Nov 2006

This entry is going to be a catch-up on the last couple of weeks. My friends and I went to Drikung for the second time, let me think...four weekends ago, since it is already well into Monday for me. Since then, I have had a few interesting experiences.

After we returned from Drikung, I discovered that I had an allergy to some food that I had eaten, so I spent the better part of that week covered in an itchy, welty rash. This is interesting because at home, I have yet to find anything I am allergic to. I have a guess about what it was here, but no firm decision was made.

So, aside from that, the week was uneventful. The weekend, however was another story. On Friday night, three of my friends went out on the town, such as it is here. They returned home at 3:30am, quite drunk, and consequently spent the day lounging in bed. I declined the invitation to go out, since I am not really into that kind of thing.

Saturday night, we were sitting in our favorite restaurant, eating our food in the dark (more on the darkness later) and Stephanie and Doris decided they wanted to go out again. I said I would go with so that there was someone to keep an eye on their things while they were drinking and dancing.

No problem there. It was still relatively early when we left the restaurant, so we found a little place down the street and I had a Sprite while the others had a beer. Finally, at about 11:30, we hopped in a cab and went to a nangma. Now, nangmas are an interesting phenomenon. We think they have evolved out of the Chinese love of karaoke, and the natural Tibetan inclination to sing every chance they get. Inside the nangma we went to, the first floor was filled with people sitting around tables and on couches, drinking and listening to the performer. Upstairs were more tables and recessed couches, but all providing a decent view of the stage. The performance is somewhat like a variety show, with an emphasis on the singing and some instrument playing. Every so often there is a production number or a comedy piece. For the most part, however, the performer sings two songs, and during this time, people from the audience walk onto the stage and present katas (ceremonial scarves) to the performers. The more katas a performer has, the more popular he/she is, and the more songs they perform, up to perhaps 5 songs.

Every so often, there is a break, maybe every 30-45 minutes. During this time, the people in the audience all come up onto the stage and dance. Now, unlike in America where everyone dances with their own style and separated, the Tibetans at the nangmas prefer to begin the dance as a kor-shay, or circle dance. Everyone knows the proper feet and hand movements, and everyone dances in a circle, until the young guys get a bit enthusiastic and go crazy on the dance floor.

This continues for a while, perhaps 10 or 15 minutes. Then, the performance begins again. This goes on and on, while the people get drunker and drunker. We aren't really sure what time the nangmas close. On this Saturday night, we left the nangma at 3:30am, after Stephanie and Doris had jointly consumed eight beers. But, we did not go home.

Instead, we went to Babila, the only dance club/bar in town. Unlike the nangma, there is no traditional music, only modern dance music, with a dj, a small dance floor, and a lot of booze and flashing lights. It is like a transplanted modern club from the States, or from Europe. Everything is mirrors and metal. The choice of alcoholic drinks is quite limited, however. Either a person may have beer, or he may have Chivas Regal whiskey. Unlike in other places, though, you may not purchase a shot of whiskey, you must purchase the entire bottle, which is somewhere in the neighborhood of $50-$60. And then, one still does not drink straight shots, but rather, the whiskey is mixed with Chinese iced tea, a drink so sweet that it makes the teeth hurt when consumed alone. When it is mixed with whiskey, it is actually acceptable to drink.

Now, I am not really the kind of person to get drunk and dance--certainly not dance. However, we met some acquaintances of Stephanie and Doris' from the night before, and he (the other man was drunk, passed out on the table) insisted on paying for drinks, something the men always do here, and offered me some whiskey while Doris and Stephanie were dancing. I politely declined, but he insisted, so he and I drank some whiskey together, and before long, I was indeed, drunk, having done several shots of whiskey on an empty stomach at 4:00am. By 4:15, I was dancing, and at 5am, we decided to leave and do circumambulations around the Jokhang, since it was only a couple of hours until 7am when they unlock the door to our building. (The curfew is 11:30pm--this just means they lock the door with a chain from the inside and we must wake up one of the reception girls downstairs so that she can unlock the door.) It made a lot of sense at the time...

So, off we went to the Jokhang, and we did circumambulations until a little after 6am, but by then, we were too cold to stay out, so we made our way back to the dorm. Luckily, though, we did not have to wake anyone up to get in the building. One of the kitchen girls was already awake, and she was kind enough to let us in through the kitchen.

