Perched on the eastern edge of the Tibetan plateau, Xining is he capital of the province of Qinghai. The population of 1.2 million is an interesting mix of Muslim (Huí, Salar and Uighur), Tibetan and Han Chinese, but for my taste, the city was too big, load and stressful. So I did not really see much of it (and ere is not much anyway in terms of sights...) as the reason for staying here was that I wanted to visit the nearby Tibetan monastery of Kumbum, which is of the great monasteries of the Gelugpa (Yellow Hat) sect of Tibetan Buddhism. It was built in 1577 on the birthplace of Tsongkhapa, founder of the Gelugpa sect. It’s of enormous historical significance, and hundreds of monks still live here but, perhaps it has become such big tourist attraction that the atmosphere really suffers. Of course, my visit contributes to destroying that atmosphere as well, I am well aware of that.... But compared to the several thousands of Chinese, I have only seen 3 other Westerners here.. The artwork and architecture, however, remain impressive. Nine temples are open to the public, each with their own characteristics. The most important is the Grand Hall of Golden Tiles, where an 11m-high stupa marks the spot of Tsongkhapa’s birth. There are quite a number of Tibetan pilgrims walking circuits of the building and outside the entrance, worshipping Tsongkhapa in a quite impressive way. But the religious purpose of this place almost seems to be forgotten by many of the Chinese tourists, who just laugh and shout right next to the pilgrims praying, despite the many "silence"-signs all over, and without even realising that this was inappropriate. On the other hand, most of them bow in front of the Buddha and whisper some words of prayer and leave quite a bit of money in front of the various statues as an offering... But to me, this did not seem to be spiritual for them at all....
Despite this, I was still glad I visited this place. It was impressive to see the gathering of the monks in one of the courtyards. There was always one of them standing shouting at another one who was seated and the others sat around them observing. The one shouting seems to criticise something about the one seated and after a while made a movement half Tai Chi half Karate towards the seated one pretending he was hitting him and clapped his hands to make the noise that goes with the hitting. It was really strange to hear this noise of clapping and shouting, especially before you have seen what is actually going on. The one seated then started his sermon which I understood was a defence against the criticism hand then the whole thing started again. After a while, a signal was given by the superior, who was impressively dressed (photo) and the monks interrupted this interaction and gathered in a huge semi-circle for prayer.
And despite having read it several times, I still have not understood the explanation how young a Tantra doctor's degree.... Do they really mean "aggressive" ..? ;-) (see photo)
Getting back was however more difficult than I imagined, as there was no direct bus anymore back to Xining (despite what had been said earlier). Fortunately, a group of 4 young women in their twenties, whom I had asked where the bus would leave, took me with them and in an odyssey of 3 hours I made it back to the hotel, whereas the direct bus to get there was less than an hour. The young women insisted even to accompany me from the bus stop (somewhere in the middle of nowhere I have to admit...) by taxi to the hotel, after they saw that - again - I did not manage to convince any taxi driver to drive me where I wanted... (Showing the address in Chinese...). In a funny 20 minutes drive, they were 4 on the back seat of a very small car, but found that vet amusing as did the driver... :-)
Photos of Kumbum Monastery at: https://www.icloud.com/photostream/#A65CmvASGCLGEd
Despite this, I was still glad I visited this place. It was impressive to see the gathering of the monks in one of the courtyards. There was always one of them standing shouting at another one who was seated and the others sat around them observing. The one shouting seems to criticise something about the one seated and after a while made a movement half Tai Chi half Karate towards the seated one pretending he was hitting him and clapped his hands to make the noise that goes with the hitting. It was really strange to hear this noise of clapping and shouting, especially before you have seen what is actually going on. The one seated then started his sermon which I understood was a defence against the criticism hand then the whole thing started again. After a while, a signal was given by the superior, who was impressively dressed (photo) and the monks interrupted this interaction and gathered in a huge semi-circle for prayer.
And despite having read it several times, I still have not understood the explanation how young a Tantra doctor's degree.... Do they really mean "aggressive" ..? ;-) (see photo)
Getting back was however more difficult than I imagined, as there was no direct bus anymore back to Xining (despite what had been said earlier). Fortunately, a group of 4 young women in their twenties, whom I had asked where the bus would leave, took me with them and in an odyssey of 3 hours I made it back to the hotel, whereas the direct bus to get there was less than an hour. The young women insisted even to accompany me from the bus stop (somewhere in the middle of nowhere I have to admit...) by taxi to the hotel, after they saw that - again - I did not manage to convince any taxi driver to drive me where I wanted... (Showing the address in Chinese...). In a funny 20 minutes drive, they were 4 on the back seat of a very small car, but found that vet amusing as did the driver... :-)
Photos of Kumbum Monastery at: https://www.icloud.com/photostream/#A65CmvASGCLGEd
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