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Ernie
A (Really) Old China Expat's Story
-from On A Chinese Screen, a 1922 collection of essays and stories by literary giant W. Somerset Maugham.
He was seventy-six years old. He had come to China when he was little more than a boy as second mate of a sailing vessel and had never gone home again. Since then he had been many things. For long years he had commanded a Chinese boat that ran from Shanghai to Ichang, and he knew by heart every inch of the great and terrible Yangtze. He had been master of a tug at Hong-Kong and had fought in the Ever-Victorious Army. He had got a lot of loot in the Boxer troubles and had been in Hankow during the revolution when the rebels shelled the city.
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Rebiya Kadeer - Dragon Fighter
Of her childhood in the Heavenly Mountains, she has nothing but a story her father told her, a fable she would remember and come to embody.
"One day, an ant met a bird.
‘Where are you going?' asked the bird.
‘I'm going to the West,' replied the ant, and kept moving.
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China's Buddhist Explorers, Part One
Faxian's 15,000 km route
Imagine Columbus were a humble pilgrim, rather than an intrepid explorer. Forsaking conquest for respect, he would have truly given Europe a New World. But then aboriginal Americans never had the foresight to send their priests to strange lands. The real Indians did; King Ashoka's emissaries brought the jeweled lotus of Buddhism to China in the 3rd century BCE, inspiring Chinese Buddhists to return to the land of its origin centuries later. One of these pilgrims, Faxian, left records of his travels, and dedicated his life to uniting the world through faith by example, not compulsion.
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Running from the Chinese Police
from Alone on the Great Wall, by William Lindesay, who spent 1986 & 1987 jogging its entire length.
Late last night there were murmurings about the Gong An Ju, so I was up and away at dawn. Getting off the bed, my shins ached so much I almost wished the worst would happen, but once on the road approaching a high ridge of mountains and spotting the Wall, I felt my spirits lift.
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China's Snack Streets
There's so much to see, and eat, in China that it's a shame to waste too much time in big, fancy restaurants. The fawning wait-staff and death-sentenced fish in their tanks will take the edge off the keenest appetite. Instead, make yours a movable feast, on the snack streets running through any Chinese city that merits a large dot on the map.
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Lhoka: A Kinder, Gentler Tibet
Once you've seen the Potala and bought a thangka, Lhasa may soon grow tiresome. There is no capital today, however exotic-sounding to Westerners, that can resist the pressure to be another bland outpost of the WTO. No Starbucks or McDonald's in Lhasa, yet, but there are clones. Advanced tourists take warning, and roll downhill a few hours to Lhoka: milder, more lush, less developed, and more authentically Tibetan than what Lhasa has become.
Lhoka, where Lokesvara, Lord of the World, became a monkey, slept with a demon, and sired the original Tibetan (Don't worry; they're proud of it.) Lhoka, where the Tubo kings lie entombed, by three of Tibet's four sacred mountains. "Lhoka", to which the travel agent will stare at you quizzically until you ask her to do a Google search for "Yarlung River Scenic Area".
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The Year of the Tiger and You
We're a little past the due date for a New Year's horoscope, but the fireworks have finally died down long enough to concentrate.The year of the tiger is upon us, the metal tiger. Expect drama, change, and intensity. The last metal tiger, 1950, brought the Korean War, McCarthyism, and the eruption of both Mauna Loa and Mt. Etna. It was also the year Great Britain and Israel recognized the PRC, and Robert Schumann presented his proposal for a pan-European organization, today known as the EU. You must be both active and on guard to tame this tiger, no tail-holding when things can turn so quickly. Of course, your own Chinese zodiac sign determines whether you should be setting traps for the tiger, or scrambling for the high branches.
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Chinese Medicine: A Change of Heart
We don't just need health care reform. We need a whole new way of looking at health. The medical industry gives lip-service to the idea that positive emotions help healing and negativity slows it. But we're still too arrogantly materialistic to accept the larger truth: spirit determines matter. The thought creates the word creates the feeling creates the physical result.
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A Ripple of Protest
From Socialism Is Great, A Worker's Memoir of the New China, by Zhang Lijia
"The students have taken to the streets!" Life lit up Big Zhang's sleepy eyes as he walked into our workshop one morning in mid-December. Blazing with excitement, Zhang described the demonstrations that had spread to our city from nearby Hefei in Anhui province.
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An Ant's Tale
From the "At least we're not China" files: an LA Times article about China's Ant Tribe, a massive new demographic of college-educated but marginally employed youth, living cramped and hand-to-mouth in China's rich cities. It's a fairly harmless piece of journalism, except for the inevitable hint that said Ants may soon provide objective western journalists with their long-awaited Chinese revolution. The article tells but one young man's story; we'll tell another's.
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