Lost on Planet China: One Man's Attempt to Understand the World's Most Mystifying Nation (35 page)

In 1933, James Hilton published the novel
Lost Horizon,
a story about four people who, after their plane had crashed somewhere high in the snowcapped mountains of the Himalayas, found themselves led by an enigmatic Chinese man to the mythical wonderland of Shangri-la, a peaceful paradise in “the valley of the blue moon.” Where was this Shangri-la? people wondered. Some said it was in Tibet, others in Sichuan Province, while still others claimed that Shangri-la is actually in Pakistan. Xuen Ke, the Naxi bandleader, believes Lijiang is the true Shangri-la. But the Chinese government said
No. You’re all wrong.
Shangri-la can be found in Zhongdian, a town located on the finger of Yunnan that thrusts up into Tibet. Indeed, the government was so confident in its assertion that in 2001 they officially changed the name of Zhongdian to Shangri-la, leading some to point out that Shangri-la was always, in fact, a fictional place.

Nevertheless, the vaunted Shangri-la—a place of beauty and harmony—sets a very high bar as a choice destination for travelers who just happen to be wandering through China. So we resolved to visit this Shangri-la before Jack left to return to Hong Kong and then home, if only because we were so eager to get out of Qiaotou, a place, we discovered, notable for its barking dogs—dogs that barked through the night, relentlessly—bark, bark, bark, all night long.

The next day, we hopped into this minivan bound for Zhongdian. It was not at all like the spacious and comfortable minivans in the United States, but more like a toy minivan, made of tin, the tiny sort of vehicle that clowns would crowd into. The driver was a sane driver, possibly because the engine was no more powerful than a lawn mower’s, and we chugged up the hills at a speed of approximately twenty-seven miles per hour, heading ever higher into the mountains, paying tolls at tollbooths staffed by soldiers, until finally, we emerged upon a vast, desolate plateau spotted with large open wooden farmhouses. And to my delight I saw that there were yaks, huge shaggy yaks. A yak is a ruminant’s ruminant, the king of the bovine. We’d entered a region that was predominantly Tibetan in population, which explained the presence of yaks. With their immense horns and considerable size, they are intimidating, and yet in Tibet people not only use them to plow fields but they also race yaks. There is such a thing as yak racing.

Somewhere upon this plateau, we pulled into a dusty village, where we were joined by a gaggle of Tibetans: four, six, eight, nine. And soon there were twelve of us in a tiny bus designed to carry no more than four. We sat in laps. We stood. And we laughed, because it’s funny to be in an overcrowded minivan made of tin. Our fellow passengers were very friendly in their colorful dress. Or, rather, their clothes would have been colorful if not so dirty. One by one, they broke into song, and as we rolled along, singing the Tibetan songs of yore, Jack and I doing our best to join in, all seemed good.

If there is a stranger place to call Shangri-la than Zhongdian, I cannot image it. It’s a dirty frontier town, a place with a heavy military and Communist Party presence. And it sits near the edge of China, in a region largely populated by Tibetans, a place where the powers that be in Beijing seemed distant, and so to overcome this distance, Beijing manifests itself in Shangri-la with soldiers and ugly, boxy buildings of bureaucrats, functionaries, and Party officials. It was, of course, convenient to call Zhongdian Shangri-la. There was not a quicker way to turn a town near the Tibetan Autonomous Region into a Han Chinese city than by dangling the lure of money. And the name itself, with all its connotations of wonder and mystery and beauty, is nothing but a business opportunity.

But there was no wonder or mystery or beauty here. What had remained of the old village of Zhongdian had been swallowed by a scruffy Han city notable for its plethora of karaoke bars. Even the setting was uninspiring. I had expected that at the very least, the bare minimum, Shangri-la would be surrounded by soaring mountains, towering eminences dusted with snow. But this was not the case. There were merely a few scrubby, barren hills. True, these were 11,000-foot hills, far higher than most of the mountains in the Sierra Nevada. But when viewed from our current elevation of 9,500 feet, they looked scrubby, barren, and, well, decidedly small.

“So this is Shangri-la,” Jack said once we’d adjusted to the altitude. “It reminds me of Butte, Montana.”

The most intriguing part of the city, when we finally reached it, was the old town. This is because it was brand new. In the center of the city, where there was once a typical Tibetan village, we found hundreds of workers busy building a quaint replica of a Tibetan village. And here, too, there were many doors for sale, scuffed and dulled to make them look weathered and old. In the shops, there was Tibetan this and Tibetan that, knickknacks and leather cowboy hats like Jack’s, most likely made in a factory in Guangdong. We watched as, on cue, ruddy-faced dancers arrived on the old town square and gathered the Chinese tourists, held hands with them, and showed them how to dance Tibetan style. A small garbage truck drove by, announcing its presence with music, just like an ice-cream truck. Nearby, up a small hill and through an alley of shit—human shit, mind you, left there by the workers constructing the new Shangri-la—we made our way to a massive golden prayer wheel, which was being turned by dozens of devotees. They were Tibetan Buddhists, and we lingered for a while watching them turn this wheel. It was but a glimpse of what lay to the north. And it would be as close as Jack would get to Tibet.

