LIVING BRUDDA

Just outside Litang, I met two young Tibetan monks picnicking on Coke and crisps with one of their friends and his toddler.

As is usual with Tibetans, they asked me where I was from and and whether I had met the Dalai Lama. After a while, one of the monks casually mentioned that his elder brother was a living Buddha. He added that although he himself was a member of the yellow-hat sect of Tibetan Buddhism, his brother was a white-hat.

He told me his brother had traveled to India to meet the Dalai Lama, and had recently opened a private school that had already gathered thirty fee-paying pupils. At the moment, he was in Beijing on business.

I wanted to ask just how maddening it must be to have a big brother who not only bullies you and beats you at games, but is also an officially certified saint. But the young monk was more interested in talking about Wayne Rooney.

A CULTURAL REVOLUTION TALL STORY

My guide to Dali’s lake was an entertaining and lively companion. A farmer with a lucrative sideline as a tour guide, he owns two large houses. Four generations of the family live together in one of the houses; he rents the other house to an Irishman.

He is a man of definite political views. Mao was a bad leader, Deng Xiaoping, Zhou Enlai, Liu Shaoqi were all good.

But the most interesting thing about him is his rich store of local stories.

One of his favorites is that during World War 2, future US President Jimmy Carter was shot down over Dali while serving with the US Air Force. He bailed out, but broke his leg, and was rescued by a local peasant who carried him down a mountain on his back. Having no money to repay the man for saving his life, Carter presented him with his service handgun and watch.

During the Cultural Revolution，Red Guards discovered the American gun and watch and used them as an excuse to beat and imprison the peasant as an “imperialist agent”.

Many years later as President, Carter made an official visit to China and asked to see his old benefactor. The kindly prime minister Zhou Enlai arranged for them to be reunited. Shocked to find his old friend’s health had been ruined by persecution, Carter immediately flew him to New York for expensive medical care. Unfortunately his illness proved incurable and he returned to China where he died soon afterwards.

It is a wonderful story, and the guide told it with conviction and in detail, pointing to the spot where the aircraft crashed, the route down the mountain, the difficulty the short peasant had carrying the lanky Carter on his back etc.

The story is widely believed in Dali, especially by the small expatriate community. At the time I was also thoroughly convinced.

The problem is that there is not a word of truth in it. Jimmy Carter was too young to serve in World War 2. He was never in the Air force, but joined the Navy in 1946 and served for 7 years – mainly in submarines. Furthermore, Zhou Enlai died in 1976, the year before Carter became President.

LOW PAY OR NO PAY IN PARADISE

I got talking to a young barmaid in Dali. She had been sent from Lijiang by her boss to open up his new bar on Foreigner Street. He had promised her 500 RMB per month (about 65 US dollars) – quite a high wage for the area where the average is around 350.

But after several months she had not received any money. It seemed to me that the owner had no intention of paying her. She blamed his unpleasant and arrogant Dali partner for the situation. As they played nice and nasty cop with her, the upshot was she was working for a couple of bowls of rice a day and a bed in the corner of the bar.

She works from morning till late at night seven days a week. One evening she told me that the bosses had finally agreed to give her a day off. Except that it was really half a day since they insisted she return to open the bar in the evening.

She was nevertheless very excited and showed me a pretty embroidered bag she had bought specially for the occasion.

She and a girlfriend planned to take a boat trip on the lake but when they got there they found the cheapest ticket was 100 RMB . There used to be many small boats offering trips until the local government introduced licenses that were immediately monopolized by a big tour company.

One evening she told me she was going to the temple in the morning to pray for her father who had died while still a young man. The family could not afford to buy medicine for both her father and her sister who was also ill. So he had died and her sister had lived. She felt she had failed her father and was a bad daughter.

It would be wrong to say she is unhappy. On the contrary, she is an bright, optimistic and innocent girl who talks and laughs continuously.

TO GET RICH IS GLORIOUS

An English teacher friend told me how a barely-remembered former student asked her to lunch with his parents. A limousine arrived to pick her up and whisked her to an ultra-smart beach-front high-rise. On up to the penthouse where the elevator opens directly into the apartment.

The student’s father is wearing an expensive gold watch and a gold ring with a huge diamond in it. Servants were hovering in the background, including a young man in a chef’s hat.

