Glenda Cook | FindPenguins

The Frozen Continent
The Drake Quake
February 12, 2020, South Atlantic Ocean ⋅ 🌬 39 °F
Rough seas throughout the night rattled the door of the little safe and a tray for our boots in our stateroom, waking me several times. We have sustained winds at 45 mph and waves 3-4 meters. The winds are about halfway up the Buford scale. I staggered my way to breakfast, and then returned to the stateroom to accompany Glenda. We went to a briefing about special programs. I chose photography. Next we were fitted for our arctic boots and our red polar Hurtigruten expedition coats. There are several more briefings planned for today, and we are snooping about discovering the MS Midnatsol.Read more
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The Frozen Continent
The End of the World
February 11, 2020 in Argentina ⋅ ☁️ 61 °F
Ushuaia lies at the southern tip of South America and is the end of the world. Argentina put its version of Alcatraz here at the turn of the twentieth century because escapees could only die in the barren wasteland of Patagonia to the north or the turbulent ice of the Drake Passage to the south. It is the most southerly city in the world and now has little to do, other than funneling tourists into Antarctica. Two decades past, skiers who sought the most exotic downhill runs in the world came here after becoming bored with San Moritz, Lillehammer and girls named Ingrid. T-shirts from Ushuaia were more valuable to downhill racers than a Lamborghini and just as rare. Now the glacier has melted and Ushuaia’s steep streets are crowded with overweight American and German wannabes wearing jackets suggesting they have spent a frozen night on the North Face. Still, the town has its charms. Guides will show you their public school and a sign declaring that Ushuaia really is the true capital of the Malvinas Islands despite the butt-wiping the British gave Argentina in the Falklands in 1982. A coffee shop right out of the rural 1920’s features hot chocolate made by dropping the Argentine version of a Hershey bar into scalding milk. It warmed the cockles of our heart on this 70-degree day in the Argentine summer at the end of the world.Read more
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On to Ushuaia
February 11, 2020 in Argentina ⋅ ☀️ 91 °F
We have boarded another airplane and are on our way to Ushuaia, where we will board the Hurtigrüten ship M/S Midnatsol (Midnight Sun). Mother Theresa, our Roads Scholar attendant, has been replaced by Maria Laura as our temporary den mother. We had a huge breakfast at our hotel, so I really didn’t want the ham and cheese sandwich the flight attendant offered us on the airplane. I’m told that WI-FI on the ship is very slow and spotty, so that one cannot count on it. So I will keep my travel notes on the notebook and when we have a connection I will upload them. It looks as though any photos will have to wait. Not even the hotel’s WI-FI would take them.Read more
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Tangoland
February 10, 2020 in Argentina ⋅ ☀️ 73 °F
LATAM Airlines landed us in Buenos Aires and Road Scholar brought us to the Sofitel Recoleta Hotel downtown. New friends suggested we join them to visit a nearby park adjacent to the Dominican Cathedral. Its cemetery filled with mausoleums was literally a city of the dead. Among the graves stands that of Eva Peron. We returned to have lunch at a food court across the street from the hotel in a large mall called Patio Bullrich. We walked as a group to dinner at a beautiful neoclassical building constructed as the social club for the Italian community in wealthy Buenos Aires at the turn of the 20th century. The building itself was magnificent, and the lovely paintings and sculptures enhanced its beauty. I had a wonderful lasagna covered with bechamel sauce, and Glenda enjoyed an eggplant dish she pronounced as one of the most delicious things she has ever eaten.Read more
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The Last Supper
October 23, 2019 in China ⋅ 🌙 55 °F
Some of our fellow travelers have already left for home, but a few of us got together tonight for dinner at Annie’s Italian Restaurant. Next door to Annie’s we happened upon the wait staff of a nearby restaurant standing on the sidewalk for a pre-dinner shift inspection. They were lined up, standing at attention, and barking responses to a supervisor. Had he been wearing a Smokey Bear hat, I would have sworn we were at Parris Island Marine Corps Recruit Depot. China is full of surprises, and Annie’s was certainly a big surprise. The four-cheese pizza Glenda and I ordered was as good as any Italian food we have enjoyed either in Italy or outside of it. A short walk in downtown Beijing exposed us to some young folks who are keeping Armani, Ferragamo and Michael Kors in business. They looked as though they just stepped out of the pages of Cosmopolitan or GQ. The upscale neighborhood of our hotel glistened with lights and the sounds of a city that never sleeps.

