"Roof of the World" Viking River Cruise, August 18-September 7, 2011
Author's Note: No Paul Theroux and certainly no Basho, the author makes no special claims for this document, which he calls a "literary" travelogue only because it contains the poems he wrote during the journey. Special thanks go to Ruiqi, our excellent guide, who has, he told us, forty years experience in the travel business, and it showed. Special thanks also to my wife Nirmala, who accompanied me and helped me edit this diary.
August 20, 2011
We arrived in Beijing after a fairly arduous thirteen hour flight from Toronto--the flight to Toronto from our hometown Baltimore was 1 1/2 hours; adding everything up, including waiting time, the journey took about 22 hours. Since China is exactly 12 hours ahead of U.S. East Coast time, the adjustment was easier--arriving late in the afternoon is much better than arriving in the early morning, as we do when traveling to India.
The airport is high-tech. Everything very clean, too. Beijing is full of modern office buildings of about 10-12 stories, also very clean, modern and new.
The hotel we stayed at was first-rate. An opulent non-attached bathtub attracted my eye immediately; the toilet was separated from the sink and bath. Great pool and exercise facility. A good deal of China is apparently doing very well. Everyone well dresed and young; youth, of course, adding to the attraction.
We ate in a simple Chinese restaurant. It was good--Szechuan spicy tofu and eggplant. Vivian, who arranged our tour, was hesitant to eat there; she thought it was a "dive." I explained that you can't judge a Chinese restaurant by its interior, only by the taste of the food. Don't expect French plush. That nearly everyone in the restaurant was Chinese was a very good sign that the food would at least be adequate--and it was.
The next day Carole, Glenn, Wanda, Angie, Nirmala and I visited the Temple of Heaven, a huge park which includes as its centerpiece the temple where the emperor prayed for a good harvest. Lots of activities in the park--tai chi, even group dancing. A people's park, like New York's Central Park, except there is a modest entrance fee.
The highlight of the day was a visit to the Lama Temple, a Tibetan temple that escaped destruction during the Cultural Revolution.
The temple consists of many separate buildings and courtyards. One enters a building which exits into a courtyard, which leads to the next building. The shrines contain statues of the Buddha, guardian spirits, Tara, Kwan Yin, etc. The last building, much taller than the others, contains a very impressive, gigantic statue of Maitreya, the Future Buddha. It was carved from a single sandalwood block, apparently the largest such structure in the world. All the images were very beautiful, masterpieces of Tibetan art.
I lit some incense sticks, praying (wishing?) for things close to my heart, even though I don't believe in divine intervention. Do I contradict myself? Well, then, I contradict myself.
The temple provides a deep spiritual experience even to sensitive non-believers.
In the evening, against my better judgement, we went along with our friends, Angie and Wanda, to an Italian restaurant, which was as dreadful as it was dreadfully expensive.
August 24, 2011
We've been busy.
Yes, we climbed the Great Wall.
We were among the very few that reached the end of the long section open to the public. (We took the more difficult path.) Lots of climbing, some steps were quite steep--and it was hot.
Visited the Forbidden City and the Summer Palace. Felt like ants in a maze.
We walked through the Ming Tombs pathway--lots of marble sculptures--elephants, horses, guardian spirits, etc. Rushed.
Attended a Peking Opera performance which was great. The acrobats were fantastic And what a wonderful sword dance the concubine did in an excerpt from the famous "Farewell My Concubine." The music, especially the percussion, which was used to intensify moments of intense emotion, was very effective and similar to the use of percussive instruments in Kabuki. The musicians, however, tended to drown out the singers.
The following night we attended a so-called Tang Dynasty dinner show which was really awful. What a contrast! One evening of great art followed on the next night by entertainment that would even be second-rate on a cruise ship. These at best mildly talented people were performing for tired tourists, and they knew it. The remarkable grace and sense of timing of the Peking Opera performers were replaced here by awkwardness and unintended parody. Tacky, even whacky--the Emperor looked like the Emperor of Jelly Beans. I didn't have to say a word to my wife; the glances we exchanged at the end of the performance revealed that we felt the same way about it.
August 24, 2011
We arrived in Lhasa via an early morning flight from Xi An.
In Xi An we saw the enormous excavation site of the terracotta army of China's first emperor, Qin Shi Huang.
He was the first ruler to unite China, and, keeping with the times, was quite cruel--he is said to have buried 450 scholars alive! Not at all like the hero of Tan Dun's opera, The First Emperor, which premiered at the Met a few year ago to mixed reviews. The site is enormous--an airplane hanger-type building that encloses a space larger thn a football field. However, we got a better and more intimate view of some of the statues when an exhibition came from China to the Metropolitan Museum in New York My favorite here was an archer holding a stretched (and, of course, missing) bow. What a beautiful statue! Such grace! The face was midway between subjectivity and objectivity; quite distinct, yet also quite typical.
Such beauty--and such savagery--you could tell that the originals would have killed without hesitation--if they didn't they would have been killed themselves, which many, no doubt, were.
Much remains to be excavated, including the emperor's tomb, which is still untouched, waiting for better science. (At the moment there is no means to prevent the colors--the soldiers had all been painted in vibrant colors--from disintegrating, once exposed to oxygen.)
In the afternoon, we visited the very lovely and historic Wild Goose Temple. According to legend, Buddha, in the form of a wild goose, sacrificed himself for the sake of the monks. It was built during the Tang Dynasty, about 1400 years ago. Legend aside, a monk was so impressed when he heard the recitation of a sutra that he traveled to India, where he gathered and translated many texts from the Sanskrit. Most of the original texts have been lost and now are only available in Chinese translation. The emperor at the time built the pagoda to house the books.
Beautiful statues! An impressive relief in a side room depicts the life of the Buddha. Thank God the building was merely closed during the so-called Cultural Revolution and not destroyed.
I was not too impressed by the city of Xi An. Lots of humdrum concrete high-rises that have haphazardly popped up from the ground like gigantic, drab mushrooms. In Beijing, since it's the capital, the architectural standards are much higher. The office buildings there are clean, powerful and sometimes even beautiful temples dedicated to the all-conquering god of the yuan.
Lhasa is much smaller and has the look of a town, though it is becoming larger each year. Some lovely scenery--meandering rivers; bare mountains everywhere.
I was struck by the fact that there is a Chinese flag on nearly every building--including on the top of the central building of Old Tibet, the Potala Palace. You don't see that in mainland China. The message is clear: this is China now. The explicit hides an implicit reality: the Tibetan people desire that the Chinese pack up their flags and go home. The new railroad will bring more Han migration. It looks like the Tibetans one day--soon--will be a minority in what was once their own land.
Our Chinese guide Ruiqi refers to the 1959 invasion as "the peaceful liberation of Tibet." History is always written by the victors.
We Americans haven't always been "liberators" either. Where is the Sioux nation now? Chinese, Americans, Spanish, Russians... The Bad has no borders--nor does the Good.
Our local guide Tenzin informs us that in the Tibetan tradition there are seven methods of disposing of a dead body. These are namely sky, water, cliff, cremation, stupa, earth and tree "burial"--all seven are still practiced, with earth and water burials being the most common. These stark rituals strike us Westerners as a rather gruesome treatment of the body of a deceased loved one--During a sky burial, for instance, the deceased, after the funeral which takes place usually on the third day after death, is cut up into little pieces and fed to birds of prey. In water burial, the pieces are thrown to the fish. Now you understand why the Tibetans don't eat fish!
The Buddhist idea behind these rituals is that, just as one should be useful to others in life, one should be useful to others--animals, fish--after death. Attempts to preserve a corpse in a losing battle against disintegration is indeed folly--and the Tibetans, of course, are right.
Contrast this with the utter vanity of the first Chinese emperor, who spent stupendous amounts in a vain attempt to live forever--without any concern, of course, for his countrymen. If it is true that he died after taking an elixir that was to make him immortal--it probably would have contained large amounts of mercury--he got what he deserved. Another irony: all the wasted wealth the emperor spent in his attempt to cheat death enriches us today. The relics give a fabulous glimpse of a world so very different from ours; they are priceless.
Lhasa, Tibet, August 25th
Today after breakfast we took a short bus ride to the Jokhang Temple, built in the seventh century. Soldiers were everywhere, since the temple is always a potential site of political protest. One soldier made us get up from where we were sitting on a little concrete wall, even though many people further down were sitting on the same wall--he didn't say anything to them. I suppose a little harassment relieves the boredom of his daily routine. All the soldiers were armed.
The temple itself brings one back over one thousand years to a time when comfort was not like anything that word denotes today. Small, low, narrow passages; quite dark. The devotees file and walk--that is, are pushed along. We bought flowers for 3 yuan--I'm able to bargain quite well--and offered them to the Buddha, who was this time depicted by a rather severe, and paradoxically, almost clown-like statue.
