Lhasa, February 2007

Losar Tashi Delek! Xin Nian Kuai Le! Happy New Year!!!

The air is crisp, clean and cold. It feels sharp entering my nose and lungs but invigorating and a strong reminder of my blessed senses. Cold winter air has always been one of my favorite smells, probably from the time of my childhood growing up in Denver. Unfortunately, the air there was never quite this pure thanks to the traffic and industry. Here, it smells of snow and when I climb to the roof and look out over the city, the tall mountains surrounding our valley has fresh coat of white. I don’t know why, but mountains always look taller when they have snow on them. It’s beautiful and unlike anything I’ve ever seen. It is winter in Lhasa and the New Year is here!

Festivities have already begun as we were witness and participant last night. It is called ghutook. According to tradition, the night before the eve of New Year is the night that you chase away the evil ghosts and negative spirits by lighting fireworks and waving sticks and shouting. It was an incredible show and some part of me, witnessing the arsenal of amateur artillery being fired into, across and above the streets of Lhasa, got a small glimpse of what Beirut or Chechnya might have looked like during those urban conflicts. It was loud. Very loud. It was smoky, too. Very smoky. And a complete assault on the senses. All over the city, there were small ‘poppers’ that sounded more like sticks being broken and extremely shocking ‘boomers’ that would set off car alarms tens of meters away. There was Roman candle like shooting sticks that many of the young children manning them thought it infinitely amusing to shoot at one another. (This of course reminded me of my own youth, when a group of us during high school got a bunch of Roman candles and thought it a great idea to have a Roman candle war. And admittedly, it was quite fun until one of us got hit in the eye. Luckily, he was not seriously hurt but had his eyebrow, lashes and part of his hair singed. That was the last time we ever played that game). Then in the middle of the street, the main street, there were several small bon fires lit and people would just throw entire unopened packages of firecrackers into these fires and run. Finally, also in the middle of the street, there were many large fireworks stations along the main road (obviously there wasn’t much traffic as all the potential drivers were shooting off fireworks too). This was where the really big ones were shot off. Imagine the large fireworks displays that you see at the 4^th of July and scale them down by a factor of ½ and this is what simple civilians, some probably drunk, all definitely untrained, were shooting for a good hour and half. Cannons really. A large boom, a colorful rocket trail into the black sky and then a huge flower of different colored fired – reds, oranges, blues, greens – followed by a silent but beautiful showering of sparks. I won’t get into too much detail about what an immense amount of trash this created; let’s just say a whole lot. The Fire Department was around, to make sure nothing caught on fire I guess, but they were mostly standing around enjoying the show too. We stayed on the main street where most of the action was concentrated, but you could hear the echoes and see the rockets from all over the city, both Tibetan and Chinese areas.

After the great surge of mini-artillery and small bombs tapered off, the city became contrastingly quiet and subdued. The calm after the storm. During this time, after we had regained our wits and come back together (I basically ran out of the restaurant we were having dinner in and left my companions to run up and down the streets photographing…a bad habit, I’m afraid…almost got me trampled in Nepal last year), we strolled leisurely through the Barkhor areas and did a nice kora around the Jokhang. Besides the numerous teams of street sweepers and garbage trucks picking up the large piles of trash left over, the streets were surprisingly deserted after such a city wide explosion just an hour before, but we were very thankful for the peace and solitude. I’ve really gotten back into night photography here. The dark alleys and random street lights make for, in my opinion, great night shots and I have been happily exploring the mysteries and strange surrealism of night photography. It’s an exercise in solitude, exploration and shadow. Part of it feels voyeuristic, part of it feels exploratory, part of it feels secret and sacred. The night represents the deep dark, always an instinctually foreboding place, full of secrets, dreams, mystery, unknowns. It’s a different time to look at the world. You could take a photo during the day and come back to take a photo of the same scene at night and it would be 100% different (except maybe non-sleeping towns like Miami). I really like that, almost a two world kind of process.

