For the last few years I’ve struggled with the idea of “development.” What distinguishes it from aid? How can it be self-sustaining? Which foot to put forward first? That kind of thing.
I was also surprised after giving the calendar money to one of the Lamas at Dru Deng, that Qing Zhu told me straight faced that he’d rather do it for profit next time. Many would agree with him. The only way to keep doing that kind of project is to earn some of the cash yourself. I started wondering whether or not to help him connect to the generous and romantic folk in Canada, simply to help him get his business off the ground.
Unpacking these thoughts now in my living room as I get ready to return, the irony almost stings. I earn $900 Canadian a month and am getting an all expenses paid trip to evaluate development projects across Tibet for a small international organisation caught in the corruption of rural China and the philosophy of bringing training manuals and ideas to people who essentially exist on what they can produce in their backyards. It’s called “capacity building” in the industry. And it’s the way that “we” feel justifies spending donated money to influence “long term change” that is supposed to help these people become more mobile in the modern age and hopefully leave them feeling better off for it. I wonder how many TVs could be bought with all that capacity building money, after all, whether it’s a TV, a digital camera, or an expensive meal out, that’s what us generous individuals at home are doing with our share.
While success in our programs can be measured with indicators like reduced rates of infant mortality, endangered species habitat protection, and improved basic health, and it’s true that I couldn’t be helping with the program full time without earning any money, it comes back to the question of what came first, the cry or the help? How much say in the annual budget do the communities we’re working in have?
There are probably as many development agencies in China as there are dairy farms in parts of Europe, supporting a massive work force whose job it is to deliver tid bits of lifestyle fertilizer and help others achieve modern independence.
For the time being, in my new capacity as a project manager, I’ll just do my best to do the most for the people I meet, I’ll savour the experience for the rest of my life, and on the side, I’ve arranged to meet Qing Zhu in Lhasa to pick up a full size Tangka to sell for him over Christmas back home.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
PART 2 - Dru Deng
Dru Deng sits at 3,000 meters and is the place where seeds thrown by a Lama in a monastery hundreds of kilometres away grew during a winter snow storm, and where three goddesses once came. The monastery is on a north eastern shelf of a long, steep sided alpine valley. Rich forests in the bottom and brown grasslands above, connecting mountain ranges with high meadows that eventually die out at scree and snow covered peaks.
This section of the valley is a concentration of settlement. All nine villages each with less than fifty homes can be seen from many points above Dru Deng. Other than a few small stores, several run by the monks, everyone here eats what they grow and sells what little they can. (Minority areas in China have some of the lowest incomes and highest rates of illiteracy.) There is a police station and Chinese school that goes up to grade 4, and mini vans and blue transport trucks that pass through the main village several times a day. This valley is the only access between two main roads, two main towns, and two grassland basins to the north and south. It hardly has any through traffic as the hardpack road is usually blocked by a rockslide somewhere in the middle. And anyway, there aren’t many people to connect.
I spent my days hiking up the sides of the valley and visiting with folks in the villages. Qing Zhu and I taught each other basic phrases in each other’s mother tongue, and got to know each other in our common language, Mandarin. We were each a valley into the other’s culture and perceptions. One day driving in the car with the highest Lama at Dru Deng we all had a conversation about Buddhism and Canada. Does the river there have fish, I ask?
“This big!” says the Lama, with arms stretched open wide. He asks me why we don’t eat beef in Canada. I clarify that it isn’t everybody, and for me at the time, just a personal choice. Most people in Canada – love - to eat beef.
“Do Canadians eat chicken and mutton and fish,” he asks?
Yep.
“Hmmm. We don’t eat chicken and mutton and fish,” he says, “I never have. I eat only yak and pork.”
Why is that? What’s the difference between eating yak, and mutton, and chicken, and fish, I ask him?
“Fish are so small. In one meal you can eat so many fish and kill so many lives. Yaks are so big that if you kill one, a person can eat it for a year. But killing an animal is not the same as eating one. If you eat meat you just have to pray, and you’ll be fine.” The Lama mimes flipping prayer beads in his hand. “If you kill an animal, in the next life it will kill you.”