Outside the temple, pilgrims were prostrating over and over--they reminded me of medieval European pilgrims. All these Tibetans looked quite poor.
I felt great sympathy for the Tibetans flocking through the temple, hoping for things that will in most cases not be realized. They were very kind. (Poverty and kindness are often linked; riches and kindness much more rarely.) I almost fell down some steps; one of them caught me and gave me a lovely smile. In another instance, my camera straps got caught in a woman's long, braided hair--we were passing each other on narrow steps. It took some time for me to untangle the straps. I had to firmly grab her hair to do it, which was no doubt uncomfortable for her. After much effort I succeeded; we looked at each other and laughed. What grace the woman had!
After a so-so lunch, we headed to the Sera Monastery, built in the fifteenth century. At one time the number of monks in Tibet was half the male population. This monastery once housed 10,000 monks; now there are only 500. Becoming a monk still is more popular than becoming a Catholic priest in the U.S.; the trend in both cases is down, way down. Celibacy these days is about as popular as yak ice-cream. I, for one, wouldn't want to try it.
We saw a lovely sand mandala; we were instructed by Tenzin that it wasn't made of sand at all but of marble powder. After a few months, the sand mandala is destroyed--reminding the faithful and faithless alike that nothing lasts. The powder is then given to devotees, who ritually place some of it on their necks and foreheads.
The highlight of the visit was the "debating courtyard." Here is where young monks learn debating skills. The debates are very stylized. One monk sat on a cushion while the examening monk stood over him--they undoubtedly periodically change places. The examening monk made repetitive gestures: he would raise his left leg and begin to swing his body to the left, as if he were preparing to pitch a baseball. He would then place his foot on the ground and "pitch" his body forward, clapping his hands as loud as possible. (If he clapped both palms together, he agreed; if the back of his right hand struck his left palm, he didn't.)
It didn't look very serious. All the monks were young, very young--mostly teens. They looked like they were having fun among friends. Debating pairs filled the entire courtyard. I would have liked to have understood what some were saying. My imagination provided the following dialogue:
First monk: Does the world arise from Nothing?
Second monk: The world arises out of us.
First monk: Something comes out of me every morning, and, believe me, it's not
the world.
Second monk: Be serious. We Buddhists renounce individuality. At least we try.
The few who succeed become, as it were, the world.
First monk: Does the world we become include Cincinnati?
Second monk: It does indeed. Those who overcome the ego become everything.
Everything. Including Newt Gingrich, Fleet ememas, snot and the
Baltimore Orioles.
First monk: Even the Baltimore Orioles? Oy. Perhaps it makes sense to retain
one's individuality until the poor fellas improve...etc, etc.
In between our trips to the temple and to the monastery, we visited a Tibetan family. They were wealthier than the Chinese family we visited on the mainland. We were served yak tea, which proved to be less awful than expected. The hard snacks were just what some dentists would order, that is, those greedy for business. The shrine room was lovely. The family made textiles, a few examples of which members of our group bought--we wished we had bought more.
At the government tourist store, I purchased a hand-made mandala of Tara, who originated from a tear of Kwan Yin, the goddess of compassion--distilled compassion, as it were. We also bought prayer beads and a pretty necklace for Nirmala.
After dinner, we watched a Tibetan music show. One got the impression that the performers doubled as waiters and waitresses.
August 27th
Our flight has been delayed; I'm writing this at the Lhasa airport.
Yesterday we visited the Potala Palace, a World Heritage Site.
It was first built in the 7th century by Songtsen Gampo, the same person who constructed the Jokhang Temple. The palace is what Germans would call "dss Wahrzeichen der Stadt," the most imposing structure of the city, and it certainly deserves that designation. An immense building--999 rooms--that seems to grow organically out of the mountain, like a giant barnacle on a tremendous ship. It is impressive on the inside and on the outside. One can imagine how it dominated Lhasa when the town consisted of only a relatively few small buildings.
The palace was damaged in the 9th century and the area remained unused until the famous Fifth Dalai Lama restored it in the late 17th century. It consists of a lower "white palce" nd an upper "red palace", where the quarters of the Dalai Lama were located. (From the time of the Fifth Dalai Lama until the Chinese invasion, the Dalai Lama was not only the spiritual head of the land, but the political one as well.)
We were worried about the difficult climb--340 steps at a high altitude--but had no difficulty at all. We went slowly, since we were afraid of falling over the steep steps.
The rooms that we visited in the red palace were stately, but rather dark. Many beautiful Tibetan statues, as one might expect. I especially loved a little statue of Tara and a larger one of Kwan Yin.
There are several gold stupas inlaid with precious stones, the stupa of the Fifth Dalai Lama being the largest. The lamas buried under stupas received the so-called stupa burial, one of the seven types of burials in Tibet, which were mentioned previously. The organs were removed and burned, while the body was preserved much the way the Ancient Egyptians mummified their dead.
After an above-average lunch, we visited the Museum of Tibet. Near the entrance one encounters a bronze statue of rather ferocious-looking Chinese soldiers--I wouldn't particularly like to have been "liberated" by em. The museum wasn't much; a few statues, a few jade pieces and porcelain vases in the Ming Dynasty style.
After visiting the museum we returned to our hotel for a nap followed by dinner.
During dinner, our guide told us that one of our traveling companions was not doing well, suffering from altitude sickness. The doctor from the local hospital--without having examined her--diagnosed brain damage and a weak heart and gave a grave prognosis. I examined her and found her to be stable, albeit dehydrated from many bouts of vomiting. Thank God Nirmala brought along some ondansetron, which combats nausea. The patient was then able to tolerate fluids. At this moment, she is in the airport clinic receiving oxygen and will be able to travel with us. She should improve greatly at the lower altitude of Chonqing. If we didn't have the medicine, she would have faced the scary prospect of staying in a hospital where no one understands Engish, and, if the hospital doctor is any indication, might not have given her proper treatment.
__________________
The visits to spiritual sites had a deep effect on me. Although I do not share the details of faith that gave rise to those splendid structures, I am deeply moved by the search for something immortal in us, which produced them; a little but very hard grain to balance out the tremendous weight of human suffering. This sense of the transcendent resulted in the following poem, which I wrote during one of the plane rides.
THE FLY
Most of those who want to die
really do not want to die,
but really covet something else.
Most of those who want to live
know they barely are alive
and long for sadly what they lack
yet I, who neither live nor die,
am a happy Planck-length fly--
How can fate swat that?
August 29th, along the Yangtze River
We have been cruising for the past two days on the Viking Emerald, a comfortable riverboat. The time on the boat hss been a bit of a blank to me, since I became ill on August 27th at 7 p.m., and have not recovered yet. Yesterday, though I tried, I was unable to leave the boat to visit a pagoda.
Today at around 9 o'clock we got into a smaller boat and toured the Three Gorges area. Beautiful steep mountains covered with vegetation, unlike the bare mountains of the Tibetan plateau.
Chonqing, our starting point, is a large city full of high-rise apartment buildings. It's hard to imagine life in this area--there are no parks visible from the ship.
The Three Gorges area was subject to severe flooding, resulting in many deaths. The Three Gorges Dam, built in 2003, changed this forever, burying underwater significant artifacts in the process. The water above the dam was raised from a level of one to two meters to 150-175 meters! Archeologists were opposed to the construction for obvious reasons, but the dam has certainly benefited the people. The river and the countryside are like a magnified version of the Rhine River area.
We saw a "hanging coffin." The Ba people long ago placed their dead in caves high up on cliffs. They believed, presumably, that the deceased were thus closer to heaven. One of the coffins contains the remains of a fourteen year old boy who died naturally along with the remains of a sixteen year old girl who was sacrificed on his behalf. Romeo and Juliet? Certainly not, but an ancient tragedy nevertheless, the details of which we will never know. No one really knows how the Ba people managed to get the coffins up so high. The coffins are about two thousand years old.
When we returned to the Emerald, our group including yours truly was the hit of the Chinese lesson onboard, since we knew a little bit--a very little bit--beforehand. I have no problem with the tones, since I'm so interested in music.
While my illness, which causes a precipitous drop in blood pressure, was slowly coming to a close, I was sitting at the dinner table in a rather odd state of mind; I felt as if I were suspended between two worlds. Half dreaming, half awake, I imagined that everyone in the dining room, for some urgent reason, was called upon to compose a prayer within the next five minutes. I came up with the following:
Lord, when I am too hard on myself, be soft;
when I am too soft on myself, be hard--and if
the fortitude and serenity thus gained do not
result in good deeds, forget me and raise up
somebody else.
Strange--a (somewhat) secular guy, I never felt compelled to write a prayer before. When I returned to my room to write the prayer down, it became the following poem:
THE WHITE SHEEP'S BLACK PSALM
When I am too soft,
Strict Lord, be hard;
When I am too hard,
Sweet Lord, be soft
And whenever guided
Beyond Death's valley
By the staff in Your absent
But nearly-felt Hand:
If I don't comfort sheep less
Or more lost than myself,
Forget me completely
And shepherd somebody else.
