day: 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 epilogue

24 May 2007

to Tibet - Day Six: Xining World's Space Mountain

Up in the mountains through terraces of ever present crops steaming off the frost in the first light of day, monks muttered chants in shrines. Structures installed directly into cliff walls even though overhead rocky crags cracked and held together through dry mountain weeds. The Youreng monastery. Quite a few young monks, i spotted one on the way in hanging around the Mahjong table gambling by the side of the road. Another few were gathered about listening to some mp3s on their cellphones, that faint tiny midrange buzz that never makes sense from a distance. Also obscured with the haze of chants and even more distant banging drums and chimes that sounded to lack any metre. Some cattle piped up in a rally to the dance floor. Just as we were leaving another young monk came tearing up the road. Recognised from a distance by his definite red colours floating blobishly on the hacksaw whine of the two stroke motorcycle beneath him that he did not so much ride as surf around a corner in a honky tonking fashion with his butt in the air. A Tibetan Nick Berry for those in the know. Between this, the hillside sodded with broken beer bottles and the spent full box of condoms back at the Wutun monastery a feeling of relief reigned. Divine spirituality holds nothing over the teenage need to cut loose.

Got married. The tour bus ended up at a dance hall of sorts. An open courtyard of with a double spinning swing set that was to be in the performance. Pretty streamers. This was the first day of sunshine for the tour part and the blazing disc was making a fantastic show of it. The air still clear from the recent rain. Tibetan women pranced out like it was some kind of fashion show of traditional attire in a very wide colour palette. The fashion show evolved into faintly awkward dances with slightly goofy smiles. This budding tourist trap had not yet flowered from it's soil. The petals and stems shook from the blaring traditional Tibetan music backed by a drum machine and cranked through the PA system with clipping levels of volume.

The men in our posse were singled out for some reinactment of Tibetan marriage ceremonies. Dressed in woolen vests and funny hats to be led about and paired up with Tibetan girls. Barley wine and dancing. If you didn't drink fast enough a lady came by and smacked the cup into your face, if you didn't dance hard enough phantom hands pinched at your butt cheeks. They added further adornments to our character as the song and dance continued into the honeymoon suite for pictures and surprise tipping of the brides. The divorce was easy if not creepy. Handing ten yuan over to i think a fourteen year old girl at the prodding of the head wizened lady and then dodging through a sea of handicraft peddling crones who erupted from the very fabric of the heat laden air i found cool relief housed in the lunch room. Sweet barley and fungus caught my eye and i locked it in my guts with the local bread. The tea was a surprise. A rich salty tea that was less bitter and unpleasant than the time i accidentally took a swig of urine and spat it all over my brother's carpet.

For dessert the entire staff lined up and sang for us. Their chorus of cheerful melodies cracked with textured timbre finishing with a three count to cue us for a response. Our mad scramble to get even one of us to solo a familiar tune clearly laid bare how much more prepared they were. Disadvantaged as we were the game continued lengthily to a point where our pants around our ankles faded from comical to almost embarassing. They would sing a mixture of Tibetan songs and then familiar "Happy Birthday" or "London Bridge" for our amusement. It occurred to me that they were following a set list when they repeated "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" after my dad's offering of the same song.

Full bellies and an exhausted repetoire marked our departure. One last barrage of handicrafts on the way to the bus to shatter the illusion of good times found in spontaneous friendship. But the hollowness of simulated camaraderie left an open view to memories of real heart born in wild places. Bonds made in exceptional situations instead of staged connections on top of Disney's space mountain.

On the way back to town in a park beneath White Horse monastery the locals were getting shit faced what had not already fallen over drunk in patches of watermelon rinds and banana peels. Can't remember what festival this was all for. Quintessential throngs of people in tattered and soiled three piece suits or some early-nineties / late-eighties north american casual fashion writhing down a pathway to a thinly treed forest. Perfect shade and space for every man woman and child to tear through the flat of beer that they used to prop their drunk asses up. Motorcycles mounted by leering comical faces, beet red, sun beat red, too drunk stupid to do much more than default to blissful booze bathed grins. They fought upstream paddling with repeated horn blasts carving channels through solid walls of staggering drunk automatons flanked by vendors of all manner. And i mean ALL manner. Shoe soles, gloves, soft drinks, hard drinks, meat skewers, shirts, shoes, incense, watches, cell phone belt holsters, bloody freaking stoves!

My last sight of the park was a police jeep packed with ten people wheeling out of the parking lot. The scene continued much the same back in Xining throuhgout the night. Men better friends than when they had started drinking began swinging on eachother's hinges. Turned over shoulders from watering the walls to cheer on our utterly alien appearance. This city had a laid back feeling to it; good natured. I didn't get the constant assault of commodified memories being pushed on me. Nobody was trying to practice their olympic english on me. It's like a tourist had never been there. As much as you would be greeted by initially xenophobic stare downs, you had only to nod and wink. Suddenly they're in on the joke and they love it.

We got a good view of this friendly city from the peak of a high hill with a Taoist temple, formerly Buddhist. Some teens were pushing mountain bikes up the path, stopping a few times to wheeze, perspire and puff a smoke. One particularly sweat ravaged guy grimmaced and outstretched his pack of smokes saying "please." I politely declined. The air was already gnarlier than previous nights that had been washed clean by day showers. We had found ourselves routinely mugged by putrid rotten air that smelled of waste that even garbage has thrown away. These night terrors and the stereotypical mountain air made it hard to sleep for an hour, but when it came it was full and sweet, well earned and deeply satisfying.

joel

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