Like many last summer my mom was planning a trip to Mount
Kailash. At her age, she had to do it sooner than later: The circuit is best
done in the year of the horse, which happened to be in 2014. And the lunar horse
year comes only once in a twelve-year cycle. So, together with two of her lady
friends my mother prepared anxiously for this once-in-a-lifetime, holy trip to
maximise on her Karma.
The three ladies are part of a new generation
of Tibetan elders: Polyglot, physically fit, socially active and financially
well funded too. Active senior citizens ready to explore the world on their own
hook. “Grey Panthers” as Westerners call them – Mo trogtro as my partner
calls them jokingly. The only unknown in the project: Would our "fancy
grannies" receive the green light from China?
As usual it was a lot of waiting and hoping for
the China visa and more specifically the Tibet permit to come through. No Tibet
permit, no Kailash.
There were ominous signs from the beginning. In
May my uncle in Lhasa confided over the phone that they had sealed off the
mountain due to the rush of pilgrims and tourists. Several large Indian groups
were also cancelled, media reported. Whatever the reasons, we could only wait
and see, make calls from time to time and work on alternative plans in case the
permit didn't come through. Hope dies last.
By experience from earlier trips, inauspicious
signs should never be a reason for discouragement. During my mom's previous
visa application two years earlier a gruesome self-immolation had taken place
in front of the Jokhang in Lhasa. As a consequence, they sealed off the
Autonomous Region even for Tibetans from the outlying areas. I thought,
"That's it, Amala, if people from Tibetan areas outside the TAR
can't get into Lhasa, you as someone from overseas can definitely forget your
Tibet permit."
But miraculously she got it at the very last
minute, just a few days before her scheduled departure. The price of her flight
ticket had nearly doubled by then. But my mother had learned to remain flexible
and detached when dealing with the Chinese. They are experts in teaching people
a lesson in patience and anger management.
She was hoping for a similar unexpected green
light this time around. China doesn't make it easy on Tibetans. Even on
harmless grannies with no political agenda. Last time although my mother had
the proper China visa stamp saying "is allowed to enter the Tibet
autonomous region", they still stopped her for several hours at Gongkar
airport asking for the notorious "Tibet permit". It’s a requirement
that is regularly written off and equally regularly makes a comeback most often
in spring when everyone gets ready to go Tibet. In the meantime her brother in
Lhasa ran from one department to the next to plead for their help with the
airport officials.
Getting to Lhasa and Mount Kailash last summer
was not only difficult for overseas Tibetans, but also for those living in the
Tibetan areas outside the Autonomous Region like my cousins in far east Kham. Beijing-based
writer Woeser also discussed the surreal situation in a recent article. If my
cousins wanted to accompany my mom on this pilgrimage, they too had to apply
for a permit. In their case, issued by the local authorities in Ngari, where
Mount Kailash is located. The Chinese overlords are paranoid about Tibetans
from outlying areas visiting Lhasa. Each and every one of them is seen as a potential
self-immolator.
Meanwhile Lhasans had their passports revoked
just so nobody accidentally crossed the border to attend the Kalachakra
teachings by the Dalai Lama in Ladakh. The only ones, who are free to enter and
exit the Tibetan areas as they please, are Chinese tourists. Pure cynicism.
Finally a confirmation came: Lhasa to be closed
until July-end. At least some concrete word despite the disappointment. In
addition to being nontransparent, they always wait until the last minute to let
the cat out of the bag. We know their tactics however and instinctively prepare
for all eventualities. The process to receive a visa for China and Tibet can
become surreal for Tibetans living abroad. We only survive the madness because
over the years we have come to look at it as some kind of sport taking it with
gallows humor. Each time the process is a little bit different. The sporty part
is to anticipate as much as possible and prepare a matching reaction from our
side. So if Kailash and the Tibet Autonomous Region are closed, we go to
another Tibetan place that is open. Even they can’t close down the whole
country. With every application we grow more hard-nosed. But you can't win all
the time. We learned that too.
An article in the China Daily of 8th
December 2014 painted a totally different picture of the Kailash situation. The
headline read: "Tibet welcomes tourists to holy mountain, lake", and said the Ngari Prefecture "is opening its arms wide
to foreign visitors". – What a travesty! - They reported 470’000 visitors
to Kailash, a 50 % increase from the previous year. And the TAR on the whole,
the article said, received 12,8 million visitors in 2014. But of these only
roughly 2 % or 256’000 were foreigners. That’s an incredibly low number given
the official fanfare. The data suggests to me that the tourist welcome is a
façade. In practice, foreign visitors are not welcome at all. The most telling
figure therefore would be how many applications from foreign passport holders they
received and rejected in 2014. But this story remains untold.
Some time back I had a meeting with a lady who
does field research on Tibetan medicine in Amdo. We exchanged our experiences
of working in Tibetan areas and specifically the challenges faced from
authorities and ways to deal with them. Annual renewal of your work permit for
example could become a little odyssey as my partner regularly experiences.
Totally unexpected, I learned that she, like other academics, were now going to
Tibetan areas on tourist visas, working "undercover" so to speak. She
said the prospect of receiving a research permit was nil and that even some of
the better-known Tibetologists whom the exiles usually view as pro-Chinese,
could not obtain it. Well, at least the Chinese give everyone a hard time in
obtaining permits and not just Tibetan Molas!
