Prisoner of Shangri-la

Its a little dark, but its the closest you’ll get to a Tibetan nightclub unless you fly 24hrs…

Whew, it’s been a long day! I taught six classes today starting at 10AM and finally finishing about an hour ago at 9PM.

It’s somewhat strange to me how easily I’ve grown accustomed to being a Teacher - to standing in front of the class, feeling very comfortable, and projecting my voice into the dampening concrete walls. When I see that some of my students are so extremely shy that they will hardly whisper an answer when called upon, for a moment we become the same - a former version of myself and this bright but timid child. I still recall in college, how nervous I was just offering an opinion in class, how harsh the self-punishment would be if that opinion wasn’t immediately deemed valid and insightful. And perhaps it would be the same still.

There is something about teaching a class full of people who don’t speak your language that immediately puts one at ease. YOU are the expert, YOU are the authority. You are automatically given respect because of the position you hold regardless of whether or not you are qualified. Does this almost sound like a tenured professorship yet? The jargon associated with economics, psychology, bio-medical engineering, and religion are for all intensive purposes new “languages” to the uninformed (undergraduates). Perhaps this “gap” is where teachers’ derive their self-confidence and authoritative voices, persuasive arguments and commanding demeanors.

*note: A national holiday is fast approaching and I’m planning a tour around Qinghai with Ricky to some interested site including the birth place of the 14th Dalai Lama, Labrang (home to one of the largest monasteries in Tibet), sky-burial grounds, nomad pastures, and Qinghai Lake. Pictures (at least one with many yak) hopefully when I return in a week and half!

So it might seem far fetched at the present moment, but I can definitely see as Tibet becomes more modernized and globalization moves in to stay, that religious faith in Tibet will seriously be challenged by the fervor and cultish behavior associated with sport. The “sporting event” is a modern society’s religion. In America we have ample experience with this: the superbowl, March Madness, the NBA Finals, and the list goes on and on. In an increasingly secular world, alongside the throngs of fundamentalist (of all religions) will be the passionate atheist inspired by physical acts of perfection interpreted as a transcendental experience of the divine (i.e. Federer as Religious Experience written in the New York Times). Not that there isn’t something about physcial perfection that does seem transcendent, that affects us deeply. But can sport provide meaning? I suppose many would argue that it does, people who LIVE for next Sunday’s game, who will fight you if you say anything bad about their favorite team.

Today I watched a basketball game between two of the classes I teach, the seniors versus the juniors. Certainly little discernable defense could be found, nor much more than frantic passing and shooting on the offensive side but my main issue was that the spirit of the match turned sour very early on. Fouls all over the court, chaos really. Reminded me a little of Lord of the Flies. Certainly sport can light a fire, but can it channel it into anything other than agression, sectarianism, and pride?  The Olympics might be cited as a counter example, and I would agree that collective sport can bring the world together perhaps in a way that no other medium could. I just wish good sportsmanship was considered as important as the other “stuff” (i.e. winning). Quixotic, I know.

Tibetan Medicine, originally uploaded by grimlockq.

Tibetan Medicine in parchment. Notice how its on my table and not in my stomache…vile powder! It all tastes and smells the same too! I did take some of the vitamins in the green package though, and I assure you, it was not with alacrity.

Quotable: “Western medicine is good, but Tibetan medicine is CHEAP.” - Tibetan relative of my Tibetan teacher (a translation).

And it is cheap, only 13 RMB or less than $2 US for a ten-day supply. The doctor’s fee was a paltry 1 RMB! Imagine those kinds of fees in the States…

What do you call a day of boiled lamb heads feasts, 4-character phrases, rice cooker buying, and cowboy hat wearing? Just another Sunday in Rebgong.

The boiled lamb head reference perhaps deserves a little more of an explanation. You see, my Tibetan teacher thought it would be nice (i.e. funny) to make the foreigner squirm while watching an unknown relative slice a spurting lamb eye-ball in two, enjoying all the deliciousness hidden inside. Yum. I could have hurled. But instead I watched as he removed the other eye ball which met with the same unfortunate fate (did I mention how BIG these eye balls are?). Welcome to Tibet. I think I am turning back towards vegetarianism, for the sake of lambs everywhere.

4-character phrases, like this one 毛塞顿开 (to suddenly see the light) are the Chinese version of idiomatic phrases expressed in, you guessed it, erudite 4 character phrases. I just bought a children’s story book that explains some and have been studying it with my new language partner.

Rice cooking is right up there with running water, electricity, and internet in my book. As such, since my old one broke, I ran to the local super-department store to pick up a new one, one of my students trailing closely behind.

Finally we come to the cowboy hat. It just feels right here, in the wild FAR FAR west.

panoramic, originally uploaded by grimlockq.

This is me just wandering around Rebgong, along the Northern edges of the town. Everything here just seems so photogenic. My cowboy hat included

In other news, I went to the Tibetan medical center today downtown. Not for any serious problem, I’ve just been feeling very tired this past week and a friend of my Tibetan teacher took me to see the doctor. A doctor’s visit includes a pulse reading (on both arms) and some stethoscope action on my chest. After which the doc proscribed four different herbal remedies (one actually is a multivitamin) to be taken for ten days morning, noon, and evening. The most I could gleam from the consultation was that the medicine tastes very bad and I might have a “wind” problem. We’ll see if it helps, if not i’m going for heavy doses of ginseng…

Bryan comes to town!, originally uploaded by grimlockq.

So I get a call the other day from an old friend! Bryan, who I last saw in Bodhgaya in December of 2004, was visiting the area with a student group based in Beijing for the semester. He and I were actually monks together! Now Bryan is married (I met his wife too, both awesome people) with one of the most amazing "marriage cermonies" I’ve ever heard which involves the famed Director and Rinpoche Khentse Norbu ("The Cup" and "Travellers and Magicians") mood rings, flowers petals, and a Manjushri empowerment. It’s not my story to tell so I won’t spoil it, but I was invited to the "official" wedding on 7/7/07 in California

So for all you Antioch kids thinking about visiting, Bryan beat you to it (unexpectedly)! Of course the more the merrier…anyone want to visit during Losar (New Years) or catepillar fungus season?!!!

Home cooked meal, originally uploaded by grimlockq.

This a post to prove to my mom that I’m not starving to death (although it seems there’s never enough proof for mom’s in this regard). In the picture you see some hardboiled eggs, red peper/carrot/garlic fried rice (gotta love the iron wok), and some pickled veggies.

That said, I have been eating alot of meat since being here, though I refuse to cook any in my kitchen. Just today for "Teacher’s Day," a national holiday celebrated every Septemer 10th in China, we had a feast in the school cafeteria - lamb, pumpkin friters, spicy peppers & egg, mushroom and beef, sweet and sour fried fish, and I could go on… Anyways, good-bye two years of vegetarianism, I’ll revisit you again when I live in a place where tofu and lentils can be had within a 50 mile radius. Until then…

Grazing Cow, originally uploaded by grimlockq.

So I’ve been here for almost 3 weeks now and have yet to see the “mythical” yak. I even went looking for them up on the “high mountain” pastures. No luck. The best I could find was hairy cow (note: the picture is of a regular cow, not evey a hairy one). I know, I know, you dear reader as disappointed. I will redouble my efforts.

Speaking of efforts, learning to be an effective teacher is difficult, especially if care. Thinking back to all my old high school and elementary teachers I realize how mundane they all were in their approach, how not a single one ever got through to me. Certainly much of that was my extreme shyness, but my teachers also never took a vested interest, though I did well enough in school. Can I be that teacher for these students? The teacher that I always wanted? Do I even want to be that teacher?