Tomorrow we leave for home, and we’re ready. That is not to say, however, that we are tiring of China. The visit has been wonderful and we have only good things to say about the Chinese people. They are a remarkable nation intent on moving forward economically and politically. China wants not just to take its place in the family of nations; China wants to take the lead. From all we have seen, they stand a fair chance of attaining their goal, but the rest of the world must be watchful to insure that all nations behave with equity and fairness toward one another. This is a remarkable nation, a determined people and a special time in their national history. We thank them for their excellent hospitality to us foreigners and wish them all the best for the future.Read more
Travelersome fantastic Italian!!
11/5/19Reply
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A Gift Worth Remembering
October 23, 2019 in China ⋅ ☀️ 55 °F
Yesterday afternoon in our hotel I met a worker named Gracie Yuan. I sensed that she wanted to practice her English, and I certainly needed to practice my Chinese. I told her a story I heard from one of my teachers, Mr. Richard Chen. His father was a landlord expelled from China in 1948. He had a friend who was an artist in Beijing who had painted pictures of bamboo, only bamboo, for his entire life.

Mr. Chen asked the old artist, “When are you going to paint a picture of something other than bamboo?”

The artist answered, “Once I have painted the perfect painting of bamboo, then I might try something else. So far, though, I have not yet painted the perfect picture of bamboo.”

Using my best baby Chinese I told Gracie this story. This morning after breakfast she met us in the lobby.

“I have a present for you,” she said. “Wait here.”

In a few minutes she brought me a painting by an artist friend of hers, a painting of bamboo. The artist, whose name is Xie (pronounced Sheh), placed his personal chop on the painting. It is a rendition of bamboo made on rice paper using ink and a traditional Chinese mao bi, the brush used for writing Chinese characters. Many Chinese works of art contain a poem as well as a painting. I have delayed in purchasing art because I did not want to buy a work unless I understood the translation of the accompanying poem. Gracie gave me a rough translation of the poem.

“The bamboo attempts to grow straight and tall,
But many winds blow from many directions trying to bend it,
Yet despite the winds, the bamboo continues to grow straight and tall.”

Johnny Liu, our concierge, graciously agreed to carry the painting by taxi to have it mounted by an oriental framing shop here. I am grateful beyond words for this gracious gift.Read more
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The Art of Moving and Shaking
October 22, 2019 in China ⋅ ☀️ 66 °F
She poisoned her son. This much we know. It wasn’t mentioned during her lifetime, because to speak of it meant sudden death. But now, after exhuming her son’s body, we know it’s true. She fed him arsenic.

She was never supposed to rule. She was only a concubine, a legalized harlot, a sexual plaything. But when the old emperor died, her son, the baby emperor, was only three years old, and she took the opportunity to rule in his name. It didn’t hurt that her lover was a powerful general who made it known that she was in charge. Of course, the arrangement worked to his benefit as well.

Her son knew that he himself, not his mother, was the emperor, so at the age of nineteen he asked her to allow him to take his throne. She refused. He attempted a revolution to gain what was rightfully his. The general intervened and crushed the revolution. He captured the son and killed thousands of Chinese so that she might remain in power. She wanted to keep an eye on her son, so she arrested him and imprisoned him in a building next door to the fabulous estate we visited today. He was under arrest, that is, until the arsenic she fed him accumulated in his body enough to kill him.

She and her consorts, including the general, lived in a fabulous estate called the Summer Palace. We saw it today. All of the resources of a great nation were concentrated in these buildings and grounds that are nothing less than an oriental dream world. She took the annual tax revenues earmarked for the navy. She said she wanted to use it to build a ship and to train sailors, so the Navy Department gave her the money. She used it to build a ship made of marble on her private man-made lake and to train sailors to work as her servants while she was onboard. And her people suffered, at the hands of the British, the French, the Dutch, the Germans.

Her name was Ci Xi (pronounced Tsuh Shee), the Empress Dowager, and she ruled with a rod of iron. When the styles in Europe changed, she rebuilt her marble ship in the new Victorian fashion. Near the end of her life, she designated a nephew, another three-year old, to be the new emperor. He was only three, as was her son when he had risen to the throne. She had lots of time. And her people stayed high on opium to escape the pain of being enslaved to Europeans and to the corrupt Ci Xi.

