For Sarah Ruth Hartenstine
Trip Start
Mar 21, 2005
1
13
354
Trip End
Ongoing
Gyeltang,
China
Sunday, June 12, 2005
For the last three weeks I have been living in Zhongdian, Gyeltang, Shambala, or Shangri-la--whatever you want to call it. Your choice. My favorite is Gyeltang, the plain old Tibetan name. Zhongdian is its Chinese name. Shambala is also Tibetan, but might be too pretentious, as the paradise it implies might be only achievable in the afterlife. Shangri-la, is the new Chinese name based off James Hilton's word for a "mythical" place.
On the fourth floor of the Xiang Ba La Hotel is the home base for the World Wildlife Federation in this area, so I'll be staying here, as I'm volunteering for them. This seems to be a similar situation to The Trustees of Reservations' office on Martha's Vineyard--very temporary. With TTOR, the home base involved cats peeing from the ceilings onto your desk, cold gusts coming through the floor boards, and people coming in every minute to ask: "is this where I get my palm read?" With WWF, the home base involves loud music blaring from the video store down below. We think the store owner has mental problems because he plays the same song over and over and over day after day. It's enough to drive someone crazy, especially when one's stomach is doing flips because of some unknown foods: "shut up already!" Isn't this supposed to be Shangri-la after all. No one would dare blare music so loud in Shangri-la, the only place in the world so beautiful and tranquil and fulfilling! Food would never be contaminated in Shangri-la? Right? Culture would never be lost in Shangri-la? Right? People would never litter in Shangri-la? Right?
For Chinese Environment Day, WWF, tourism groups, and others picked up trash around town. About eighty people participated, filling up an entire dump truck with tons of trash. The same spot we cleaned is now the site of the horse racing festival this weekend. The horse racing festival provides tourism dollars for the local government. But as the thousands of tourists are here to see the horse racing fest, the government did not provide any trash cans. The site we cleaned up for environment day is now trashed. At the same time, the government promotes tourism here by saying how beautiful it is! Shangri-la here is a big government sham.
That still doesn't mean that You cannot find it...
Soon, hopefully, WWF will have a new office. I volunteer for them every day, even weekends, these days. Gomba and I have developed a draft plan for this year's work. If you remember, Gomba is my Tibetan friend who will be working with me on the project. We have been in the office listening to the blaring song we memorized long ago, knowing that soon we would be out with the communities, in the mountains, with the animals of the wilds. Our goal is to engage two communities in a process that will empower them to democratically manage their land in a sustainable manner and to protect their resources. In China, this is no easy task. Luckily now, there is a logging ban in the upper Yangtze valley. Devastating floods eight years ago led to the conclusion that government logging projects were contributing to soil erosion and the floods. So the government, in a wise move, banned this large-scale deforestation of steep mountainous slopes. Just prior to the floods, one town's forests were about to be logged, despite their initially successful protests.
But the logging ban may be lifted.
The project is in its infancy, so we'll see how it progresses and how long I stay here or can stay here. I will be here while it feels right, and now it feels right, as though I am doing something worthwhile, however small, for the good of the earth and its people. I will also be able to learn Chinese and Tibetan, live with another culture, and work for an excellent organization such as WWF-China. Of course, this doesn't mean that I don't miss my friends and family on the other side of the world.
We stand feet to feet, Sarah Ruth Hartenstine.
