. The river is swollen wide with monsoons. At an altitude of nearly 4000 metres, this great stream is the highest large river in the whole world. After cascading over 3000 metres, the Brahmaputra finally emerges into Bangladesh. Up here in Tibet there's no one. Below, millions of folk depend on the alluvial richness of this river for their prosperity. |
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Landing on the far shore, trucks await to carry people to town. I ride, snailing along sandy flats beneath sharp, bald hills. I rap on the shutters of a small village shop, rousing the old lady to sell me some instant noodles and a bottle of beer. The villagers thresh the barley crop. |
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Samye Monastery appears amid a lovely forest between the mountains and some golden sand dunes swelling toward the river. The space around the monastery feels open, yet it seems enclosed in an invisibly huge sphere removed from everything I would call familiar. What's here? There's nothing here but trees, grass and a huge monastery with a big oval wall built round it. Such remote corners of civilization feel unearthly. I look back, wishing to forget the familiar routines and spending needs that have always hurried me past looking carefully at things... |
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I'm certainly in no rush to find the monastery. Instead, I ride over a path into the trees until I reach a stream. By the water, on some blankets by a tiny tent, rest three young nuns and an old monk. They are travelling on a pilgrimage. I sit with them in silence and share their milk tea. The old guy smiles and the girls are shy. They're curious about my presence here. So, I explain as best I can that I'm travelling. I like having nowhere to go. I smile and find a camping spot hidden in the willowy trees, on the soft grass. |
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It's lovely. Absolute quiet, as I haven't had in a while. I do nothing but rest, read and listen to the news. I eat noodles. No mosquitoes anywhere around. I shouldn't have bought the radio in Lhasa: a terrible earthquake in Turkey has killed thousands. |
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Walking along, I discover a perimeter wall circling the monastery: it's a vast oval made of bricks and plaster, topped with miniature stupas. I set foot into a gate and enter a small outer temple. The place is attended by a watchful resident monk. Then I retreat through the drizzly dusk to sleep. |
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Rain through the morning and by noon my tiny blue and yellow tent is afloat in a puddle. What can I do? Pack up. The monks have built a modest hotel inside the monastery grounds. I see a few foreigners, German and American visitors. I want some sun but won't get any. The hotel seems nearly empty and a well-formed German lady teases me about my hermetic ways. They haven't a chance, keeping such close tail to their hubbies. |
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I'm content to be alone and do nothing but watch the world silently. In the hotel shop I attempt to cheer up a rotund and aging American who has waited for, but did not receive his restaurant dinner after a whole hour. I encourage him to try once more, but suggest that he visit the restaurant earlier before the other tourists arrive. He goes away with instant noodles. I figure he can afford to lose a few ounces anyway. |
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Night closes in and leads me to bed, but not before I pass a door open on one of the hotel rooms... Inside is a startling sight. An aging woman sits across the room from two young monks. The two bald fellows stare straight at her, and she returns their stare with something of a fixed and helpless shock - as if she doesn't believe her eyes. The monks hold her look. They are amused - without seeing the same expression on each other's faces. They look like brothers. Everyone is silent. She's their mother. Maybe they're twins. All three Tibetans are very still, silently watching each other. I feel like a painter, portraying this door-framed glimpse. They are unaware of me. |
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I go to bed, reading about the iconography of Tibetan Buddhism. I am not a Buddhist by any means; actually, I don't really believe in any one religion, and it would be pretty hard to convince me that your "soul" is anything more than a poetic metaphor. On the other hand, I am fascinated with the philosophical implications of religion... The yearning for truth is common to all of us. We all want to know what is most unknowable - the absolute nature of the universe and whether or not we are made of chance or divine intent... Conceiving of truth, as the ideal end, obviously beckons us to try to learn more about it. We often sense that the human moral condition depends on "enlightenment" and everything we learn would lead us to desire pure understanding. Well, perhaps not for modern philosophers: we suffer from collective skepticism... But the condition of our ability to conceive and so create "the truth" is something that philosophers have been concerned about for some time: the problem of absolutes and dividing the subjective perception from substantial realities has obsessed us since the great Greeks... Yet, we poor philosophers have also developed a collective blind spot to the tendency we have to nay-say as we pronounce judgements over ideas, and all this without realizing that the biggest cause of our skepticism is actually the large amount of knowledge that we already possess about the world - knowledge insufficient, apparently, to understand everything completely... Science has helped us believe and disbelieve in many things. Science knows so much more than we can absorb. So nowadays - for those of us who need to belong and to believe - religion helps us overcome the fear of everything we hope to know, yet never can understand. Modernity, science and its technologies have inspired skeptics and fanatical believers of many stripes. Optimists, pessimists, the happily blessed, the carefree damned - we populate the world with curious ideas for many things - truth, the convictions we share, and the wish for reprieve from helpless doom. Sometimes we thrill at the pure joy of being alive - and so many of our "truths" lay far beyond the wildest possibilities of solemn certainty and laughable credulity... |
