Xining and Kumbum monastery
On our next day in town, we had to try to figure out how the fuck to get some money, since most the ATM’s in town didn’t take our cards. Luckily found one I could use and Lillian had some cash to change, so it worked out ok, though we wasted a good deal of time on the endeavor. Next we spent some time trying to figure out how to get to this Tibetan Monastery just outside of town. After dealing with some vague, if not altogether wrong directions from the hotel, we found our way there, especially thanks to the help of a nice lady we met at the bus stop who was from that area and showed us to the cars and made sure they wouldn’t rip us off.
The monastery is called Kumbum monastery, and is one of the main reasons we wanted to go to Xining. It’s one of the six major monasteries of the yellow-hat sect of Tibetan Buddhism (no, I don’t really know much about that. Learning more about Buddhism is on my list of things to do though) and the birthplace of the founder of that sect.
It was amazing. More than met our expectations. We wandered around for a bit, checking out a few sites, then met this guy who told us there was a very important monk or lama or something (not too clear on the words he used) visiting the monastery at the time and that we could go and meet him and get blessed. We decided to take his word on it and went to meet the guy, make an offering of some money and get blessed. ‘Twas nice. Then had some tea and bread with a couple monks before going back out to wander around.
At the next place we went to there was tour guide talking about the site with a small group of tourists. When we turned to leave, she excitedly stopped her talk and turned and asked us in English where we were from. Then said if we waited just a second she’d tell us more about the place in English. I don’t normally go with tour guides because I like to go my own pace and don’t always understand enough of the Chinese to get my money’s worth and the English ones are often pretty amateurish. But this place was huge and confusing, and places open to visitors weren’t clearly marked.
It was sure nice to have an intro in English. My listening comprehension is getting a lot better, but I just don’t know much about Buddhism, let alone how to talk about it in Chinese.
Turns out the girl wasn’t a tour guide there at all, but a regular member/ devotee at that monastery, who just happens to be majoring in Tourism English at the local university. She was showing her relatives from Sichuan around the place and offered to give us a free English tour while she was at it. We got some details she didn’t know how to say in English from the Chinese tour, and plenty we didn’t understand put into English. She got to practice all the things she works on in school and we got a free tour. She was totally sweet and knew all the monks and some interesting things about the place. She’s Han, but practices Tibetan Buddhism. She speaks her local dialect of Chinese, Mandarin, Tibetan, and English. Pretty hardcore. And she was totally sweet.
We don’t have many pictures of the monastery, since most the coolest parts didn’t allow you to take pictures. But here’s a few we took outside.
And then, one more thing I wanna say about the monastery. YAK BUTTER SCULPTURES!
So I found a link here so you have some vague idea what I’m talking about:
http://www.qcts.com/images/uvs050227-039.JPG
Then know that the actual butter sculpture takes up a huge space in a glass case in the middle of a room. The sculpture itself takes up more space than an average-large two-person dorm room in the US, and is actually made up of a ton of different figures all together with backgrounds. Also there is a rather overpowering smell of slightly rancid butter in the room. In fact, throughout most of the monastery there’s that butter smell, since they use it for most the candles and lanterns too. They make a new sculpture every year.
In other notes, Xining is generally a pretty cool place. Also plenty of good food, and lots of friendly people. They have a real nice snack street downtown where we would go to eat. I’d have liked to spend another day or two in Xining if we’d had the time. It’s got a very different feel to it than most cities I’ve been to. It’s smaller than Beijing or Xi’an, but the big difference is that it’s just not very “Chinese.” There are a lot of Muslims of various kinds, as well as Tibetans and also some Han Chinese. I’d say about half the population wears some sort of Muslim head covering from white hats on the men, to dark, lacy scarves on the older women to bright colored scarves on younger women. The people were all really friendly and helpful. We spent some time at the snack street chatting with the lamb leg vendor and his friends while knawing at tendons and skin and drinking the local salty tea (it’s supposed to help with elevation). Everyone was so outgoing, welcoming, and friendly in Xining. Also not many people commenting on my foreigner-ness (many, in fact, commenting, that they had assumed I was just from Xinjiang until I opened my mouth) and also not many foreigners. Like we saw two in the town and maybe just two small groups the whole time in the monastery.