The next day, Sunday, was our first pot luck in Tibet. Another American, Rachel, and I planned it and invited our teachers, and anyone who wanted to come. It was set for 3:00pm, and I had had a yak pot roast cooking in my slow cooker for an entire day. I will say this about yak--it smells terrible, both raw and while it is cooking, but it tastes just like beef. Rachel, Lauren and I had gone on Saturday afternoon to buy the roast, and managed to get a reasonable discount out of the butcher because we are students, and because Rachel begged so nicely while batting her eyelashes. So, the pot roast was ready, and with the help of Stephanie and Doris, we made mashed potatoes (Doris took off part of her finger nail with the peeler) and fried apples.

When we went upstairs for lunch, it was wonderful. Quite a number of people attended, and everyone brought delicious food, including our teachers (except for one teacher who brought some really unpleasant cheese that had been mixed with butter and sugar. Normally this would be tasty, but when made with yak products, it is pretty yucky. I did try it though...) Over all, the afternoon was a great success. Some of us stayed upstairs until almost 7pm, just chatting and enjoying ourselves.

The next week passed without much of importance happening. On Friday, the culture class went to Sera monastery (which I have a few photos of that I must post.) Sera is an important monastery just on the edge of Lhasa. It was mostly destroyed during the Cultural Revolution, but has been rebuilt. There are, however, significantly fewer monks than there used to be. It was quite beautiful, as monasteries tend to be here. Unfortunately, we were unable to take photos inside of the temples, unless we paid. (Sorry, guys. I didn't feel like paying, and it is a bit strange to take pictures in holy place, anyway.) There was one particularly interesting note--there was one particular chapel in which women were not allowed to step foot. They said it would offer some offense to the deity within.

That Friday, a large group of us went to Namtso, our favorite restaurant, for a little farewell party for a fellow classmate, who had visa trouble and was going back to the States. After dinner, a bunch of us decided to go to Babila (mostly it was Ingrid. She had a bad day. It's a bit of a funny story. She received a package from home, Norway, containing all kinds of presents and an Advent calendar with chocolate, but the package was mistakenly delivered to an orphanage, and they took out half of the contents, meaning presents and chocolate, before returning it to the post office. No one at the post office could tell Ingrid what had happened to her stuff, and when the director of the orphanage showed up to explain, she had already been crying in the post office for a couple of hours trying to get a straight story. Now, when she found out that orphans had possession of her things from home, she felt bad that she was so upset about her stuff. At the same time though, no one offered her compensation for her stolen items.)

So, we went to Babila, and even though it was only about 10:30 when we got there, it was jam-packed with people. Palden, whose party it was, got us a table upstairs and promptly paid for drinks all around, meaning a bottle of whiskey and the tea to mix with it. Until somewhere around 2:30am, we were there, dancing and drinking, and for some inexplicable reason, my dancing, such as it was, was quite popular. I also had a stalker friend, a rather middle-aged Tibetan man who would not leave me alone. I told him I wasn't interested. In fact, I told him I only like girls (a blatant lie, I know) just to get him to go away. It didn't work. It took about three hours of ignoring him before he went away.

After about 2:30, some of our group was ready to go home, so several left, and Stephanie, Doris and I stayed until 4:30am. This time, when we returned to the dorm, one of our friends was still awake and she was kind enough to sneak down the hall and unlock the door for us.

The rest of the weekend was uneventful. Monday came, and during lunch time, I went with Stephanie, Michael, and Mr. Hong to visit one of his masters who lives in town. He was a really nice man, and we sat in his sitting room drinking Tibetan sweet tea, eating cookies, and chatting in a combination of Chinese, Tibetan, and English. We left his place about 4pm and went around the corner to the place where they make the wood blocks for pecha (Tibetan book) printing. Unlike some more traditional places, this publishing house has lasers that make the wood blocks.

After that, we went to the Barkhor so that Mr. Hong could find some mandala paintings to send home to his monastery in South Korea. There were some disappointments before he found what he was looking for at the price he wanted. He stood, arguing with a woman for the better part of an hour, while Michael, Stephanie and I made friends with the stall-keepers around.

During the course of our chatting, a young man walked up to me, pulled my hand out of my pocket and stood holding it, while he said how much he liked me, how pretty I was, and when Stephanie asked if he was married and he said no, he promptly told me we should get married. I can honestly say it is the first marriage proposal I have received, but unfortunately, I had to turn him down. After all, he was only 23, and I found out later, already married. I have heard from others that marriage proposals to Western women are rather common here, so perhaps there will be more eligible proposals in the future...