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Let me suggest that the way unto poetry is the instinct of imagination. But these words convey little of the main idea: the advance of civilization does not really depend on the redundant pronouncement of absolutes, but on the advance of profound and novel reflections... We speak the same tongues. But my mind cannot be yours. You feel because you are an individual. You know the truth by looking at it: the truth cannot be given to you. To seek is your answer. |
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My wish? To believe is my wish. But perhaps I never shall - believe... Maybe you believe in some "truths" already. Some men appear to be in advance of their time, but in fact, are only born with a talent for voicing what many have already realized - without being able to find words to express it... |
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"...none by travelling known lands can find out the unknown..." |
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It goes on and on doesn't it? I hope the sun will summon courage and show me her short skirts tomorrow, wherever she lurks... |
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Surrounding the Utse, the central temple, stand four large stupas: the red, the green, the white and the black... The stupa is a statuary edifice symbolizing a compact model of the Buddhist universe. In fact, the whole layout of the Samye Monastery actually represents a large emblem for the whole universal metaphysical structure of divine reality, and so, the perfect shape of human spiritual community. One sees its design repeated in the paintings that adorn the inner walls of the Utse temple. |
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A middle-aged Tibetan man pops out of a little cottage to unlock the Red Stupa. It's a reconstruction, I think. The Tibetan word for stupa is chorten. This chorten retains the original ideas of its Indian precursors. It resembles a big onion with a stem growing out of the top. Tibetan Buddhism deepened some of the symbolic value of this shrine: the pediments represent the Earth, the half-cone above is water, the ascending sphere is fire, the triangular spire is air and the very top, space... It signifies the dimensions and components of the sensible universe. Originally, the stupa was intended as a sanctified repository of religious offerings to the memory of important elders. It's also a place to consecrate the memory of the first Buddha, Shakyamuni. The stupa represents the "Buddha-mind" and symbolizes the actual reality - the supposed emptiness - underlying all impermanent and sensible phenomena. |
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Samye is a great place to stroll. Wander up the nearby hillside to overlook the whole fantastical place, or lazily explore the huge space of trees all around. Study the temples. Even with tourists and Tibetan pilgrims, the monastery never seems too busy. Few monks live here. Most temples are quite empty, except for their caretakers... |
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The Utse temple is something like a layer-cake: imagine three boxes set one within the other. Each box represents one of the perimeter walls encircling the innermost shrine. The Samye complex was the first monastery ever built in Tibet, and it was very much intended to serve as an eternal cornerstone for faith. This old temple was built solidly and its internal pediments are a couple of metres thick: multiple floors rise above the ground and on the top is a great view from a rooftop temple reminiscent of Japanese architectural forms, merely a coincidence. Upstairs, a modest apartment waits to welcome the Dalai Lama, should he chance to drop in for a visit. In this room, several relics, like the "skull" of Padmasambhava, are housed inside a glass case. The sunlight illumines a pretty thing made of embroidered fabric... |
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On the third floor I meet a young monk with nothing to do. Gladly, he helps me to identify some of the many deities and meditational incarnations of Buddha. Each special incarnation faces one of the four cardinal directions. The novice studies the iconographic diagrams I've prepared to help sort out the deities: there are so many Buddhas of the Five Families, various Vairocanas and Vilmalamitras and several Padmasambhavas... The young monk mixes them up at first, but then the pictures in the guidebook help him to remember who is who. The monk gives me his notebook and asks me to draw a picture and write some English names. |
