Having settled into our new Lhasa home for the week, the journos quickly set up an FCC-in-exile in the small hotel bar and, for the hard core, an annex in a run-down cafe around the corner with an amazing picture signboard depicting the "The Drunken Celestial Beings". Cynically remarking that the Press had obviously been here before I was quickly put right by the leader of the OM Brigade, an elegantly dressed & rather prefectorial Englishwoman, who said crossly that it was nothing of the kind, Celestial Drunken Beings were an integral part of Mahayana iconography.
In such redoubts of an evening my companion, with a passable voice & fancying herself a torch singer, was prone to vamp the assembled company, especially when egged on by the hacks in need of comic relief. Left to her own devices her repertoire can best be described as 'Shirley Bassey, a tad flat' and it didn't take much for her to drop into the bumps & grinds of "Big Spender" . Fortunately for her & us perhaps, over the months of our connection I had been able to steer her more towards the standards of Cole Porter et al., as rendered by Ella, Peggy Lee, Julie London and the like and she took a shine to this rather more sophisticated persona. It even had a maudlin appeal to the inherited nostalgia of our press friends, who became almost genuinely appreciative as the evening wore on.
On the Town
In the day, we spread out over Lhasa, each group following their particular bent. The OM Brigade to visit temples & shop, the glitterati to shop & hunt down tankas and other forbidden artifacts, or replenish their stock of shatoosh and other 'meditational aids' (in those days the fiction that the wool was painlessly plucked from the neck of these poor creatures was still just about tenable). The French off to shop & some hard bargaining, while the Spanish did the sights and sang. But we all had one thing in common, we all sallied forth bearing photos of the Dalai Lama to put about, as we'd been told this was strictly forbidden. The OM Brigade feeling deliciously subversive, like the early Christians in Rome, the glitterati distributing largesse, while the Press thought it eminently fair return for any Tibetan source they interviewed for local colour.
More colourful than this by far was the Bharkor, the market & beating heart of the city, where all the produce of Central Asia seemed to be arrayed in an atmosphere that could not have changed in 500 years. Handsome Turkic girls, fashionably attired in jeans stopping by the food stalls for kebabs, mingled with the locals; the young Tibetans with those glowing ruddy countenances of the high plateau; their seniors with lined faces of immense character, quickly earned by life in a harsh clime. The only discordant note being the young PLA soldiers in their ill-fitting tunics wandering about in couples with the sour deadpan faces of despised occupiers. Poor things.
On the day we ascended the Potala, it was an important day of pilgrimage & the place was packed by thousands of Tibetans lined for miles as they made passage through the various halls. Their good spirits contrasting with the Potala's sombre magnificence & somewhat ransacked air. The entire building was undergoing renovation, which in the gloom of the interior gave everything a dreamlike laborynthine quality as we filed our way from level to level. How much of the original quality of the place, it's works of art & devotion would ever return one could only guess.
Each afternoon in a park on the shadow side of the Potala, Ernesto had set up an open-air Academy. Here in areas divided by a number of canvas enclaves and various refreshment tents, experts lectured us on such matters as Tibetan art, healing and Buddhism. Not to mention the fortune tellers. The most popular of these activities, needless to say, was Ernesto's own discourse on the politics & tantric shenanigans of the 6th Dalai Lama. The days sunny, the atmosphere benign, the whole thing resembled nothing so much as a garden fete.
At night, while some retired early, others partied and generally conducted their affairs as they would at sea level in Hong Kong. A goodly number disappearing for a day or so, struck down for the sin of 'wonted indulgence in a high place', only to re-appear for dinner the next day, a bitpale around the gills but determined not to miss a thing.
Sky Burial Country
Among our number was a nice American woman, writer, PR person and networker. One of those people who move easily through the world of NGO's, who had a long standing professional connection with the WWF and the Tibetan cause. Much of her year was spent in confab at Dharmsala. She it was who had set things up from the Tibetan side for us and she had somehow wangled it so that we were able to visit a monastery within half-a-day's drive of Lhasa. This was no mean feat since the monastery in question did not usually allow visits and given the recent unrest the Chinese were clamping down hard on religion generally. Monks were being arrested & monasteries closed.
The monastery we visited was quite small, a succession of ancient whitewashed buildings on the side of a mountain. Again my heart soared to be in such a landscape. The sun shone and in the blue sky above the kites soared. Across the valley I spied the large flat slabs of rock where the sky burials take place. The contrast with the warmth of the sun's rays, the altitude & chill winter air gave me a vivid and stark sense of the proceedings of dismemberment, which though alien was not horrifying, provoking instead feelings of overarching impermanence & something ancient - liberating & oddly comforting.
In those days, my meditative practice, if I could call it that, went something like this. Footle around the house for an hour to get everything just so. Finally, sit. After 30 seconds, be overcome with an overpowering need to scratch various parts of my anatomy. Sit a bit. Wonder how long it's been. Take a peek at my watch, strategically placed within reach. One minute. Sit. Feel the need for a cup of tea. Resist & sit some more. Wonder how long it's been again & take a peek. Five minutes, time to go make that well earned cup of tea. Over time however and in the company of others I found I could do a bit better than this, sometimes even an hour. Not one to go to extremes, I was encouraged, though not impressed by my progress.