August 30, 2011
Today we visited the Three Gorges Dam. The weather was misty, but we managed to get a very good view of the locks. Passing through the locks last night was certainly a memorable experience. Our guide said that just as we praise pagodas of the past, future generations will look back at the Three Gorges Dam as an equivalent achievement of the modern age. Perhaps he is right, although technology ages a good deal more rapidly than aeshtetic achievements, which in some ways do not age at all.
Our friend Glenn, the birthday boy, who is an engineer, looked delighted as a preschooler let loose in a Chuck E. Cheeze restaurant; he was taking lots of pictures while explaining the mechanics of the construction to us all.
In the afternoon our guide Ruiqi taught us how to play Mahjong. Interesting, but not very. I'll probably pick up a set of tiles in Hong Kong.
The highlight of my day was sitting on the balcony while various types of boats, mostly barges, traveled down the Yangtze. What I most appreciated was the gray-green of the river--it was around six in the evening--bordered by a strip of dark green, trees, along the distant bank. The trees seemed to have absorbed the gray-green of the river, making the green of the trees less intense. All of this was framed by the dome of the sky, which was close to the color of the river. Borders blurred; everything connected. And then the sunset! I can only imagine the masterwork a French impressionist would have created had he witnessed this extraordinary play of light and color.
August 31, 2011
Tomorrow we disembark from the Viking Emerald. It has been a pleasant five-day cruise.
Last night was the Viking crew talent show. Our waitress Maggie had a prominent part--she was the "butterfly girl." This dance piece told the story of a rich young girl forced to marry, not surprisingly, a rich young man. You guessed it, her true love was a poor lad, who dies of a broken heart. She passes his tomb which opens--she dives in willingly. Somewhat later, two butterflies emerge from the tomb and soar skywards--the spirits of the two lovers, together at last. (I couldn't help contrasting this in my mind with Brecht's and Weil's rather macabre piece, "Ballade vom Ertrunkenen Maedchen"--"The Drowned Girl," which provides a stark modernist contrast to romantic fluff. Maggie and her partner were quite good.
The star of the show was a young waiter who did a really splendid job as the "Face-Changing Master"--a stock character of Peking Opera. Fierce masks seemed to change as if by magic. A few seconds after having covered his face with a fan, the dancer reveals a new mask of a contrasting, bright color. He had us gasping with surprise and delight. He was a good dancer, too.
Iowa, the program director, well, he did his best. (In a subsequent lecture entitled "China Today," Iowa informed us that the Dalai Lama had the nasty habit of drinking the blood of sacrificed slaves. It reminds me of the nasty habit that medieval Jews allegedly had, drinking the blood of sacrificed Christian infants during Passover. I thought of protesting, but remained silent; it would have done me no good and might have gotten me in trouble.)
Nirmala and I danced after the performance, until about midnight. It was our first opportunity to dance, since I had been ill--we took full advantage of my recovery and had lots of fun.
We've been doing tai chi every morning. A good exercise and a very adequate alternative to yoga. The tai chi master, who doubles on board as a massage therapist, was very graceful. I asked our guide Ruiqi whether he practices tai chi; he disdainfully told me that that activity is only for old people. I'm pleased that yoga doesn't have that connotation.
Today we visited a school, supported by the Viking corporation.
The kids were great. They put on a little dance show--some of them, one little boy in particular, already had a stage presence. It was fun to visit the classrooms. We sat at desks like a bunch of graying Billy Elliots. We each had a host that led us to a desk. Nirmala's host was a little girl with intense longing in her eyes. Nirmala and the little girl definitely connected. No doubt she imagines a perfect life far away--I hope she finds that life some day.
September 1, 2100
We're all ready to disembark.
I had a headache; woke up at 4:30 and just lay in bad, waiting for dawn. To pass the time, I composed the following limerick in my head. Not very good, but it provides a stark contrast to the other poems included in this journal.
A shicksa named Lydia Duckett
purchased a porcelain bucket.
She spit in it hard
and mixed it with lard,
then served it as creme de Nantucket.
Shanghai, September 2nd
Yesterday we visited a fascinating museum at Hubei. It housed the contents of the tomb of the Marquis Yi of Zheng, who died around 433 BCE. Very interesting bronze artifacts, which were made by a now forgotten wax mold procedure--the liquid bronze melted the wax and took on the desired shape. An interesting bronze mythical beast, sort of proto-phoenix, was the guardian of the tomb. (The phoenix later became the symbol of the empress.) It had an extraordinary long neck which the guide said represents arrogance--an admirable quality for a Marquis of those days. (The Marquis apparently was no Buddhist.) There also was a beautiful lacquered duck sculpture and one of a stag, which was used as an incense burner.
The most remarkable exhibit were the 65 bells used for rituals. Strike the bell in the front and the pitch is the first note of the scale, "do," technically, the tonic. Srtike the bell on the side and you get the third note of the (ionian) scale, "mi," or more technically, the mediant note of the scale. That means if you hit a G bell, you get a G and a B; if you hit an A bell, you get an A and a C#, etc. Therefore all the Western--including medieval and jazz scales--can be played on the bells, which span over five octaves. ( A brochure explains that the bells can play all scales from G to, and including, B.) A fascinating discovery, since previously one thought that the ancient Chinese used the pentatonic (five note) scale exclusively. No one knows what scales were used, though; there was apparently no musical notation at the time.
At the end of the tour, we listened to a delightful concert played on replicas of the bells and other traditional Chinese instruments. All in the pentatonic scale, except for the melody, Ode to Joy, by Beethoven, the latter proving that Western music could be played on the bells. One Chinese pentatonic folk tune with its tonic harmonies sounded a bit like a tune from a Viennese operetta. I enjoyed this visit immensely.
We arrived in Shanghai after an uneventful flight on China East Airlines, a much better experience than the one we had on Sichuan Air from Tibet to Chonqing, which failed to take our lugggage onboard, which had to be sent on a subsequent flight. (Kudos to our guide Ruiqi who managed to get the airline to pay each of us 200 yuan as compensation.)
Our hotel in Shanghai is located on the Bund, the best location possible. The Fairmount Peace Hotel is a very swank hotel indeed, probably the most luxurious hotel I ever stayed in. Location and luxury, a great combination!
The Bund area is breathtaking for a first-time visitor. On one side of the river, a tributary of the Yangtze, are old colonial buildings; then comes a wide avenue, then a very wide elevated pedestrian walkway along a much wider river. Across the river is the Shanghai skyline, new commercial skyscrpaers, with the TV tower as the tallest structure at the center.
Everything in modern China seems to be a copy of something somewhere else; the model for the Bund area is Broadway, especially the neon lights of Broadway. The buildings here are not very impressive in themselves, but when lit up along the river at night, the whole thing looks like what a Dives (the Biblical rich man) would imagine to be his Christmas. This is indeed the China of tomorrow--Beijing being the China of today, and Xi An being the China of the past.
We noticed that a popular photo spot for the Chinese is a Chinese version of the Wall Street Bull, a bronze statue of a crouching bull, ready to attack. We watched many Chinese, youth mostly, touch the bull's horns and nostrils and smile at the camera. This treatment of an idol of capitalism reminded me of how statues of the Laughing Buddha were treated--and still to some degree are, the Chinese are quite superstitious-- People still touch the feet and the belly of this pot-belied form of the Buddha, just as modern youth touch the horns and nostrils of the modern god. As you might imagine, this comparison played on in my mind until I came up with the following poem:
THE LAUGHING BUDDHA
(Shanghai, 9/2/2011)
The same people who once
touched the belly and toes
of the Future Buddha
now touch nostrils and horns
of a raging gold copy
of the Wall Street Bull--
The new rises, the old falls--
In an ancient temple niche,
Buddha is still laughing.
During the morning tour we visited Yu Garden, a traditional Chinese garden complex built by the commissioner of Sichuan province in 1551, during the Ming Dynasty. It is built in a series of outer buildings leading to inner ones, separated by courtyards, much like the Forbidden City and the Lama Temple. As soon as you enter the portal, you are confronted by a large rock; there is a threshold step at the entrance of the first dwelling,
and a mirror facing the door of the dwelling. All this was done in an attempt to keep evil spirits away, who apparently are not bright enough to dodge a rock; unable to cross the threshold step because they are too small; cleverer demons that made it past the first two obstacles would, well, see a ghoulish monster in the mirror and run away in a panic. I doubt if all the fuss to dispel evil spirits was effective, since the administrator's parents, for whom the garden complex was built, died before they could move in.
The garden is quite lovely. I imagined myself living in one of the spacious dwellings--I would arise early, have tea, read for a while; have a lesson in Chinese; play the piano; have lunch; have a lesson in calligraphy and then write poetry. Then afternoon tea with my dear wife; a walk together; supper together; then attend a Peking Opera performance at the garden stage.
