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Labrang Monastery, Xiahe, Gansu Province

10/27/2017

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In April of 2017, I led a group of students and teachers to Gansu Province in the northwest of China.  Gansu is not a particularly well-traveled part of the country.  The infrastructure is primitive and it's hard to get from place to place.  The province is enormous and the geography is varied, from grasslands, to mountains, to the Gobi Desert.  This is the perfect place to travel.  We saw no other westerners, which is more common in China than one would expect, but zero westerners is rare.  

Our first stop in Gansu was Xiahe, which boasts the largest Tibetan Buddhist monastery outside Tibet.  My first impression of Xiahe, a small city with a population of 130,000, was that there was a tangible spirituality about the place.  The streets are quiet and the air smells clean.  The mountain peaks surrounding the town are a reminder of the high elevation and the need to move slowly.  The majority of the pedestrians are Tibetan Buddhist monks, wearing majestic burgundy robes with gold trim.  An unsheared sheep roams the sidewalk near a street musician chanting an entrancing melody.  We get a taste for the spirit of the monastery as pilgrims circumambulate around a small temple and turn a long line of prayer wheels as they chant their sutras and do prostrations.

In the morning, we enter the monastery where we are led by a guide through a series of buildings.  One of the buildings houses intricate yak butter sculptures.  For hundreds of years, Tibetan monks have used butter made from yak milk to create large and intricate sculptures of the stories of Buddha.  For months, dozens of monks work on a single sculpture. 

Labrang boasts the world's longest stretch of prayer wheels.  While walking and spinning the wheels, the only sound is the rhythm of hundreds of wooden wheels turning on their spindles.  All are welcome to spin the wheels and to pray along with the pilgrims and monks.  The commitment to prayer is tangible.  In most places in China, westerners are stared at, talked about and conversed with.  Here at the monastery, the residents are devout.  They may give a slight smile as they watch us spin the wheels, but they quickly regain focus on the task at hand.  Although we are clearly out of place, there is no feeling of judgement.  In fact, when asked, the monks are happy to teach us how to pray properly.

At 11:00 am, all of the residents of the monastery are called to prayer.  They begin arriving about 15 minutes before the call, sitting on the steps of the temple and chanting together.  At precisely 11, the monks run up the steps and into the temple.  In a matter of minutes, the once filled steps are empty but for the shoes they leave behind.

I have had hundreds of moments of clarity during my lifetime of travels, each one bringing me a new understanding of the people I meet and the new perspectives they give me. 

My visit to Labrang was a Top Ten Moment.  You can have this experience on a Chow Fun Tour.  Summer 2018 Teen Trip includes Labrang Monastery.

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Why Chinese?

10/21/2017

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The first thing people ask me when they find out that I am proficient in Chinese is, "What made you decide to study Chinese?"  It was just a matter of circumstance.  In high school, I studied Spanish through AP level.  I loved, and still love, the Spanish language.  I figured I would major in romance languages in college, continue my study of Spanish, add Italian and do terms abroad in Siena, Italy and Madrid. 

I was wandering around the "Freshman Academic Fair" at Dartmouth College in the fall of 1988, looking at all the possible classes and majors. Each major had a table with professors and class materials to peruse.  The romance language table was teeming with students waiting to speak with the Spanish, Italian and French professors.  I wasn't up to the challenge.  As I started to walk away, I accidentally caught the eye of the professor at the Chinese table.  She was solo.  In 1988, Chinese was not a popular language to study.  But our eyes met and she beckoned me over.  I couldn't be rude and I felt kind of badly that her language was so unpopular. 

Bai Laoshi was quite persuasive, but the thing that got me was, "What do you have to lose?  Isn't that why you are here? Try something new."  After one class, I was hooked.  I double majored in Asian Studies and Government.  I studied the Chinese language, history, religions, politics, culture, geography and art.  I concentrated on international relations within my government major.  With each class, I became more and more enamored with a country and people so vastly different not only from my American culture and English language, but from western culture altogether.

Today of course, proficiency in Chinese is an incredible asset whether one wants to be in business, government, military or education.  The language itself is an asset, but there are intangibles that set Chinese speakers apart.  Since the language is daunting to most westerners, there are still relatively few who study it.  Studying the language shows a willingness to take on a challenge and to take calculated risks.  When people ask me why their child should study Chinese, my answer is, "What do they have to lose?"

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Yangshuo Cooking School , July 2017

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    Lauren Drazen

    I have traveled all over the world, including adventures in China, Uganda, Taiwan, Thailand, Cambodia, Argentina, Vietnam, Israel, Jordan, Turkey, Greece, Italy, Spain, France, Switzerland, England, Denmark, Sweden, Russia, Costa Rica, Jamaica, St. Lucia, Dominican Republic, Mongolia, Netherlands, Canada and Mexico!  My greatest love is introducing Americans to the sites, traditions and people of China.  My hope is to give travelers a new lens through which to see the world.

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