I tell him that ten years ago I worked on a commercial fishing boat and killed many many thousands of fish. He listened carefully, sucked in sharp air through his teeth and said, “that is the worst job you can do in this life.”
Lacking an adequate argument at that moment, I tried to introduce them to my basic understanding of First Nations beliefs at home, “use what you can use and be respectful of the source.” I tell them that at home many people believe that everything has a spirit, everything from animals to trees to water.
“That’s Jewish!” says Qing Zhu with utter confidence. It’s not Buddhist, says the Lama, “only animals with hearts have life. There’s nothing wrong with cutting down a tree.”
During the month with Qing Zhu, I also spent a week up the monastery in another good friend’s house. Tiny versions of the family homes in the village, these small buildings hold the wood stoves, kettles, beds, and water barrels for the monks and Lamas who live up there. Most of the youngest monks still live with their families in the surrounding villages.
Two pit-sawyers moved in with me for a few days, since one of them is related to my friend and they had a small job up at the monastery. They were there sawing logs all day with a long pull saw making planks for a new place being built. At night we talked about “standards of living” and perceptions of wealth. While apologizing for the dusty floors (in a house without glass in the window frames) one said that there was a landslide illiteracy rate among the adults there accompanied by about a ten percent success rate among the grade 4 grads finding job alternatives to farming or herding yaks.
I asked them what could possibly be done to improve this fact? One of the men, the guy on the top end of the saw who has to follow the line, said that if he could have anything, he would have a TV, “having a TV increases your standard of living because it lets you see everything that is going on.” Did he just say participatory development through the boobtube? Who knew it could be so straight forward?
This section of the valley is a concentration of settlement. All nine villages each with less than fifty homes can be seen from many points above Dru Deng. Other than a few small stores, several run by the monks, everyone here eats what they grow and sells what little they can. (Minority areas in China have some of the lowest incomes and highest rates of illiteracy.) There is a police station and Chinese school that goes up to grade 4, and mini vans and blue transport trucks that pass through the main village several times a day. This valley is the only access between two main roads, two main towns, and two grassland basins to the north and south. It hardly has any through traffic as the hardpack road is usually blocked by a rockslide somewhere in the middle. And anyway, there aren’t many people to connect.
I spent my days hiking up the sides of the valley and visiting with folks in the villages. Qing Zhu and I taught each other basic phrases in each other’s mother tongue, and got to know each other in our common language, Mandarin. We were each a valley into the other’s culture and perceptions. One day driving in the car with the highest Lama at Dru Deng we all had a conversation about Buddhism and Canada. Does the river there have fish, I ask?
“This big!” says the Lama, with arms stretched open wide. He asks me why we don’t eat beef in Canada. I clarify that it isn’t everybody, and for me at the time, just a personal choice. Most people in Canada – love - to eat beef.
“Do Canadians eat chicken and mutton and fish,” he asks?
Yep.
“Hmmm. We don’t eat chicken and mutton and fish,” he says, “I never have. I eat only yak and pork.”
Why is that? What’s the difference between eating yak, and mutton, and chicken, and fish, I ask him?
“Fish are so small. In one meal you can eat so many fish and kill so many lives. Yaks are so big that if you kill one, a person can eat it for a year. But killing an animal is not the same as eating one. If you eat meat you just have to pray, and you’ll be fine.” The Lama mimes flipping prayer beads in his hand. “If you kill an animal, in the next life it will kill you.”
I tell him that ten years ago I worked on a commercial fishing boat and killed many many thousands of fish. He listened carefully, sucked in sharp air through his teeth and said, “that is the worst job you can do in this life.”
Lacking an adequate argument at that moment, I tried to introduce them to my basic understanding of First Nations beliefs at home, “use what you can use and be respectful of the source.” I tell them that at home many people believe that everything has a spirit, everything from animals to trees to water.
“That’s Jewish!” says Qing Zhu with utter confidence. It’s not Buddhist, says the Lama, “only animals with hearts have life. There’s nothing wrong with cutting down a tree.”
