Tibet is here

Silence and simple joy on the Tibetan plateau

Today is the grand departure and we leave the city of Xining by car to go to the city of Zhangye via lake Qinghai and the Tibetan plateau. The man who will dirve us, a Hui, is waiting for us at 7 am to leave. We finally leave late as usual, that is, at 7:30. A two-hour drive is awaiting us and we’ll see the lake ahead. As for me, too exhausted, I sleep the entire way until dad wakes me up. At the beginning I don’t understand why and then I see, like in a documentary on television, three horses, children and goats come towards me. I wonder who they are and where they come from. Among them, a young man in his twenties is on a horse. He dismounts and greets us in perfect English, which surprises me. He explains to us that he’s from a large family of Tibetan nomads that wander the roads with children and animals to earn money by photographing tourists with animals, to be able to pay for their children’s education. It’s touching. We begin talking with them until the arrival of a bus filled with Chinese tourists that are coming to photograph what they consider to be folklore. We leave these nomads and head towards a Tibetan temple dad noticed. Although Liu Jia is convinced that there is no road, dad insists. We leave by car, and a few hundred meters further, a road opens up in front of us; there, that’s dad’s sixth sense. We go forward until we reach the temple where there was a giant gold statue of Buddha, in front of which people kneel down to pray. We notice that the Buddhist circle around this statue. At that moment, dad and I end up nose-to-nose with an elderly person with a beautiful face covered in wrinkles of someone who has seen life. She walks around the statue of Buddha while praying for her right eye and right ear that don’t work very well. She takes me by the hand and slowly, we begin to go around the Buddha. She tells me we have to go around three times and begins to recite Tibetan prayers that I repeat. At the end of the first time around, she breaths harder and I understand that she is tired. So, I help her sit and there, a man comes and tells me that her name means “stability” in Tibetan and that she’s 89 years old. A little rested, she gets back up, takes my hand and goes around once more. When Yang Dong goes to film, she gets angry. During the second time around, I see that she is still young at heart because she makes funny faces. At the end of the second time around the statue, I say bye and I keep walking in the temple. Dad asks a monk at what time the prayer is. “Whenever you want” was the monk’s response. He gives us a clear liquid drink that I believe to be water but turns out to be Chinese wine. Then, he begins to recite prayers in front of an altar where we leave offerings. He puts on a robe and recites prayers in Tibetan with cymbals and a Tibetan drum. When he is finished, we thank him and leave, fulfilled with this spiritual moment.