Ma Jian - Red Dust

I sit on a breezy slope and finish the biscuits I bought in Yangpachen. Then I dig into my pocket and pull out two lumps of dried yak cheese I pilfered from a stall in Lhasa. I pop one into my mouth. The taste is very sour at first, but as the lump softens it produces a comforting milky taste. I remember the girl I saw crouched below that meat stall on the dusty corner of the Barkhor: the lower rims of her eyes slightly swollen, cheeks blown purple by the grassland wind, forehead wrinkled in supplication. If someone stopped and looked at her with pity, she would cup her left breast and suck it, then smile affectionately. Her eyes were full of kindness and her smile was as pure as the grassland air. Dogs clambered over her feet, waiting for scraps of meat to fall from the butcher’s knife. Now and then she chanted softly, ‘Om Mani Padme Hum.’ Can the Buddha really extinguish all suffering?

Before the wind gets up, I lay out my sleeping bag and snuggle inside with my shoes still on. I stare into the black sky and think about life and death. For Tibetans death is not a sad occasion, merely a different phase of the same reality. All that concerns them are the causes of death and the quality of the funeral. Where is the poetry in that? I think back on the lines of a poem I wrote a few days ago: ‘In the silent graveyard/Let me, like the rain’s song/ Dampen your shoulders again. .’

Ma Jian, religion calms your spirit, but the Buddha does not fill your every thought, he has not entered your heart. Can you still call yourself a Buddhist then? No. All you believe in is a list of precepts and principles. My stomach feels empty. A cold wind passes straight through me. I roll onto my side and the hunger slowly subsides.

Today is 18 August. Three years ago in Beijing, I could never have guessed I would spend my thirty-third birthday alone in the wilds of Tibet. The pilgrim family I walked with today are trekking to Mount Kailash. The journey will take them six months, but their sheep are so thin they will run out of food well before then. The two yaks that carry their carpet and tent are as skinny as the sheep. The pilgrims wore tattered hides, I could not guess their ages. Last night I spotted their tent and went to ask them for some food. The man in the felt hat spat into a bowl, gave it a wipe with his sleeve, then filled it with ground barley and milk. This morning they folded their tent and continued along the pilgrim trail. I followed them all day, watching them chant with their hands in the air, praying for release from earthly suffering. They looked to heaven and saw liberation. I looked into the same blue sky, but saw nothing. The noon sun blistered my face.

I read in the newspaper that Liu Yu has reached Shanhaiguan. Now that he has finished walking the Great Wall, where will he go next? Everyone’s lives are changing. Tian Bing wrote to say she is taking classes in qigong. Last year she thought it was superstitious nonsense and slapped me for giving a demonstration. Li Zhi, the underground poet I stayed with in Guiyang, is apparently a deputy to the People’s Congress now, and has moved into a large government flat. I wonder what has happened to his kiln. The Daoist poet Yao Lu wrote and said his wife wants to leave the country and has filed for divorce. He asked if Shenzhen Legal Journal is still looking for an editor. When I told him about the vacancy last year he laughed and said Shenzhen was no place for intellectuals. I am still treading my path. But if it comes to a dead end, I suppose I could always go back to Beijing.

Our bus grinds to the summit of the five-thousand-metre Kamba Pass. Behind us, a few army trucks are still struggling up the foothills. As the last clouds tear from the rocks and prayer stones and scrape down the gullies, Yamdrok Lake comes into view. When the surface of the lake mirrors the blue sky and bright snow peaks plunge head-first into the water, I am filled with a sudden longing to hug someone.

This is the road to central Tibet. When the bus descends to the foot of the mountain and careers along the shores of the lake, a foul smell of dank sheepskin wafts from the seats behind. I am squashed so tight my legs are numb. The girl next to me by the door is swathed in a thick cloak. She delves into its woolly folds and takes out hawthorn jellies and a pocket radio. Then she rummages again and pulls out a small sticky baby. She holds him up to piss on the floor then stuffs him back into her pouch. My shoes are splashed with urine. I try to shift my bag away from the puddle.

Outside the window the lake looks calm and wide. There is not a speck of dust in the air. I shout to the driver and ask to be let down.

August is the plateau’s golden month. The sky is so clear you cannot feel the air. I walk to the shore, take the flannel from my bag and wash my face. A breeze ripples across the lake and sun rays shine on the pebbled bed. This is a beautiful place. In Tibet, since lakes are considered holy and the herders rarely bathe or fish, the waters are always pristine.

Nangartse town is still a few kilometres away. On a far mountain I see a cluster of adobe houses with prayer flags fluttering from each roof. Above them is a temple painted in bands of red, white and blue, and higher still, a freshly whitewashed stupa housing the ashes of dead lamas gleaming in the sun.

Below the village, by the edge of the lake, is a concrete building which I presume is the committee house. I get up and take out the introduction letter Liu Ren forged for me that says I am a guest reporter for Tibet Autonomous Region Radio. When I reach the house I discover it is an ordinary hut. A soldier opens the front door and speaks to me in a Sichuan accent. I hand him the letter and tell him I am conducting research into local customs. He invites me inside.

‘This is a repair station. My name is Zhang Liming.’ There is a rifle on his wall. The floor is littered with cable cutters, porcelain insulators and broken cardboard boxes. He is stationed here to service the army telephone line and maintain a smooth connection.

He looks delighted when I ask to stay. ‘I have been here four years. If the telephone line is working, I fish on the lake or have a drink with the Tibetans in the village.’ Or read books about ancient warriors, it seems — there is a stack of them on his desk, next to a dusty walkie-talkie, a cassette player, a few tapes and a tangle of red cables.

‘Is there a sky burial site near here?’ I ask, taking a wooden stool.

‘Yes.’ Liming is not tall. His cap has left a circle around his head.

‘Any chance of a seeing a burial in the next few days?’

He pauses. ‘There’s one tomorrow. A woman died three days ago.’

‘Really? What a coincidence. Do you think they will let me watch?’

He mumbles inaudibly, then says he needs to buy some drinks for tonight. I take out some money but he pushes it away.

So I accompany him to the village. On the way I tell him about the changes taking place in China. Two years ago I passed through his home town, Zigong, and visited the new dinosaur museum. The huge unearthed beasts lay on the ground where primeval forests once grew. The buses outside ran on natural gas which was stored on the roofs in large black rubber bags that wobbled from side to side. Liming says he had no idea there were dinosaurs in Zigong. I mention my failed attempts to view sky burials in Lhasa. Either the ceremony was over before daybreak, or the locals forbade me to approach the site. Once they even threw stones at me. My friends said it would be easier to see a burial in the countryside.

‘The people live differently here,’ he says. ‘There are a hundred families in the village, and in nineteen of them, the brothers all share the same wife.’