Other than that, I did spend the week doing some Christmas shopping. It seems early, but it takes about a month for mail to make it to the States from here. So, I went shopping three days in a row last week, and say many beautiful, but expensive things which I could not buy and many things which I would not buy because of the low quality. It is quite frustrating to shop here sometimes, because there are no real mid-priced, mid-quality goods. The majority of things are either high-quality, high-price or low-quality, low-price (for those who know how to bargain, not for the tourists.)

This weekend, though, I decided to try my hand at baking at this altitude, which I have heard is quite difficult. I made chocolate chip cookies, using dark chocolate Dove bars as chocolate chips. While there was some difficulty removing the cookies from the trays, texture- and flavor-wise, they were a great success, and I think I will be making more for Thanksgiving.

On the topic of Thanksgiving, I would like to say that while we won't be celebrating it this week, we will be celebrating next weekend, complete with a turkey! Rachel heard of a man who imported turkeys for Thanksgiving, and we went down to his shop by the Potala, and sure enough, he had a 16lb turkey in his case, which we bought. He only had two turkeys, the other only about 5lbs. So, now we have a turkey, which we will be deep-frying, because there isn't an oven large enough to bake a turkey. Also, if the box from my dad comes through ok, there will be cranberries to make cranberry sauce with, and if my sister can find it, there will be Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving special as well. Of course, we will be inviting our teachers as well, after all, part of this experience is cultural exchange.

Now, onto the subject of weather. It is getting progressively colder, as is to be expected during the winter time, however, the problem is with the heating. The Lhasa electric company does not produce enough electricity to power the entire city during the evening time. Consequently, there are rolling blackouts, and the university is not allowed to turn the heat on until 11:30pm. It is quite interesting to be walking through a city that is half dark. The other night, Stephanie, Doris and I were returning from shopping, and the power was out in the part of the city we were walking in. That did not stop us, however, from eating stick food in the Muslim quarter. A good friend told me that I should not miss the potato balls, and man, was he right! Imagine mashed potatoes, formed into balls, deep-fried, and covered in salty, spicy goodness. <sigh> They are really, really, really good. Luckily, there was electricity at the university, but because they don't turn the heat on until 11:30, it is frigid when you go to sleep, and they usually turn it off pretty early in the morning, so it is frigid again when you wake up. It's pretty difficult to shower when it is 35 degrees in your room when you step out of the bathroom.

So, we are trying to get used to the cold, and everyone is wearing more clothing, and drinking more hot water, but having to deal with fairly regular power outages, or, like the other night, no gas, because our maintainence man doesn't always pay attention to his job. Anyway...

That's pretty much it for the last two weeks. Let me know if there is something specific anyone wants from Tibet, so I can get it and ship it with everything for Christmas.

Ok, so it's 6:30am, and so cold outside! As beautiful as the view is from Drikung's public toilet, all you want to do is be finished! At 7am, we all pile back into Mr. Hong's car and make our way back down the mountain to Terdrom nunnery, about 40 minutes away. At 7:50, we were separating, men and women, to go into the hot springs, for which I would like to say, no one except Mr. Hong was prepared. No flip flops, no towel, no bathing clothes. So, Stephanie, Doris and I walked into the changing area in front of the women's half of the hot spring, wondering what we were going to wear in the spring. We looked around the corner and realized--nothing... The Tibetan women were all naked in the spring.

So, we all took a deep breath, stripped down and got in the water. Aside from the staring, which was surprisingly at a minimum, it was a wonderful experience to be immersed in hot, hot water, with the coldness outside, and the sometimes disappointing nature of the showering in the dorms, (every so often, when the weather is overcast, the hot water disappears because the heating operates mainly by solar energy.) So, we spent twenty to thirty minutes in the water, then had to get out--it was extremely hot.

It was also interesting to be the only foreigners in the spring and to observe the women there. While they did not wear any clothing in the spring, they continued to wear their jewelry, and of course, the nomad women had the stones in their hair. It was quite aesthetic. Furthermore, because the springs are holy, blessed with healing powers by Padmasambhava, many of them prayed the whole time they were in the water.

When we exited the water, we then had to decide which piece of clothing to dry off with, which we then could not wear because it would be soaked. So, with that decision made, we dried, dressed and met Mr. Hong and Michael outside. We went to the small restaurant there and while we were eating, Mr. Hong told us that we would be visiting another highly advanced teacher, a woman, this time, a dakini.

