Apart from the work, we gained hugely from living in such a Spirit-led organisation; in having the opportunity when time allowed to discuss faith matters with, for instance, An Kush. He and his brother had volunteered for CTT for six months, both highly educated skilled young men, as well as people who live their faith. An Kush was a devout Hindu who gave a lot of credence to miracles and other religious phenomena. He told stories of holy men who had been protected, even from the rain, and his views are backed up by many of the sages:
“There have been cases where because one man with a strong destiny, a developed consciousness, has been in a ship, that ship has escaped disaster though it should normally have sunk. But these are complicated subjects. So many factors are involved – the choice of the soul, the destiny of the person, the collective destiny of the people who are already there, and God’s intentions” (M.P. Pandit, Spiritual Life, p.225).
It was on such subjects that I ceased to be at ease with Hindu beliefs. For me karma and reincarnation were stumbling blocks.
It was primarily Kshama herself who inspired us, and I took every opportunity both to tell her about what I was doing, and also to discuss with her matters of theology; meditation, contemplation, and the many paths to a change of consciousness.
We spent three months in India and, by the time we left, felt acclimatised. It was hard to leave. India and its spiritual consciousness seems to seep into the bones; one absorbs a different way of seeing, of experiencing the world. It has something to do with the gentleness and forbearance of Indian people. Despite appalling conditions, people simply live their lives and take the longer view, an attitude that is powerfully influential. People said we would want to go back to India; we do and we will.
Interlude
No Man’s Land
Although it meant going “backwards” in our westerly progress round the world, to catch our Singapore Airlines plane to Beijing, we had to go to Singapore.
The culture shock was almost physical. We had left the cold of North India, and arrived in a steamy, hot and humid city. The streets were immaculately clean; the flat we stayed in was part of a luxury block with designer swimming pool; the city was one vast shopping mall. I was not there long enough to discover how poorer people lived on the underbelly of such a materialist society; I know that our host Anne, a splendid Quaker teacher, felt very uneasy with the life she had been plunged into. Certainly the flat, isolated from her neighbours, would not have been her choice.
On the bus going to one of the main tourist attractions: the “Night Safari”, was a young American family. The little boy did not like the seat he was in and threw a tantrum until he was moved to one next to a window. Fresh from India, I was staggered at the difference in behaviour. Never, in India, did we see a child behave like that. With all the deprivation and poverty, we hardly heard a child cry. The contrast between children in Singapore, confident and affluent, in restaurants and shops, and the slum children I had been working with was so great. Just the same in capacity, yet worlds apart in what they can expect from life, and what they get.
We did arrange a Meeting for Worship in Singapore, with Anne, another American teacher called Mark, a visiting English Quaker and two elderly Chinese sisters, in their lovely flat. For them it was a rare experience. For me it was an oasis in an alien land. When I said to Mark, “I don’t like tourists or shopping,” he said, “You’ve come to the wrong place.”
We hadn’t wanted to go to China either. I had spent three weeks there fifteen years before on a “business” trip, and hadn’t liked it. Indeed, it had made me wonder whether I was tired of travel. Since then, everything that friends had told me of recent changes – the high rise flats, the increasing consumerism – had done nothing to make me want to go there again.
But, to catch the Trans-Siberian Express, it was to Beijing that we had to go. And it was different this time. High rise, certainly, and, astoundingly, there were young men walking through the streets, carrying Pierre Cardin bags. There were fewer bikes and more cars – it felt a city transformed. But this time we were staying with friends of friends – a delightful Chinese intellectual family, and in one of the few remaining old quarters. So, against expectation, I enjoyed it, and wished we had been staying longer.
