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It is late November, and we have a two-week break from our classes at Beijing Foreign Studies University.  After taking a plane to Lhasa, Tibet’s capital city, we stayed in hotels for a couple days to adjust to the altitude difference of 13,000 feet above sea level - Tibet is the world’s highest plateau - before embarking on our four-day camping adventure at Yanzhong Lake. I never have gone camping before.  Well, unless the twenty-minute attempt I made as an eight-year-old in my back yard counts. Therefore, when our program leader gathered all 40 students on our program together to discuss the importance of preparing for Tibetan temperatures, I tenaciously held onto every word of warning. Therefore, we entered our camping experience thoroughly prepared for the weather.  By the end of our first day at the campsite, I was wearing long underwear, a long-sleeved shirt, a turtle neck, a sweatshirt, and a sweater with my down hooded jacket, hat, gloves, scarves…. and I was still experiencing a cold I hadn’t known existed.

Beijing Foreign Studies University

It is our first night at the campsite, and it seems as though with every passing moment, the temperature dropped ten degrees.  Although only two people were in each tent, our tent had far more than just two sleeping bags.  It held a sea of sleeping bags, and Janet and I were swimming underneath. With each gust of wind, we burrowed deeper and deeper.  And yet underneath all the layered material that was wrapped around us, sounds of laughter and music were making their way through to our ears.

I got out of the tent first.  No easy task considering all the burrowing that had occurred.  Slowing emerging from the tent, it did not take long for me to locate the music.  Loud, upbeat Tibetan music was blasting from our bus. It glowed like a lighthouse, beaming a warm, bright, radiant glow in the darkness of Yangzhong.  No other lights existed for miles and miles. The bus’s light hooked me and lured me in.  As I got closer, my ears picked up on wild laughter and screams of delight.  By the time I got to the door, it was apparent that this gleeful noise was emanating from our bus driver, Sakya, and our two tour guides, Labsang and Kaoya.  As I approached the door, I could see beer splashing out of cups as they were being raised and then crashed together, and were then being rapidly emptied into swaying bodies. These three blissfully drunk men saw me at the door and happily let me inside. As the door opened, an incredibly strong undertow of warmth pulled me up the steep bus stairs.

“Hello! Hello, Megan! Hello!”  I received a chorus of greetings (spoken in English with Tibetan accents).  Sakya sat sideways in the driver’s seat, facing Labsang and Kaoya, both seated in stools across from Sakya, forming a triangle around a table displaying cards and a large thermos of Tibetan Beer.  Sakya, typically very shy and quiet during the day, was energetically waving cards in Labsang and Kaoya’s face.  His eyes, brimming with excitement, grew even larger as Labsang dealt him a card that apparently was making an already exciting game even more so.  Labsang and Kaoya, both beautiful men with engaging, warm personalities, seemed keenly aware of this game’s excitement, and were leaning even further towards the table, farther off their stools.  Kaoya suddenly breaks his line of vision from the cards and his eyes return to mine.
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Tibet

“Megan", he croons with sibling type affection, “Have some, ” and he thrusts his cup of beer towards my mittened hands.  The sudden warmth I was experiencing was enough to make me giddy, so I politely declined and decided to settle into one of the bus’s inviting seats. The bus had a pair of individual seats on each side, the backs of the seats were tall enough so we could sit and rest our heads comfortably.  Well, we could rest when the contents of our luggage - located on the rack above our heads - were not falling onto us every time we hurdled over a bump.  It was a spacious bus, with high ceilings painted in a muted jade color.  The windows were tall and wide, so we had enough space to view the indescribable Tibetan landscape.  And whenever the sun got too hot we had curtains to pull across to relieve our eyes.

“Hey Meg!” they exclaimed excitedly.  I matched their cheerfulness and joined Carrie on a blue cushioned seat that was covered with as assortment of snack crumbs.

“Isn’t is great in here?” She exclaims.  I nod happily.

