From www.fallingtoheavenbook.

com/blog
At many of the book signing events for FALLING TO HEAVEN, people have asked me a
bout whether I'd like to go back to Tibet. There is this expectation, I think,
that I'll get misty-eyed and say something like, "Oh yes, I would live there if
I could."
But my answer is, unequivocally, "No." During the several years since 2003, wh
en I was in Tibet, I've felt rather sheepish, even guilty, about my lack of desi
re to return. Didn't I love it enough to write a book about it, after all?
There are some natural inconveniences built into going to Tibet. There's the ad
justment to the altitude, which takes a few days in which your heart pounds when
you even stand up from your chair and going up a flight of stairs makes you fee
l like a salmon swimming upstream to spawn. There's the poor hygiene, which led
me to eat mostly fried rice with egg during most of my time there, and of cours
e, the bathrooms, whose stenchy horrors defy description.
But that doesn't explain my rejection of a return visit. I've dealt with other
unhygienic places in which adjustment to local conditions required some effort.
It wasn't until I read a recent article in the New York Times that I could put m
y finger on the exact reason for my discomfort. The article is entitled, "China
's Money and Migrants Pour into Tibet," by Edward Wong. This piece covers a wid
e range of issues affecting Tibetans today, enumerating the factors that exacerb
ate the discontent among Tibetans.
The part that struck me involved a description of the Barkhor area. The Barkhor
is a sort of plaza where there are many vendors and a lot of pilgrims. The Bar
khor sprang up around the Jokhang Temple, one of the most famous temples in Tibe
t. Standing right outside the temple on any given day, one can see the faithful
doing their prostrations. Many of them wear leather aprons and mitts for this
purpose, which can signify that their current prostrations are simply part of a
larger pilgrimage -- pilgrimages can last for months, in which literally every i
nch of ground covered was done by means of prostrations in Tibet's dry rocky soi
l. Some people in the Barkhor area are doing a simple set of koras, or circumam
bulations on a set clockwise path around the temple and plaza. All of these pra
ctices are believed by Tibetan Buddhists to accumulate merit towards a more favo
rable rebirth in the next lifetime (as a human, for example, instead of as a yak
).
The Barkhor of today is patrolled by paramilitary troops in riot gear. They mar
ch counterclockwise, disrupting the clockwise route of pilgrims.
Worshippers go into the temple to pay their respects. Ah, but, actually they ca
n't quite do that normally either, as pictures of the Dalai Lama are banned ever
ywhere in Tibet, even inside the temple and within private homes.
Imagine going to your place of worship, ready to connect with your God/gods, and
being greeted by police in riot gear. Wouldn't that be a bit distracting? Per
haps even intimidating, or terrifying? Picture a Christian church without any c
rosses -- or a synagogue without a star of David anywhere in it?
In reality, the comparison I'm making here is a failure. We westerners live in
very secular societies, so it is difficult for us to comprehend the level of int
rusion Tibetans experience, as religion is so much more central to their lives t
han it is to ours.
The fact is, I have absolutely no desire to visit Tibet again. And reading abou
t the police in riot gear and the rest helped me to pinpoint why that is. Even
though there were no police in riot gear in 2003, I could not forget that I was
visiting an occupied country. When I paid my Chinese coins to get into the Tibe
tan monasteries, it was impossible not to think of whose pockets I was lining.
The Chinese have cleared the monasteries of thousands of monks and thus disrupte
d the transmission of teachings/trainings that are centuries old. And then they
charge admission for you to go in and have the tourist-y Shangri-la experience
of walking through those gorgeous but somewhat empty edifices.
There was a pall hanging over the Barkhor that arose from something else as well
: desperate beggars. In all my travels through Mexico, Chile, and even more geo
graphically similarly, Kathmandu, I've never seen beggars like I saw in Lhasa, w
hile in the Barkhor area. There was a desperation that bordered on aggression.
If you gave money to one, you would be immediately surrounded by 15 more. When
I ran out of bills to give them, they fought over the bills I had given. At on
e point, a child beggar made such a beeline towards me that he ran into a passin
g rickshaw and fell down. (He was okay).
These days, a lot of people are going on trips to see the glaciers in Alaska bef
ore they all melt and disappear forever from global warming.
Perhaps these folks have the same thought I had in Tibet about witnessing what's
before them: Precious, but doomed.
From www.fallingtoheavenbook.com/blog