Before the French Revolution Louis XV said, “Apres moi, le deluge.” (“After me comes the storm.”) But these words could have been uttered by Ci Xi. She died in her bed in 1908, leaving three-year-old Pu Yi to deal with a century that began with two World Wars and the revolutions of Sun Yat Sen, Chiang Kai Shek and Mao Tse Tung. Her heavenly fantasy, the Summer Palace, has been restored to its former glory, and today people from all over the world come to see what kind of opulence one person might create when cursed with limitless resources and an insatiable appetite. From every nation people still come to see it and to wonder at its beauty and its cost.Read more
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The Connection
October 22, 2019 in China ⋅ ☀️ 59 °F
While the Christian leaders of Europe stressed the divine right of kings, the Chinese emperor claimed the Mandate of Heaven. In some ways the Chinese way of thinking about it has some advantages over the Western notion. In Europe the idea of divine right was unconditional. The king could have the morals of an alley cat, lose half a dozen wars or murder his own subjects with absolute impunity. In China, on the other hand, the Mandate of Heaven was conditional. As long as crops fed the population and no foreign invaders disturbed the peace, the emperor was allowed to rule as an autocrat. If things got too bad—if famine, war or invasion made life too difficult for a large number of people, the pundits could conclude that the Mandate of Heaven had been withdrawn, and the emperor had to resign. In a few instances, the emperor himself decided that he had lost the Mandate of Heaven, so he committed suicide. Knowing the frailties of politicians, all in all, the Chinese idea has some definite advantages.

The Mandate of Heaven was renewed three times each year, once in the spring, once at the summer solstice, and once at the winter solstice. The rituals renewing the Mandate were carried out in the Temple of Heaven, the place where heaven and earth were connected through the person of the emperor. He was the connection. The temple still stands in Beijing today, and those of us on this Viking tour had the privilege of visiting it today. As though my WOW-meter had not already pegged out, we marveled at architecture and embellishment that defy description. This conical pagoda is certainly one of the most beautiful buildings one can imagine. Adjacent buildings offer explanations of how artisans built this magnificent structure with cantilevered beams so that its millions of wooden pieces all lock together. Paradoxically the building supports itself with its own weight, and each of the myriad of wooden members is decorated with embellishments that are themselves works of art. I know that we in the Western world think of God as beyond all human imagination and incapable of being impressed with any of the puny creations our hands can produce. Yet, as I marveled today at this building where the “Emperor of Heaven” visited His human counterpart thrice yearly, I couldn’t help thinking that He would be honored to dwell in such a place.Read more
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Beijing's Front Yard
October 22, 2019 in China ⋅ ☀️ 57 °F
Apartments in Beijing are tiny by North Carolina standards, and they have neither a front yard nor a back yard. On the one hand, this seems like a deficiency. On the other hand, the local government here has made sure that every resident is just a short walk from a beautiful park. These parks are the front yards of Beijingers. Every morning neighbors gather in the park for calisthenics. For older folk these may consist of simple exercises to maintain flexibility. However, I saw maybe a dozen men, my age or older, doing a routine on parallel bars that could impress judges at the Olympics. One man was doing pushups with his feet raised on a low wall. Another older Chinese guy was on an inclined bench doing sit-ups. I stopped counting at 200. When you finish your exercises, you can break out your musical instrument and join the volunteer neighborhood band. A group of saxophone players offered decent jazz for their neighbors who were still doing their exercises. A group of women gathered for their daily crocheting club. Two other men played chess.

The remarkable thing about this morning gathering in the park is that people get to be with people. News is shared. Conversations sharpen the mind. Sorrows are softened as neighbors meet with neighbors. All in all, it’s not a bad way to begin every new day if you live in downtown Beijing.Read more
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Kung Fu Fighting
October 21, 2019 in China ⋅ ⛅ 46 °F
We saw an action-packed show tonight incorporating martial arts and choreography at the Red Theater in Beijing. The Lenged of Kung Fu tells the story of a little boy whose mother gives him to a Buddhist monastery to be educated in the ways of Kung Fu, China’s ancient school of defensive martial arts. He overcomes his own fears and fantasies to wean himself from the attractions of the flesh and eventually becomes the abbot of the monastery. Great color and music made this show a wonderful night’s entertainment.Read more
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Becoming a Hero
October 21, 2019 in China ⋅ ☀️ 55 °F
There is a stone stele bearing an ancient inscription standing at the base of the Great Wall of China. It says, “You’re not a hero until you have climbed the Great Wall of China.” Ancient Chinese soldiers would recite this to one another when they were stationed at this remote string of fortresses separating China from the Hsung-nu barbarians to the north. Many battles were waged along these ramparts since 221 BC. Occasionally the wall was breached, as when Kublai Khan broke through to establish his Mongol Empire in China.