Sitting back into my seat, I watch Labsang, Kaoya, and Sakya exchange hearty laughs with each other.  They were thoroughly enjoying themselves, and I was enjoying a side of them I had not previously seen.  I wondered how much of this unbridled happiness was due to drinking, or due to their ability to just be themselves, free to speak in their own Tibetan language that they were not able to use that often during the day.  With us, they never spoke Chinese, but used English instead.  I knew that they were both fluent in Chinese, as Chinese is mandated the official language of Tibet.

I started to think about how difficult and debasing it would be to not be able to speak your own language in your own country.  In May of 1950, China imposed a treaty on the Tibetan government, acknowledging sovereignty over Tibet but recognizing the Tibetan government's autonomy with respect to internal affairs.  Ever since the Chinese invasion, Tibetans have had their own culture suppressed and marginalized, causing them to live like foreigners in their own country.  I wondered whether it hurt Labsang, Sakya, and Kaoya to speak Chinese with our Chinese teachers.  I wondered what it felt like for them, earlier that day, when we were in Lhasa visiting the Potala Palace. The Potala Palace was where the Dali Lama lived before he was exiled, and I wondered if it upset Labsang and Kaoya to take tours with Chinese people to this sacred place.
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I am sure Tibetan wounds are still very open.  I remember going to a Tibetan restaurant shortly after our arrival in Lhasa.  One of the students on our program tried to order a dish by speaking to the waitress in Chinese, but the waitress closed her eyes and shook her head defiantly.  At first, we were confused by her reaction.  Then Labsang advised us to speak to her in English. Once we starting to do so, she then complied and wrote down our order.  Her subtle, yet bold defiance of Chinese made me wonder about how Tibetans try and preserve their own traditions and language in these small, subtle - and yet tenacious - ways. Over the last fifty years, the Chinese government has repeatedly violated the treaty of 1950, which recognized the Tibetan government’s independence with respect to internal affairs.  Tibetans pushed resistance to Chinese rule, which led to the National Uprising in 1959, in which Tibet’s head of state and spiritual leader, the Dali Lama, was exiled to India. In the twenty years that followed, 1.2 million Tibetan’s were killed as a result of China's policies and many more were imprisoned in prisons and labor camps. More than 6000 monasteries, temples and other cultural and historic buildings were destroyed.

Lake in the deep countryside of Tibet

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I wondered how much of this weighed on Labsang and Kaoya on a daily basis.  I wondered how they were able to push forward, having to face the Chinese influx every day, watching their oppressors gain more and more control over their own country. Watching as more and more Chinese take up residency in Tibet.  In Tibet's cities and fertile valleys, particularly in eastern Tibet, Chinese out number Tibetans by two and sometimes three to one. Suddenly, Carrie nudges me, and I am swiftly brought back into awareness of my current surroundings.

“What are you thinking about? You seem lost in thought about something.”  I sit quietly for a second.  My mouth can’t seem to catch up with my mind’s thoughts.

“Oh I am just watching Labsang and Kaoya lose more drinking games,” I say.  Yu-ling looks over at them in the front of the bus.

“Oh I know, they are having such a terrific time, look at all the smiling going on there!” We watched them flash their beautifully huge smiles. Their dark olive colored skin accentuated their gleaming white teeth. The three of us just sat there on the bus for a while, watching them interact, watching them so relaxed and care free, their laughter and jarring, swaying movements becoming more and more dynamic and vivacious as the night moved along. Soon Carrie began shuffling through her cassette tapes again.  She picked out a tape and decided to ask Labsang if he could play it.  Labsang happily complied and inserted the tape into the cassette player. And before we knew it, Christina Aguliera’s bubbly voice was squealing from the bus speakers. My mind could not process the sudden change from Tibetan and Chinese relations to Christina Aguliera.  I was almost paralyzed by thought.  Here we were, visiting Tibet, a place that had long been victimized by China, the very country that we had been studying and living in for the past several months. Furthermore, we were visiting as Americans, members of the country that has so willingly and fervently rallied against China, Tibet’s oppressors.  How do we traverse these boundary lines?
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Potala Palace, fortress and residence of the Dalai Lamas