The monastery is called Kumbum monastery, and is one of the main reasons we wanted to go to Xining. It’s one of the six major monasteries of the yellow-hat sect of Tibetan Buddhism (no, I don’t really know much about that. Learning more about Buddhism is on my list of things to do though) and the birthplace of the founder of that sect.
It was amazing. More than met our expectations. We wandered around for a bit, checking out a few sites, then met this guy who told us there was a very important monk or lama or something (not too clear on the words he used) visiting the monastery at the time and that we could go and meet him and get blessed. We decided to take his word on it and went to meet the guy, make an offering of some money and get blessed. ‘Twas nice. Then had some tea and bread with a couple monks before going back out to wander around.
At the next place we went to there was tour guide talking about the site with a small group of tourists. When we turned to leave, she excitedly stopped her talk and turned and asked us in English where we were from. Then said if we waited just a second she’d tell us more about the place in English. I don’t normally go with tour guides because I like to go my own pace and don’t always understand enough of the Chinese to get my money’s worth and the English ones are often pretty amateurish. But this place was huge and confusing, and places open to visitors weren’t clearly marked.
It was sure nice to have an intro in English. My listening comprehension is getting a lot better, but I just don’t know much about Buddhism, let alone how to talk about it in Chinese.
Turns out the girl wasn’t a tour guide there at all, but a regular member/ devotee at that monastery, who just happens to be majoring in Tourism English at the local university. She was showing her relatives from Sichuan around the place and offered to give us a free English tour while she was at it. We got some details she didn’t know how to say in English from the Chinese tour, and plenty we didn’t understand put into English. She got to practice all the things she works on in school and we got a free tour. She was totally sweet and knew all the monks and some interesting things about the place. She’s Han, but practices Tibetan Buddhism. She speaks her local dialect of Chinese, Mandarin, Tibetan, and English. Pretty hardcore. And she was totally sweet.
We don’t have many pictures of the monastery, since most the coolest parts didn’t allow you to take pictures. But here’s a few we took outside.
And then, one more thing I wanna say about the monastery. YAK BUTTER SCULPTURES!
So I found a link here so you have some vague idea what I’m talking about:
http://www.qcts.com/images/uvs050227-039.JPG
Then know that the actual butter sculpture takes up a huge space in a glass case in the middle of a room. The sculpture itself takes up more space than an average-large two-person dorm room in the US, and is actually made up of a ton of different figures all together with backgrounds. Also there is a rather overpowering smell of slightly rancid butter in the room. In fact, throughout most of the monastery there’s that butter smell, since they use it for most the candles and lanterns too. They make a new sculpture every year.
In other notes, Xining is generally a pretty cool place. Also plenty of good food, and lots of friendly people. They have a real nice snack street downtown where we would go to eat. I’d have liked to spend another day or two in Xining if we’d had the time. It’s got a very different feel to it than most cities I’ve been to. It’s smaller than Beijing or Xi’an, but the big difference is that it’s just not very “Chinese.” There are a lot of Muslims of various kinds, as well as Tibetans and also some Han Chinese. I’d say about half the population wears some sort of Muslim head covering from white hats on the men, to dark, lacy scarves on the older women to bright colored scarves on younger women. The people were all really friendly and helpful. We spent some time at the snack street chatting with the lamb leg vendor and his friends while knawing at tendons and skin and drinking the local salty tea (it’s supposed to help with elevation). Everyone was so outgoing, welcoming, and friendly in Xining. Also not many people commenting on my foreigner-ness (many, in fact, commenting, that they had assumed I was just from Xinjiang until I opened my mouth) and also not many foreigners. Like we saw two in the town and maybe just two small groups the whole time in the monastery.