The Tibetan visa officer at the Chinese embassy instructed
us to get in touch with the nelenkhang in my dad's Tibetan hometown for
help with the Tibet permit. There was nothing else he could do to speed up the
process from his end, he said.
This term for the office that handles entry
permits for Tibetan expats has a misleadingly warm and welcoming flavour in
Tibetan - which is actually the greatest hoax in all this: Your friendly
"reception office" is the very unit known in Chinese as the Tongzhanbu
and has an unmistakably martial taste to it. It literally means the
"together-fight-office". The English "United Front" sounds
equally belligerent. If you look for warm hospitality, look some place else. My
experience of the Nelenkhang is that they do anything in their might to ward
you off rather than “receiving” you with open arms. But what can you do? They
have all the power. You have none.
My mom’s Tibet permit still wasn’t out when the
departure date arrived. So she pragmatically took the regular China visa and
headed straight into the lion's den: First Shanghai, then Suzhou and third Hong
Kong. Then she made a pilgrimage to Mount Emei near Chengdu in Sichuan. It is
associated with Shantideva aka Shiwa-lha
in Tibetan and is one of four famous Buddhist peaks in China. Pilgrimage at my
mom's age is always a good idea, is it not? And getting to know China better,
although not a top priority, is a good use of time until the Tibet permit is
processed.
Next she toured Wutai Shan in Shanxi, another
famous Buddhist peak. Known in Tibetan as rgyanag riwo tsenga, the
mountain is associated with Manjushri and even our ageing Dalai Lama in India
repeatedly expresses his wish to visit the peak. But unlike my mom he has not
been let in and it doesn’t look like he will be allowed to enter any time soon.
Sometimes it pays off to be just an untitled average soul.
Last but not least, when the permit still hadn’t
come through, my mom went to Jizu Shan, yet another holy Buddhist peak located
in Yunnan. The Chicken Foot Mountain, riwo jakang in Tibetan, famous site
where Kashyapa, one of the Buddha's disciples, meditated and eventually gained
enlightenment.
That was a whole lot of mountain touring my mom
did in China. But still no news on the Tibet permit. Without it there was no
way of getting to Kailash. Being patient my mother then turned her attention to
Labrang and Kumbum, the two largest Tibetan monasteries of Amdo. She was not impressed
with the local food. The “pulled noodles soup” Thenthuk served everywhere, which is usually popular among all
Tibetans, was an indefinable Gulash with everything thrown in the cook could
get his hands on. But she was full of praise of how neat and well run the
monasteries were and how the monks seemed so disciplined and devoted – unlike
in some areas in Kham she knew well.
Although you do not need an additional permit
for the Tibetan areas of Qinghai and Gansu, the region displays the inevitable
signs of anomaly that have become so typical of the Tibetan areas under China.
My cousin from Kham, who acted as their guide, had to separate from my mom and
her friends and stay at a different hotel. The official explanation was that
foreign guests had to be given better quality accommodation. The unofficial
explanation was Tibetans could suddenly self-immolate and they don’t want
people from overseas creating a fuss.
Eventually September came and went. My brave
mother had been holding out patiently for three long months outside the gates
of the Tibet Autonomous Region. When the bureaucrats in Lhasa finally told us
over the phone that “the permit will definitely come out next month", my
mom had grown tired of all the waiting and empty promises. So in the end
Kailash for her didn't materialise. It was the year of the horse, considered
most auspicious for a circumambulation, and her own Tibetan sign also happens
to be the horse. Maybe it was just
too good to be true?
My Amala’s disappointment faded quickly. She
experienced Amdo culture and was able to visit Labrang and Kumbum. Would she
have had the opportunity had she gone to Lhasa instead? Most expat Tibetans, if
they get to visit, are on a tight schedule and focus on their hometown. They are
unlikely to experience other parts of the highlands.
She also got to do pilgrimages to famous
Buddhist peaks in China, that's precious too. Of course the irony is not lost on
her. While she is free to tour the mountains in China as much as she likes and
until her feet hurt, she cannot set a single foot to a mountain in Tibet.
That’s the bizarre situation.
With the right mindset, however, her pilgrimage
tours in China can become as meritorious as circumambulating Kailash. My mother
knows that. And she also knows it won’t be her last trip. As long as the doctor
doesn’t advise her to avoid travelling in high altitude, she will make another
attempt to get to Kailash, that's for sure. Let’s see who wins the next round.
It looks like the Tibetans’ fate that those who
live outside have trouble getting in and those who live inside have trouble getting
out. More recently, internal mobility for Tibetans has been throttled further. People
are now doomed to stay put, doomed to immobility or forced to find other ways
and means. This year my little family is planning a trip to Tibet. I get
stomach cramps when I think of the visa work ahead. Still we end up making the
attempt because the reward is worth the effort.
When I saw my mother emerging from the airport
gate, she was as light-footed as a young girl pulling a set of brand-new fancy wheeled
suitcases. She didn't buy them in Shanghai as I suspected but had someone in my
dad’s hometown order them for her on Taobao, the Chinese E-Bay.
"Much cheaper, everyone orders
online," she announced triumphantly.
That's my old lady, such a bragger. I love every
piece of normalcy coming out of Tibet even if it's as trivial as online
shopping or fancy air-travel gear. And I love cheeky Tibetan Molas who surprise
you with their wits.
Mountain Phoenix Over Tibet
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