Of course, I wanted to act conscientiously, to be a traveler who behaves properly, staying aware and respectful of the different cultures I was visiting.  And at the same time, I wondered how a traveler negotiates between constant and complete conscientiousness, and simply enjoying the process of exploring and acquainting her or himself to a new land.  I realized I felt almost guilty for even thinking about brushing away these thoughts so quickly and singing along with Christina as if these thoughts had never entered my mind. What would the point be, I asked myself, of being cognizant of such issues but then brushing them away instantaneously? But at the same time, what I could I do?  As a temporary visitor, even if I constantly kept these issues in mind, what good would that do for Tibet, anyway?  My eyes returned to the front of the bus, where Labsang, Kaoya and  Sakya continued on with their games.  Their feet and heads bobbed up and down, keeping in time with the beat of the music.  Carrie laughs,  “Look, they like Christina Aguliera!” Carrie’s out burst of laughter gets their attention, and they all look at Carrie and I, sitting together in the middle of the bus. Kaoya’s warm, deep brown eyes fell upon mine.

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“Megan, this is an American song,” he says, beaming his contagious smile.

“Why aren’t you singing along?”

Labsang and Sakya look at me intently, waiting for my answer.  I look at them, my mind searching for an answer.They continued looking at me, craning their necks in interest. And then, at that moment, without any more thoughts, I started to sing.  Suddenly, I was squealing along with Christina, excited to recognize the song, “What a Girl Wants.” Carrie, Yu-ling and I are all singing together now, to this girly, sugarcoated music that we are not supposed to like and yet still know all the words.  Our excitement picks up speed, as we start singing louder and louder. Our voices bring in more friends, staggering into the alternate universe of our bus.  Austin, Matt and Sara climb aboard. Greeted by the unbelievable warmth, layers of clothing were quickly being peeled off.  Soon our bus looked like a laundry room, with clothing strewn about on the floor, on seats, and draped from the ceiling racks.  Becky, Abby, and Darcy climbed on a few moments later and added their clothing to the collection. All the while, our music is still blasting, and we are still singing. Soon my hyperactive glee crescendos, and I dance down the aisle of our bus, my face and body wildly animated in song.  This elicits laughter from everyone.

“Is she drunk? inquires Sara between giggles.

“She is such a good singer!” Abby and Becky chime in together.

“Go, Mego!” roars Austin with a smile. 

And so I kept on singing, until suddenly there was a tap on my shoulder.  I turn around to be greeted by Sakya.  He puts a microphone in my hand.  Stunned, it took me a second to process that the bus not only had speakers, but a microphone wired to worked with them.  And Sakya wanted me to actually sing into it.  He was not the only one who thought this was a good idea.  Suddenly, several bodies jumped up from seats, my friends all yelling various phrases of encouragement:

“Yeah Mego, you go for it, baby!”

“Meg, you haaaaaave to use the microphone!”

“Go, Meg, work it! Work it, Girl!”

And there I stood, next to the driver’s seat, with the passenger seats filled before me with seated and standing friends, all looking at me with attentive, twinkling eyes, waiting for me to serenade them using our buses sound system.  I almost choked on my laughter. But situations like these don’t present themselves every day, and so I sang.

We were all so happy.  I don’t think anyone stopped laughing long enough to realize that we were comfortably warm after shivering in frigid temperatures for hours.  Nor am I sure if everyone was thinking about the irony of having this singing performance on our bus, the engine running, but not going anywhere. We were not roughing it at the moment, and yet there was something real and essential in being on the bus.

That something was being human. Yes, there are numerous times in our lives when we are confronted with how we, as individuals, relate to the world and the greater issues that exist beyond and outside of us. What roles do we play?  I looked at the magnetic smiles of Labsang, Kaoya and Sakya. These engaging smiles, so grand and pure, so reflective of their kind and caring personalities, currently seemed uninhibited by the ineffably difficult history they have encountered as a people.  Watching them on the bus provided me with clues as how to cope with the weighty issues that encapsulate our world.  We should be aware of them, and should act accordingly.  Yet at the same time, we are human.  And this means that happiness needs to be found, needs to be experienced even in such uncertain times.  That night on the bus, amidst my reflections on international relations, I discovered the value in sharing smiles and songs.

To contact Megan Click Here
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