This week has definitely been one of anticipation, excitement, eagerness and shopping! The only thing I can compare it to is the week before Christmas. Everyone is off work, everyone is with family and everyone is out shopping for preparations. There are quite a few things to get for Losar (Tibetan New Year). First you have to clean the house from floor to ceiling, wall to wall. This usually takes a family of 4 two days to complete. You also have to buy new clothes (or clean your best clothes) because everyone dressed up on the first day of Losar and you have to look your absolutely finest. You also have to get new window dressings and rooftop prayer flags because the ones put up last year have already faded and gotten pretty ratty in the constant sun and wind here. Some people will go so far as to put new paint on the house and window/door trims. You have to have a lot of food. And I mean a lot. One day recently, Leigh and I were walking though the impromptu meat market that sprouted up for Losar just behind the main bus stop on the main road and we saw family buy not one, but two quarters of a yak! That is about 60 pounds per quarter and costing about 160 USD for both halves. Quite a large chunk of money for someone here…almost 2 weeks salary. Granted that really amounts to 1$ per pound, a steal in the US, and not a bad price for here either, but they bought a whole half a yak (120 pounds of dried meat) just for Losar! The meat will be taken back to their house where it will be hung from the window cages until Losar (sometimes a couple weeks or more) and then eaten with relish. I guess there’s something particularly spicy about the Lhasa air.

Another food item necessity is the kapse or friend dough cookies. The closest thing we have in the States would probably be the funnel cake but kapse isn’t chewy, it’s crunchy. It is not Losar without kapse, and it comes in all sizes, shapes, colors and flavors (though the standard with a little powdered sugar makes up the larges portion of kapse bought). There are stores that only open for a few weeks around Losar that only makes kapse and huge amounts of it. And it is a precious item as there are lines out the doors of most of these stores during this time. People buy kilos at a time; entire boxes full of oil saturated fried dough. Mmmmmmm! Some more necessities include the 9 ingredients to the special Losar soup that is made. I guess it’s like collards and black eyed peas in the South, the traditional meal. People buy lots of fruit and lots of yogurt too, but this is not that unusual from any other day, just a matter of degree. Finally, there is a special display that is made every year called a cheme. It is the centerpiece of any home and has very special significance during the New Year’s celebrations. The cheme consists of a highly decorated wooden bowl with two compartments. In one you put ground barley in the other you put whole barley. Then you decorated it with butter sculptures on a stick (these are truly amazing what you can do with butter), colored wheat/barley stalks and surround the whole display with fruit, food, etc. We have been invited to go to a cheme making ceremony at a friend’s house today and I will know more later. Right now, I have been spending my time walking the streets, especially in the markets, and trying to capture all the various stages and aspects of the Losar preparations. It has been so much fun, so exciting and very interesting. It is the first Losar for Leigh and me here in Tibet and we are looking forward to it.

On the night before Losar we were invited over to a Tibetan friend’s home to spend the night and enjoy the special intimacy and private views that a typical foreigner is not allowed. It was a very genuine and special invitation and we are both so grateful for this rare opportunity. The day before Losar, a cheme is built. This is a traditional New Year’s display consisting of large stacks of kapse (fried dough), fresh fruit and 7 or 9 offering bowls full of dried fruit, candy, dried cheese. This kapse stack is supposed to represent the body of a sheep, with head, innards, fur, legs, etc. According to tradition, the sheep was at one time more important and more sacred to Tibetans than the yak is currently. To one side is the cheme phu or large decorated container that holds on one side the tsampa (roasted, ground barley) and on the other side the whole barley grains. Into the pile of tsampa and barely grains are placed colorful dried wheat and barley stalks and one butter sculpture created on a piece of flat board for each side. These can be incredibly ornate and complex. Some will have they symbols for longevity, some will have the 8 sacred symbols of Buddhism, some will just have detailed designs and patterns like flowers or mountains. It is amazing all the things that people can do here with butter. I just thought it was good on corn on the cob! It was funny to watch our friend’s (we’ll call her TZ) mother and father ‘discuss’ how best put up the cheme display. It reminded me of the ‘discussions’ that happen regarding the placement and alignment of Christmas tress or Hanukah menorahs.

