Jun 2007

This morning, I had the opportunity to go along with some friends who were making this a devotional day, being the last day of Saga Dawa. They decided to perform full body prostrations (chak tsel) around the Potala palace. Full prostrations are a common form of devotion here. You can see people performing them clockwise everyday around the Jokhang, the Potala and even the Lingkor, which takes three hours just to walk.

The prostrator starts by putting the palms together and touching the forehead, throat and heart, then kneeling. The body is then stretched out until the nose and forehead touch the ground. The hands are stretched out in front then brought over the head, palms together. Then, the individual pulls back to the knees, stands up, walks three steps (or the full body distance), and performs it all over again, while praying.

This is a strenuous activity, and really serious prostrators, some of whom have prostrated from their homes to Lhasa, have large callouses on their foreheads and noses from the repeated touching to the ground.

I went along as a helper. My job was to carry and provide drinks or food or whatever, to those who were actually prostrating. In order to get this done before it got hot, we were at the Potala about a quarter after 5 this morning. The Potala korra takes maybe half an hour to walk if one walks at a reasonable pace. To circumambulate it with prostrations takes anywhere from 5 to 7 hours. (I hears someone say three, but I don't buy that. You'd have to really be booking to make it in three.) So, the prostrations started at 5:30 this morning...in the rain. It had been raining during the night and was drizzling when we left. The walkway around the Potala is incredibly uneven, making large puddles everywhere. Not only was it going to be a long and strenuous morning for my friends, but a cold and wet one as well.

I waited to make sure they didn't need anything, then I began walking the korra. It was nice to walk while it was still dark and people couldn't tell I was a foreigner. Once the sun came up, there were masses of people, most with a comment, although for once, the fat comments were not so prevalent. Mostly people were thrilled to see a foreigner wearing a chuba. Women would ask me if I was alone or if I had friends on the korra, and guys would give me a thumbs up. My butt was only touched twice, by women who were really happy to see my chuba.

Every time I came around the korra, I would ask my friends if they needed anything. I, myself, took a few rests along the way. Each korra is a little over a mile, and while I started out walking rather quickly, my shoes were soon soaked and it is a bit painful to walk in wet socks, although that is nothing compared to full body prostrations.

My friends managed to complete the korra in five and a half hours, a good time in the rain, when the hands aren't sliding so well, and the clothes are heavy. They even stopped for a longish rest with Tibetan tea and bread on the back side of the Potala.

I wore my pedometer today and burned over a pound just by doing korra. Another friend has agreed to go with me everyday if I want, so that I can get a little more exercise in than I already get from walking almost every day.

By the time the morning was over, I could not even count the number of times I had heard, "A ma!" a Tibetan expression of surprise, which slipped from many mouths when people saw my chuba. It was nice, though. They say the rain makes Lhasa people happy, and I definitely have to agree. People all seemed to be in a good mood today.

First of all, I want to say that my photos, such as they are, have been updated at: community.webshots.com/user/michab3. If you are interested, take a look.

The last week has been remarkably uneventful. At the beginning of the week, we had a meeting to tell us a few "important" things. The first was that there were a lot of students not coming to class and leaving Lhasa without telling the office. In the beginning class, there is now only a single student, and will be until the end of July--poor girl. My own class has had the best attendance, with 75% (3 out of 4) almost every single day. A couple of days there have only been two of us, but that is rare. The intermediate class has the worst attendance. Most of the students are still here (which is not the case with the beginners) but they choose not to come. They are, in fact, missing a teacher, which the office has refused to replace, so they are paying for a class they aren't taking because there is no instructor. An example of the Chinese system. I learned last night that my class, and the other pre-intermediate class will be losing a teacher before the end of the semester, because she is taking a summer English course at the University of Oslo in Norway. My guess is that we won't receive a replacement either.

The second topic, people leaving and not telling the office, was of particular importance. We each have a small blue book which we must give to the office whenever we leave Lhasa so they can record where we go and when we leave and return. However, for weekend trips, none of us have ever bothered about it. This time, though, a couple of students went to Xining, a city far from Lhasa---wait, everything is far from Lhasa... Anyway, they went and didn't tell the office, and were gone for over a week. They got their panties in a twist because if "anything happens, we don't know and can't help." Also, if a student does something inappropriate, the university is responsible and someone would undoubtedly get in trouble. Of course, they also report where we go to the PSB, Public Security Bureau. That way, the government can also keep track of where we go. Nice, huh?

The third topic had to do with a thief in the building. Two people had things stolen from their rooms, without damage to the door. This meant one of two things. Either, someone had the key, meaning the reception staff, or someone went in through a kitchen window, meaning a child or very small person. Apparently, the office ruled out the possibility of someone from the staff. That is "impossible". After all, they have worked here so long, and are trusted. (Personally, I don't trust them that much. They are sneaky, lazy, and sometimes one has been completely insane.) It never occurred to them that it might be the child of the maintenance man and his little friend. They were stealing things from people all winter because they were running around here completely unsupervised. Instead, it had to be someone's friend or language partner doing the stealing. It seems a bit farfetched to me that it wouldn't be someone with a key.

