Introduction to Volume I - Tibet, China - Patience is a Virtue AKA 7 Days (x2) in Tibet

I've never been to mainland China ever in my life.  The fact that I have not stepped foot on my ancestral homeland for over 28 years of my life had always bugged me, especially since my brother got to go before I did.  It isn't a competitive thing with my brother, it's just that he's never liked to travel and the fact that he got to go somewhere before I did, irked me.  Okay, maybe it is a competitive thing.

My brother, grandmother and grandmother's brother's son (Uncle Once Removed?) in 2006.
See how he's so cool and non-chalant about being in Shanghai?  Grrr... (PS - Alex, I'm just kidding)

When I decided to quit my job, I called my dad to let him know that I wanted to spend some time in Taiwan.  He informed me that him and 20 of his traveling companions (yes, they have a tourist group that always travel to the mainland together) wanted to go to Tibet, and asked if I wanted to come.  I don't think there was a second of thought between the time I read the line, "Did you want to come?" and typing in the words, "Fuck yea, I do."  Please note, my dad then returned with an email that said: "What is this 'fuck'?"

The two sides of my family have two very different relationships with the mainland.  First my mom's side of the family.  My grandfather and grandmother were both staunch Shanghainese.  Their accents and their switching of Mandarin Chinese into Shanghainese during conversations gave their background away to anyone familiar with China.  My grandfather, from what I understand, grew up orphaned; my grandmother, was forced to leave elementary school very early to help her family earn income by sewing garments.  They married, had my uncle, and escaped to Taiwan during the Chinese Civil War, where they had my aunt, then my mom.  

Above is a picture of my grandmother and my great aunt (her younger sister).
In 2006, they met for the first time since 1949, when my grandmother was exiled to Taiwan and the remainder of her family was stuck on the mainland with the Communists.  I cannot imagine not seeing my brother for almost 60 years. This is what war does to families.

My dad's side of the family originally came from Fujian province in China.  Their ancestors had moved across the Taiwan strait centuries ago and had become the 2nd group of native Taiwanese (after the aboriginal groups) to settle on the island - think of them as the Pilgrim equivalents of Asia.  They lived through Japanese occupation of the island.  Surprisingly, most elderly Taiwanese you encounter have fond memories of the Japanese as the Japanese were responsible for building a lot of the infrastructure and educational institutions on the island.  This exposed a generation of Taiwanese (my grandparent's generation) to higher education, which planted the seeds of the importance of being educated in future Taiwanese generations.  This second group of Taiwanese did not harbour the same feelings for the Kuomingtang government that landed in 1949 (the 3rd group) - the divisions between the two groups led to the current state of Taiwanese politics, with the 2nd group making up the Independence Green party movement and the 3rd group supporting the KMT government and longing for reunification with the mainland.

With these roots, I had always been curious to see what it was like on the Mainland, having been to Taiwan so many times in my 20s.  Some preconceived notions had already formed including:

- there's going to be a lot of people (this turned out to be very true)
- it's going to be dirty and unsanitary (this was mostly driven by my dad's paranoia and my own OCD tendencies)
- there's going to be a lot of pollution (this was true in the Chinese cities, but less so in Tibet, however, the effects of climate change were quite visible)
- people had no issues with displaying bodily functions (yea - this was sadly true)

Now before I move on in my blog, I know that there will be those people offended that I refer to Tibet as separate from China.  I can see how it can be as offensive to the Chinese as if outsiders started calling Quebec a separate country when referring to Canada.  Please understand that it is just easier to reference Tibet as Tibet, and not as Tibet, China and that nothing should be taken as a political statement.

Our fourteen trip in China and Tibet took us through to both ends of the socio-economic spectrum.  We first saw a city in Western China called Xining - a city going through a growth spurt like every other city in the Chinese interior.  Hundreds of buildings were being constructed, and infrastructure projects dotted the landscape.  The city and the Qinghai region is also the intersection of three cultures - the dominant Han Chinese, the minority Muslim Chinese and then the Tibetan, who dwell on the outskirts of the city.  Outside of Xining, the landscape is the main tourist attractions - years of soil, wind and water erosion have carved the mountain sides and the red clay terrain into works of art.

Near Xining, China - At Gui-de National Geological Park.  The wind and sand have carved the red clay terrain into any artist's canvas inspiration.