Today we were not fighting, but rather enjoying a wonderful day with beautifully clear skies and the sun in exactly the right place for photographs. We spent over two hours of free time climbing up, climbing down, practicing Chinese, talking to children and soaking up some of the most glorious mountain views in the world. Glenda gets extra points for doing this with a nagging case of plantar fasciitis. But the morning was made for exceptional memories.Read more
TravelerSpectacular view
10/24/19Reply
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In the Footsteps of Emperors
October 21, 2019 in China ⋅ ☀️ 64 °F
We almost lost this excursion in the shadow of the Great Wall, but this afternoon we walked about a mile along the path of the Ming Dynasty tombs. After an interesting visit to a government-owned jade factory, we strolled for an hour past monuments and pavilions in the place where feng-shui (wind and water) dictated that the emperors of the early Christian Era should build their tombs. Actually the tombs themselves occupy an area about six kilometers around this spot, but this entryway is still maintained and has been restored after being damaged by the Red Guard in the Cultural Revolution. Some of the tombs have been unearthed, and the bodies inside were found to be in a remarkable state of preservation. Yet in a country whose recorded history goes back six thousand years, walking among tombs a mere two thousand years old seems like nothing unusual. That’s the thing about China—everything is unusual. In this country the extraordinary, the bizarre, the different is the norm. That’s why China is China. Everything about it is remarkable.Read more
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Roast Duck
October 20, 2019 in China ⋅ 🌙 68 °F
Back in language school my teachers, all from Beijing, told us that if we ever had the chance we should sample Beijing Roast Duck. Last night I had my chance as we dined at a restaurant specializing in this traditional Chinese delicacy. Although I was not hungry because of the huge lunch I had eaten earlier, I sampled everything on the table and found it all delicious. The food here, both oriental and Western, has been superb.Read more
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The Two Towers
October 20, 2019 in China ⋅ ☀️ 70 °F
On this site in Old Beijing, Emperor Kublai Khan erected two towers, a bell tower and a drum tower. Of course, both were used as observation posts from which soldiers might keep an eye out for approaching intruders. Yet the towers served another purpose as well. The bell tower sounded every two hours to broadcast the time. On sunny days a sundial kept time, but on cloudy days a water clock served as a backup. This tower remained in service until the eighteenth century when European clocks were imported to serve as the timekeepers for Beijing’s residents. The drum tower served a similar purpose. It signaled the population about special events or warned them of fires or other impending dangers. In some Chinese cities a curfew was imposed at ten o’clock at night. About a quarter hour before curfew, the drummer would begin very slow beats. By the 150th beat everyone was expected to be in their home. Between the towers we saw young children in an art class, drawing both towers under the instruction of their teachers. The two towers we saw today were not the ancient ones built by Kublai Khan. These are new ones constructed around the year 1200 AD. Today neither tower performs its original function, but the bell tower houses a lovely tea house where a charming young woman introduced us to the elaborate arts of Chinese tea. We sampled oolong and jasmine tea, along with a couple of other varieties. There were exquisite tea pots for sale, some made of semi-precious jade. One small jade teapot cost over $3,000. We learned that tea can serve as a relaxing beverage that offers a wonderful excuse just for hanging out with friends and getting to know new ones.Read more
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At Home in Beijing
October 20, 2019 in China ⋅ ☀️ 72 °F
We were invited into the home of a woman who loves to entertain foreign tourists. She showed us her home, whose history is clouded in obscurity. Her family has lived in this house for hundreds of years, and their oral tradition holds that it was built for a nobleman and his family sometime around the sixteenth century. Perhaps the nobleman was a servant to the emperor. Their oral tradition may be correct since the house is in Old Beijing, a part of the city adjacent to the Imperial Complex and the Forbidden City. She and her daughter served us tea and Chinese cookies. These two women are skilled artists who created lovely oriental scenes on glass bottles. The trick is that they must use tiny little brushes which they use to paint the glass from the inside. She showed us her work and told us that she has traveled to Indonesia, Singapore and the United States showing her craft.Read more
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The Center of the World
October 20, 2019 in China ⋅ ☀️ 61 °F
The Chinese name for itself is Jung Gwo, which literally means “the central kingdom.” Traditionally the residents of this nation have considered it as the center of the world, the focus of civilization. The farther from the Jung (center) you get, the more barbaric you are. Today we were at the Jung, the center, as we walked from Tien An Men Square through the Forbidden City, an area open only to the emperor.