During the month with Qing Zhu, I also spent a week up the monastery in another good friend’s house. Tiny versions of the family homes in the village, these small buildings hold the wood stoves, kettles, beds, and water barrels for the monks and Lamas who live up there. Most of the youngest monks still live with their families in the surrounding villages.
Two pit-sawyers moved in with me for a few days, since one of them is related to my friend and they had a small job up at the monastery. They were there sawing logs all day with a long pull saw making planks for a new place being built. At night we talked about “standards of living” and perceptions of wealth. While apologizing for the dusty floors (in a house without glass in the window frames) one said that there was a landslide illiteracy rate among the adults there accompanied by about a ten percent success rate among the grade 4 grads finding job alternatives to farming or herding yaks.
I asked them what could possibly be done to improve this fact? One of the men, the guy on the top end of the saw who has to follow the line, said that if he could have anything, he would have a TV, “having a TV increases your standard of living because it lets you see everything that is going on.” Did he just say participatory development through the boobtube? Who knew it could be so straight forward?
PART 1 - Reeling In The Threads
At home packing up a few days before going back to Tibet. More like packing a list in mind of things I have to take, and unpacking small wraps of language and etiquette from memory. I have been a few times before, touring or staying with friends there, but never like this, going to make a report on program status and recommendations for next year. For a program that’s been running twelve years. Fortunately Nawang, the Development Director will be there and in charge. He’s been with Future Generations for over eleven years, and at least will recognise what looks different in the Pendebas lives who’ll we be visiting.
Pendeba are trained by people like Nawang to be resources in their communities. The Pendeba (which means, “Person who benefits the village” in Tibetan) are chosen by their community to take part in multiday training sessions with other Pendeba about: health care, conservation, and income generation opportunities. The people chosen generally come from small villages in remote corners of the province. They are always associated with an existing or proposed conservation area, usually by way of living there.
The program was initiated in the Qomolangma National Nature Preserve. Mt Everest, in China. The park was created in 1985 with the help of the organisation’s president. Ten years later the same people involved began the Pendeba Program. I’m going back with Nawang to check out the program, record observable outcomes, and generally to get a sense of what it’s all about through meeting the people involved.
I’ll spend most of the month in Nyingchi Prefecture where many government and non-government groups are working towards creating another park, the Four Great Rivers Protected Area. It’s a region of thick forests and deep watersheds that feed over one billion people downstream. The Brahmaputra, Salween, Mekong, and Yangtze rivers flow through these valleys collecting runoff from the massive mountains above. The region covers 46,000,000 hectares of northern Tropical forest, high alpine, and 7,000 meter peaks. Within China alone, eight hundred thousand people live in this future park. But logging companies have been extracting here for decades, mining companies are exploring new reserves, and the ancient forests that support Snow Leopards, Tibetan Antelope, and Ghoral are growing smaller day by day. In the early 1990s a ban was put on logging in the Upper Yangtze basin after a spring of tragic floods in eastern China.
The last couple of times I was in “Tibet” were to stay with my friends at a small monastery I’ll call Dru Deng. I became connected to Dru Deng after happenchance brought me to share a room with two monks at a hostel on the east coast of China in 2005. Qing Zhu and his apprentice we’re painting a mural that by the time I left was the size of a full moon in the outline of a Buddha. Qing Zhu gave me his business card when I left and said I should come visit him. A couple of weeks later I skipped out of language school in Shanghai and did just that. I’ve been back three times since: once with my dad, and once last fall for a month.
The plan was that I would stay at Qing Zhu’s house and spend most of my time in the temple. When I got there though I learned that the temple plan was off, and that Qing Zhu’s grandma had passed away two weeks before. It all became a little awkward. But, Qing Zhu and everyone else I knew there insisted that I stay. A funeral, they said is no reason to leave. The awkwardness was never far away though since the funeral prayer, The Book of The Dead, still had twenty five days to go.
The previous winter, Qing Zhu and I had raised a small bunch of money for the monastery school with a combined effort selling his paintings in a calendar in my home town. Not that either of us gained a dime from the proceeds, now that he saw the potential he wanted to talk seriously about how we could make money. He’s been doing not bad on his own though over the last couple of years. He drives the first car in his village, has flown across China, and regularly brings back modern and stylish gifts for his friends and family with money earned selling his artwork and traditional medicine in big cities across China. For a drop of perspective, his parents live in a big wood and rammed earth home with half a dozen bare light bulbs and a five dollar a year electricity bill.
