How Did I Get Here?

Sun-Wed, 10-13 June 2007

I never thought I’d miss Vietnamese men in any way. But I was wrong. On the bus to Zhongdian I fervently longed for their compact, small frames. In comparison, Chinese blokes match their country when it comes to taking up space, firmly lodging themselves with the same puny disregard for their neighbours’ right of space.
Call me petty or fastidious, but a stranger’s arm rubbing up against mine drives me to rabid distraction.
So my 5 hour journey to Zhongdian started with a silent but critical elbow wrestling match with the over-expansive body mass next to me. I tried desperate tactics: I positioned the rough edges of my bracelet in such a way that it would dig into his skin. But he clearly had enough blubber on him not to be bothered. I knew it was a hopeless battle, and in the end I had to resign myself to entertaining sick thoughts about amputating his arm.

I opened my window and tried to concentrate on the magnificent scenery. My appreciation of the surroundings was short-lived. The guy in front of me was leaning out the window and spitting at the trees, like a pissing dog marking its territory. I prudently closed my window.
I looked round the rest of the bus. The vinyl on the side panels and ceiling was peeled off, exposing the loose and rusty rivets like decaying teeth. The curtains had died long ago and been reborn in the lower caste of kitchen rags, tied in a knot and hanging lifelessly from 1 or 2 hooks. With every death rattle this sickly carcass was begging for scrap yard euthanasia.

The road was steadfastly ascending as we were nearing the 3200m which Zhongdian is situated at. Since most of the road is blasted through the cliffs, the sides are covered with metal nets bulging under the weight of the falling rocks. I noticed that gradually the nets were replaced with a more invasive method: tons of cement poured down the sides of the cliff, like grey icing dripping down a cupcake.
A few hours later, we descended down the pass and into a grassy plateau encircled by mountains. The landscape was dotted with large rectangular Tibetan houses, decorated in psychedelic colours, patterns and yin-yang symbols. Roadside stalls displayed rows of bushy yak tails, presumably used for dusting. Multi-coloured prayer flags were strung from balconies, bridges and stupas (Buddhist shrines) and furiously flapping in the icy wind. I felt a tangible sensation that we had left the Chinese world behind and entering the Tibetan.

My room in Zhongdian was in the old quarter and I was lucky to have stumbled upon it. The guesthouse I’d had in mind was fully booked and after checking out other places, I finally asked an old man who’d been watching me go in and out of the different guesthouses. It was as if he was patiently waiting for his catch of the day, and had known I’d bite sooner or later. He just smiled and walked across to a modest wooden building with an unobtrusive sign: “Hazel Hostel”. To open the door he had to climb through the window and open the door from the inside. I was ushered into a little room constructed and furnished solely from wood.
Most things in life are made for two or more people to share: a bottle of wine, a table at a restaurant, a special memory…But this little room was custom-built exclusively for the use of a single person. Against one wall stood a sturdy single bed with heavy-duty duvet; a simple desk looked out at the cobbled street outside, topped off with a vase holding wild, dried flowers. Always being one for romanticising the hermetic life, I immediately liked my little “monk’s chamber”. Not to mention the price: 20 Yuan a night ($2.50). The only thing which distracted from the ‘ascetic-chic’ decor was a 2006 black&white photo calendar of New York.

Chinese authorities have christened Zhongdian “Shangri-la”, a name which irritates me when people use it to refer to the town. Firstly, Shangri-la doesn’t exist. It’s a mythical place which appears in James Hilton’s classic “Lost Horizon”. Secondly, there are loads of other places which have also adopted the name, including Lhasa, Nepal and countless tacky seaside resorts all over the world. Frankly, I don’t understand why people are so obsessed with this name. Maybe some forgotten one-horse town in Inner Mongolia should follow suit and proclaim itself to be Xanadu, and then watch the tourist dollars flow in.
My gripe aside, Zhongdian is a very pleasant little town with some interesting Buddhist monasteries , and best of all, a central square packed with barbeque stalls. Each stall is manned by a woman with charcoaled hands and several scavenging dogs. For a dollar you can have a barbeque feast of assorted meat kebabs, grilled mushrooms, eggplant, spring onions, corn on the cob etc. Tibetans definitely take their meat seriously. Piles of animal bones, spines and skulls litter the square and dried pieces of meat and fat hang from shop-fronts like Xmas decorations.

My second night in Zhongdian I met Roger, a Dutchman who was cycling around the world. So far, this inconceivable venture has taken him two years. He’s already cycled from Canada to Mexico and through S.America, Australia, N.Zealand, S.E. Asia, and his next mission is to cycle from Johannesburg to Cairo. While Roger was busy telling me about the intricacies of bum padding, I spotted Jeff at the bar. Jeff was an English man I met a few days before in a bookshop in Lijiang. He was a professor in political history, lecturing at Howard University in Washington D.C.
So, that evening the three of us engaged in a heated debate. About happiness, of all things. Roger was a disciple of a book which expounded the theory that happiness should be viewed as a science. Like a chemistry formula one could mix certain “ingredients” and Eureka!, you would end up with happiness. Happiness could therefore be calculated, and different nations were rated on the happiness graph. One of the happiest countries was apparently Vietnam…
Jeff argued that happiness is something more personal, relative to each individual, and the question that should be asked is not “Are you happy?’, but “Are you content?”.
I was glad that I agreed with Jeff, because as the conversation turned to politics, poor Roger’s arguments were being torn to shreds like a Rotweiller would a fluffy toy. For intellectuals like Jeff, lecturing is only the methodone, it seems what they really crave is a willing victim to verbally demolish, wielding their knowledge like a hatchet.

The next day, while walking along a quiet country road to a hillside monastery, I veered off the road and onto a narrow footpath meandering between herdsmen and grazing yak. I kept the looming monastery with its gilded roofs in sight, but was more enchanted with my natural surroundings. While I was breathing in the thin, cold air, it struck me that happiness and Shangri-la are one and the same thing. We make the mistake of ascribing it to a fixed thing or place, or person…even a philosophy or religion. By so doing, we think our search is over and we’ve reached our goal: Shangri-la. For me personally,it’s the journey, the search for it that gives me the rare moments of intense clarity and happiness I so ardently seek. I suppose this is at the heart of my restlessness which constantly haunts me…
My little path led me to the same gate where all the tourist coaches, mini-buses and taxis were parked, disgorging their load of pilgrims. Different paths leading to the same spot.

I was happy to leave the pilgrims to their impressive destination and return to the open path with an eagle soaring above me.

Tags: China, China and South East Asia, Shangri-la, Tibet, Yunnan, Zhongdian

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 19th, 2007 at 10:14 am and is filed under China and South East Asia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.