Since I became a Chinese student in 1971, I have always wanted to come here, to the center. Today I fulfilled that dream. Our bus took us along the eight-lane highway where a lone student stopped a tank in 1989, and all the world watched. That road empties into the front gate, where a mile-long queue waited to view the preserved corpse of Mao Tse Tung. Some of the people we saw standing in line at eight o’clock this morning will stand in line until sunset. We absorbed the beauty of the seventeenth-century buildings of the Ming Dynasty, built on the site of the ancient capital of Kublai Khan six hundred years before. The detailed ornamentation was breathtaking. Finally we got to see the private residence of the last of the Qing Dynasty, who were forced to vacate their palace in 1924. The last emperor, Pu Yi, was crowned emperor of the Middle Kingdom at the age of three, was deposed in 1924, became the Japanese puppet ruler of Manchuguo during World War II, and ended his life in 1967 working as a gardener in Hawaii under the name of Henry Puyi. In this beautifully restored version of the Forbidden City it seems as though time has stopped. Yet moments after leaving we drove past shapely sky scrapers that surpass those being built in my home country. In Tien An Men Square it seems that time has stopped, but this stasis serves to remind us that everything changes. Nothing remains the same. There is nothing permanent except change. That is the lesson from Tien An Men—the Gate of Heavenly Peace.Read more
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Pandas
October 19, 2019 in China ⋅ ⛅ 59 °F
We arrived in Beijing in smog thick enough to swim in. Everyone on the bus felt the sting in their throat, and half of us donned face masks. It took more than an hour in bumper to bumper traffic to get to the zoo. Charmed by the pandas, natives and tourists saw the zoo through their iPhones. Another forty-minute crawl brought us to a restaurant, a favorite of Ray, our guide, who is a Beijing native. We saw traffic tie itself into a knot on the way to the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, but now we are here, travel weary, but happy to be in the capital.Read more
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The Concubine Empress
October 18, 2019 in China ⋅ 🌙 52 °F
Tonight we saw a most spectacular dinner and ballet. At the Shanxi Tourism Group’s magnificent dinner theater we enjoyed delicacies including prawns, spiced beef and rice wine from the first nation to have its own cuisine. The choreography, live orchestral music and opulent costumes dazzled our senses. The Xi An Tang Dynasty Company presented in music and dance a visually stunning performance of the story of Empress Wu Ze Tian, based on historical events. At the age of fourteen in the year 637 Mei Nyang moves to the imperial palace to become one of several hundred imperial concubines. She attracts the attention of Tang Emperor Tai Zong, and her life is changed forever. She commits an infraction resulting in her imprisonment, but later during a battle, she is injured while attempting to save the wounded emperor’s life. Through her wisdom and diplomacy she wins the king’s heart to become his favorite wife and chief counselor. Emperor Tai Zong dies in 690 AD, and at the age of 57 Mei Nyang becomes China’s first woman emperor and assumes the royal name Wu Ze Tian (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu_Zetian.) Throughout her wise reign China enjoyed a period of unprecedented prosperity. What a wonderful way to spend our last night in China’s ancient capital!Read more
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Greater Dead Than Alive
October 18, 2019 in China ⋅ ☀️ 57 °F
Can an emperor be more important dead than alive? Around 205 BC the first Chinese emperor died. Though he had ruled for only fifteen years, he spent most of that time and most of his country’s revenue building his tomb. His mausoleum covered an area about four miles by five miles and contained more lavish treasures than one can imagine. Spreading out for more than twenty square miles, eleven stories underground, the tomb was laid out in the pattern of a miniature map of China, including two rivers and an ocean made of mercury. After two millennia they still contaminate the soil here.