Not a bad life--if everyone could have it, fine--but this is of course impossible.
Conscience would therefore force me to turn the complex over to the poeple, and that is exactly what the Chinese government did!
We had a good lunch after looking at some examples of expensive embroidery, which, though well crafted, did not seem very original. After that we went shopping; Nirmala bought some silk scarves.
Our guide told us that "Americans love freedom and democracy, while the Chinese value harmony and tranquility." I wonder if he really believes such nonsense.
The government has decided to put the collective before the individual, and has had some resounding successes. People here work hard and have achieved much. Of course the coin with the Tiger Mom pushing her children to succeed has a picture, on the obverse side of the coin, of the man who beat his 13 year-old son to death for getting poor grades--a recent news item.
The gains have been stunning. The government will soon reach the inflection point, however, when the populace, more materially content and better educated, will demand more freedoms. The government believes that this process is not the Chinese way; it is, however, the human way and cannot be sidetracked forever.
Our guide is right about the friendliness of the Chinese people, however. Most of the pedestrians are young, and look, for the most part, quite happy, and, being youths, quite energetic. Funny, one sees far fewer toddlers, children and elderly folks. Grandparents with their little "emperors," however, are neither ubiquitous or rare. (Many of the children--they have no siblings due to a law that forbids parents from having more than a single child--are in the hands of grandparents; their parents work, often in another city.) They look like they thoroughly enjoy spoiling them.
Shanghai, September 2nd
On the evening of September 2nd, we visited an acrobatics show--our guide said this is always his favorite performance of the tour, and, although I liked the Peking Opera performance better, he was not altogether mistaken, if mistaken at all. One young man climbed a tower of chairs--which an assistant handed to him, one by one. By the end he towered above the large stage, then began to twirl around on the highest chair--all without a net! This, and similar feats, left one amazed at the extremes of which the human body--and mind--are capable. It was breathtaking.
I couldn't help thinking of equivalent mental gymnastics. The best physicists, for instance, explore in their minds hidden dimensions and multiple universes, etc. This to me is even more impressive. The extremes of the mind and the body are, however, almost never combined--One can hardly imagine Einstein keeping a dozen or so white dinner plates twirling--with the help of single stick!
The person who accomplished this also did a comedy routine--the well-known shtick of throwing knives at balloons very near an assistant, who stands against a corkboard in a crucifixion pose. Unrelenting acrobatic stunts can be almost as boring to the average layman as unrelenting physics!!
Guilin, September 4th
The three hour boat trip along the Li River was fascinating. Here one encounters one of the oddest landscapes in the world. As a Tang Dynasty poet wrote:
The river winds like a blue silk ribbon,
and the hills are like jade hairpins.
The hills were formed about 200 million ears ago during an abrupt transition from oceanbed to land. These small mountains rise majestically from the flat terrain--they are made of limestone. Centuries and centuries of erosion have removed the soft (soil) parts of the mountains, leaving behind weird-looking bell curves of solid limestone. The views are world-famous, and justly so. You often see this landscape in Chinese paintings; it is also on the back of the 20 yuan bill.
We haven't seen mush wildlife in China. Regarding birdlife, Mao's great war against birds, during which he exhorted the Chinese people to kill them, which they did apparently did, has only been partially reversed. Idiotic political decisions, made by those with lots of ideology and little common sense, often have quite unforeseen consequences. The war in Iraq has accomplished little except making America weaker and Iran stronger. In the case of the war against the birds, the Chinese people were rewarded by a plague of insects of nearly biblical proportions. We did see, however, lots of cormorants and ducks. Water buffaloes, still used to plow fields, were also abundant.
The Chinese are beginning to be fond of dogs--not merely as contents of tasty dishes, but as pets--fondness for animal companions was frowned upon by Mao as a bourgeois idiocy. It costs a lot to get a license and certain breeds are forbidden--nevertheless one sees people here and there walking their dogs. Most of the populace would rather eat them than live with them, but the latter is obviously a growing trend.
Guilin is an atypical city, relatively uncrowded--the air and the water are good, unlike many areas of China, especially the city of Xi An, which suffers from pollution.
Our guide told us that Guilin is the best place in China to get a foot massage, which is a much-extolled Chinese way to invigorate the lower limbs. I am definitely not the massagy type, but, along with Nirmala and several others of our group, had one anyway. The facilities were dingy--the chairs in which we sat reminded me of those on which poor people in poor clinics are given IV treatment. First the feet are submerged in warm water. Then the feet and calves are massaged with care to get all the traditional points of the foot which, according to tradition, are responsible for a whole host of illnesses. (There is a kidney point, etc.) The person who worked over my lower limbs was a young woman who reminded me of a Chinese caricature of a Western caricature--the rough Swedish masseuse. It was a whim on my part; I didn't enjoy it. I imagined that the guide receives kick-backs. Nirmala and Vivian each had a foot message on the riverboat, which, they tell me, was much better. After the procedure, Vivian exclaimed to the masseuse, "Bing Bing Bow" which totally flummoxed her. ("Ding Ding hao," which she wanted to say, means "splendid.") From the expression of the masseuse, which Vivian related to us, "Bing Bing bow" probably means something like, "Lend me a screwdriver, honey, there's a rose up my nose!" In Chinese, even using the wrong pitch can give a sentence an entirely different meaning.
September 5th
We arrived in Hong Kong yesterday evening, after an uneventful flight from Guilin.
I last visited Hong Kong in 1974, when I stayed a few weeks visiting my brother and Chinese sister-in-law and their two lovely little daughters. We were newlyweds then; Nirmala was with me for part of the stay. How things have changed! High-risers everywhere, apartments and office buildings which are much better built than on mainland China. Hope my brother had the foresight to buy some property in Hong Kong--the prices have really soared, which probably means that a bubble will eventually burst, as it has with us.
The city tour was a disappointment. It consisted of a bus ride to Victoria Peak--too cloudy; a sampan ride--too touristy; a bus ride to a jewelry shop--well, Nirmala enjoyed that; and a bus ride to a market--too schlocky. Cloudy, Touristy, Pricey and Schlocky are not friendly elves.
I got sick again; thus I rested during the afternoon.
September 6th
When I was here (Hong Kong) with my new wife in 1974, we climbed a hill overlooking the harbor, had tea in a tea house at the summit. The view of Hong Kong was quite impressive. Near the tea house is a road named Harlech Road which encircles the peak. This was the scene of our first argument. I really don't remember what we argued about, but it was rather intense. I can't imagine that it wasn't my fault--Nirmala became quite angry and wouldn't speak to me for a while.
Hoping to cool things down, I left her for an hour or so and wrote a poem called "Caelum non animan mutant"; it was published later that year by Texas Christian University--one of my first publications. (The title comes from one of my (still) favorite Latin proverbs, this one by Horace: "Caelum non animam mutant, qui trans mare currunt," which means "Those who travel across the sea change their environment (sky) but not themselves." In other words, you can't escape yourself--your bad qualities, along with the good, travel along with you.)
The first year of marriage is always difficult; ours probably reached the mid-range on the Trouble Monitor. (It is much closer to Zero now.) As we grow old, one is much more accepting of one's own faults and of those of others. What would the later years be without strengthening affection compensating for the increasing weakness of joints and muscles? In 1974, I was only dimly aware of the good fortune I had by marrying Nirmala; today that knowledge shines.
Hong Kong has changed so much! So have we.
Revisiting Harlech Road afterf 37 years inspired the following haiku, as terse as the 1974 poem was long.
HONG KONG HAIKU
(Harlech Road, 1974, 2011)
Harlech Road--the place where we
argued long ago--
Only the sky hasn't changed.
September 7th
Our visit to China is over. Traveling about for three weeks has its disadvantages, rather smelly ones for the most part, but we certainly enjoyed the trip. Let's hope the Chinese learn from us to be less regimented; let's hope that we learn from the Chinese to be more effective in moving our country forward.
We got a favorable impression of the Chinese people--I only wish I could have communicated with them better.
I also wish that we could import the Chinese dynamism that was so evident. Sure, the Chinese government has allowed the rich to get (sometimes fabulously) richer--but it has fostered many progresive policies that have helped millions to rise out of poverty. Much, much, much more needs to be done, of course.
We Americans have a lot to do, too. Our politicians, unfortunately, seem to be acting like inchworms stuck on a tree stump--they don't have the sense to climb down and start over on a live tree, where they eventually would, with much hard work, reach light.
I hope--and even believe--we will find our way. I leave China with a poem that expresses that hope.
AFTER VISITING CHINA
My hope is as high
as a Xi An high-rise
that America will
renew and fulfill
Liberty's mission--
Justice for all!
We've seen the Great Wall;
with hindsight and vision
we shall overcome
and, as one nation,
get better? You bet!