The old man of the family, Yang Xianyi, was a renowned scholar – indeed, our taxi driver recognised him, as he had been on TV the previous week. He and his English wife, Gladys, who died a couple of years before, had worked for the Foreign Languages Press and as a result, were highly suspect during the Cultural Revolution. They were both sent to prison for four years – Gladys in solitary confinement. Xianyi, an imperturbable, Oxford-educated Confucian, talked entertainingly about his time in prison as he sat with us, chainsmoking and drinking a viciously strong Chinese liquor. He had met thieves and murderers – “Such interesting men” – and taught them English songs. The picture of Chinese criminals singing “Drink to Me Only With Thine Eyes” was quite surreal.
Xianyi’s daughter Yang Zhi was our hostess. She and her Canadian husband, David, were academics who now ran their own cuttings agency. She was a Marxist, and frank, as was the rest of the family, about the corruption that was an everyday occurrence in their lives. To build their house they had had to bribe large numbers of organisations, and to pursue a court case against a former employee they had had to pay for the police officers to spend an evening in a gambling club. They agreed that life had been difficult and unpredictable – Yang Zhi had been sent into the countryside as a young woman and had quite enjoyed it – but they did not feel another Cultural Revolution would turn their lives upside down.
“There’s no one to lead it,” Yang Zhi said. “The young are only interested in shopping.”
It was a wonderful stay. We slotted into their family life with ease. Feeling guilty at being given their bed, especially when an older friend turned up from England to stay, we suggested moving to a hotel. It was the only occasion on which David grew fierce. “Certainly not. We won’t hear of it.”
The night before we left, an extraordinary thing happened. We were talking after supper about the meaning of surnames and Stephen untypically mentioned that of his birth father, whom he had never known. All he knew was that his father had been a prominent member of the British Communist Party, and had been wounded in the Spanish Civil War. Yang Xianyi stared ruminatively at the ceiling and blew out some smoke.
“I knew a man of that name,” he said. There was silence in the room; a stillness as it became apparent that this old man, whom we had only met by the slimmest of chances, had known Stephen’s father. It turned out that the Englishman had come out to China after the revolution as a translator for the Chinese Communist Party. He had developed throat cancer and had been sent to Moscow to be cured. He had died out there, and his body had been brought back to Beijing to be buried in a hero’s grave. There was no time for us to visit it, but Stephen spoke on the phone to a former friend of his father’s in Beijing and now has names to contact in England. His father, it seems, was a man of principle, highly thought of by many. It was a powerful moment for us all.
Although we were only there for a week, we learnt a different perspective in China. One evening, as drink loosened the tongues of our host and an outspoken resident Australian guest, they spoke forcibly of the distorted views of the West, and of the United States in particular. Although it was obvious that they were deliberately provocative in some of what they said, for instance about the Taliban protecting women, it was clear that. their take on world affairs was utterly different from our own. It reminded us that our newspapers too have their own slant; it is not only the Americans who are insular; not only the Communist papers that propagate propaganda. It confirmed me in my view that news is an artificial and subjective concept; what it is seen to consist in depends on the view of the editor and the owner of the paper or broadcasting station concerned.
Chapter 13
The Last Pristine Land
The Creator of the w
orld is the owner of it
John Woolman
Imagine a country without fences or boundaries, in which all land is in common ownership. Vast expanses of space uncluttered by trees, rocks or any recognisable feature, except clusters of wild ponies and camels, and gazelles that streak across the horizon in terror at the sound of a vehicle. Imagine a country with temperatures down to –40°c in the winter and up to +40°c in the summer. A nomadic population: hardy but hospitable, and one of the worst diets in the world.
That’s Mongolia, and we were there in March.
We were there because Martha, one of my former writer clients, lives there for part of the year. The last time I saw her was 15 years ago, when I visited her in Seattle. She had just returned from her first trip to Mongolia and had rung her husband, John, to say: “This is the last pristine country on earth. We must live here.” A tiny vibrant American woman with startling blue eyes, Martha is a specialist on Chinese affairs. She helped set up a publishing programme for Soros in Mongolia, and also set up a women’s weavers’ co-operative with her own money, as the aid was not getting through. Martha was one of the central characters in my concept of this journey and, although I sadly did not see her, we made contact. In reply to an email from me describing what I was looking for in Mongolia, she offered a generous affirmation of my way of life that echoed my powerful recognition of hers.