He buried his army with him, or at least a replica of it. While only 1600 terra-cotta warriors have been found, researchers estimate that when all have been unearthed a century from now, there will be over eight thousand infantrymen, cavalrymen, horses, chariots, archers and officers. Each face is different. The uniforms are accurate, marking each different type of soldier. Originally their faces and uniforms were all painted in lifelike colors. All except for the snipers, that is. One archer was found with a face painted camouflage green. His hands held a crossbow with a bolt that could kill at three hundred meters. Even though the soldiers are clay dummies, the weapons they hold are the real thing. Spears, halberds, longbows and crossbows were all made with interchangeable parts. The trigger of your crossbow gets damaged, install a new one and continue to shoot. Arrows were made with arrowheads that were heavier and harder than the shaft or the fletch, though all were made of bronze and welded into one piece. A sword was found that had molecular memory. A heavy soldier lay on it bending it for two thousand years. When the soldier was removed, the sword straightened into its original shape. Another sword was found without a flake of rust upon it. Metallurgists discovered that the weapon was made of bronze clad with chromium. The western world did not learn how to marry chromium to other metals until the twentieth century. To this day the only way we know to complete this process requires electricity. We still don’t know how the Chin dynasty did it.

The outfitting of this tomb and the conscripted labor required to build it so alienated the subjects of the Chin dynasty that they rebelled. Tens of thousands of workers died building the tomb, and their bodies were simply thrown into the nearest pit. At the emperor’s death the workers rebelled, smashed the clay statues, stole the weapons and revolted. Afterwards all that remained were the fragments of the clay warriors. Only one, the green-faced bowman, was discovered intact.

The statues were found by accident in 1978 when a group of farmers dug a well. They found a clay soldier’s head and decided not to tell anyone about it. One farmer, however, did tell a local official, who notified the Chinese department responsible for archaeology and antiquities.

Another minor miracle accompanied the discovery of these artifacts in 1978. Mao Tse Tung died in 1976. Had these remarkable remains been discovered before his death, they would have been obliterated as a part of his Cultural Revolution, and neither their discovery nor their destruction would have ever been reported to the outside world.Read more
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Arrival in Xi An (Pronounced Shee Ahn)
October 17, 2019 in China ⋅ ☀️ 63 °F
We are in China is ancient capital of Xi’an. Our hotel, the Hyatt Regency, is yet another palace. The Chin dynasty was founded here 200 years before Christ. It is from the name “Chin” that the word China is derived. Not only that dynasty but also the Han and the Tang dynasties made this city their capital. The Chin sold silk to Roman emperors for their togas. The Han had the Chinese characters still in use. Any high school student can read with no difficulty documents written by the Han people two hundred years before Christ. The Tang presided over an unbelievably enlightened period when women could be Emperor. There is even an ancient work of art showing women playing polo. The Dark Ages were dark only in Europe.Read more
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Ceng Gu Buddhist Nunnery
October 16, 2019 in China ⋅ ☀️ 54 °F
Shortly before he died some of his disciples asked the Buddha, “Teacher, shall we allow women into our number or not?” Gautama replied, “I don’t know. I’ve never really thought about it, but, I don’t see why we shouldn’t.” So from the earliest days of the new religion, women were allowed on an equal footing with men. Today we went to visit a Buddhist nunnery located in a densely populated neighborhood in Lhasa. Before we reached the ornate ceremonial gate of the nunnery, however, we passed a number of shops selling women’s dresses, fruit and electric appliances.

“These shops belong to the nuns,” my guide told me. “They raise money and it supports their work here in the community.”

“What is their work,” I asked.

“They have a small private school here, but their main work is to run their neighborhood clinic. They have a doctor trained in both traditional and modern medicine. Some of the nuns are nurses, other clean the facility, others are simply chore workers, but they do much good here.”

A few more steps took me through an elaborate archway painted in ornate designs of blue and gold. It led to a plain courtyard whose main attraction was a tall staff that looked like a flagpole covered with a rainbow of prayer cloths. Tibetan Buddhists believe these colored, meter-square colored cloths represent prayers. They string them on lines draped from the top of the flagpole. Then at a religious celebration, the flagpole is twisted, and it becomes a color clad monument to the prayers they have offered.

