I Remember Shigatse • Yu Jian (2018)

 

Tashi Lhunpo Monastery. Photograph from https://bloogs.com/

“I Remember Shigatse”

that day in red Shigatse     when I was young     with a travelling bag and a drinking-flask on my back     and on my feet a pair of Liberation running shoes

I strode across fields of highland qingke barley     a forest combed its hair in the mist     dawn rinsed its face     crows bore the name of a divine being

a snow leopard flew in the Himalayas     some Tibetan’s white house stood poised on a hill-top     prayer-flags

fluttered with a pantheon of gods     a paper lion overcame its altitude sickness     as imps and a fine steed

rolled in its erect body     I strode past villages     fortresses     temples     cream-coloured tents     a Tibetan mastiff

roared against a railing     this mighty collector     took care of a Black Hole from the Middle Ages     I had no way of getting near to

bells tolled from high up in the clouds     the Doors of a Whole Household opened     a crowd of matsutake mushrooms put on their caps

the Doors of a Hundred Rivers opened     a hundred thangkas bloomed riotously on slopes covered in a hundred kinds of flowers     a hundred bronze cauldrons

were brewing a whole day’s yak-butter tea     Baidumu stood in a country fair of weiqi chess-players     bearing Tibetan woollen pulu cloth and a love

very soon to be realized    Sakya Monastery was raining     Mount Qomolangma was chanting scriptures     the Doors of the Galsang Flowers opened     every horse

in a pack of horses had lowered its head to the ground     having found the root     a vermilion monk with one shoulder bare pulled out a key from somewhere at his side

the Doors to the Sun opened wide     its brilliance lighting up the Tashi Lhunpo Monastery lost in thought     Doors of Stone opened

the Doors of Wood opened     Doors of Eggs     Doors of Orchards     fathers and sons

worked on the rooves of Autumn     fifty-one years old, Jiangmu’s mother     had a row of white teeth

in her apple of a face     the Doors of the White Poplars opened     I met people spinning prayer-wheels

made of sheep’s hide     people dancing behind white clouds     people offering their hands in support     people walking along roads     people on their way

to Lhasa     these joyous clocks     crawled along the ground     and moved more slowly than time itself     I met with people

lying stretched out in fields of grass     and I met kings without crowns     the mothers of mothers     riders on horseback     ladies of noble birth

necks encircled with turquoise     beautiful woman cooks     a reincarnated descendant of King Gesar     just like a stupa     I met with young girls

like white cranes     bronzed boys     and at the long-distance bus station I met with butter gilded with gold-leaf     as well as people

carrying scars     fleas and love songs     people come from corn and potato     who led me

and guided me past precipices and streams     with hands scythes had once cut into     o     that day in faraway Shigatse

the Doors of the Choir opened     everywhere lips were singing     Jamyang Gyatso     sang in each and every prayer wheel

sorrowful songs     that day     Shigatse was bathed in an auspicious glow     that day     all the doors opened

the white hair of grandmothers hung down in doorways     the world was so old     Beauty was slow in coming     but how I hoped that this was not

the End of the World     that day, with Shigatse lit up in the light of the setting sun     I found the main gate to an Old Heaven     sheep

making their way back home     trod my footprints into the mud’s oblivion as they passed     there was no electricity in Shigatse that day

no hotels     the Doors of the Stars opened     and together with the motionless yaks on a plain of grass

I was glad to be darkness

Notes:

① 勃起的身体中滚着 / 骏马和精灵
I asked Yu Jian about the horse and the imps and he said that all this was in him: “I had become a steed” [我自己的身体内，我成了一匹骏马].

② 一头藏獒 / 在栅栏旁咆哮  伟大的收藏家  保管着中世纪的黑洞  我无法走近
I am still puzzled about the dog being described as a “mighty collector”. Yu Jian explained that he saw it as a kind of spirit [你可以那么想，藏獒在我看来就是神灵]; perhaps he means the kind that protects house and home from unwanted influences. The phrase “meaner than a junkyard dog” also springs to mind in this context: in a way, the dog is both collector and protector of such a hoard. The image of the black hole may refer to the gaping mouth of the dog and to unmodernised Tibet (one characteristic modernization is perpetual bright lighting and the loss of complete natural darkness) and, taking things a step further, to the difficulty modernized individuals experience in approaching other kinds of societies

③ 白度母站在手谈者的集市
Yu Jian does like to literalize words. The word for “chess” here is 手谈, literally “hand talk”. He could have in mind here the scenario he describes in the prose piece “In Lhasa”: “In a certain spot on Barkhor Street, groups of Khampa men do business by thrusting a hand into the sleeve of their trading-partner and moving it around inside. They look as if they’re putting on some kind of play with hand-puppets. An expert on local affairs told me that this was how they haggled. They bargain with their fingers in their sleeves, communicating prices by means of gesture.”