We're not Tibet yet.
Author's Note: No Paul Theroux and certainly no Basho, the author makes no special claims for this document, which he calls a "literary" travelogue only because it contains the poems he wrote during the journey. Special thanks go to Ruiqi, our excellent guide, who has, he told us, forty years experience in the travel business, and it showed. Special thanks also to my wife Nirmala, who accompanied me and helped me edit this diary.
August 20, 2011
We arrived in Beijing after a fairly arduous thirteen hour flight from Toronto--the flight to Toronto from our hometown Baltimore was 1 1/2 hours; adding everything up, including waiting time, the journey took about 22 hours. Since China is exactly 12 hours ahead of U.S. East Coast time, the adjustment was easier--arriving late in the afternoon is much better than arriving in the early morning, as we do when traveling to India.
The airport is high-tech. Everything very clean, too. Beijing is full of modern office buildings of about 10-12 stories, also very clean, modern and new.
The hotel we stayed at was first-rate. An opulent non-attached bathtub attracted my eye immediately; the toilet was separated from the sink and bath. Great pool and exercise facility. A good deal of China is apparently doing very well. Everyone well dresed and young; youth, of course, adding to the attraction.
We ate in a simple Chinese restaurant. It was good--Szechuan spicy tofu and eggplant. Vivian, who arranged our tour, was hesitant to eat there; she thought it was a "dive." I explained that you can't judge a Chinese restaurant by its interior, only by the taste of the food. Don't expect French plush. That nearly everyone in the restaurant was Chinese was a very good sign that the food would at least be adequate--and it was.
The next day Carole, Glenn, Wanda, Angie, Nirmala and I visited the Temple of Heaven, a huge park which includes as its centerpiece the temple where the emperor prayed for a good harvest. Lots of activities in the park--tai chi, even group dancing. A people's park, like New York's Central Park, except there is a modest entrance fee.
The highlight of the day was a visit to the Lama Temple, a Tibetan temple that escaped destruction during the Cultural Revolution.
The temple consists of many separate buildings and courtyards. One enters a building which exits into a courtyard, which leads to the next building. The shrines contain statues of the Buddha, guardian spirits, Tara, Kwan Yin, etc. The last building, much taller than the others, contains a very impressive, gigantic statue of Maitreya, the Future Buddha. It was carved from a single sandalwood block, apparently the largest such structure in the world. All the images were very beautiful, masterpieces of Tibetan art.
I lit some incense sticks, praying (wishing?) for things close to my heart, even though I don't believe in divine intervention. Do I contradict myself? Well, then, I contradict myself.
The temple provides a deep spiritual experience even to sensitive non-believers.
In the evening, against my better judgement, we went along with our friends, Angie and Wanda, to an Italian restaurant, which was as dreadful as it was dreadfully expensive.
August 24, 2011
We've been busy.
Yes, we climbed the Great Wall.
We were among the very few that reached the end of the long section open to the public. (We took the more difficult path.) Lots of climbing, some steps were quite steep--and it was hot.Visited the Forbidden City and the Summer Palace. Felt like ants in a maze.
We walked through the Ming Tombs pathway--lots of marble sculptures--elephants, horses, guardian spirits, etc. Rushed.
Attended a Peking Opera performance which was great. The acrobats were fantastic And what a wonderful sword dance the concubine did in an excerpt from the famous "Farewell My Concubine." The music, especially the percussion, which was used to intensify moments of intense emotion, was very effective and similar to the use of percussive instruments in Kabuki. The musicians, however, tended to drown out the singers.
The following night we attended a so-called Tang Dynasty dinner show which was really awful. What a contrast! One evening of great art followed on the next night by entertainment that would even be second-rate on a cruise ship. These at best mildly talented people were performing for tired tourists, and they knew it. The remarkable grace and sense of timing of the Peking Opera performers were replaced here by awkwardness and unintended parody. Tacky, even whacky--the Emperor looked like the Emperor of Jelly Beans. I didn't have to say a word to my wife; the glances we exchanged at the end of the performance revealed that we felt the same way about it.
August 24, 2011
We arrived in Lhasa via an early morning flight from Xi An.
In Xi An we saw the enormous excavation site of the terracotta army of China's first emperor, Qin Shi Huang.
He was the first ruler to unite China, and, keeping with the times, was quite cruel--he is said to have buried 450 scholars alive! Not at all like the hero of Tan Dun's opera, The First Emperor, which premiered at the Met a few year ago to mixed reviews. The site is enormous--an airplane hanger-type building that encloses a space larger thn a football field. However, we got a better and more intimate view of some of the statues when an exhibition came from China to the Metropolitan Museum in New York My favorite here was an archer holding a stretched (and, of course, missing) bow. What a beautiful statue! Such grace! The face was midway between subjectivity and objectivity; quite distinct, yet also quite typical.
Such beauty--and such savagery--you could tell that the originals would have killed without hesitation--if they didn't they would have been killed themselves, which many, no doubt, were.
Much remains to be excavated, including the emperor's tomb, which is still untouched, waiting for better science. (At the moment there is no means to prevent the colors--the soldiers had all been painted in vibrant colors--from disintegrating, once exposed to oxygen.)
In the afternoon, we visited the very lovely and historic Wild Goose Temple. According to legend, Buddha, in the form of a wild goose, sacrificed himself for the sake of the monks. It was built during the Tang Dynasty, about 1400 years ago. Legend aside, a monk was so impressed when he heard the recitation of a sutra that he traveled to India, where he gathered and translated many texts from the Sanskrit. Most of the original texts have been lost and now are only available in Chinese translation. The emperor at the time built the pagoda to house the books.
Beautiful statues! An impressive relief in a side room depicts the life of the Buddha. Thank God the building was merely closed during the so-called Cultural Revolution and not destroyed.
I was not too impressed by the city of Xi An. Lots of humdrum concrete high-rises that have haphazardly popped up from the ground like gigantic, drab mushrooms. In Beijing, since it's the capital, the architectural standards are much higher. The office buildings there are clean, powerful and sometimes even beautiful temples dedicated to the all-conquering god of the yuan.
Lhasa is much smaller and has the look of a town, though it is becoming larger each year. Some lovely scenery--meandering rivers; bare mountains everywhere.
I was struck by the fact that there is a Chinese flag on nearly every building--including on the top of the central building of Old Tibet, the Potala Palace. You don't see that in mainland China. The message is clear: this is China now. The explicit hides an implicit reality: the Tibetan people desire that the Chinese pack up their flags and go home. The new railroad will bring more Han migration. It looks like the Tibetans one day--soon--will be a minority in what was once their own land.
Our Chinese guide Ruiqi refers to the 1959 invasion as "the peaceful liberation of Tibet." History is always written by the victors.
We Americans haven't always been "liberators" either. Where is the Sioux nation now? Chinese, Americans, Spanish, Russians... The Bad has no borders--nor does the Good.
Our local guide Tenzin informs us that in the Tibetan tradition there are seven methods of disposing of a dead body. These are namely sky, water, cliff, cremation, stupa, earth and tree "burial"--all seven are still practiced, with earth and water burials being the most common. These stark rituals strike us Westerners as a rather gruesome treatment of the body of a deceased loved one--During a sky burial, for instance, the deceased, after the funeral which takes place usually on the third day after death, is cut up into little pieces and fed to birds of prey. In water burial, the pieces are thrown to the fish. Now you understand why the Tibetans don't eat fish!
The Buddhist idea behind these rituals is that, just as one should be useful to others in life, one should be useful to others--animals, fish--after death. Attempts to preserve a corpse in a losing battle against disintegration is indeed folly--and the Tibetans, of course, are right.
Contrast this with the utter vanity of the first Chinese emperor, who spent stupendous amounts in a vain attempt to live forever--without any concern, of course, for his countrymen. If it is true that he died after taking an elixir that was to make him immortal--it probably would have contained large amounts of mercury--he got what he deserved. Another irony: all the wasted wealth the emperor spent in his attempt to cheat death enriches us today. The relics give a fabulous glimpse of a world so very different from ours; they are priceless.
Lhasa, Tibet, August 25th
Today after breakfast we took a short bus ride to the Jokhang Temple, built in the seventh century. Soldiers were everywhere, since the temple is always a potential site of political protest. One soldier made us get up from where we were sitting on a little concrete wall, even though many people further down were sitting on the same wall--he didn't say anything to them. I suppose a little harassment relieves the boredom of his daily routine. All the soldiers were armed.
The temple itself brings one back over one thousand years to a time when comfort was not like anything that word denotes today. Small, low, narrow passages; quite dark. The devotees file and walk--that is, are pushed along. We bought flowers for 3 yuan--I'm able to bargain quite well--and offered them to the Buddha, who was this time depicted by a rather severe, and paradoxically, almost clown-like statue.