What should I have done? I arrived after a year long expected visit to this remote place, to find my post-modern monk friend praying for his deceased grandmother while shuttling Lamas across the tight valley between the monastery and his family home, and making the six hour roundtrip to town to pay others for a good year’s harvest of caterpillars. He was insistent that I stay in his home, – a place that resonated each day with the chiming and flowing of Buddhist ritual. Weeks later a friend said to me, “everyone sings their own pitch, there’s no rehearsal or harmony. Praying is like a free ticket to Heavenly Mountain.” Sometimes it sounded like Heavenly Mountain was miles away, and other times, like it had already come every one of them.
I like to think we were both torn. Me by the cultural fascination of Qing Zhu’s community, him by his fascination with change, and both of us by the cross cultural humbleness of death; neither of us were quite sure how much heed to pay it. I’ll be the first to admit too that my decision to stay was partly selfish.
Pendeba are trained by people like Nawang to be resources in their communities. The Pendeba (which means, “Person who benefits the village” in Tibetan) are chosen by their community to take part in multiday training sessions with other Pendeba about: health care, conservation, and income generation opportunities. The people chosen generally come from small villages in remote corners of the province. They are always associated with an existing or proposed conservation area, usually by way of living there.
The program was initiated in the Qomolangma National Nature Preserve. Mt Everest, in China. The park was created in 1985 with the help of the organisation’s president. Ten years later the same people involved began the Pendeba Program. I’m going back with Nawang to check out the program, record observable outcomes, and generally to get a sense of what it’s all about through meeting the people involved.
I’ll spend most of the month in Nyingchi Prefecture where many government and non-government groups are working towards creating another park, the Four Great Rivers Protected Area. It’s a region of thick forests and deep watersheds that feed over one billion people downstream. The Brahmaputra, Salween, Mekong, and Yangtze rivers flow through these valleys collecting runoff from the massive mountains above. The region covers 46,000,000 hectares of northern Tropical forest, high alpine, and 7,000 meter peaks. Within China alone, eight hundred thousand people live in this future park. But logging companies have been extracting here for decades, mining companies are exploring new reserves, and the ancient forests that support Snow Leopards, Tibetan Antelope, and Ghoral are growing smaller day by day. In the early 1990s a ban was put on logging in the Upper Yangtze basin after a spring of tragic floods in eastern China.
The last couple of times I was in “Tibet” were to stay with my friends at a small monastery I’ll call Dru Deng. I became connected to Dru Deng after happenchance brought me to share a room with two monks at a hostel on the east coast of China in 2005. Qing Zhu and his apprentice we’re painting a mural that by the time I left was the size of a full moon in the outline of a Buddha. Qing Zhu gave me his business card when I left and said I should come visit him. A couple of weeks later I skipped out of language school in Shanghai and did just that. I’ve been back three times since: once with my dad, and once last fall for a month.
The plan was that I would stay at Qing Zhu’s house and spend most of my time in the temple. When I got there though I learned that the temple plan was off, and that Qing Zhu’s grandma had passed away two weeks before. It all became a little awkward. But, Qing Zhu and everyone else I knew there insisted that I stay. A funeral, they said is no reason to leave. The awkwardness was never far away though since the funeral prayer, The Book of The Dead, still had twenty five days to go.
The previous winter, Qing Zhu and I had raised a small bunch of money for the monastery school with a combined effort selling his paintings in a calendar in my home town. Not that either of us gained a dime from the proceeds, now that he saw the potential he wanted to talk seriously about how we could make money. He’s been doing not bad on his own though over the last couple of years. He drives the first car in his village, has flown across China, and regularly brings back modern and stylish gifts for his friends and family with money earned selling his artwork and traditional medicine in big cities across China. For a drop of perspective, his parents live in a big wood and rammed earth home with half a dozen bare light bulbs and a five dollar a year electricity bill.
