Village #5

This village took participation of its members very seriously. It seemed like all of the men and women were expected to dance at some point. The Lhawas (there were three) would go into crowd with a stick to force village men and women into the dances.
This village also had the most members participating in cheek and back piercing of any other by far. I saw boys as young as 6 to 8 y.o. with their cheeks pierced. It was hard for me to watch actually...
Here are a few pictures:

The main Lhawa with a HUGE pole which he did use on people.















Back piercing. Different men and boys chose different numbers of needles to be pierced by. On this boy's back, you can see scars from previous festivals. There were at least three waves of piercings done in this village.
The needles were washed with barley alcohol and then used again.
As the men/boys danced, the skewers often fell from their backs to the ground.












Cheek piercing. The youngest boys didn't pierce their backs, just cheeks. I haven't included any of those pictures.

Village #3--Parental Guidance Suggested

This post might be upsetting to young kids--Parental Guidance is Suggested.

Each village in this area which holds this festival (not all do) holds it for three days straight. The second day is usually the "biggest" day. On this day, at this village, the main Lhawa cuts himself and the local men pierce their cheeks with skewers.

Again, the temple was too small to hold the dancing inside so we were in an open space next to the temple. It was very hot and shadeless.

This village has two Lhawas. This first picture is of the main Lhawa. Notice the stick! He would use it.

The next picture is of the second Lhawa. You can see blood in his hair from when he cut himself while possessed on the first festival day. This Lhawa was the most unpredictable of all of those we saw in any village. At one point he threw a couple of stones at people in his way and then ran and grabbed a rock almost as big as my head to follow up. His handlers had to restrain him and shoo the people out of the way!

I definitely stayed out of his way.




This young man has chosen to have his cheek pierced by a metal skewer. Several villages perform or used to perform this practice. I am not an anthropologist, but it seems they do it to prove their devotion to the village's mountain deity. Some of them had their cheeks pierced by the Lhawa, but most by village elders. The men dance with the skewers in for 10-15 minutes then they are pulled out. Many of the men washed their mouths out with grain alcohol afterwards. They continued to dance the rest of the afternoon, often with blood dribbling down the sides of their faces. One wonders if the alcohol mouthwash will help keep the wounds from getting infected???

At the end of this ceremony, the main Lhawa climbed a post with a picture of the mountain god possessing him. He takes the knife from between his teeth and hits it against his head numerous times. Then he runs his hand through the blood on his head before wiping it on the painting above him.

Village #2 Festival

It is now Sunday the 27th. We have been to several more festivals. One thing most of them have in common is that (usually) young men dance while on stilts. At the first village, two of them fell when the bricks were wet from the rain. This village's boys did a great job and really seemed like they were having fun.










This village's temple seemed too small to hold all of the villagers while they dance, so a nearby basketball court was put to good use. There they have an altar for offerings. I found it interesting that they offered a symbolic goat on their fire. In this picture it is decorated with lines of Yak butter and there is also fruit for offering on the same tray. This was the only village that we visited that did this. A later village burned meat/blood in their offering fire.

This village's Lhawa was a nice older man. We talked to him some outside of the festival when he wasn't possessed. In this first picture he is just going into possession. In the second, he is moving among the dancers making sure that they are doing what they are supposed to do. This Lhawa never hit anyone that I saw, but other villages' Lhawa's would hit, kick, push, or whack with a stick anyone who was where they shouldn't be or who was doing what they shouldn't be doing. It is a very unpredictable situation in which to be filming...

Village Festivals #2 Picnic

These pictures are from another village along the same river valley. Char and I wore our Tibetan clothes this day. Here we were with friends picnicking before the main day's events started. You can also see a traditional picnicking tent and the typical food and drink served. At this party, Char cleverly helped me to trade my drinking glass full of barley alcohol for one filled with water! Men are expected to drink lots and they try to make sure you get drunk by toasting you many times. As this isn't my style, I am always trying to come up with clever ways to appear to be drinking while keeping to a minimum.

At many Tibetan gatherings, singing is part of the "fun" here is one of the men holding a scarf and singing in a traditional style. So far, Char and I have sung "Country Roads" "Red River Valley" and "Summer Time" either together or individually for up to 100 people or so.

Since my Tibetan language skills are extremely limited, often interaction is more basic. Here I am challenged to a reprisal of an earlier arm wrestling contest. (I won again.)

Festival Season village #1

This past week (as well as the coming week,) is summer festival season in the local villages. The Tibetans celebrate their local mountain gods with offerings, dances and fireworks. (Usually) one community member is at times possessed by the community's main god and directs the festivities as well as passing blessings and giving instructions to the community for the coming year. In the two pictures above, a main mountain deity possesses the young man dancing through a line of villagers while a rival, minor deity possesses an older man in the other picture.

All of the villages families participate, sending their young and old to dance or make offerings or work behind the scenes. It is a great way to build community and cohesion in the community over time.