Outside the temple, pilgrims were prostrating over and over--they reminded me of medieval European pilgrims. All these Tibetans looked quite poor.
I felt great sympathy for the Tibetans flocking through the temple, hoping for things that will in most cases not be realized. They were very kind. (Poverty and kindness are often linked; riches and kindness much more rarely.) I almost fell down some steps; one of them caught me and gave me a lovely smile. In another instance, my camera straps got caught in a woman's long, braided hair--we were passing each other on narrow steps. It took some time for me to untangle the straps. I had to firmly grab her hair to do it, which was no doubt uncomfortable for her. After much effort I succeeded; we looked at each other and laughed. What grace the woman had!
After a so-so lunch, we headed to the Sera Monastery, built in the fifteenth century. At one time the number of monks in Tibet was half the male population. This monastery once housed 10,000 monks; now there are only 500. Becoming a monk still is more popular than becoming a Catholic priest in the U.S.; the trend in both cases is down, way down. Celibacy these days is about as popular as yak ice-cream. I, for one, wouldn't want to try it.
We saw a lovely sand mandala; we were instructed by Tenzin that it wasn't made of sand at all but of marble powder. After a few months, the sand mandala is destroyed--reminding the faithful and faithless alike that nothing lasts. The powder is then given to devotees, who ritually place some of it on their necks and foreheads.
The highlight of the visit was the "debating courtyard." Here is where young monks learn debating skills. The debates are very stylized. One monk sat on a cushion while the examening monk stood over him--they undoubtedly periodically change places. The examening monk made repetitive gestures: he would raise his left leg and begin to swing his body to the left, as if he were preparing to pitch a baseball. He would then place his foot on the ground and "pitch" his body forward, clapping his hands as loud as possible. (If he clapped both palms together, he agreed; if the back of his right hand struck his left palm, he didn't.)
It didn't look very serious. All the monks were young, very young--mostly teens. They looked like they were having fun among friends. Debating pairs filled the entire courtyard. I would have liked to have understood what some were saying. My imagination provided the following dialogue:
First monk: Does the world arise from Nothing?
Second monk: The world arises out of us.
First monk: Something comes out of me every morning, and, believe me, it's not
the world.
Second monk: Be serious. We Buddhists renounce individuality. At least we try.
The few who succeed become, as it were, the world.
First monk: Does the world we become include Cincinnati?
Second monk: It does indeed. Those who overcome the ego become everything.
Everything. Including Newt Gingrich, Fleet ememas, snot and the
Baltimore Orioles.
First monk: Even the Baltimore Orioles? Oy. Perhaps it makes sense to retain
one's individuality until the poor fellas improve...etc, etc.
In between our trips to the temple and to the monastery, we visited a Tibetan family. They were wealthier than the Chinese family we visited on the mainland. We were served yak tea, which proved to be less awful than expected. The hard snacks were just what some dentists would order, that is, those greedy for business. The shrine room was lovely. The family made textiles, a few examples of which members of our group bought--we wished we had bought more.
At the government tourist store, I purchased a hand-made mandala of Tara, who originated from a tear of Kwan Yin, the goddess of compassion--distilled compassion, as it were. We also bought prayer beads and a pretty necklace for Nirmala.
After dinner, we watched a Tibetan music show. One got the impression that the performers doubled as waiters and waitresses.
August 27th
Our flight has been delayed; I'm writing this at the Lhasa airport.
Yesterday we visited the Potala Palace, a World Heritage Site.
It was first built in the 7th century by Songtsen Gampo, the same person who constructed the Jokhang Temple. The palace is what Germans would call "dss Wahrzeichen der Stadt," the most imposing structure of the city, and it certainly deserves that designation. An immense building--999 rooms--that seems to grow organically out of the mountain, like a giant barnacle on a tremendous ship. It is impressive on the inside and on the outside. One can imagine how it dominated Lhasa when the town consisted of only a relatively few small buildings.The palace was damaged in the 9th century and the area remained unused until the famous Fifth Dalai Lama restored it in the late 17th century. It consists of a lower "white palce" nd an upper "red palace", where the quarters of the Dalai Lama were located. (From the time of the Fifth Dalai Lama until the Chinese invasion, the Dalai Lama was not only the spiritual head of the land, but the political one as well.)
We were worried about the difficult climb--340 steps at a high altitude--but had no difficulty at all. We went slowly, since we were afraid of falling over the steep steps.
The rooms that we visited in the red palace were stately, but rather dark. Many beautiful Tibetan statues, as one might expect. I especially loved a little statue of Tara and a larger one of Kwan Yin.
There are several gold stupas inlaid with precious stones, the stupa of the Fifth Dalai Lama being the largest. The lamas buried under stupas received the so-called stupa burial, one of the seven types of burials in Tibet, which were mentioned previously. The organs were removed and burned, while the body was preserved much the way the Ancient Egyptians mummified their dead.
After an above-average lunch, we visited the Museum of Tibet. Near the entrance one encounters a bronze statue of rather ferocious-looking Chinese soldiers--I wouldn't particularly like to have been "liberated" by em. The museum wasn't much; a few statues, a few jade pieces and porcelain vases in the Ming Dynasty style.
After visiting the museum we returned to our hotel for a nap followed by dinner.
During dinner, our guide told us that one of our traveling companions was not doing well, suffering from altitude sickness. The doctor from the local hospital--without having examined her--diagnosed brain damage and a weak heart and gave a grave prognosis. I examined her and found her to be stable, albeit dehydrated from many bouts of vomiting. Thank God Nirmala brought along some ondansetron, which combats nausea. The patient was then able to tolerate fluids. At this moment, she is in the airport clinic receiving oxygen and will be able to travel with us. She should improve greatly at the lower altitude of Chonqing. If we didn't have the medicine, she would have faced the scary prospect of staying in a hospital where no one understands Engish, and, if the hospital doctor is any indication, might not have given her proper treatment.
__________________
The visits to spiritual sites had a deep effect on me. Although I do not share the details of faith that gave rise to those splendid structures, I am deeply moved by the search for something immortal in us, which produced them; a little but very hard grain to balance out the tremendous weight of human suffering. This sense of the transcendent resulted in the following poem, which I wrote during one of the plane rides.
THE FLY
Most of those who want to die
really do not want to die,
but really covet something else.
Most of those who want to live
know they barely are alive
and long for sadly what they lack
yet I, who neither live nor die,
am a happy Planck-length fly--
How can fate swat that?
August 29th, along the Yangtze River
We have been cruising for the past two days on the Viking Emerald, a comfortable riverboat. The time on the boat hss been a bit of a blank to me, since I became ill on August 27th at 7 p.m., and have not recovered yet. Yesterday, though I tried, I was unable to leave the boat to visit a pagoda.
Today at around 9 o'clock we got into a smaller boat and toured the Three Gorges area. Beautiful steep mountains covered with vegetation, unlike the bare mountains of the Tibetan plateau.
Chonqing, our starting point, is a large city full of high-rise apartment buildings. It's hard to imagine life in this area--there are no parks visible from the ship.
The Three Gorges area was subject to severe flooding, resulting in many deaths. The Three Gorges Dam, built in 2003, changed this forever, burying underwater significant artifacts in the process. The water above the dam was raised from a level of one to two meters to 150-175 meters! Archeologists were opposed to the construction for obvious reasons, but the dam has certainly benefited the people. The river and the countryside are like a magnified version of the Rhine River area.
We saw a "hanging coffin." The Ba people long ago placed their dead in caves high up on cliffs. They believed, presumably, that the deceased were thus closer to heaven. One of the coffins contains the remains of a fourteen year old boy who died naturally along with the remains of a sixteen year old girl who was sacrificed on his behalf. Romeo and Juliet? Certainly not, but an ancient tragedy nevertheless, the details of which we will never know. No one really knows how the Ba people managed to get the coffins up so high. The coffins are about two thousand years old.
When we returned to the Emerald, our group including yours truly was the hit of the Chinese lesson onboard, since we knew a little bit--a very little bit--beforehand. I have no problem with the tones, since I'm so interested in music.
While my illness, which causes a precipitous drop in blood pressure, was slowly coming to a close, I was sitting at the dinner table in a rather odd state of mind; I felt as if I were suspended between two worlds. Half dreaming, half awake, I imagined that everyone in the dining room, for some urgent reason, was called upon to compose a prayer within the next five minutes. I came up with the following:
Lord, when I am too hard on myself, be soft;
when I am too soft on myself, be hard--and if
the fortitude and serenity thus gained do not
result in good deeds, forget me and raise up
somebody else.
Strange--a (somewhat) secular guy, I never felt compelled to write a prayer before. When I returned to my room to write the prayer down, it became the following poem:
THE WHITE SHEEP'S BLACK PSALM
When I am too soft,
Strict Lord, be hard;
When I am too hard,
Sweet Lord, be soft
And whenever guided
Beyond Death's valley
By the staff in Your absent
But nearly-felt Hand:
If I don't comfort sheep less
Or more lost than myself,
Forget me completely
And shepherd somebody else.