As I passed by an open door I saw that the nuns were filling a need in this poor community. A room full of older adults and children waited to see the doctor. We happened to arrive at lunchtime when the nuns were eating their common midday meal. The first red-robed figure I saw looked like a boy with shaved head. Then I saw that the monk had a beautiful face, and I realized that she was a nun, maybe sixteen years of age. I saw others whose gender was hard to determine. Nevertheless, they welcomed us with smiles and had already given our guide permission to allow us to photograph them at their meal. On several instances my eye caught that of a nun. Whenever that happened she would smile. I would nod, and she would return the greeting.

Whatever their religion, I feel that God must be very pleased with the work these women are doing to help their neighbors. I can only guess what effect they may be having on the people in their poor community, but I know they certainly had an effect on me.Read more
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Potala Palace--The Lost World
October 16, 2019 in China ⋅ 🌙 32 °F
The Potala Palace was built in the eighth century and destroyed in the eleventh. It was rebuilt and stands today perched high upon its mountain. The 1.7 mile climb up is arduous but worth the effort. Unfortunately photographs were not allowed inside the former residence of the Dalai Lama. Even so, the pictures we were allowed to take on the outside of the building were remarkable. Until 1959 this was the home of the spiritual and political leader of Tibet, but when the fourteenth Dalai Lama was unwilling to embrace Maoism, he was spirited away by some of his followers across the border to India, where he set up a government in exile.

The inside of the building is dark, smoke-filled with incense and festooned with colorful flags, pennants and banners hanging down from the roof and the rafters. Prayer wheels line the hallway leading to the Dalai Lama’s quarters. In his sitting room along the sides of the floors are colorful khangs, shin-high couches with velvet covered cushions. Some cushions are deep blue, burgundy, or even burnt orange. The thick incense smoke chokes visitors. Breathing is so difficult that the queue of tourists threading through the thirty rooms we saw stuffed handkerchiefs, scarves and masks over their noses. Dim, colored light trickles in through elaborately patterned stained-glass windows. A knee-high table holds a book, a prayer wheel, and a pair of glasses. Money from all over the world, offerings from devout worshippers, litters the floor in front of the table,. A display case holding a golden statue of the Buddha and two companion covers the entire opposite wall. The statue was two hundred years old when Jesus was born.

Adjacent to this room is the library containing ancient books, translations from the original Sanskrit writings transported into Tibet centuries before Christ. These books themselves are quite old. Tibetan paper does not change color or become brittle over time, and in this dry climate can books last for millennia.

Other dimly lit rooms hold more statues of the Buddha, some life-sized, some much larger. Always the thick cloud of incense almost obscures the view. Some statues are made of gold, others of lifelike polychrome ceramic. Some are smiling, others displaying fierce faces ward off evil. There are even female Buddhas, reminders that the Buddha has been reincarnated many times, sometimes as male, sometimes as female. These motherly goddesses called Tatas are especially adored by people who need a compassionate friend in the upper world.

One of the most attractive rooms in the building is the assembly room. Here the Dalai Lama lectured his student for two hours each day. The room is large and comfortable, with palettes and khangs spread all around the floor. Narrow walkways wide enough only for a monk’s foot allow access to the center of the room. The ornate painted and carved ceiling is supported by square burgundy columns, smaller at the top than the bottom. The borders of each face of the two dozen identical columns display royal blue with gold painted trim. As in all the other rooms of the palace, the view is obscured by billowing clouds of incense smoke and tiny colored windows that make seeing difficult. Multicolored banners and prayer flags adorn the cushions on the floor and sag from the rafters above. The room is cluttered with them. Nearby in an adjacent room is a huge golden statue of the Buddha accompanied by famous Bodisattvas of history. Connecting rooms contain huge stupas covering the graves of other beloved teachers who were incarnated as the Dalai Lama.