After breakfast, he asked a nun the way to where this woman was staying. She pointed up the mountain, and said she was near a cave. Well, aside from Mr. Hong, none of us had ever visited any caves, but the mountain was quite high, and I was a little discouraged, and honestly, a little ticked at Mr. Hong for not really letting us know what we were getting into by going on a weekend trip with him. But, it is difficult to stay mad at a monk, so I got over it, and we started up the mountain.

Pretty quickly, I fell behind the rest, and Michael agreed to stay back with me, going slowly, and if I decided I could not continue, he said he would stop as well. So, as we made our way slowly up the side of the mountain, we developed a system of determining short goals, consisting of blob rocks (dirt piles with lichen growing on them), yak poo piles, grey flowers, and prickly bushes. We took turns pointing out the next goal (ex. "Let's make it to the pile of three yak poos.") I will say that I am not ashamed it took me three hours to make it to the small gompa. I made it and that is all that matters.

The view from this mountain is spectacular, and if anyone reading this ever goes to Terdrom, I highly suggest climbing at least partway up to get the view. On the neighboring mountain, is a herd of yaks that slowly make their way up, down, and around the mountain. In fact, we encountered a yak in our path on the way up. He was beautiful, and eating his tether rope.

There is a river that runs between the nunnery and the mountain we were climbing. Across the river and up the sides of the mounains are strung thousands of prayer flags, there are birds flying, and on the side we were on, some nomads were camping with their ponies. Further up the side of the opposite mountain, are some of the holy caves in which Padmasambhava meditated, with more flags, and for a reasonable cost of $7000, you can have a hut built above the nunnery so that you too can meditate in this idyllic locale.

As we continued up the mountain, it was clear that the mountains here are young. The blob rocks seem to be the displacement of the earth from the upward movement of the mountain. They occur at fairly regular intervals, all the way across the mountain. Nothing has been smoothed down, and worn flat over time. As we continued, up, the path got steeper and rockier, but the view was just as beautiful. Unfortunately, it is difficult to admire the view when one is out of breath.

Also at regular intervals, there were piles of stones, placed as prayers beside the path. As we approached one particularly large pile of stones, Michael announced that it was the top of the mountain--it wasn't, for which he apologized profusely. Luckily, the actual top of the mountain was not too far away. When we reached it though, and were able to look over the top of the mountain, we saw--nothing. I was feeling pretty unpleasant at this point (aside from being out of breath, and not owning hiking shoes, which is not good for the feet, I was also getting cold, because I was missing my shirt/impromptu towel. I had a thermal silk shirt and a hoodie, but at that altitude, with the wind, it was not quite enough.) So, we continued over the top of the mountain, following the path, and following the path, and following the path. It continued for quite a while, though luckily across the mountain in a fairly level manner.

At one point, I sat down to take a break, and Michael continued on to the top of a small ridge, to see what he could see, and he shouted back that he found it! Well, I got up, made my way to the top of the ridge, and sure enough, in the distance, on the other side of a small valley, across a semi-frozen stream, there was indeed a small gompa. So, we continued, and as we got closer, we saw Mr. Hong run out of the gompa, shouting, "Michael! Michael!" Then, he waited until we were closer, then came over to us, and walked the rest of the way in with us.

When we got into the nunnery, it consisted of perhaps three or four buildings and I'm sure, there were only a few nuns living there with the Khandro-ma. I, for one, was relieved that they did not have the traditional butter tea, but rather delicious plain tea of some sort.

Now, while this elderly woman that we met may indeed have advanced spiritual knowledge, she looked and acted, for all the world, like anyone's grandmother. She did not want us to do any prostrations and sat with us on a mattress on the porch in front of the small main temple, and she freely held hands with whomever was closest to her.

After Michael and I had rested for a bit, she sent us upstairs to visit their assembly room, then had the main temple opened for us. All the while, her tortoise-shell cat wandered around, in and out of the temple, and in and out of people's laps.

Finally, Mr. Hong decided it was time to leave, and on our way out, this lovely woman gave Stephanie the phone number of the gompa so that all of us could keep in touch. To date, however, whenever Stephanie has called, no one has picked up the phone. And Mr. Hong promised we would return.

The trip back down the mountain was, of course, much faster, and unlike previous trips, I did not need any assistance, whatsoever, on my descent. So, we made our way back to the car, during which time, a nun asked me for my glasses, and I lost my hat.

Because we spent so much time on the mountain, we had to skip the visit to Drepung monastery that Mr. Hong had planned. Instead, we came back to Lhasa, only stopping to eat by the side of the road. At that point, however, I was too tired even to eat. I think we were all happy, though to be back in Lhasa. It was one crazy weekend.