August 30, 2011
Today we visited the Three Gorges Dam. The weather was misty, but we managed to get a very good view of the locks. Passing through the locks last night was certainly a memorable experience. Our guide said that just as we praise pagodas of the past, future generations will look back at the Three Gorges Dam as an equivalent achievement of the modern age. Perhaps he is right, although technology ages a good deal more rapidly than aeshtetic achievements, which in some ways do not age at all.
Our friend Glenn, the birthday boy, who is an engineer, looked delighted as a preschooler let loose in a Chuck E. Cheeze restaurant; he was taking lots of pictures while explaining the mechanics of the construction to us all.
In the afternoon our guide Ruiqi taught us how to play Mahjong. Interesting, but not very. I'll probably pick up a set of tiles in Hong Kong.
The highlight of my day was sitting on the balcony while various types of boats, mostly barges, traveled down the Yangtze. What I most appreciated was the gray-green of the river--it was around six in the evening--bordered by a strip of dark green, trees, along the distant bank. The trees seemed to have absorbed the gray-green of the river, making the green of the trees less intense. All of this was framed by the dome of the sky, which was close to the color of the river. Borders blurred; everything connected. And then the sunset! I can only imagine the masterwork a French impressionist would have created had he witnessed this extraordinary play of light and color.
August 31, 2011
Tomorrow we disembark from the Viking Emerald. It has been a pleasant five-day cruise.
Last night was the Viking crew talent show. Our waitress Maggie had a prominent part--she was the "butterfly girl." This dance piece told the story of a rich young girl forced to marry, not surprisingly, a rich young man. You guessed it, her true love was a poor lad, who dies of a broken heart. She passes his tomb which opens--she dives in willingly. Somewhat later, two butterflies emerge from the tomb and soar skywards--the spirits of the two lovers, together at last. (I couldn't help contrasting this in my mind with Brecht's and Weil's rather macabre piece, "Ballade vom Ertrunkenen Maedchen"--"The Drowned Girl," which provides a stark modernist contrast to romantic fluff. Maggie and her partner were quite good.
The star of the show was a young waiter who did a really splendid job as the "Face-Changing Master"--a stock character of Peking Opera. Fierce masks seemed to change as if by magic. A few seconds after having covered his face with a fan, the dancer reveals a new mask of a contrasting, bright color. He had us gasping with surprise and delight. He was a good dancer, too.
Iowa, the program director, well, he did his best. (In a subsequent lecture entitled "China Today," Iowa informed us that the Dalai Lama had the nasty habit of drinking the blood of sacrificed slaves. It reminds me of the nasty habit that medieval Jews allegedly had, drinking the blood of sacrificed Christian infants during Passover. I thought of protesting, but remained silent; it would have done me no good and might have gotten me in trouble.)
Nirmala and I danced after the performance, until about midnight. It was our first opportunity to dance, since I had been ill--we took full advantage of my recovery and had lots of fun.
We've been doing tai chi every morning. A good exercise and a very adequate alternative to yoga. The tai chi master, who doubles on board as a massage therapist, was very graceful. I asked our guide Ruiqi whether he practices tai chi; he disdainfully told me that that activity is only for old people. I'm pleased that yoga doesn't have that connotation.
Today we visited a school, supported by the Viking corporation.
The kids were great. They put on a little dance show--some of them, one little boy in particular, already had a stage presence. It was fun to visit the classrooms. We sat at desks like a bunch of graying Billy Elliots. We each had a host that led us to a desk. Nirmala's host was a little girl with intense longing in her eyes. Nirmala and the little girl definitely connected. No doubt she imagines a perfect life far away--I hope she finds that life some day.September 1, 2100
We're all ready to disembark.
I had a headache; woke up at 4:30 and just lay in bad, waiting for dawn. To pass the time, I composed the following limerick in my head. Not very good, but it provides a stark contrast to the other poems included in this journal.
A shicksa named Lydia Duckett
purchased a porcelain bucket.
She spit in it hard
and mixed it with lard,
then served it as creme de Nantucket.
Shanghai, September 2nd
Yesterday we visited a fascinating museum at Hubei. It housed the contents of the tomb of the Marquis Yi of Zheng, who died around 433 BCE. Very interesting bronze artifacts, which were made by a now forgotten wax mold procedure--the liquid bronze melted the wax and took on the desired shape. An interesting bronze mythical beast, sort of proto-phoenix, was the guardian of the tomb. (The phoenix later became the symbol of the empress.) It had an extraordinary long neck which the guide said represents arrogance--an admirable quality for a Marquis of those days. (The Marquis apparently was no Buddhist.) There also was a beautiful lacquered duck sculpture and one of a stag, which was used as an incense burner.
The most remarkable exhibit were the 65 bells used for rituals. Strike the bell in the front and the pitch is the first note of the scale, "do," technically, the tonic. Srtike the bell on the side and you get the third note of the (ionian) scale, "mi," or more technically, the mediant note of the scale. That means if you hit a G bell, you get a G and a B; if you hit an A bell, you get an A and a C#, etc. Therefore all the Western--including medieval and jazz scales--can be played on the bells, which span over five octaves. ( A brochure explains that the bells can play all scales from G to, and including, B.) A fascinating discovery, since previously one thought that the ancient Chinese used the pentatonic (five note) scale exclusively. No one knows what scales were used, though; there was apparently no musical notation at the time.
At the end of the tour, we listened to a delightful concert played on replicas of the bells and other traditional Chinese instruments. All in the pentatonic scale, except for the melody, Ode to Joy, by Beethoven, the latter proving that Western music could be played on the bells. One Chinese pentatonic folk tune with its tonic harmonies sounded a bit like a tune from a Viennese operetta. I enjoyed this visit immensely.
We arrived in Shanghai after an uneventful flight on China East Airlines, a much better experience than the one we had on Sichuan Air from Tibet to Chonqing, which failed to take our lugggage onboard, which had to be sent on a subsequent flight. (Kudos to our guide Ruiqi who managed to get the airline to pay each of us 200 yuan as compensation.)
Our hotel in Shanghai is located on the Bund, the best location possible. The Fairmount Peace Hotel is a very swank hotel indeed, probably the most luxurious hotel I ever stayed in. Location and luxury, a great combination!
The Bund area is breathtaking for a first-time visitor. On one side of the river, a tributary of the Yangtze, are old colonial buildings; then comes a wide avenue, then a very wide elevated pedestrian walkway along a much wider river. Across the river is the Shanghai skyline, new commercial skyscrpaers, with the TV tower as the tallest structure at the center.
Everything in modern China seems to be a copy of something somewhere else; the model for the Bund area is Broadway, especially the neon lights of Broadway. The buildings here are not very impressive in themselves, but when lit up along the river at night, the whole thing looks like what a Dives (the Biblical rich man) would imagine to be his Christmas. This is indeed the China of tomorrow--Beijing being the China of today, and Xi An being the China of the past.
We noticed that a popular photo spot for the Chinese is a Chinese version of the Wall Street Bull, a bronze statue of a crouching bull, ready to attack. We watched many Chinese, youth mostly, touch the bull's horns and nostrils and smile at the camera. This treatment of an idol of capitalism reminded me of how statues of the Laughing Buddha were treated--and still to some degree are, the Chinese are quite superstitious-- People still touch the feet and the belly of this pot-belied form of the Buddha, just as modern youth touch the horns and nostrils of the modern god. As you might imagine, this comparison played on in my mind until I came up with the following poem:
THE LAUGHING BUDDHA
(Shanghai, 9/2/2011)
The same people who once
touched the belly and toes
of the Future Buddha
now touch nostrils and horns
of a raging gold copy
of the Wall Street Bull--
The new rises, the old falls--
In an ancient temple niche,
Buddha is still laughing.
During the morning tour we visited Yu Garden, a traditional Chinese garden complex built by the commissioner of Sichuan province in 1551, during the Ming Dynasty. It is built in a series of outer buildings leading to inner ones, separated by courtyards, much like the Forbidden City and the Lama Temple. As soon as you enter the portal, you are confronted by a large rock; there is a threshold step at the entrance of the first dwelling,
and a mirror facing the door of the dwelling. All this was done in an attempt to keep evil spirits away, who apparently are not bright enough to dodge a rock; unable to cross the threshold step because they are too small; cleverer demons that made it past the first two obstacles would, well, see a ghoulish monster in the mirror and run away in a panic. I doubt if all the fuss to dispel evil spirits was effective, since the administrator's parents, for whom the garden complex was built, died before they could move in.The garden is quite lovely. I imagined myself living in one of the spacious dwellings--I would arise early, have tea, read for a while; have a lesson in Chinese; play the piano; have lunch; have a lesson in calligraphy and then write poetry. Then afternoon tea with my dear wife; a walk together; supper together; then attend a Peking Opera performance at the garden stage.
