Top of the World

So here I am at the top of the world, with my laptop plugged into an outlet that is connected to a hydroelectric plant that feeds off the same river I drink from. Its Saturday and I finally have time to sit down and write, while the workers, herders, and other miscellaneous people eat their lunch. I have been staying at the Mei Xieng Cheese Factory, which is actually a compound with housing for migrant workers, a waypoint for traders, and re-supply depot for herders. There just happens to be a building dedicated to cheese making. My lodging is an un-insulated log cabin with cracks that let the morning light through. The electric blanket keeps me warm at night though. Its gets quite cold at night here, but the days are fine because we are in the low-lands where the air is thick, unlike the mountains where you can barely breathe. I experienced that first hand when I almost fainted during a hike, but I’ll get to that in a bit.
We left Shangri-La Tuesday in a 4-wheel drive pickup loaded with supplies we brought in from the city, including my cheese labels, and those thermometers that almost landed me in a Chinese labor camp. We traveled along a single road outside of the city that was paved but small, and flanked by hills on either side. They may have been mountains once, but the red walls, and debris at the bottom were indication enough of the un-regulated mining that was happening in a mineral rich part of the world. We stayed on this road for quite some time until suddenly we veered right and were on a dirt road that put us in the middle of a mine of some sort. I remember driving by a body of water that looked like thick bright-green syrup, something out of a 1950’s comic book.
From this point we began our climb. It was slow going thank God. I might have thrown up if Hu’Za (our driver and Zhou Ma’s brother) had tried to speed up the paths that had no visible earth under the wheels when I looked out the window. Hu’Za knew what he was doing though, and I would let him drive me across a lava pit on a rope bridge if he said he could do it.
The drive was long, but with every moment as we went higher and higher the world became more and more beautiful. I can’t even describe what it’s like up here. Nor can I take a photo to do it justice.
I’ve had an epiphany up here. My pursuit of the arts was a pursuit of the perfect. By pursuing I mean create. But I cannot create perfection, no one can. No human can. We may try, but it is impossible. Whatever man creates, there is always room for improvement. There are solutions, upgrades, and progress and critiques. Nature does not need to solve anything, or upgrade its equipment, be concerned with progress, or have peers judging its acceptability and quality. It just is. It’s done. Its perfect. Sure life changes and evolves, and mountains collapse and rise, but there is order and purpose to this. Mankind has no order or purpose. We just build arbitrary superficial systems to impose social hierarchies that limit the division of resources to a set number of humans in a sickening and outdated tribal mentality. We claim superiority over non-humans, but we are the same as wolves or gorillas, but with guns and ipods.
The only humans I’ve met (thus far) whom I feel true respect for are the ones who live here, and live lives of survival, not luxury, with smiles on their faces. But how long will that last? They already have cell phones.
Anyways, my point is. Perfection exists out here, in the middle of nowhere. I’d like to spend the rest of my life looking for these examples of perfection, for no one else but myself. This is a pipe dream, and I realize that these kinds of pursuits require funding, but maybe I can meet the right person or organization who shares the same curiosity of the world as I do, and pay me to climb mountains, dive into underwater caves, learn thousand year old unspoken languages, and parachute into uncharted valleys. Who knows, my mind is so fickle, and I might just be high from oxygen deprivation.
So back to the journey; We arrived at the Cheese Farm as the sun was going down, were showed to our accommodations and fed. I stayed up late exchanging Chinese for English, and I have to say I’ve learned more Chinese here in a night then I have in one month in Shanghai.
The next day I awoke to a knock on my door, “Ma So!”.
Ma So is my new Chinese name, given to me by Wong Aiyi, Zhou Ma’s aunt and a former Government official for the area. It means Skinny Horse. They joke with me when we are eating, forcing food on me saying, “Ni Ma So, ni yao Ma Pang.” Which is, you are a skinny horse but you need to be a fat horse. I respond, “Bu xing, bu yao Ma Pang. Wo yao Ma So. Nan ren xihuan Ma So.” Which is, No way, I don’t want to be a fat horse, I want to be a skinny horse. Women like a skinny horse.
Breakfast consisted of scallion pancakes with jams and condensed milk and mao-nun nai cha, or yak buttermilk tea. It’s a very thick very earthy drink that kind of tastes like yak, and can be a little overwhelming if not hot, but its good for altitude sickness apparently.
After breakfast, we were to drive out to the main milk collecting point where the herders gather every morning to weigh out and sell their milk to the cheese farm. The collection point is three shacks, two have no roofs and used for milking yak, I assume in the winter when the herders move into the lowlands. The other building stored wood and had a fire pit. While Carol and Beverly talked to one of the herders who arrived before us, Wong Aiyi and I built a fire. I’m not such a city boy that I can’t build a fire, and I made it a point to keep the fire going through out the day just to prove my usefulness and maybe fit in as best I could.
So as the fire burned and turned the shack into a smoke house, more herders arrived and took shelter around the embers while Carol and Beverly interviewed them about their daily showering routines, milk production, cigarette consumption and other questions pertaining their cost of living. It was funny listening to these people's live be condensed into a excel spread sheet with questions like "How often do you take a shower" and answers like "It's raining, so I just took one!"
*Con't...
The afternoon came and we went back to the compound for lunch, rested up a bit, and left for Langdu Village to interview more herders. The village itself is on a giant sliver of rock that runs along the valley of two much larger mountains. on one side of the village is the house, then terrace farming in front of it until the rock drops off a cliff into the valley (see. Langdu Pano). We walked around talking to people, observing their lives, and even went into one of the large-style tibetan houses, where most the space is used for storage. Hu'Za even offered me one of these houses that was vacant and belonged to his family....and you know, if it wasn't for that degree I've yet to claim, I would have take him up on his offer...
So after Langdu, we went back to the compound, ate, talked, danced, and went to sleep.
The next day, I went for a hike with my sherpa Jeff, Zhou Ma's 16 year old son, and my buddy. The photos are better than words, but let me just say, I almost passed out several time from the elevation, and also, trying to outrun the setting sun, down an 80 degree grade Himalayan mountain is pretty hard in Pumas.
I cant write too much just now because I'm pretty exhausted, but tomorrow we take off for Shangri-La, and the journey back to Earth from Heaven.