A Trip to the Dalai Lama’s House

Aside from the Jokhang Temple, Lhasa wasn’t as crowded or peopled as Hong Kong. Perhaps there aren’t a whole lot of people who’d want to live in a place that high off the ground. I wasn’t sure how people could live there, really, living up in the sky like that.

Back in Hong Kong, I’d read an article about how Tibetans had evolved differently than other humans, developing special genes and anatomies that enabled them to survive at a higher altitude. Their very existence, like, an example of Darwinism, these people of the skies...

The Tibetans were interesting people, man. They had a different appearance to them than the Chinese. They were something of a hybrid between the Indians, with their shorter stature and dark brown skin, and Chinese, with slanted eyes.

Visiting different spots around the city, I noticed immediately how friendly they were, the Tibetans. And I’d laugh at how the street peddlers would cajole us, some even trying, absurdly, to wrangle us, pull us into their street side stall, so they could sell us tchotchkes, sweets, or whatever they had sitting under canopies or large umbrellas.

I didn’t know what they were saying since most were speaking Tibetan to us. But it was obvious they were hawking their wares, pointing to things, shoving them in our faces. It was comical, really.

Although, man, it was sad, some of the street beggars we saw. There was a time or two, when a beggar, holding a little baby, would literally hoist up the baby and thrust it at us, while pleading for money. Welshman said not to be fooled by it, however, because, apparently, in parts of Asia, there’s a “baby renting” racket, where “professional” beggars will rent a baby for a day, to elicit sympathy...

There were little kid street beggars, too, skittering around. One beggar, looking no more than 6 years old, ran up to our group, wrapped himself around the tall lanky Londoner’s leg and wouldn’t let go until the guy gave the kid a couple bucks. It felt more like a form of emotional extortion to me ... But really, it was sad, man, to see that level of poverty, to see little kids doing that...

I mean, dude, I grew up rich. I pretty much grew up in a castle. The worst thing I could remember witnessing was a friend in summer camp, on a hike, stumble into a beehive, and get swarmed by angry waves of bees, stung up and down his back. I was roughly 20 feet away, viewed the horrific scene as we trekked up a path, by a clearwater mountain stream. I remember the bees, the buzzing mass, the hovering shadow encircle and swallow him in its clutches, the army of flying insects jabbing and stinging at him as he wallowed, his voice cracking in misery, pain and terror.

Amazingly, he didn’t die. But his back, his face, and his arms and legs were swollen, sheeted in red lumps. Dude looked almost like the Elephant Man ... It was ill...

That was likely the worst, saddest thing I’d ever seen in person. But I’d never seen such wide-scale suffering until I traveled to the developing world. I had never seen truly grinding, truly generational poverty. I had never seen such inequity, corruption and failure of leadership until I traveled to Latin America, parts of Asia, the Middle East, Africa. Man, it was fucking visceral, seeing that. Seriously, like, I’d take the worst slum, the worst neighborhood in America, any day, over the slums I saw. Americans really don’t understand how some people are living.

I remember, as a kid, seeing that fat lady in those infomercials, pleading for money to feed starving African children. I didn’t see her anywhere, in my travels. I was thinking maybe I’d spot her in some slum, on the outskirts of a city, filming an infomercial. But I didn’t. I remember that we’d always joked, my friends and me, that she’d been eating all those kids’ food, or she was like a cannibal or some shit, kidnapping and eating the kids. But after seeing those places, for real, all that became less funny. I wonder what happened to that lady. I don’t know.

But, seriously, man, like I really became aware of how fortunate I was, in so many ways, after traveling the world, for real...

Most of the Tibetans we came across had obviously not traveled much outside of Tibet. Most had obviously never seen white people before, with how they were looking at us, gazing at us in wide-eyed, happy amazement. The rural, farmer types in particular. They’d point, wave, stare at us. Here or there one would speak to us, in Tibetan, smiling and asking us questions.