I can’t tell you how many things that I witnessed here during the last couple weeks that indirectly have a counter part in the Christmas holiday preps and celebrations. For example, another thing that everyone here does is to replace the prayer flags on their houses’ roofs. These are typically created on a small sapling tree (I won’t discuss here the environmental ramifications of thousands of young trees being cut down just for decoration….gee, sounds like Christmas too, huh?). The prayer flags are tied to the small branches and then the dead decorated tree, a true symbol of Christmas, is then put on the roof to replace the one they put up there last new years. I was visiting a corner ‘tree lot’ photographing them make these prayer flag trees when a man bought one and proceeded to tie it to the top of his car and drive off! Now if that doesn’t speak Christmas tradition, I don’t know what does. Very funny comparisons to be made.

Anyway, after the cheme was properly discussed, sometimes very loudly, and finally completed, we ate dinner all together. There was the mother and father, three daughters, a son-in-law, two grandchildren and three foreigners. What a combo! Then, in typical holiday season modern society fashion, the family gathered in front of the TV to watch whatever ‘holiday special’ was on. Because both Chinese and Tibetan New Year fell at the same time this year (sometimes they can be as much as a month apart), there was a Chinese and Tibetan New Year TV special on at the same time. One was being broadcast from Beijing, the other was filmed here in Lhasa. Both were very interesting if not downright amusing. It’s like they don’t really realized they are making fun of themselves because what they think they are doing is completely nice and aesthetic, etc. Come the 08 Olympics, you’ll see what I’m talking about. The Chinese idea of grand performance is rather immature and grand. The TV specials were sometimes very eerie, too. During the Beijing show, there came a performance by a group of 70 Tibetan singers and dancers. All happy and smiley, like little bobble headed dolls. The first couple scenes they showed on the screen behind them were pretty Tibetan landscapes and Lhasa scenes, etc. Within 30 seconds the scenes became one long commercial for the train, images of the train and nothing but the train until the very end of the performance when the last scene shown was Tiananmen Square! Now, if this isn’t subliminal conditioning, I don’t know what is. One of the greatest symbols of power abuse and iron fisted rule being shown behind a troupe of smiley ‘happy’ Tibetans…it was downright disturbing on many levels. Almost like, this will happen again if you don’t behave. Crazy.

I drank more sweet tea and butter tea in these few hours than I’d like to remember. Oh the bladder! I can’t say ‘No thank you’ now without thinking of tea! And I come from the South, the home of hospitality! Well, Tibetans put us to shame. You literally cannot go 5 minutes without someone, usually the mom, coming up to you and refilling your glass, offering you food and telling you to drink and eat. After awhile it becomes a bit annoying but the intention is kind, so you have to roll with it.

At midnight the sky erupted in more fireworks than I have ever seen in my life. It was an incredible display for the Chinese New Year (Year of the Golden Pig) and put the one I spoke of for ghutook to shame. It was a true firestorm that lasted for hours. There was no sleep to be had, not with literally thousands of fireworks going off all over the city simultaneously…and sometimes right next door. The sky was absolutely ablaze with color. Not thinking too much about the amount of trash this celebration was creating, nor the sheer size of the impact if you expand it to China-wide, it was really something I’ll never forget. I thought I’ve seen displays in America, but nothing compares to this. And this was just some ‘backwater frontier town’ called Lhasa. I can’t even imagine what it was like in Beijing or Shanghai for example. I think the most poignant moment of the night though came during the fireworks display, when without even looking up from the pot of soup she was stirring, TZ’s mom said, “There are so many Chinese”. This because Tibetans don’t light fireworks and never have traditionally. And to hear the war zone happening outside, the point was hammered home. Another subtle reminder that things here have changed dramatically in 50 years.

