Riding the Iron Rooster

Xining had department stores—of a kind. It had movie theaters—at least two. It had an enormous mosque. But Mr. Fu's was one of only about twenty cars in the place, and as the main streets were four lanes wide, one had the impression of almost no traffic at all. The buses were the broken, rusted kind found in all parts of rural China.

It was alarming to be told by people in Xining that Golmud was horrible and primitive. Bring warm clothes, they said. Bring food. Bring water. Tea, too. Bring everything you need. Nothing is stranger than being in a fairly bad place and being told that another place—your destination—is a great deal worse. But such warnings also made me deeply curious.

They grew potatoes here. They ate french fries. The fries were thin, crunchy, greasy and unappetizing, like the ones sold at McDonald's—exactly like those.

I met a young recent convert to Buddhism, Mr. Xun, who was studying English. I told him how much I liked the stuffed pancakes. He somewhat dismissed this, as Chinese do when you mention your liking for peasant food like dumplings, or lotus roots, or fried noodles, or steamed buns. Meat was the thing.

Mr. Xun said, "Sheep vein. Yak vein. Mongolian hot pot. Caterpillar fungus. And stir-fried camel's foot. That's what I like."

There was also a variety of black moss from the mountains called "hair grass" that was tasty. They made it into soup. It was indistinguishable from seaweed. But the fact was that west of Xining, and through the whole of Qinghai and the whole of Tibet, there is only one vegetable (barley) and only one kind of meat (yak). As might be supposed, faced with only two ingredients the people of these regions have learned to cook them a number of different ways. But that is no more than a gesture. The taste is unvarying. It is the taste of yak.

Mr. Xun the Buddhist convert went with me to the Taer'si, a monastery about fifteen miles southwest of Xining. The founder of the Virtuous Order (Gelukpa), a pure form of Buddhism, was born here over 500 years ago. This man, Zong Kapa, went to Lhasa and preached at the Ganden Monastery there. He was the founder of the Yellow Sect. After he had been away for some years, his mother wrote, imploring him to return. He said no, but added: If you want to do something useful, build a temple in my honor. Before the old woman could act, a pipal tree sprang up on the spot where Zong Kapa was born—the same sort of bodhi tree under which the Buddha received enlightenment. The mother built a pagoda over the tree, and then built a temple. Later, in 1560, the monastery was built. Dalai Lamas and Panchen Lamas have visited here. The present Dalai Lama was born nearby, in the hills. The white horse of the 9th Panchen Lama dropped dead soon after bearing his master here in 1903. This animal was stuffed and is venerated in one of the temples. So Mr. Xun said.

What Mr. Xun did not say was that this monastery, recently reopened by the Chinese, had the stuffings kicked out of it, and not only in the predictable battering of the Cultural Revolution. In 1958, Mao issued the edict of Religious Reform. It began as a political program; it became religious persecution. But now, thirty years later, the Kumbum Jampa Ling—the Tibetan name of the Taer'si—is growing again. There had been 3600 monks. This was reduced to none at all. In the past few years 500 monks have established themselves, and there are Rapjung—novice monks: grinning little red-cheeked boys who trot around combining high spirits and mischief with their chores.

"In three months these people will believe in communism," Mao had said thirty years ago, as he defrocked the monks. But the monastery has re-formed, and it is vigorously Buddhist. It seemed to me that it was so far off the beaten track that it had not received the pestering attentions of the bureaucrats. The complex of temples, stupas, courtyards, the printing works, hospital, medical college (for teaching herbal remedies), and dwellings (housing thirteen Living Buddhas and their mothers), is scattered on the brown lower slopes of the valley. A small town has grown to one side of it, down the road.

Having Mr. Xun with me was a help, and being at Taer'si on a cold winter day meant that I was seeing the place with its prayer wheels turning. We followed a procession of Tu people, who wore black hats with upturned brims, and padded jackets and high boots.