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Published: February 15th 2008
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A lot can change in 1 day. To all my friends who did not heed my advice to come visit me during Chinese New Year, you are wiser than I. Despite the fact that Chinese New Year is depicted as one big firework-laden, dragon orgy, it’s actually a very boring time to be a “laowai” in China. All those hilarious scenes of people stampeding each other and sleeping in bathrooms in train stations across the country means that unless you live in the countryside with migrant workers, your city will empty out during the Spring Festival. Chengdu turned from a massive sea of humanity to an eerily quiet ghost town in the matter of 1 day. I nearly starved on day 1 when there wasn’t an open restaurant/noodle house/garbage can to be found. I did get one day of biking around and hassling the firework stands set up on every block outside the 2nd Ring Road (where selling fireworks is technically legal - much easier than heading to New Hampshire), but there were only so many people you can yell “xin nian kuai le!” to before getting utterly bored. So with my friends out of town and nothing really to do,
I figured it was one of those times to get on a bus and see where it stops.
A lot can change in 200 km. Where that bus stopped was in a town in Western Sichuan called Kangding. It’s amazing how all you need is to get 3 hours outside of Chengdu and over 1 mountain pass and you are officially/unofficially in Tibet. Western Sichuan is just as much mountain-climbing, prayer flag-waving Tibet as anything you would find in Lhasa and maybe even more so. The Han cultural invasion might have had less incentive to force the issue, considering the rugged terrain is inhabited by Tibet’s badasses - the Khampa - and the fact that it’s still in Sichuan province would make it less of a political statement. Chengdu in February is no summer picnic, but Tibet in February is downright arctic. I find it ironic that the guy who flips out when the temperature drops below 60 degrees is the same guy who thinks it’s fun to run off to Gansu and Tibet in China’s coldest winter in a generation. But it’s witnessing this place in the winter when the harsh realities of Tibetan life come to light.
After the scalding mountain sun goes down, the temperature can plummet 40 degrees, making it too cold to do anything but sit in the least freezing teahouse, sip tea and stare off into the space filled by Tibetan music videos (which fall into two categories - 1, the weird Tibetan songs about how beautiful their culture and way of life is and 2, the weirder ones made by the CCP Propaganda Dept that depict Tibetan farmers and Red Army soldiers dancing in the streets). I think I now see why Tibetans are the quietest, most understated people I’ve ever come across - the Tibetan winter probably drains a little bit more life out of them each year (another example of how polar opposite they are with the overbearing, swarming Han).
A lot can change in a generation. While this is still a relatively untouched corner of the world, it’s difficult not to notice the changes thrust upon Tibet. Laws require street signs to be written in Chinese, relegating the Tibetan script to a mere subtitle in the corner. Ugly communist slabs of concrete sit side by side with immaculate lamaseries. Robed monks walk down the road with city slickers,
decked out in the latest Shanghai fashion (i.e. sex-boots and Chinglish t-shirts). Drinking and chatting with some locals, I found that most Tibetans can speak Mandarin better than your average Shanghainese. These tiny towns have distinct Tibetan dialects that are incomprehensible 10 km down the road, facilitating the spread of the more extensive Mandarin. Outside of the one old man I met who couldn’t speak a word, everyone seemed to primarily speak Mandarin, even in the home. I even picked up some of the local dialect. For example when the bus station tells you over and over again there are no buses and no tickets, it actually means there are plenty of buses and you should just go get on whichever one you choose. If the driver even notices you, just slip him a pittance and everyone’s happy.
A few hours’ drive away is Danba and home to some of the most beautiful, picturesque Tibetan villages imaginable - the kind of Shangri-La that holds Tibet’s grip of wonder on the world. While it’s a shame they’ve turned into mere tourist attractions, this tourist wholly enjoyed them. The bus rides themselves both made the trip as well as made the
trip miserable. Once the freeway stops, you’re on back mountain roads bumping along at 10 mph for hour after butt-thumping hour, with a driver that hardly notices the passengers holding on for dear life - that is if the driver doesn’t fall asleep and fail to show up at the station. But the road back from Danba was as amazing as any 8-hour bus ride could possibly be. Our crossing of the breathtaking 15,000 ft Bulang mountain pass, with perfect views of Siguniang Shan towering over 20,000 ft off in the distance was apparently enough cold and altitude to make the old lady in the front of the bus uncontrollably vomit out the window. You can have your Rockies and Alps for their pristine, alpine beauty and plentiful ski bunnies, but give me the Himalaya for its sheer and utter dominance over anything that dares wander into its lair. I spent half the ride in utter awe of what I was seeing and the other half having miserable, gut-wrenching flashbacks to that horrible bus crash I witnessed this summer (see previous Tibet entry). Then, before I knew it, we were out of the mountains and back in China. Chinese New
Year was over and everything in Chengdu was back to its consistently weird self. A lot can change in 4 days in the Himalaya.
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