After the fireworks finally subsided a couple hours after midnight, we finally slept. In the morning, we had the traditional Losar breakfast. One was a soup of cracked wheat with oatmeal with meat called tru. The next was kunde (or all good things) and consisted of chang (fermented barley), tsampa (roasted and ground barley), droma (very small sweet potato root), chura (dried cheese), brown sugar and eaten with kapse (fried dough). And the last course was droma dretse (small sweet potatoes with rice). Probably one of the most interesting, if not delicious, breakfasts I’ve ever had. Eating and hanging with the family was fun and interesting. After breakfast we got dressed in our finest. Everyone wears their fanciest chubas. I wore my jacket and button up shirt with dress shoes even. Everyone looked so beautiful! After getting dressed everyone gathered in the living room to do the ritualistic tossing of barley and tsampa while shouting Losar Tashi Delek! Then it was a round ritualistic drinking of chang. When handed your cup of chang, you must make three flicks (offerings) with the 4^th finger for the Buddha, Dharma and Sanga (the Son, the Father, the Holy Ghost maybe?). Then you take a sip, they refill the glass, you take another sip, another refill, a third sip, another refill and then its bottom’s up, or shapda! This goes around the room, starting with the oldest male and making its way around the family and then to us.

We left a little while after the chang drinking to go to another family’s house for lunch. After lunch, which was very enjoyable and delicious, we wandered around the city a little. We first stopped at Ramoche and then on to the Jokhang and Barkhor. Incredible, long lines, beautiful dressed, dirt poor beggars, lots of police. The streets and market areas are completely dead. Except for the Muslims (who are mostly of the Uigyur minority ethnicity), there isn’t anyone working. Again, it’s a lot like Christmas day.

The first day of Losar is a particularly important and auspicious time to get your dharma in. Apparently it counts something like 1,000 or 10,000 more times to visit the Jowa or do a kora or make offerings, etc during Losar. So the lines at the three main temples in Lhasa – the Jokhang, the Ramoche and the Potala were wrapping around the building, 5-6 hours long! According to one monk we know at the Jokhang, they opened the lines at 8 pm the night before and expect them to run constantly for 24 hours. Wow! When we arrived at the Ramoche, our fist stop, it wasn’t so bad, but the Ramoche is never as long as the Johkhang and it was also 4:30 in the afternoon. Either most people were in line at the Jokhang, had already visited, or were saving it for later when the lines wouldn’t be so bad. We didn’t go in, but took some photos and then soon left for the Jokhang were most of the action was happening anyway. We were not disappointed. The police had taken the barkhor’s small wooden and metal stalls and created a people corridor that wrapped almost 100% around the Jokhang, a good half kilometer. This still allowed room for people doing kora (or finding a place unmarked by police so they could clamber over the stalls and break in line – a very Tibetan activity). Leigh and I did a few koras to gain some merit of course but mostly to people watch. On one side, in line, you had highly decorated Tibetans in their finest (reminding me of those people who attend church only on Easter and Christmas) and then on the other side you had dirt poor beggars who seemed much more intent on gaining a few mao (small change) from the passers-by than getting any dharma from the Jowa. Interesting isn’t it? When you’re busy worrying about when or how your next meal is coming, you don’t have a lot of time to spend on thinking about God, the universe or any of that esoteric shit. Eventually, after lots of walking, photographing, and watching, we got cold and very tired and went home, feeling like that after Christmas day exhausted. We even woke up the next morning sore! And all we really did was eat and drink tons of tea…jeez.

On the third day, Leigh and I went to a small Horse Festival here in Lhasa. Started by the Panchen Lama (2^nd only to His Holiness), it was great fun. The photos can be seen here: http://picasaweb.google.com/jasonsangsterphoto/LhasaHorseRace. I think they really speak for themselves. Incredible stuff. Puts cowboys to shame.

Finally, some enjoyable randomness: http://youtube.com/watch?v=QRvVzaQ6i8A