Stephen and I had taken the Trans-Mongolian train from Beijing: the first stage of the legendary Trans-Siberian Express. Many people confuse the Trans-Siberian Express with the Orient Express. The TSE, however, is not a luxury tourist train, but a work-a-day means of transport for local traders and business people. In second class it is certainly comfortable, with linen provided, and a boiler with constant hot water at the end of each carriage. Each carriage has a provodnitsa or concierge. We had been warned about the fierceness, particularly of some of the Russian ones, but actually they looked after us like mother hens. Especially Stephen, who went out jogging at every stop. And it’s easy to miss the train. Unlike the trains in India which leave with plenty of warning toots and move slowly out of the station with plenty of time to finish a conversation and board it, a Russian train leaves speedily and silently. It can be gone before you notice it is moving.
The other reason that it’s easy to miss it is that there are several different time zones in action at the same time. One passes through five time zones on the six-day trip, but the train leaving times are all according to Moscow time, which, as one hasn’t reached it yet, going from East to West, can be confusing, especially as the restaurant car and lights out times are on local time.
At the China/Mongolia border, we were surprised to see Mongolians buying large quantities of eggs, tomatoes and other vegetables to take home. As we found later, vegetables are hard to come by in the harsh Mongolian climate, and much cheaper over the border. At our first stop in the snow-dotted steppes, early on a chilly morning, a clutch of eager high-cheeked Mongolian salespeople wrapped in coats, hats, scarves and boots met us with thermoses full of dumplings and bottles of airag (fermented mares’ milk). I had no Mongolian money, but a young woman from further up the carriage insisted on treating me: “Welcome to Mongolia!” The pork dumplings made a greasy but delicious breakfast for the four of us in our compartment.
Mongolia has recovered its independence after years of subjugation first by the Chinese, then by the Soviet Union. The present country, at over one and a half million square kilometres three times the size of France, used to be double that – part has now been swallowed up into Siberia, Russia, and Inner Mongolia is now part of China. When the USSR collapsed, Mongolia came free, but at a price. In the early 1990s inflation rose to 300%; the country lost the equivalent of 50% of its net expenditure; and urban unemployment shot up. People reverted to traditional ways of herding and traditional forms of transport. Despite free education, economic pressure has meant that the high literacy rate is falling and nearly a million people live below the poverty line.
Ulaan Baatar, the capital of Mongolia, is an unattractive scruffy town with patchy architecture, much of it Soviet, including the apartment block in which our guest house was situated. Places do not have addresses but are just described as near something else, so it was easy to get lost, though some knowledge of Russian meant that I could at least read the cyrillic script. Though it’s a poor country, some people have money, as evidenced by some smart cars and a few people wearing fur coats. Most, though, still dress in the traditional del, a full-length woollen coat/dress worn by men and women, and tied with a bright sash. It looks very dashing if worn by a man with traditional shoes with curled toes and the essential hat.
Stephen was pickpocketed twice in Ulaan Baatar: once as he got off the train, and the second time coming out of the supermarket. I felt an atmosphere of menace in the town that I had not felt since Guatemala City, and wasn’t happy wandering around, especially at night. I felt the usual guilt and indecision about giving to beggars – nearly all children – one of whom hit me when I refused to give. There are 3,000 children living in the sewers: street children who have to go underground to survive the extreme temperatures. We felt rather helpless with this knowledge, but Stephen tracked down an orphanage to which he gave a donation of $30. He couldn’t understand why they were quite so grateful, but discovered the reason when he heard from a high school teacher that she earned $50 a month. The orphanage was so overwhelmed by the gift that they insisted on putting the news on local radio.
