Woman, Hunter, Tiger, Lake, Mountain God
Trip Start
Mar 21, 2005
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58
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Trip End
Ongoing
Bazhu,
China
Sunday, November 20, 2005
A long time ago, a tiger roamed the mountains near Bazhu in an area called Tachen. The tiger often descended down from a holy mountain to drink from a lake, where a woman often came to collect water. The mountain god looked upon this scene and was happy. A hunter, however, had his sights on the tiger and set a trap every morning. Every day, the woman would remove the trap, not wanting to see the tiger killed.
One morning, the hunter had set his trap, yet he remained hidden near the lake. The woman arrived, removed the trap, collected water, and left. The hunter then set another trap and killed the tiger. Upon seeing this, the woman climbed to the top of the mountain and yelld with all her might
01 The Last Beam of Evening
. The mountain god heard her and sent a mudslide down the mountain, which flooded the lake and destroyed the village and the hunter below. Now the lake is gone, a simple grassland; but the story remains.
We traveled for three hours, mostly along the banks of the Yangtze River, to Bazhu with four professors from the University of Tibet. The Lhasa professors--biologist, ornithologist, musician, and zoologist--worked for the Tibet Institute for Sustainability. WWF helped them to establish the institute three years ago, and they are just beginning the long process of working with communities to improve their lives and those of the plants and animals of their ecosystems.
They were here to see the work of WWF-China in Shangri-la.
At Bazhu, they were greeted with long silken khata and a full night of dancing and singing. Gomba and I filmed and photographed the dancing and singing to the light of a bonfire and one incandescent light bulb. The professors watched and took pictures, chain smoking cigarettes throughout the ceremony
02 Drying Apples for the Winter
. I think if someone invented a way of smoking in their sleep, the professors would have been the first customers: 24/7 nicotine fix, the "7 Eleven Cure" for smokers.Perhaps the dancers at Bazhu had learned from the story of the tiger, the hunter, the woman, and the lake that no longer is--most of them didn't wear the skins of rare animals on their costumes.
In most other places, Tibetan dancers wear the skins of leopards and other rare animals. A while ago, few dancers could afford these skins, and families would combine their incomes to purchase them. The fur usually forms a fringe on men's costumes and are beautiful to behold, in a superficial way. Now, with increasing Tibetan income from the aid of Chinese development and tourism income, more and more people can afford to wear leopard.
Unfortunately, this means fewer and fewer leopards in Asia. Despite the supposed Tibetan harmony between them and their ecosystems, Tibetans are now one of the largest threats to leopards.
The future of leopards in Asia remains in the hands of Tibetan dancers
03 The New Community Learning Center
.Back in Shangri-la, I brainstormed with the professors amidst a cloud of cigarette smoke. Their thoughts formed the foundation for a grant, which I wrote over the next several days. We submitted this grant--a three year project to build the capacity of a famous Tibetan village and make them more sustainable--to the World Bank, often considered a bastion of Western evils, known for large bureaucratic dam projects and not really helping the developing world, just pretending to. In this case, maybe the World Bank is trying to clean up its act, at least a little bit, by providing funds for sustainable projects.
We'll see...if they don't maybe the mountain gods will send a landslide their way!
Comments
grant
way to go lloyd! keep the world bank honest, i say. their 'good intentions' in latin america - particularly brazil and argentina - make my skin crawl. but, i agree - they are trying to 'turn over a new leaf' - however...they're still a bank. and money is money. i wish i could be more optimistic. i think being called a communist (read - anti-american/terrorist/baby killer) three times in the last several months has made me bitter and self-defeated. where did my perky optimism go? maybe you can find it for me in the cloudy mountain tops. i search for it here...in my carpeted air-conditioned apartment, amongst my mountains of books. somehow the misty mountains and the erudite stacks are not the same.