Good Idea, Bad Idea

• Good Idea

I met Satina Anziano a number of weeks ago, though I first heard of her from a community publication in McLeod Ganj last summer. Satina used to be a teacher out here, and had written an article about life in occupied Kham for the English language Indian rag put out by the Louisiana Himalaya Association. She returned to Sichuan to aid with the natural home-birth of the half-Tibetan daughter of a mutual friend from Colorado, also a former teacher.


Experienced in the area in which I live, Satina has written a fascinating and beautiful account of the birth titled, "An Ex-Pat Birth Experience: Having a Child in Rural China."

• Bad Idea

A friend pointed me to a travel journal written by a young Christian missionary somewhere in Tibet. The young author and his companions misunderstand and willfully belittle the native religion of the local people, who seem to be nothing more than good hosts for the travelers.

The third building we went to was the most satanic sight I have ever seen. We entered while one monk was in a ritualistic chant banging on a metal cylinder and we walked around the room about the size of a 2000 square foot house. What we saw was again hard to put in words but without freaking you out too much we saw pictures of bodies split in half, eyeballs popping out of eyes, blood streaming out of flesh, creatures with multiple heads, men with bodies of animals and the entire time the boy that was with us was saying what peaceful God's he worships (sorry might have freaked you out). Man how blinded these people are. I have never been in more intense prayer in my life.

To be honest, he has freaked me out.