That was the gist of the meeting.

What else? There was something I was going to write about... I'll think of it eventually.

So, the official last day of class is July 20th. Looking forward to that. I have to say though, that life is pretty easy here. The last couple of weeks, friends and I have spent almost every afternoon drinking tea and hanging out. There are a lot of really attractive guys out and about now. The eye candy is nice.

All right. I'm just kinda babbling now. I'll write again soon.

Friday was the birthday of one of my friends here. If there is one thing we all like to do here, it's celebrate, regardless of the reason. We make up things to celebrate. Friday, though, we had an actual reason to go out and do a little partying.

The celebrating started at lunch time. A group of us went to a really nice vegetarian restaurant--one of three that we know of in Lhasa, and by far the best. It is truly amazing what the Chinese have learned to do with tofu and various soy products to create fake meat. The particular restaurant we went to is owned by Drikung Monastary outside of Lhasa. The monk who runs it is a young rinpoche (high lama) from Drikung. He's quite funny, a member of the recently formed Lhasa Drama Club, and speaks English with an American accent, which surprised me when I met him.

Anyway, the food is excellent there, but a little pricey, so we don't go often. The birthday girl is a vegetarian, so it was the best choice for the celebratory meal. After a leisurely meal of various types of fake meat and a number of vegetable and noodle dishes, some of us decided to visit a Khampa restaurant on the Bharkor and spend the afternoon drinking tea. The hope was that there would be some eye candy for us to occupy our time with. Unfortunately, the majority of the customers that day were monks.

We left the restaurant after several hours of drinking tea and playing Truth or Dare, which mostly ended up being truth. Dinner didn't matter, but we planned on going to a nangma later in the evening to see a show. We went to a rather large nangma around 10pm, since most of the shows start between 10 and 10:30. Stephanie and I had visited this nangma previously, but the show was drastically changed to accommodate the Chinese tourists who have been flooding the city. Most of the songs were in Chinese, although a few were Tibetan, and there were a few more dances than before, which was nice. One dace involved the whole troupe of guys dancing without shirts. While most Tibetan guys are too skinny for my taste (I don't like seeing rib bones), their backs were quite nice.

Around 1am, the birthday girl and one of the others decided to call it a night and went home. The rest of us, a total of four, went to Tang Club to do some dancing before turning in. When we got to Tang Club, we found some space on the dance floor and danced happily, avoiding disgusting, middle-aged Chinese guys, and younger guys trying to invade our personal space. This lasted until about 2:30am, when suddenly, two guys pulled out knives and made ready to fight on our side of the room.

Bar fights in the States tend to involve fists, maybe some handy paraphenalia from the bar, and sometimes a real weapon. The thing about Tibetan guys here that come to bars, is that a lot of them tend to be Khampa, which means a knife is part of regular attire. When I say knife, though, I don't mean a pocket knife, something small used for cleaning fingernails, slicing apples, and opening packages. I mean a Knife, with an 8 or 10 inch blade, designed to inflict a great deal of harm on someone or something.

Now, the problem with Tang Club is that there is not enough space for security to quickly and effectively reach people who are fighting, unlike Babila, where security has easy access to everyone, and fights are stopped before they are begun by the sheer number of security guards and military men they keep around. So, when these guys started fighting, there was only one security guard close enough to do anything and unfortunately, he wasn't successful in separating these two men.

The second that we heard glass breaking, my friends and I high-tailed it outside to await the outcome. This was a long time in coming. Shortly after we went out, a young man ran out of the club, followed by half a dozen security guards, who chased him around the parking lot. I'm not sure what happened to him, but a few minutes later, the guards went back inside, where the lights were still down and the music was still playing.

Then, guys started coming out with blood on their shirts. It clearly wasn't their own, but someone who obviously had been Knifed inside. One young man came out wiping blood off his face and neck. When he passed us, we could see that the back of his shirt was covered, nearly soaked in blood that didn't seem to be his own. He was standing in the parking lot talking with a friend, when almost a dozen security guards came out and made a bee-line straight for him, carrying night sticks and long, thin metal rods. They surrounded this guy and we were sure he was going to be beaten, but apparently, he wasn't in trouble. The guards spoke to him for a bit, then went back inside. He got in a cab with his friends and left.

We waited a bit more hoping for some indication of what had happened inside. No one who was injured was brought out of the building, nor were any medical personnel summoned. Instead, six police officers showed up in a van. Obviously someone was hurt inside the club, but it was not emptied. In fact, new people were allowed in, where the music continued to play.

After the van of police officers showed up, we left, but not before we saw three guys run out from the side of the strip of buildings and make it out onto the streets; involved parties, no doubt. The saddest thing is that those guys were most likely fighting over nothing important.

It is strange. Knowing that guys here carry knives like that, and knowing that they are prone to fighting when drunk (almost every Tibetan guy I have met here says that he fights when he drinks), they don't do a body check at the door of the club and force people to check their weapons.

Hopefully, it will be a long time before I see something like that again.