Ulaan Baatar is the coldest capital in the world, and it was cold even in March:
–20°c at night and about –5°c during the day. It was wonderful crisp, dry weather, humidity nil, with bright blue skies which made sunglasses imperative. It was often quite windy too, penetrating all but the most efficient layers of clothing. My lovely Bolivian jacket at last came into its own, after months of carrying it round hot countries, as did the silk long johns that I had brought from Marks & Spencer: light, squashable and warm. With the padded trousers, fleecy cardigan and hat with ear flaps bought in China, plus a hand-knitted scarf from Tibet, I was snug even in the worst of the weather.
Silence demands space, space in the whole structure of consciousness … When there is silence, there is immense, timeless space; then only is there a possibility of coming upon that which is the eternal, sacred.
J. Krishnamurti, The Wholeness of Life
My instinct, as always, was to get out of the town, and we soon found a van and driver to take us to the Gobi desert, and two young Danish women, Maria and Agneta, to share the costs. Six days in the desert – at last. We stocked up with food at the State Department Store, an old-fashioned large building with dusty windows. We were told that we would be staying in gers (traditional felt tents) and supper and and breakfast would be provided. We bought provisions for lunches: eggs which I hardboiled, fruit, cheese, bread, jam some pasta, tea, and fuel for the little stove that came with the van. Choice was limited and, for once, the ubiquitous Coke or Pepsi was not available. We fortunately bought plenty of food, as we ended up feeding Gera, the driver, even though we had been told that he would supply his own.
Khongoryn Els, Gobi Desert
Gera was magnificent. He did not speak English, but we managed to communicate using my phrase book and the universal language of gesture. A few miles out of UB the road petered out, leaving him reliant on distant peaks to guide him, plus the occasional tracks made by other vehicles. In general the land was brown and gritty. Miles of empty space and vast horizons. I love the desert: in such landscapes my soul expands. I was frustrated by the fact that there were few opportunities to walk. With a vehicle and fellow passengers, it was hard to abscond. I did early one morning climb a hill near the ger in which we had been staying and found a shamanistic ovoo or cairn with the head of a mountain goat with curved horns as an offering. I sat quietly for ten minutes or so, drinking in the space, the peace, the landscape – what I had come for.
And sometimes during the hours of d
riving I persuaded the others to go ahead for a few miles and brew up while I walked on. Outside I jumped up and down, danced for joy. I wanted to spend hours, days just walking in the wilderness into the immeasurable distance. Because I could see the van, a dot on the horizon, I sometimes turned and walked backwards to give myself the illusion of solitude. I wanted to be alone.
In few places does the Gobi conform to the general idea of desert landscape. The Mongolians count thirty-three types of desert, and some of it has enough grass for livestock to graze, but the Khongoryn Els in the extreme south of the Gobi is all that one could wish for: a huge range of sand dunes, 12 km wide by about 100km long and 800 metres high. We reached them over a frozen river, worrying whether the van would crack the ice. They were wonderful high dunes, reminiscent of Egypt – the sensuous curves ending in a razor edge; the wave-like patterns on the sand; the dramatic shadows. I climbed up and lay on the untouched golden sand. Then the glorious late evening sun touched the whiskery plants and small shrubs and imbued them with a glow that reminded me of the south of France after harvest – golden, deceptively fertile-looking.
The Gobi is, however, different from the Egyptian Western Desert in the richness of its animal inhabitants: dumpy wild horses, recognisable from afar by their plodding walk, heads down; herds of mixed sheep and goats, usually without human guardians; gazelles; and stately bearded two-humped Bactrian camels, much shorter and fluffier than their haughty brothers. One day we saw a few of them drinking at a water hole and as Stephen and Gera pushed the bar to pump water for them, others plodded up from far and wide. Sometimes we saw vultures, and there was a lot for them to feed on. Evidence of the harshness of the climate was everywhere – bones of horses and sheep, sometimes picked clean, sometimes still intact.
Call of the Bell Bird Page 16