The picture above shows some of the girls in traditional dress. The orange beads in their hair are made of coral and are heavy and very expensive. Much of a family's wealth is held in festival attire.
This picture to the left is of many of the villagers dancing together.
This village's festival ran for three days. Char took these pictures and I was filming for many hours. Sometimes the village elders up on the temple veranda would ask me questions or offer me barley alcohol (strong stuff). Mostly they just let me film whatever I wanted while I respectfully tried to stay out of the way.

A Nice Day for a Climb

Earlier this week, Char and I went up river a ways and visited some friends who live in this little village. It is approximately 7700 feet above sea level.
The day was gorgeous and so we decided to climb the mountains behind the village. I knew that my body hadn't yet adjusted to the higher altitude, but wanted to see how far I could go for a spectacular view.
This view is from one of many resting points part way up the mountainside:

As it turns out, I could climb about 1500-2000 feet before I became somewhat dizzy and had to rest for 1/2 hour or so. At this level the village had many of its fields of barley and rape seed (from which they make canola oil.)

















The terracing of the mountainsides makes a stunning visual texture. Many of the terraces have been taken out of production by government decree to protect the inclines from erosion. These fields are some:











There are more mountains to climb this week as we enter a festival season in this area. We'll see whether my body is up to it. If I can't go all the way to the top(s), I know I'll still enjoy the view from wherever I stop!

Bird Island

The first thing to know is that "Bird Island" is no longer an island. With the retreating water levels, this area is now the end of a peninsula. Depending on the time of year, there may be many more migrating birds than we saw on this trip.

As you can tell from some of the other pictures of our Qinghai lake trip, it started out as a rainy and somewhat blustery day. By the time we got to the west end of the lake, the sun had broken through.

It was a lovely day...
Here are some nesting cormorants and a view of the lake.

Tibetan Scenes

These are more scenes from around the lake. I just couldn't fit them into my first post.

Qinghai Lake

On Thursday we went to Qinghai Lake. It is located about 100 km west of Xining on a plateau at 10,515 feet above sea level. It is the largest lake in China, somewhere around 2200 square miles total. Like our Great Salt Lake in Utah, rivers feed into the lake but don't flow to the sea, therefore, salts get trapped there. This lake did support a fishing economy but that is past. Because of changes in rainfall and water uses on the streams flowing into the lake, the lake has been shrinking for several years. This billboard gives you a sense of the terrain around the lake. If you want to see a satellite image, wikipedia has a good one from 1994.
Char and I spent some time in a nomad encampment on the grasslands south of the lake in 1995. It was very nostalgic for me to be back in this region; I just wanted to get on horseback and travel up into the hills again!

The Tibetans in this area take most of their livestock up into the high mountain ranges during the brief summer season. They raise mostly sheep and Yaks (you do see the occasional flock of goats and some cattle hybrids too.)















This area also produces a lot of canola oil during its brief growing season. Canola comes from rapeseed which has the most beautiful yellow flowers. There are many fields near the lake that are covered in them. A great example of one of those will be in the next post of Tibetan scenes.
I chose the following picture of rapeseed fields on a mountain top to demonstrate what I experienced on the grasslands in 1995: we would be in the grasslands, looking at mountains off in the distance. When we finally arrived at those "mountains" and climbed them, we would find that there were actually flat grasslands on top of those extending off in the distance towards other mountains which, when we climbed them...well, you get the picture. The fields on top of this mountain are part of the grasslands we were leaving behind us on our way back down to Xining.

Arrived Safely

Hi all,
After 30 plus air and airport hours and around 9500 miles and four flights, I am in Xining. Char and a driver were there to pick me up on a lovely, sunny 70 degree day. Amazingly, my checked luggage made it in good shape and at the same time as I did. On July 6th from Nashville, through Detroit and Tokyo to Beijing is more than I ever want to fly again. I had a few hours of sleep in an airport hotel (after a well needed shower and teeth brushing) before my final 3 1/2 hours to Xining.
I am adjusting to the time change. I managed to stay up until 9 p.m. on my second night and didn't wake until 4:30 this morning.
Today we are going sight seeing at a large inland salt lake called Qinghai lake. You can see it quite easily on a map of China, up there in the north central part of the country. Char and I spent a few days there in '95 and went up into the nomad regions from there. I will post pictures after our day trip today.

We have been in touch a couple of times a day with our kids who are staying with Char's sister and her family in Nashville (an extra couple thousand miles of flying on the fourth of July to get there.) Kieran is going into kindergarten this year and Braeden is just about 1 1/2 y.o. They will have a house full of cousins to play with for 2 to 3 weeks before they head up to Char's folks' house in the Cleveland area.
So far the kids report having a great time. There are 7 year old twin girls and 10 and 12 y.o. boys living next door. Noah has made fast friends with the boys already and the girls are having fun with the twins. I am getting reports of catching fireflies, playing kickball and swimming until dark, bouncing in the inflatable bouncy house and slipping on the slip and slide that the girls got for their birthday.
Char and I are very relieved that the kids are having fun.

Picture #1: Noah bought his sisters water guns for their birthday.
#2: Anna and Rosa's new bouncy house
#3 and 4: Slip and slide
#5: Anna and Rosa, the other twins--Kate and Meg, Kieran and (behind him) Alex age 4.

Cain