What should I have done? I arrived after a year long expected visit to this remote place, to find my post-modern monk friend praying for his deceased grandmother while shuttling Lamas across the tight valley between the monastery and his family home, and making the six hour roundtrip to town to pay others for a good year’s harvest of caterpillars. He was insistent that I stay in his home, – a place that resonated each day with the chiming and flowing of Buddhist ritual. Weeks later a friend said to me, “everyone sings their own pitch, there’s no rehearsal or harmony. Praying is like a free ticket to Heavenly Mountain.” Sometimes it sounded like Heavenly Mountain was miles away, and other times, like it had already come every one of them.
I like to think we were both torn. Me by the cultural fascination of Qing Zhu’s community, him by his fascination with change, and both of us by the cross cultural humbleness of death; neither of us were quite sure how much heed to pay it. I’ll be the first to admit too that my decision to stay was partly selfish.
Saturday, March 8, 2008
Jiu Zhai Gou National Park
The National Tourism bureau calls this park a "Fairy Land." Walking under green lichen clad forests and past the depths of blue-green pools, it's not hard imagine elves hidding under the reeds and tip-toeing across woody stems.
Since I first came to this park in 2000, tourism has skyrocketed to 20,000 people per day during peak season (spring to autumn). But the awesome wilderness that gives JiuZhaiGou it's name is relatively unafected. Even the old Tibetan family I stayed with on my first visit are still living in the same house with the same hand painted Buddhist images across the walls. Of course they've changed a little, we all have. I noticed their daughters have grown up, their old prayer drum has been traded in for a colour TV, and they now have space in the kitchen to seat 20 guests. Jo and I stayed for three nights, and shared the boardwalks with no-one. The few tourists there were huddled onto minibusses that zipped up the one road, stopping for 10 minutes here and there for guests to take memories.
Semi-submerged trunks of broad leafs and conifers
growing out of the river bed add to this valley's uniqueness.
These crystal blue pools are surrounded by fiery
red leaves in autumn.
It was well below zero C. every night, and never crept
far above during the day.
Self-portrait of elves.
Since I first came to this park in 2000, tourism has skyrocketed to 20,000 people per day during peak season (spring to autumn). But the awesome wilderness that gives JiuZhaiGou it's name is relatively unafected. Even the old Tibetan family I stayed with on my first visit are still living in the same house with the same hand painted Buddhist images across the walls. Of course they've changed a little, we all have. I noticed their daughters have grown up, their old prayer drum has been traded in for a colour TV, and they now have space in the kitchen to seat 20 guests. Jo and I stayed for three nights, and shared the boardwalks with no-one. The few tourists there were huddled onto minibusses that zipped up the one road, stopping for 10 minutes here and there for guests to take memories.
Semi-submerged trunks of broad leafs and conifersgrowing out of the river bed add to this valley's uniqueness.
These crystal blue pools are surrounded by fieryred leaves in autumn.
It was well below zero C. every night, and never creptfar above during the day.
Garibaldi?
Self-portrait of elves.
You Stole My Money
I was originally going to write a whole story to go along with this video, but then I realised after a little bit of editing that the video says enough on its own.
This was recorded coming home on the bus one busy afternoon in Beijing. It was rush hour and the double length bus was packed from stairwell to window frame. Suddenly an elderly man sitting at the front yelled out, "Driver! Driver! Somebody stole my money!"
Even the shortest stay in China can let a person see how unpredictable it is here. From situations like being the only person to be pulled off a packed subway car, to watching street vendors run up the street with their bargain-carts to evade random police checks, to reading stories about free television sets given to peasant farmers to raise their culture and sophistication; one realises quickly that nothing can be expected nor surprising in the Free-Market-Socialist country called China.
So I was totally shocked and completely un-phased when our bus load of commuters hauled over to the side of the road to wait for police to resolve our onboard dispute. The old man lost 20 Rmb (roughly $3 Cnd) from his front pocket, and after 30 minutes of groaning protest bystanders were offering to repay him and move on. "It doesn't matter if it's 20 or 200," he said, "the fact is there is a thief on board who needs to be caught!" Jabbing the crowd with his eyes he swung a crooked finger towards me then settling on the guy to my right cried out, "it was HIM!"
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