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

回忆日喀则

那一天在红色的日喀则  我正年轻  背着行囊和一壶水  穿着解放鞋

大步穿过青稞地  森林在雾中梳头   黎明洗脸  乌鸦有一个神的名字

雪豹在喜马拉雅山中飞  藏族人白色的房子停在山岗   风马旗跟着

诸神飘扬   一头纸狮子在克服它的高原反应   勃起的身体中滚着

骏马和精灵  大步迈过村庄  城堡  寺院  奶油色的帐篷  一头藏獒

在栅栏旁咆哮  伟大的收藏家  保管着中世纪的黑洞  我无法走近

钟声响起在云端  一家人的门打开了  一群松茸戴好了它们的小帽子

一百条河流的门打开了  一百张唐卡盛开在百花山坡  一百只铜锅

在煮着一日的奶茶  白度母站在手谈者的集市  带来氆氇和将至的

爱情  萨迦寺在下雨  珠穆朗玛在颂经  格桑花的门打开了  马群

低着头  它找到了根  朱红色的僧人袒露肩膀从腰间取出了钥匙

太阳的门大大地打开了  光辉照亮沉思的扎伦布寺  石头的门打开了

木头的门打开了  鸡蛋的门打开了 果园的门打开了  丈夫和儿子们

在秋天的屋顶上干活  降姆的妈妈五十一岁  苹果般的脸上含着一排

白牙齿  天空的门打开了  白杨树的门打开了  我遇见摇着羊皮转经筒

的人  尾随白云跳舞的人  彼此搀扶的人  走在路上的人  要去拉萨

的人  这些快乐的表  匍匐在大地上  走得比时间还慢  我遇见躺在

大草原上的人  遇见无冕的国王  母亲的母亲  骑士  戴绿松石项链

的贵妇  美丽的厨娘  格萨尔王的转世后裔  像一座塔  我遇见白鹤

少女  古铜男子  在长途汽车站我遇见镀着黄金的酥油  遇见那些身上

有疤痕  跳蚤和情歌的人  那些来自玉米和土豆的人  他们牵着我

绕过悬崖和溪流  用被镰刀割伤的手  哦呀 那一天在遥远的日喀则

唱诗班的门打开了  所有嘴唇都在歌唱  仓央嘉措在每一只经筒中唱着

伤心之歌  那一天  祥光笼罩日喀则  那一天  所有的门都打开了

门洞里挂着祖母们的白发  世界如此老迈  美姗姗来迟  但愿这不是

末日  那一天在夕光中的日喀则  我找到旧天堂的大门  一只只羊

在归家  我的脚印跟着它们在泥泞中隐去  那一天日喀则没有电

没有旅馆  星星的门打开了  跟着草原上那些一动不动的牦牛

我甘于黑暗

2018年8月1日星期三在理塘

Tibet: Recent Photographs by Yu Jian (1)

Streetscape, Tibet. Photograph by Yu Jian 2018

Notes on Thick Brown Paper: In Tibet • Yu Jian (1994)

Photograph by Yu Jian

The etymological root of the Tibetan world is “origin”. There is nothing static about this notion of origins, for this world in its vital energies is originary. It is not only a spiritual quality; it is also immediately apparent in the land, in the architecture, in the way of life. For someone who comes from a world of which the etymological root is “progress”, it is simply not possible to make use of the word “backward” in the case of Tibet. Tibet rejects the outlook of Darwin’s theory of evolution so widespread in our world. Everything in this world takes place in an untrammelled time-space, an integrated whole, a powerful consciousness of life and history. Here you might gain an immediate sense of what is known as “eternal life”. When you discover that the time shown on your watch is totally out of sync with that of the Buddhist elders seated on the stone slab at the Jokhang Temple, you begin to suspect that the time of your “progress” is in fact regressing this moment in the direction of death.

In no sense is Tibet a place where spiritual beings are ethereal like the wind. This is pure conjecture on the part of atheists living in the world of “progress”. In Tibet, a spirit is something you can meet with on the road. They are not insubstantial air: they are tangible and have all the intense reality of stone. They are things capable of inflicting injury on the wind and its ilk.

A materialist visiting Tibet who did not become—if only for a split second—a mystic would, I believe, have to be devoid of any feeling.

I do not like discussing the supernatural. Nor am I fond of poets given to liberally sprinkling their works with the word “soul”. I am certain that there is no spirit to speak of in those places where the word “soul” is spoken of with such gusto. I didn’t hear the word once during my stay in Tibet, nor did intellectuals there debate its loss. But the spirit was everywhere.

Prior to my trip to Tibet, an avant-garde friend back from New York told me that he found it surprising that there were people still wanting to go there. Surely such behaviour was well and truly passé? I didn’t quite know what he meant. Could the progress of time mean that places such as Tibet were out of date? To which parts of the globe would future ages travel? No, I felt hopelessly out of step with fashion—I had always imagined the Tibets of this world to be timeless.