Sorry, I know it's been a long time since I last wrote. Things haven't actually been too busy here, except on the weekends, but the internet and the electricity have gotten rather sketchy, often going out several times a day for anywhere from an hour to three hours.

Ok, so the last time I wrote, I had been to Drikung monastery, and had a blast, although difficult time climbing to see the sky burial site. Well, when Stephanie and I returned, we met Mr. Hong, a monk studying here, and he told us that we would go to Drikung together, since one of his masters is at Drikung, and we should meet him. On Friday, immediately after class, five of us, and Mr. Hong, piled into his car with our scant belongings and left for the monastery, where we would be staying the night, before going on to Terdrom nunnery and Ganden monastery the next day.

In an effort to make the most of our time, Mr. Hong even had the cafeteria pack a lunch for us to eat on the way, so about two hours into our drive, we stopped at a rather scenic spot on the side of the road (what, in the Tibetan countryside is not scenic?) and unpacked our lunch. While we were eating, with mountains on one side, and a rather small, picturesque monastery on the other side, a group of men, going home from somewhere, came upon us eating, and decided to walk up to us and watch. That was an interesting experience. I never knew eating could be a spectator sport. Here, though, especially when the eaters are foreign, it is.

After lunch, and after our friends continued on their way, we continued to the monastery. When we arrived, we immediately visited the main temple of the monaster, Stephanie and I greeting some of the folks we had met previously. Then, acquiring a resident of the monastery as a guide, we began our ascent up the mountain to meet Mr. Hong's master.

Now, little did we know that there would be climbing involved in this venture, but we should have. In Tibet, there is little that does not involve climbing. So, as we made our way up the side of the mountain above the monastery, I thought I was gonna die. The path was quite steep, and rather narrow in places. Furthermore, it did not help that Mr. Hong is as proficient at mountain climbing as any Tibetan and booked it up the path, where he and our guide would sit chuckling at my lack of abilities and breath.

Eventually, we made it to our destination, a small hut where Mr. Hong's master has lived for something like 30 years. In defense of this (for me) really horrible climb up the mountain, we were granted the opportunity to actually go inside the hut to perform our prostrations, meet this yogi, and converse with him, something that the pilgrims who visit him do not even get to do. Instead, they perform their prostrations outside the hut, and give their offerings and receive their blessings through a window.

So, we entered, and the six of us stood in line, waiting to make our prostrations and offerings. I was fourth to make prostrations and offerings. (On that note, I would like to say that I practiced doing prostrations in my room the night before, and despite that, I'm sure I looked like an uncoordinated idiot.) After which, there were two behind me before we were all crouched rather uncomfortably in a room the size of a small walk-in closet. Now, one of the nice things about this meeting was that we were supposed to speak with this man, who despite his 50 some years on this earth, had a look of complete innocence in his eyes. Unfortunately for us, he did not understand our Tibetan, and did not speak Chinese, so, after about 5 minutes of looking at each other and smiling, we left.

As we exited the hut, it started snowing, not uncommon at Drikung in the middle of the afternoon. For some strange reason, I thought that since we had met this yogi, we would be going back down the mountain. Silly me! Instead, we went across to the sky burial site, a visit to which I would deny no one. It is a powerful place. This time, unlike my previous visit, because we were with someone from the monastery, he was kind enough, and happy to borrow the key to unlock the gate, and he let us into the site.

We entered this holy sky burial site, one of the most important in Tibet. It was quite intense to walk up to the circle of stones where the ceremony is actually performed, and to step over bits of bloody human bone, and to watch the ravens pick at them. And of course, the experience is compounded by the smell. It is so completely different from the smell of the animals at the butcher stalls, and totally inundated the space. For all of that, however, it has a beautiful view, being near the edge of the mountain. As we made ready to depart, having completed a circumambulation around the site, things were a bit eerie with vultures and ravens flying overhead and dogs howling.

After this, I was sure we were going back down the mountain, but Stephanie thought it would be nice to do a complete circumambulation of the monastery, so we continued along the mountain, past the monastery...quite a bit past it because we missed the path back down. However, we were able to backtrack and make our way down. Finally, we settled down in the little restaurant and ate a lot of yak momos. Eventually, Doris and I went up to our room in the guest house, ready for sleep at 8:30pm, knowing that Mr. Hong wanted to leave the monastery at 7am. Unfortunately, it was so cold that I didn't get to sleep for quite a long time.

At 6:30, we were up, and getting ready for a new day of adventures with the unexpected Mr. Hong.

Part II will be posted later...