Eastern theology tends to be more poetic than prosaic, so one should not be surprised to learn that there has only been one Dalai Lama. He has been reincarnated, however, in fourteen different bodies. Yet, whenever and wherever he lives, the Dalai Lama is believed to be the same individual. The current Dalai Lama is over ninety years old. When he dies it will be interesting to see whether he names the person whose body will house his spirit in the next lifetime. Will he rule the government in exile in India? Will he live in the United States? Will his death mark the end of the Tibetan tradition of Buddhism. It will be interesting to see how all of these issues play out in years to come.Read more
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The Roof of the World
A Different World
October 15, 2019 in China ⋅ ⛅ 59 °F
Tibet is on the opposite side of the world, but it might as well be on a different planet. Today we visited a house where the same short prayer is recited for two hours daily in a family chapel built into the house. We ate yak meat and sipped yak butter tea. We heard a debate between Buddhist monks. We saw a temple whose side chapels contained statues to ancient kings that had been canonized. I asked a woman at the Jokang Temple, repeatedly prostrating herself before a statue of the Buhha how many times she had to kowtow. She said, “More than a thousand. Ten thousand, in fact.” That was just for this visit to the temple. Throughout her life she must do at least one hundred thousand prostrations or else she had no hope of improvement in the next life. Prayer wheels are spun by individuals until they get tired or otherwise occupied. Then their battery powered prayer wheels continue to spin and earn them merit. Sound recorders with endless loops offer mantras day and night. The gods like that too and offer benefits in exchange. We did all these things in a place that, according to the local residents, does not really exist. Culturally and intellectually I was forced to unhinge my preconceptions to enter a world with its own logic, its own assumptions and its own reality. I am not saying that the religion, government and society here are nonsense. Quite the contrary. Everything we saw makes sense, but only according to Tibetan rules. I can understand why Buddhists ask the classical question, “What is the sound of one hand clapping,” but I cannot understand the question itself. All reality is illusion, all matter is evil, all worry stems from excessive preoccupation with that which is not real. Even life itself is merely the continuation of life that has gone on before. Though the temples, monasteries and mountains here are stunning, so is Tibetan thought. In fact, despite the beautiful structures, art and people we saw today, perhaps the most stunning thing about Tibet is its cognitive and intellectual flexibility. In Tibet theology is not prose, it is, rather, poetry taken literally.Read more
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The Roof of the World
Tibet--Where the World is an Illusion
October 14, 2019 in China ⋅ ☁️ 64 °F
Tomorrow we go to see the Potala Palace in Lhasa, Tibet. The fact is however, we’re already in a palace. The Saint Regis Hotel in Lhasa offers a palatial place to camp out for the next three nights. The mountains here, part of the Himalayas, are among the highest in the world. For the last two weeks in China the sun never broke through the fog. Here the sun burns with a blinding intensity that begs for gallons of sunscreen. The sky is a deep cobalt blue bordered by spectacular sunlit snowy peaks. This city lies 13,000 feet above sea level, and some of our group are already experiencing altitude sickness. Some are claiming to feel light-headed, nauseated or short of breath. We have been taking it easy since we arrived around 3:00 pm, and we feel fine. Of course we did start taking diamox twice a day two days ago.

Shortly after the Communist Chinese came to power in 1949, they invaded this theocratic kingdom. The Dalai Lama, who is both the religious and political head, fled to India, where he set up a government in exile. Now in his nineties, he travels the world to give messages of peace, and to seek aid for his estranged kingdom. No longer seeking a military victory here, the Chinese are simply sending millions of new college graduates here every year to fill new jobs the state creates. The result is that the native Tibetan culture is being diluted in a Chinese sea.

Tibetan Buddhism holds that all human experience in this world is merely illusion. Nothing perceived by the senses is important, only the spirit. Perhaps this belief explains why some Tibetans can be so poor, yet have a smile on their faces. Everyone here smiles all the time. They are a very gentle people from whom we in the west might learn something.Read more
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The Roof of the World
Jumping Off for Tibet
October 14, 2019 in China ⋅ ⛅ 64 °F
A rainy morning took us to the lovely new airport in Chungching, where the security was more thorough than any place we have ever traveled. The situation was made much simpler by Ray’s expertise. He has not told us so but I expect he is Buddhist. He certainly knows a great deal about Buddhism and takes his family to Thailand ever year for a vacation during which he and his family receive instruction from a Buddhist master. We have a bag lunch provided by Viking in addition to the meal offered by the airline. It contains a generous bag of Oreo cookies. So here we sit waiting for the airplane. Life is good.Read more
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The Roof of the World
Fengdu Fog
October 13, 2019 in China ⋅ ☁️ 72 °F
The city of Fengdu is almost completely obscured by smog on this Sunday afternoon. Though the temperature is around 70 degrees Fahrenheit, I still see coal smoke rising from many private homes.
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