From Xining, we headed towards Lhasa on an overnight train called the Lhasa Express.  This train has two main lines - the Beijing -> Lhasa line and the Shanghai -> Lhasa line.  Both mainly serve the thousands of migrant workers who go to the big cities to look for work, then there is the small minority of travellers who want to experience life on the train.  My main lesson here was that while it was nice to experience once, it inspires you to work hard and earn the money for a plane ticket.  There's really nothing romantic about train travel - especially using a squat toilet on a moving train (more on that in my Lhasa Express blog post).

We arrived in Lhasa on Wednesday, April 25 but it seemed like any weekend, as the pace of life in Tibet is so laid back.  It has to be - any activity that requires you to take copious amount of oxygen would likely result in you fainting at this altitude.  I'll admit, I had trouble at some points - and I'm in pretty good shape.

Lhasa, like the rest of Tibet was magical.  Faith and spirituality was everywhere - devout Buddhists were everywhere and like the Vatican, they made their pilgrimage to this, one of the holiest places in Buddhism and showed their devotion through filling temple coffers with renminbis (China's currency) and praying along the 3 km prayer route around Lhasa.  Devotees were on their knees, crawling and praying on this route - my dad's only thought here was - "wow, that's so unsanitary."

Near Jongkar Temple - Devotees repeated this prayer action 1,000 times a day.  Stand, Kneel, Hands & Head to the Ground and repeat.  

We ventured out of Lhasa for about a week, going to cities like Gyangtse, Shigatse, Gonggar, Dingri and Everest Base Camp (on the Tibet side).  Like Xining, the landscape was the tourist attraction here.  I don't know how many photos I have of mountains, lakes, rivers, flowers - it was a nature explosion on my SD card.  Most of them had to be deleted as the 4x4 we were in wasn't great at helping the focus on my camera.  Bad roads, fast speeds, altitude adjustment and a head cold did not make for a happy Terence for a couple of days, and my only cure was to stare out the window and appreciate what it was I was looking at.

Near Gonggar, Tibet - A picture like it was a painting.

We ended our trip in Shanghai, China, the economic heart of China.  A city like no other I've seen in the world.  It's like a New York that sprang up overnight, in fact, it was.  Going to the birthplace of my mother's parents was surreal - it felt like my grandmother was with me, guiding me through the city as if she was saying, "Oh my, this city has changed."

This trip to Tibet and China helped me in many ways, which I will elaborate on in future posts.  I realized a few things about myself:

- I need to slow down and appreciate the things around me.  Patience has never been a forte of mine, and I had to learn to mellow down in a place where everything was mellow.
- I need to be nicer to my dad.  I am in fact, a terrible son.  I am rude, abrupt and inconsiderate of his feelings.  Years of trying to hate him for my parents divorce certainly did a number on me.  I realized I needed to channel that anger into figuring out how to connect with him again, and this was certainly a great opportunity to do it.
- I need to put the camera down and just appreciate the scenery without the lens in the way.  
- The only faith I need in my life is to live a good life.  I'm not meant to follow any major religion, even one as peaceful as Buddhism

This leads me to the song that I started with each day with while on this trip.  Affirmation is a song from the same titled album by Savage Garden, released in 1999.  In this song, there are statements that were like gems I found on this journey including:

"I believe your parents did the best job they knew how to do."
"I believe we place our happiness in other people's hands."
"I believe you don't know what you got until you say goodbye."

The first line obviously speaks to my relationship with my dad - he's never been there to parent because of the geographic distance between us, but I realized on this trip, no matter how much abuse I spew out at him, he still loves me.  It takes a real man to be able to love someone else so unconditionally that they put up with that kind of behaviour.

The second line speaks to my need in my teens and most of my 20s living up to people's expectations and what others thought of me.  Coming from a competitive university culture, my career was all about measuring up or being better than my counterparts and never really doing what it was that I wanted to do, to make me happy.  My decision to quit really was the start to taking that happiness back into my own hands.

The final line speaks to all the things I've taken for granted - especially my relationships.  I never appreciated what my mom did for me before she died (and never had a chance to say it to her).  I never had a chance to tell my grandmother what an inspiration she was to me for being an 80 year old uneducated widower who survived by herself in a country that was so foreign to her.  This line also focuses me to appreciate the places I have and will travel to - to remember why you were there rather than trying to remember them later through photographs.

It's an amazing song, and goes well with Tibet and its spirituality.  I now start everyday with this song.  It's my positive reinforcement.  Enjoy the song below - and enjoy the throwback to 90's clothing.