Four Easy Steps to Khampa Machismo

Step One: Grow Mustache

Step Two: Rustle Yak

Step Three: Acquire Large Sunglasses

Step Four: Cultivate Belly

I have these pictures and others from this year up at Picasa.

Worm Food

Tom and Kendell came back through this weekend and I think they had a pretty excellent time during their week-long stay in Kham. To chronicle their trip on the Trans-Siberian Railroad, they have set up a blog aptly--though unfortunately--named Transsibirskayamagistral.

Here's a picture of theirs that I quite like. It is the entrance to what is probably a special sanctuary for performing the Tantric arts, the left-handed path that propels practitioners to powerfully realize the emptiness of form.


It's worth clicking to view the paintings of skinned humans and decaying faces in detail.

Thanks Mike

A couple of young travelers came through Kangding County on their way to explore Kham for a week or so. One of them brought me a gift from the twin on the south side of the Himalaya.


I hadn't worn a real t-shirt in ten months.

Fluff and Filler

I've been busily preparing for a trip to the provincial capital this weekend. My mind is incessant with the details of class, internetting, and plans for home. In the interest of getting at least one post up this week, I offer the following pictures of some class guests and me. Yes, these are the most flattering pictures I could find.

Meg, to whom I owe this job, as she passed through from Chengdu to Qinghai

The illustrious Tenzin Mullin, son of Tibetologist Glenn Mullin

Stoically Socratic

Cath Marsh, the New Zealander who taught the class last year, during one of her hip-hop seminars

Cath's depiction of a DJ

¡Moustachio Imbroglio! - Updated

Meg, whom I introduced in this post, visited me last week on her way from Chengdu back to Qinghai Province. She's an English teacher working at a school established by her Lama. She helped me with these photos (old news to my Facebook friends):

dan the dirty stinking hippie

Poppycock! I daresay a hooligan indeed, Governor. Cheerio!

Fulfillin' a lifelong dream, ya'll

Bold Vision into the Future: Terra Incognita

Update: Big thanks to those who voted. The results of the poll are as follows:

• Frank Zappa: 0
• John Holmes: 2
• Anthony van Dyke: 1
• The Hoff: 3

My Fiftieth Post

I was going to publish a post about Community Supported Agriculture, but it's late so I'll just hit you with some pictures of my apartment and the classroom. I should have my thoughts on non-corporate farming together by lunchtime on Monday (Louisiana time).

Riveted by yet another life-changing lecture

Garma Sonam (Tyler) explains how nomads make cheese to the class. He is probably my favorite student. I spent the Lunar New Year with his family on the grassland.

grammar grammar grammar

Teachers get bored in class and stare out of the window, too (like last week, when a brushfire tore up the hill). This is my view.

The building that houses the English and Tibetan Departments.

A statue of the Man and Woman of Kham

Lunchtime tutorial

After a tutorial with Yudron (Leah) and Jenna. I visited Yudron, who got the highest score on the final last term, and her family last holiday. The picture of Lhasa was a gift from another student.

Gachu and Woko's families each gave me a printed thankha when I vised their homes during the winter holiday. The one on the left is a thousand-armed Avalokiteshvara, and on the right is a leader at the famous Serda monastery.

Rinpoche

The eastward view from my living room, upriver

Bedroom view to the east

Eastward and downriver

A view to the northwest from my spare room

On clear mornings, the snow on this mountain is illuminated when the sun peaks the ridge opposite the river.

East Side

After class today I took Cath's camera around campus to take a few photos. This Chinese hamlet near the school is a nice example of the Sichuanese countryside.

I decided to document the few tags around the school. Chinese youths adore hip hop culture these days. My opinion being that when cultural movements are expropriated to non-native places or for materialist reasons, I feel that Chinese hip hop lacks some of the authenticity of the underground movement we (barely) have (left) in America.

Slam, bitches!
I've always been impressed with the Chinese penchant for replacing nature with artifice made to resemble nature.

Yes, that's a Houston Rocket on the left and a concrete ping-pong table on the right. Eminem is tagged at the bottom right, so if that's the level of American hip-hop to which they're exposed, it's no wonder Chinese hip hop seems barren to me.

The Money Shot: MC Death

Basketball is China's most popular sport, and thanks to the NBA, the music industry, and Hollywood, most Chinese kids assume that all blacks in America are basketball players or gang bangers.

These tags suck.

This one sucks too, but hey, it's their second (and sometimes third) language.

Spring is just arriving.

This tag is behind my apartment. I think it says "I'm Tank." Good on ya, Tank.

From what I can tell, the official establishment has nothing against kids expressing themselves in this way in China. I think it's because it never had anti-establishment roots out here in China. Kids tag and dance hip hop because that's what's mainstream and status-quo.

Although they can dress the dress and leave tags, Chinese hip hop dancing is completely choreographed. Noticing that I don't lack rhythm, my students have asked me to teach them to "dance hip hop." I don't really know what the fuck that means. Hip hop moves and rhymes are meant to be improvised, so planning it out ahead of time is antithetical. It's difficult for me to do a real survey of Chinese hip hop, but my impression is that it doesn't come anywhere close to the literary ingenuity of the best in American underground hip hop, and they certainly don't know how to mix dope samples (that's a music term, Mom. It doesn't mean drugs).

Communist China has tamed a number of Western musical styles, including rock-n-roll, punk, and now hip hop. Art has traditionally been used in China to subvert the status quo, from millennia-old veiled political poetry to the allegoric film of the mid-eighties. That was meant to change when Mao declared art to be the tool of the People's Revolution. Hip hop in the People's Republic of China is definitely a tool, but not of Communism: it's a tool of conformity and materialism.

I don't like Chinese Cake, but I do love Irish Whiskey

Here I am enjoying Jameson, neat, at Emily's birthday party. These pictures were taken a week after roasting the lamb leg.

I don't remember what I was saying, but judging by the look on Sarah's face, it was probably really smooth. Please contribute your own caption in the comments.