Not a bad life--if everyone could have it, fine--but this is of course impossible.
Conscience would therefore force me to turn the complex over to the poeple, and that is exactly what the Chinese government did!
We had a good lunch after looking at some examples of expensive embroidery, which, though well crafted, did not seem very original. After that we went shopping; Nirmala bought some silk scarves.
Our guide told us that "Americans love freedom and democracy, while the Chinese value harmony and tranquility." I wonder if he really believes such nonsense.
The government has decided to put the collective before the individual, and has had some resounding successes. People here work hard and have achieved much. Of course the coin with the Tiger Mom pushing her children to succeed has a picture, on the obverse side of the coin, of the man who beat his 13 year-old son to death for getting poor grades--a recent news item.
The gains have been stunning. The government will soon reach the inflection point, however, when the populace, more materially content and better educated, will demand more freedoms. The government believes that this process is not the Chinese way; it is, however, the human way and cannot be sidetracked forever.
Our guide is right about the friendliness of the Chinese people, however. Most of the pedestrians are young, and look, for the most part, quite happy, and, being youths, quite energetic. Funny, one sees far fewer toddlers, children and elderly folks. Grandparents with their little "emperors," however, are neither ubiquitous or rare. (Many of the children--they have no siblings due to a law that forbids parents from having more than a single child--are in the hands of grandparents; their parents work, often in another city.) They look like they thoroughly enjoy spoiling them.
Shanghai, September 2nd
On the evening of September 2nd, we visited an acrobatics show--our guide said this is always his favorite performance of the tour, and, although I liked the Peking Opera performance better, he was not altogether mistaken, if mistaken at all. One young man climbed a tower of chairs--which an assistant handed to him, one by one. By the end he towered above the large stage, then began to twirl around on the highest chair--all without a net! This, and similar feats, left one amazed at the extremes of which the human body--and mind--are capable. It was breathtaking.
I couldn't help thinking of equivalent mental gymnastics. The best physicists, for instance, explore in their minds hidden dimensions and multiple universes, etc. This to me is even more impressive. The extremes of the mind and the body are, however, almost never combined--One can hardly imagine Einstein keeping a dozen or so white dinner plates twirling--with the help of single stick!
The person who accomplished this also did a comedy routine--the well-known shtick of throwing knives at balloons very near an assistant, who stands against a corkboard in a crucifixion pose. Unrelenting acrobatic stunts can be almost as boring to the average layman as unrelenting physics!!
Guilin, September 4th
The three hour boat trip along the Li River was fascinating. Here one encounters one of the oddest landscapes in the world. As a Tang Dynasty poet wrote:
The river winds like a blue silk ribbon,
and the hills are like jade hairpins.
The hills were formed about 200 million ears ago during an abrupt transition from oceanbed to land. These small mountains rise majestically from the flat terrain--they are made of limestone. Centuries and centuries of erosion have removed the soft (soil) parts of the mountains, leaving behind weird-looking bell curves of solid limestone. The views are world-famous, and justly so. You often see this landscape in Chinese paintings; it is also on the back of the 20 yuan bill.
We haven't seen mush wildlife in China. Regarding birdlife, Mao's great war against birds, during which he exhorted the Chinese people to kill them, which they did apparently did, has only been partially reversed. Idiotic political decisions, made by those with lots of ideology and little common sense, often have quite unforeseen consequences. The war in Iraq has accomplished little except making America weaker and Iran stronger. In the case of the war against the birds, the Chinese people were rewarded by a plague of insects of nearly biblical proportions. We did see, however, lots of cormorants and ducks. Water buffaloes, still used to plow fields, were also abundant.
The Chinese are beginning to be fond of dogs--not merely as contents of tasty dishes, but as pets--fondness for animal companions was frowned upon by Mao as a bourgeois idiocy. It costs a lot to get a license and certain breeds are forbidden--nevertheless one sees people here and there walking their dogs. Most of the populace would rather eat them than live with them, but the latter is obviously a growing trend.
Guilin is an atypical city, relatively uncrowded--the air and the water are good, unlike many areas of China, especially the city of Xi An, which suffers from pollution.
Our guide told us that Guilin is the best place in China to get a foot massage, which is a much-extolled Chinese way to invigorate the lower limbs. I am definitely not the massagy type, but, along with Nirmala and several others of our group, had one anyway. The facilities were dingy--the chairs in which we sat reminded me of those on which poor people in poor clinics are given IV treatment. First the feet are submerged in warm water. Then the feet and calves are massaged with care to get all the traditional points of the foot which, according to tradition, are responsible for a whole host of illnesses. (There is a kidney point, etc.) The person who worked over my lower limbs was a young woman who reminded me of a Chinese caricature of a Western caricature--the rough Swedish masseuse. It was a whim on my part; I didn't enjoy it. I imagined that the guide receives kick-backs. Nirmala and Vivian each had a foot message on the riverboat, which, they tell me, was much better. After the procedure, Vivian exclaimed to the masseuse, "Bing Bing Bow" which totally flummoxed her. ("Ding Ding hao," which she wanted to say, means "splendid.") From the expression of the masseuse, which Vivian related to us, "Bing Bing bow" probably means something like, "Lend me a screwdriver, honey, there's a rose up my nose!" In Chinese, even using the wrong pitch can give a sentence an entirely different meaning.
September 5th
We arrived in Hong Kong yesterday evening, after an uneventful flight from Guilin.
I last visited Hong Kong in 1974, when I stayed a few weeks visiting my brother and Chinese sister-in-law and their two lovely little daughters. We were newlyweds then; Nirmala was with me for part of the stay. How things have changed! High-risers everywhere, apartments and office buildings which are much better built than on mainland China. Hope my brother had the foresight to buy some property in Hong Kong--the prices have really soared, which probably means that a bubble will eventually burst, as it has with us.
The city tour was a disappointment. It consisted of a bus ride to Victoria Peak--too cloudy; a sampan ride--too touristy; a bus ride to a jewelry shop--well, Nirmala enjoyed that; and a bus ride to a market--too schlocky. Cloudy, Touristy, Pricey and Schlocky are not friendly elves.
I got sick again; thus I rested during the afternoon.
September 6th
When I was here (Hong Kong) with my new wife in 1974, we climbed a hill overlooking the harbor, had tea in a tea house at the summit. The view of Hong Kong was quite impressive. Near the tea house is a road named Harlech Road which encircles the peak. This was the scene of our first argument. I really don't remember what we argued about, but it was rather intense. I can't imagine that it wasn't my fault--Nirmala became quite angry and wouldn't speak to me for a while.
Hoping to cool things down, I left her for an hour or so and wrote a poem called "Caelum non animan mutant"; it was published later that year by Texas Christian University--one of my first publications. (The title comes from one of my (still) favorite Latin proverbs, this one by Horace: "Caelum non animam mutant, qui trans mare currunt," which means "Those who travel across the sea change their environment (sky) but not themselves." In other words, you can't escape yourself--your bad qualities, along with the good, travel along with you.)
The first year of marriage is always difficult; ours probably reached the mid-range on the Trouble Monitor. (It is much closer to Zero now.) As we grow old, one is much more accepting of one's own faults and of those of others. What would the later years be without strengthening affection compensating for the increasing weakness of joints and muscles? In 1974, I was only dimly aware of the good fortune I had by marrying Nirmala; today that knowledge shines.
Hong Kong has changed so much! So have we.
Revisiting Harlech Road afterf 37 years inspired the following haiku, as terse as the 1974 poem was long.
HONG KONG HAIKU
(Harlech Road, 1974, 2011)
Harlech Road--the place where we
argued long ago--
Only the sky hasn't changed.
September 7th
Our visit to China is over. Traveling about for three weeks has its disadvantages, rather smelly ones for the most part, but we certainly enjoyed the trip. Let's hope the Chinese learn from us to be less regimented; let's hope that we learn from the Chinese to be more effective in moving our country forward.
We got a favorable impression of the Chinese people--I only wish I could have communicated with them better.
I also wish that we could import the Chinese dynamism that was so evident. Sure, the Chinese government has allowed the rich to get (sometimes fabulously) richer--but it has fostered many progresive policies that have helped millions to rise out of poverty. Much, much, much more needs to be done, of course.
We Americans have a lot to do, too. Our politicians, unfortunately, seem to be acting like inchworms stuck on a tree stump--they don't have the sense to climb down and start over on a live tree, where they eventually would, with much hard work, reach light.
I hope--and even believe--we will find our way. I leave China with a poem that expresses that hope.
AFTER VISITING CHINA
My hope is as high
as a Xi An high-rise
that America will
renew and fulfill
Liberty's mission--
Justice for all!
We've seen the Great Wall;
with hindsight and vision
we shall overcome
and, as one nation,
get better? You bet!
We're not Tibet yet.