The next day, we found ourselves in the bus station in Shangri-la, surrounded by men who flashed covetous, cunning looks at our belongings. It was here that Jack and I would part ways.

“Just break the trip down into parts,” I advised him. “A bus to Lijiang. You remember what Lijiang looked like, right? It’s full of Naxis. Then a plane to Guangzhou, and from there a train to Hong Kong. And you’ll have about forty-eight hours to do this if you want to catch your flight.”

Jack stared at me blankly.

“Do you want me to go ahead and file the missing-persons report now, or should I wait a couple of days?” I asked him.

“I think you can go ahead and do it now.”

When the bus arrived it was, as always, a scene of grim chaos as dozens of people scrambled for seats. Jack turned to me. “I don’t envy you. I’ve got some serious China fatigue.”

But I envied me. I was going to Tibet.

17

A
s everyone knows,
Tintin in Tibet
is far and away the best Tintin book ever conjured by the mind of Hergé, the Belgian writer and illustrator. As a young lad living next door in Holland, I did what all Dutch boys did: I wore wooden shoes, I put mayonnaise on my French fries, and I read Tintin. As I followed Tintin as he skipped from calamity to calamity around the world, these illustrated adventure books (do not even think of calling them comics) offered me my first glimpse of the world beyond the dikes. And
Tintin in Tibet
was the most outstanding book of them all. Oh sure, there are still some who claim that
The Blue Lotus
or even
Cigars of the Pharaoh
represent the apogee of Herge’s work. But they are wrong.

Tintin in Tibet
begins with a plane crash. So, too, did James Hilton’s
Lost Horizon.
It makes you think. It made me think. It’s so easy to crash an airplane into the Himalayas, that vast mountain range stretching from Pakistan to Sichuan Province, a geological testament to the pushiness of the Indian subcontinent as it continues to slide into Asia. I’d once seen a T-shirt that said STOP CONTINENTAL DRIFT! But it cannot be stopped. Nothing can be done. The Indian subcontinent wants to be part of Asia. And we can only get out of the way. And it is all for the good—this long, interminable crashing and grinding of landmasses has given us some mighty fine mountains. Here, in the Himalayas, we have the highest mountains in the world. There is Everest, of course, coming in just a shade under 30,000 feet. But there are many, many other mountains in Tibet itself that reach up into the Death Zone, that breathless area surrounded by snow and rock where human beings are not meant to go.

I had decided to travel to Lhasa, the longtime abode of the Dalai Lama on the high Tibetan Plateau. Lhasa is the spiritual home of Tibetan Buddhism, though of course it is no longer the home of the Dalai Lama, who fled into exile when China crushed a rebellion among Tibetans in 1959. There are two ways to get to Lhasa from Zhongdian; there is the overland route that involves a 4 × 4 and a week of navigating perilous dirt roads over some of the highest mountain passes in the world. Or one can fly. I’d considered the overland route, but after the short drive from Tiger Leaping Gorge to Qiaotou, I’d abandoned the thought. The prospect simply combined too many fears I had in China involving driving and heights. And so I’d fly to Lhasa.

I waited at the Tibet Café for a ride to the airport. Technically, only foreigners in tour groups could get permits for Tibet. But there was a local fixer at the café who had helped me obtain a permit from the Office For Granting Permits For Tibet To People Who Really Should Be Part Of A Tour Group But Aren’t. Soon, I was joined by familiar faces.

“Look who’s here. Where’s the Republican?”

It was my cross to bear on the backpacker circuit, to be the guy traveling with the Republican, that oddity. I’d met the two Australian couples in Dali, where we’d shared a meal and beers and had all sorts of convivial fun.

“His politics are a little daft,” said Lachlan. “But he’s all right.”

High praise indeed from an Australian.

It was a short flight to Lhasa, a short flight over the greatest mountain range on Earth. There were, however, snacks served on board.
Shalom,
said the package, which further informed me that I was eating a Hot Pickled Mustard Tuber and that it was a Ningbo Special Product. As I ate this Hot Pickled Mustard Tuber, I gazed out the window and was surprised to see that even though it was early October, all but the very highest mountains, the ones that stretched to tickle the fuselage, were barren of snow. Here and there I could see glaciers distinctly retreating, leaving huge barren half-pipes, a skate park for giants. This was not good, of course. Three of the world’s great rivers begin in Tibet: the Mekong, Indus, and Yangtze Rivers all find their source here in its high mountains and glaciers. Those rivers are born of snow. But there was little snow now, and as I stared at the austere wilderness below, I couldn’t help but feel that here, in the forbidding mountains of Tibet, was compelling evidence that the planet was changing, and I tried to squelch that gnawing feeling that we are on the cusp of unsettling times.