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I return to the ground floor. Several monks have gathered in the main temple to make a large sand mandala at the foot of Tibet's great king. The mandala is a large disk representing a model of creation, a symbol for concentrating and purifying one's peaceful meditations. They work patiently: it's midsummer and the moment calls for celebration. Each monk holds a small metal tube filled up with colored sand; he taps lightly upon the file with a brass wand and the sand drops in fine lines upon the flat circle. The monks fill out an elaborate diagram full of concentric shapes and dancing skeletons... It's almost finished now. I get a last photo of an early Tibetan king, or perhaps this one is actually intended to be an incarnation of Padmasambhava, too. He's often given away by those bulging eyes and a pencil-thin moustache... |
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Outside again. In front of the temple a large truck is loaded with tourists and pilgrims almost ready to go. Everyone clings to the rails as children do to monkey bars. The truck is crowded. They go, finally, grey hair and brown together, bouncing slowly away. Bye bye. |
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Then it's quiet and I'm alone with some kids in the middle of Samye. A girl cradles and clings to a pale puppy. The animal is wet and trembling. The girl child is accompanied by a younger boy and another girl. The boy complains because he wants the dog for his own. I suggest to the girl that she put the poor creature inside her coat next to her tummy to keep it warm. I leave them for a temple beside the east wall. It's dark and there's nothing to see, except for a tiny deity, a little king, gazing upon the light of a butter wick... |
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Outside, the children have followed me with their spat. The girl still holds the dog and the little boy starts to cry because he really wants it. At first, she won't give it up: she has placed it inside her coat to warm it, as I told her to. Finally, to make the boy stop weeping, she drops the animal at his feet. The boy just looks down at it. The pup shivers, helpless for something to give warmth. I tell the boy to stop crying. But he won't even pick up the dog. The animal trembles but gets no comfort. I shake my head and wonder why the kid needs to be so selfish. I give up trying and go away. |
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Epilogue: |
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I've travelled down along the Tsangpo River from Samye to Tsetang, a big town. But here, I must turn around, since I've met my last and most stubborn Tibetan PSB officer. He has been instructed to turn back everyone travelling alone. He's matter-of-fact and doesn't need to question or berate me at all. He proves once again how mild the Tibetan spirit is, even while enforcing the Chinese decree. So, I'm polite and only ask for enough time in the morning to buy a carpet before I leave for Lhasa. (When I first arrived in Tsetang, I happened upon the local carpet factory by riding directly to it - all the way through town - without even knowing it was there!) So, I return in the morning to buy a colorful striped carpet made of wool, perhaps of goat and lamb both. |
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Something makes me impatient to go away now. I can't stand all these polite police watching my every breath. In Tsetang, a lot of Chinese soldiers are walking around in their olive uniforms, pretending to look important. I ride my bike along the street and meet five Chinese officers ambling together; so, I pitch an imaginary hardball right at their eager, fatuous grins. Because they win and Tibet loses. |
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Back in Lhasa, I have to wait a few days for my flight. One morning I wander over to the Johkang market square. The afternoon is giving us some sun - the first warmth after a week of gray rain. As I gaze upon the passersby strolling clockwise about the temple, I noticed a tallish monk standing next to me. That smile of his is pure curiosity. I say hello and ask if he speaks English. He tells me that he has come on a long journey across Tibet from Chamdo monastery. He has come with fellow monks to join in the Yogurt festival and to help make a new Mandala in the temple. I explain that I had visited Chamdo two summers previously, by bike from Yunnan, which I believe is perhaps the most lovely and awe-inspiring route into Tibet. The monk is cordial and invites me to watch the mandala making. This meeting reminds me that Tibetans can be very forward and unafraid of life. Later, I experience one last instance - a young student in a cafe. He shows me a notebook full of scratchy English sentences. So, I help correct his mistakes. |
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All Tibetans know that everyone who comes from outside must leave. We tourists don't know what they are going through. We can't begin to see through the pleasant, deceptive artifice of tourism. We don't see how free the Tibetans imagine us to be. No matter how silent and resigned they are - Tibetans remain ever hopeful. The local people endure domination by a foreign militaristic technocracy, which they are absolutely powerless to budge. To speak any opinion besides those favored by their Chinese governors can only land a Tibetan in jail. It seems quite unlikely that all Tibetan folk will give up their religion right away. Most still need it to subdue their wearied sense of alienation. Home usurped and heart silenced - the people are inexorable and good: the Tibetans go on - suffering hope for a freedom more real than they can make come true, today, on this Earth. |
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~ the end ~ |
