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Before leaving for Asia, I e-mailed Alan and asked him if
he had a guidebook for Tibet. “No,” he
replied, “we don’t need a guidebook.
We’ll just wing it.” I didn’t
like that plan, so I went to the mall to look for a guidebook. There must not be a big demand in
He
showed up with the only one he could find, which was The Tibet Guide, by Stephen Batchelor. I give you this information so that, if you
have been enticed into making your own trip to Tibet after reading my rhapsodic
account of the land of mystery, you will know which guidebook not to buy. I will go even further than that and warn you
away from any book containing a jacket-cover endorsement by Richard Gere.
Except
for the map on page one and its description of the Potala Palace, the book was
almost worthless. It seems to be more of
a pilgrim guide than a guide for tourists.
The forward written by the Dalai Lama should have been a tip-off. For each city, it gives the location of all
the Buddhist temples and monasteries, but says nothing about hotels, places to
eat, or bus stations. Despite all the
detailed descriptions of the numerous temples and monasteries, no mention is
ever made of the fact that they all charge admission. I suppose that money is not of concern to
rich Hollywood Buddhists like Richard Gere.
That might explain why a paperback guidebook containing less than 400
pages cost $25.00, even after the acknowledged support of Richard Gere and
Harrison Ford.
A
substantial portion of the book is taken up by a description of Tibetan
Buddhism and an “Iconographical Guide,” which is meant to aid in identifying
the various statues of deities. The
Iconographical Guide contains helpful information such as:
The bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara once took a vow to save all beings from suffering, but when he realized the magnitude of his task his head exploded into countless pieces. His body was then reassembled by the Buddha Amitabha and the bodhisattva Vajrapani into a much more powerful form with eleven heads and a thousand arms.
Instead of guidance on where I should go to purchase an airline ticket, that’s what I got.
Toiletry Habits
It is true that you don’t appreciate what you have in America until you go overseas and are forced to do without. During my time in Asia, I was truly a king without a throne. Between stays at Mike’s apartment in Wuhan, I never used a Western style, sit-down toilet. Most of the toilets throughout the mainland and Tibet are “squatties.” They are little more than porcelain-lined holes in the floor. They flush, but often without enough force to get the job done, and it seems that no amount of accumulation resulting from inadequate flushing can deter a Chinese from adding his own contribution to the problem. They also have very poor aim, so not only might you not like what you see in the toilet, but you also might not like what you see on the floor beside the toilet. The toilets cannot handle toilet paper, so used toilet paper in dropped in an open basket in each stall (if there is a stall). Of course, toilet paper is never supplied, so you must carry your own roll with you at all times.
All in all, it seems to be a pretty lousy system, and yet the Chinese see nothing appealing about Western-style toilets. Alan has a friend who works on one of the luxury cruise ships on the Yangtze River. He told Alan that the ship was made in the West for Western tourists, so it contained only Western-style sit-down toilets. That was fine for the passengers, but it just didn’t sit well with the Chinese crew. In the crew’s quarters, they built raised wooden platforms around the toilets so that they could squat over them.
In Tibet, people are less finicky about their toilets – the ground between their feet, wherever they might be standing, will do just fine. When walking on the sidewalk, I would have to pay careful attention to avoid stepping in human feces. In Shigatse, we made the mistake of going down an alleyway. It looked like a herd of buffalo had gone through there. The stench was overpowering. When our bus would stop to give people a break, the passengers would make little attempt to find privacy behind a wall or a bush. Old women would hike their skirts and squat and pee ten feet in front of me. Children were even worse. In Mainland China, I saw little kids urinating on the sidewalk, but they did more than that in Tibet. In Shigatse, we saw a little boy pull down his pants and defecate on a busy sidewalk. He did this directly in front of a public restroom. The restroom charges a fee, but it is only two jiao, which is less than three cents. I’m not sure whether the kid lacked the cash or was trying to make his own unique statement about fee-for-service restrooms.
An even more revolting incident occurred on our return bus trip from Shigatse to Lhasa. A little boy needed to use the restroom and his father decided he couldn’t wait until the next stop, even though the bus seemed to be stopping every thirty minutes. The father escorted the boy up the aisle of the bus to the door and then the boy urinated on the steps while the bus was moving and the doors were still closed. Consequently, for the rest of the trip, every time the bus stopped, the passengers had to walk through the boy’s urine as they got on and off the bus.
Has the communist revolution in China been a success? Mao and his red cohorts promised the revolution would do the following: eliminate distinction between classes that was a hold-over from feudal times, eliminate government corruption, and do away with the marks of cultural decadence such as gambling and prostitution.
Here
is what I observed. An upper and a lower
class are clearly distinguishable and the upper class wouldn’t have it any
other way. Those with money and
privilege avoid public transportation and certain styles of dress so as not to
be mistaken for the wrong kind of people.
Whereas the elite of ancient China was composed of the warlords and
Mandarins, the elite of today’s PRC is composed of high-level government
bureaucrats and party members. They live
a life set far apart from that of the typical Chinese peasant. In this sense, little has changed, although
most Chinese refuse to acknowledge it.
Nothing angers a Chinese quicker than referring to Chairman Mao as
Emperor Mao.
As
for corruption, I’ve already explained how government services and resources
are distributed through a well-entrenched system of bribes and gon shee.
Gambling? The government has just recently instituted
state lotteries.
Prostitution? Oh, boy.
I have previously mentioned the streetwalkers I saw in Lhasa. In Mainland China, they are a bit more
sophisticated – the prostitutes there operate out of “barber shops,” complete
with rotating barber poles out front.
These barbershops are almost as plentiful as noodle shops. There seems to be at least one on every block
and they are always open late into the evenings. Before Alan explained to me what they were, I
naively assumed they were ordinary barbershops.
However, it seemed odd that they were dimly lit and had smoked glass
storefronts. “How can they see how to
cut hair in there?,” I wondered. There
would be young girls in short skirts and high heels reclining on couches just
inside the door. As we would pass by,
they would sometimes wave us in. “I’m
way out here in the street. How can they
tell from in there whether or not I need a haircut?”
When
I went looking for a barber in Wuhan, I made sure I took Gloria with me. I wanted a haircut, but I didn’t want a
“haircut.” We passed up several shops
until we found one where we saw little kids sitting inside and no back room
containing beds. I was charged US$.60
for my haircut. That’s better than in
Kosova where I was charged $.75. I’m
sure that a “haircut” would have cost much more.
What was my overall impression of my trip to Asia?
I
had a good time. I hope my fussy e-mails
didn’t convince you otherwise. I know I
had a lot to complain about, but complaining is half the fun. If I wanted to avoid complaints, I should
have stayed on my couch. Yes, there was
more than one occasion when I found myself closing my eyes, gritting my teeth,
and humming My Country ‘Tis of Thee, but there were also many enjoyable
moments: Looking at Hong Kong from atop Victoria Peak, stepping off an airplane
on top of the world, gliding through the Three Gorges on a riverboat, and
eating a good meal with good friends. I
didn’t make it to Mt. Everest, but I did get to see Tibet and have my picture
taken in front of the Potala Palace.
Tibet didn’t measure up to my expectations, but now I’ve satisfied the
enduring urge to go there. Overall, my
month in Asia was much better than a month in a cubicle in Little Rock. (Still, if you decide you want to see Mt.
Everest, I would advise going through Nepal.)
If nothing else, my trip taught me to be thankful for being born in
America and not take it for granted.
Thank you God, for the freedom I enjoy, and please help the Chinese
people to some day know that same freedom.
I
don’t have any immediate plans for
another trip, but I am currently taking a Spanish class at night . . .