On entering one of the monastery's halls, dark & low-ceilinged, where the monks young and old were chanting, my practice made a quantum leap. I knew that for me more than any other sense, sound was my key to the Divine. The vibration and energy of the place threw me instantly into a deep meditational state, where I remained until a gentle tap on the shoulder indicated, some hours later, that it was time to leave.
The Big Event
By now it was clear that nothing gave our host Ernesto greater pleasure than taking the piss out of the Chinese, whom he loathed and despised as despoilers of the country he had come to love. The night of the Big Event was approaching and we all wondered what Ernesto had in store for us. Tantalising tidbits of information came our way. There were to be some 18 contestants for the "Miss Tibet" title, all of whom were members of a local dance troupe. Outnumbering them by far were the panel of judges, which had now swollen from our original 15 to 30. The Chinese for inscrutable reasons of their own had insisted that for every foreign judge there had to be a Leading Comrade of their own. They were quite adamant about this & since our side neither understood nor had any strong feeling on the subject, they gracefully gave in. Rumour was that some of the contestants were the mistresses of our Chinese hosts & their protectors wanted the "Foreign Friends" well marked lest their wicked Western ways led to unwelcome fraternisation. Personally acquainted with a number of our judges, this wasn't as silly an idea as it first appeared. Nor can I say that the prospect appeared to worry our contestants unduly. In the case of a tied decision it was agreed that it was only right and proper that Ernesto should have the casting vote.
The ballroom was bedecked caravanserai style and dominated by the two high tables of judges sat 15 aside like 2 opposing rugby teams. Ernesto made sure that the obligatory toasts and speeches were kept to the minimum and well out of the way before dinner was served. The entertainment commenced with a fashion show by the contestants. Then came a parade with drums, shawms & cymbals from the different parts of Tibet. Among them were two cute yaks, who in the middle of the floor stopped, bringing the entire procession to an ungainly halt. The yaks looked at each other fondly and farted, each marking the spot with a copious deposit, eloquent expression of their view of the proceedings, and then moved on. There followed a short interval during which a team of tumblers swept in, deftly removing the dumps of ordure, while all present marvelled at how Ernesto had engineered such a feat. Then there came a strange far off sound from distant halls, which as it came closer, had a strident martial air. Into the room burst what seemed to be the entire Tibetan staff of the hotel dressed as Red Guards, beating tambourines, playing accordions and waving little red books. If you recall Bertolucci's movie "The Last Emperor" and the scene where the good prison governor was humiliated & paraded during the Cultural Revolution, you'll get the picture. All eyes were glued on the Chinese judges, who actually took it quite well. Perhaps they were finally entering into the spirit of things, or perhaps they knew we were off the next day and their ordeal would soon be over.
The selection & coronation of "Miss Tibet" that ensued went off well enough. The judges deliberated, each drolly explaining their criteria before duly crowning the comely victorine. The runners up, I am happy to say, appearing as pleased as the winner. The Leading Comrades then made their exit after a decent interval, retiring for some stiff cognacs in the hotel's karaoke bar, which had become their HQ for the duration. The partying then began in earnest, clouded only by the knowledge that we had a 4.30 am departure, but a few hours away.
The Retreat from Lhasa
Bundled figures silently huddling in the freezing gloom of the lobby pre-dawn, we awaited transportation to the airport. Some of us were not feeling our best. Dawn came up on our way to the airport, where we arrived about 9.00 a.m. with the flight scheduled for 11.00 o'clock. It was not to be. We had walked into what looked like an invasion, as the PLA rotated one of it's regiments. Those among us who knew a thing or two about military logistics did not look happy. The thing was, if you did not take off before noon, because the air thinned as the day wore on, you had to wait until the next day. A prospect that few of us relished, knowing that the hotel had no more food & was low on heating fuel as well. Perhaps too, a glimmering that we may have outstayed our welcome. We eventually took off at 2.00 p.m. White knuckled, we were on our way. By night we would be back in Hong Kong.
But as we landed at Chengdu & trooped into the transit hall the news came and it was not good. Our connecting flight, our sponsor & Hong Kong's second airline had left for Hong Kong - empty, just 10 minutes before we had landed. Their next flight was 3 days from now. That really put the cat in the dovecote. As the outside world re-asserted itself, there were deadlines to be met, Ball Committees to be chaired, equities to be bought & sold, and loved ones impatiently awaiting our return. The airline's PR person, a girl no one had noticed until now, managed to make a bad situation many times worse by her transparent lies & evasions. You know how some PR people are just plain anti-PR & can't do a darn thing right? Wrong bunch to muck with. The airline's boss back in Hong Kong, who at first tried to wash his hands of the affair, was soon 'persuaded' to change his mind. A China South West flight was chartered and we flew back to Hong Kong the next day, the journos sharpening their pencils ominously all the while.
Looking back on this curious episode and its rich cast of characters so bizarrely brought together, I remember it as a time of great movement and excitement in my life. When life 'plateaus' it quickens me to recall our Ship of Fools; Precious Human Life expressed in vivid interplay of Sacred and the Profane - funny and tragic by turn. And, in some corner of an Elysian Field doth the manic anarch Ernesto still hold sway........?
" We sallied forth armed with forbidden photos of the Dalia Lama. The Om Brigade feeling deliciously subversive, like the early Christians in Rome........"