The father, inevitably a property developer, explains that the fish they are eating has been caught on his own personal fishing boat, and everything else has been grown organically on his own farm. He insists that everything is cooked in extra-virgin olive oil (although sensible people think it spoils the flavor of Chinese food).

All this crass boasting went on throughout lunch. Nothing else was talked about, and it was never clear to my friend why she had been invited.

It reminds me that one evening in my favorite restaurant, the Taiwanese owner showed up and asked me to join his table. He made a great show of ordering the staff around and spent the rest of the time bragging that his wife was both beautiful and intelligent. His friends had been drinking heavily and one of them gave a pathetic martial arts show that ended with him falling over in the corner.

Truly, to get rich is glorious.

WELCOME TO HAPPY STREET

In the small town of Litang, 4200 meters up in the Tibetan highlands of Western Sichuan, it seems that one third of the male population are monks, one third are cowboys, and the rest have just stepped off the set of Pirates of the Caribbean.

The monks wear strange yellow hats shaped like duck bills. The cowboys wear expensive stetsons imported from America. The “pirates” wear their hair in giant silver curlers or wrapped up in red bandannas.

The women wear all sorts of colorful costumes – the strangest being a kind of orange busby hat worn, I was told, by descendants of the Mongols.

Litang’s main street is called Happy Street, and it lives up to its name; almost everyone greets you with a smile or a handshake as you walk along it.

Grocery stores display huge slabs of yak butter. Small blacksmiths’ shops sell silver and gold devotional jewelry that looks like exquisite confectionery. Many of the businesses have pictures of the Dalai Lama on their walls.

There are prayer wheels everywhere. Even when sitting gossiping in groups people like to keep their wheels on the go.

A constant stream of people snakes its way up the hill to Litang’s temple which is being lovingly restored at an apparently enormous cost. Many local people help out with unpaid voluntary work. I spoke to a young high school student and a doctor who were heaving huge stone slabs around on their day off.

The people here are superb horsemen and the regular riding competitions make a great day out.

The best hotel in town is the Potala Inn. The owner is a young Tibetan woman who speaks good English. She can arrange all sorts of tours and excursions. Apart from cheap and comfortable rooms it has a large lounge where you can relax, have a beer and exchange travelers tales.

Litang is more Tibetan than Tibet and the great news is you don’t need a permit to go there. So what are you waiting for?

SHANGRILA LEADERS STUDY LIJIANG

Shangrila’s old town is in the process of being built.

Using traditional methods and tools, local craftsmen are faithfully re-creating an authentic Tibetan town.

The local leadership has carefully studied the example of Lijiang and intends to create a similar tourist paradise, or trap, depending on your point of view. Copies of decrees restricting private housebuilding are posted on walls throughout the designated scenic area .

It has to be said that everything is being done in in excellent taste, except for the the giant mechanical prayer wheel on the hill.

In the main square, local people turn up every evening to perform traditional dances for the visitors. Similar dances are a established feature of the Lijiang experience and are especially popular with Chinese tour groups. It doesn’t seem to matter that the locals seem as unsure of the dance steps as the tourists.

From a balcony adorned with a giant red star, the local party bigwigs chain-smoke and look down on the dancers with paternal smiles that express satisfaction with the progress of their plans.

The rows of souvenir shops are still empty and the early investors look a little anxious. As yet very few coach parties make it to Shangrila, but there can be little doubt about the direction of its future development.

There are already plenty of bars and restaurants, including the Raven, a genuine English Pub run by a Londoner, which is the only place in town you can get a cold beer.

The food in Shangrila is hit and miss, and the Tibetan dishes are especially bland, but I noticed a case of Cabernet Sauvignon being delivered by cycle rickshaw.

All in all this is a pleasant town set in a strikingly beautiful high plateau. On a bright summer evening it’s easy to forget the altitude until you notice the white fluffy clouds sitting at the end of the road below eye level. Scarlet robed monks glide into the car park in a Toyota land cruiser and hop out talking into their sleek, up-to-the-minute mobiles. Prosperity, it seems, is on the way.

Shangrila is just one more example of the Disneyfication of the entire nation. But after all, what is the alternative for a poor rural community? At least its altitude and relative inaccessibility may spare it the full horror of Lijiang.