confusion enough

here’s a quote from my bonderman essay: “My academic advisor, someone I greatly respect, once told me ‘A great traveler can travel anywhere, including down the block,’ but then added that profound experiences are notoriously rare in the comfort of a familiar neighborhood. They are, however, dense within the realm of coincidences, accidents, and misfortune; a realm accessible within the context of a journey.”

when i wrote that, i knew it to be true intellectually. i had never actually gone on any journey more significant than a 3 week roadtrip in the safe & comfortable united states. now, after traveling for a while, i can attest to the bone-deep truth of that statement. here’s the story:

misfortune – horrific train ride.
accident – meeting an english-speaking (but not mandarin-speaking) tibetan named tsebe on the train to lanzhou.
coincidence #1 – seeing tsebe on the 4-hour bus to xiahe, a small town on the tibetan plateau. it is tibetan, but not in the tibetan autonomous region.
coincidence #2 – seeing tsebe again on our walk around labsang monastery.

having seen & chatted with tsebe thrice, he invites us to his home. tsebe is a nomad. he and his family live in a tent, along with their dozens of yaks, in a gloriously picturesque valley among grassy mountains, about 30 km outside of town.

he arranges a taxi for us, and we drive, rattling, down bumpy half-done roads. eventually, the driver stops next to a bridgeless river. we walk across it and then down a small, rocky path into seemingly nowhere; it curves through a green green valley. occasionally, we see tents (not sure if they are actually yurts) complete with yaks, a motorcycle, and an angry barking guard dog.

30 minutes of walking and we arrive at tsebe’s tent. his and his brother’s kids run out to greet us. they are full of energy; very curious about us. they are shy at first, but become playful quickly enough, posing for pictures with avi’s sunglasses. we dig through our bags and try to give out whatever gifts we can (cookies, postcards, &c).

a bit after we arrive, it starts raining – hard. we spend the day sitting in the tent, chatting, drinking green tea (milk tea for alex & avi), and just generally relaxing. tsebe’s wife never sits with us. she hovers over the stove fueled by dried yak dung, and makes us tea and food. the food is hard on the lactose-intolerant stomach – it is mostly made of yak butter. one dish is a pile of balls made of yak butter, wheat, and sugar. i have 3 and feel my stomach begin to rebel. i think even the bread that she fried up was half yak butter. i have never been gassier in my entire life. the next day, however, she made an awesome fried rice dish with noodles and green onions. very simple and tasty!

tsebe’s wife is pregant and sick. she has stomach aches, but they do not have enough money for the hospital. this is where i get a little unsure of how to feel. the women in these communities (from my limited experience) do most of the work. tsebe’s wife (with help from his daughter) cooks, cleans, milks the yaks, makes the butter, and does, well, pretty much everything. tsebe’s job, as far as i could tell, is to take stuff to town and sell it. despite being sick, his wife continued to do everything.

she seemed very unhappy, and there was tension between her and tsebe. he told us later that he had many “girlfriends.” i asked whether his wife knew. and he said both “no” and “she is angry at me,” not seeming to care too much. this soured me on tsebe a bit. otherwise, he is a great guy.

he told us a story of how he learned english (see alex’s post for a more accurate summary – i was half asleep when he told it). when he was 21 (without telling anyone), he took a bus to lhasa, hired a guide, and crossed the border between china and nepal (illegally, as chinese passports for tibetans are absurdly expensive). there, he was caught by nepali police, and let go into the hands of the tibetan exile government. after staying there, he walked across nepal to india. from the border, he somehow managed to get to dharamsala, and stayed there for 3 years learning english.

on the way back, he was caught at the chinese border and spent 6 months in jail.

back in his tent, we go to sleep and wake up to perfect weather. tsebe takes us up into the lovely hills around his home. we hike up to the local tallest peak, and then head back down. we thank his wife for her hospitality with a gift, and start heading back to town. on the way, we catch a ride on the back of a terrible tricycle truck carrying wool and proceed to have the absolutely trembliest, bumpiest, concussioniest 15 minutes of our lives.

we’re back at xiahe now, waiting to take a bus to linxia, then to lun zhou, and then another long train ride to urumqi – this time in our own personal soft sleeper compartments!

one weird thing about all of these experiences, is that my normal machinery for “processing” them is not really working. for example – last night, after getting back from tsebe’s tent, we walked around xiahe at night, crossing from the tibetan part of town to the chinese part.

there, in a public square, we saw maybe 50 chinese (and a few tibetans) dancing a traditional tibetan circle dance to techno-ized tibetan music, surrounded by a crowd of watching chinese. a few feet away, the local muslims (hui, i think), were selling various meats on sticks, goat heads in plastic bags, and other items. the cultural mish-mash was so weird that i didn’t know what do with it except watch. i don’t know what to make of it all. maybe that is the point. i hope my brain knows what it’s doing.

ps – i really appreciate all the comments! it is great to hear from all of you folks. i definitely miss everyone.

pps – through various magics that i am not at liberty to comment on, stay tuned for pictures and videos (the latter full of swearing!) on facebook that should supplement this post nicely.