Paperback: 270 pages
Publisher: Eye Books; second revised edition (2011)
ISBN-13: 978-1903070673
Touching Tibet
Niema Ash
£7.99
“Mesmerising” Sunday Times
Niema Ash was one of the first Westerners to enter the forbidden kingdom of Tibet when its borders were briefly opened by the Chinese authorities in 1986.
She encountered people for whom traditional life had been unchanged for generations and found that their humour, spirituality and sheer enthusiasm for life had carried them through years of oppression. In this absorbing personal tale, she relates her own experiences with wit, compassion and sensitivity.
The people, culture and traditions of Tibet remain mysterious to most outsiders. With a foreword by the Dalai Lama, Touching Tibet gives an insight into the heart and soul of this magnificent and enigmatic country.
Extracts
On death and burial:
Burying a loved one in a special place where he can be visited, communed with, paid respect to, is vital. We chisel his name so deeply that several lifetimes cannot obliterate it: ‘In loving memory’. We compose careful epitaphs, sometimes coy, sometimes profound, like WB Yeats’s “Cast a cold eye on life, on death. Horseman, pass by”; or humorous like WC Fields’s: “I’d rather be in Philadelphia”.
Extracts
On death and burial:
Burying a loved one in a special place where he can be visited, communed with, paid respect to, is vital. We chisel his name so deeply that several lifetimes cannot obliterate it: ‘In loving memory’. We compose careful epitaphs, sometimes coy, sometimes profound, like WB Yeats’s “Cast a cold eye on life, on death. Horseman, pass by”; or humorous like WC Fields’s: “I’d rather be in Philadelphia”.
-
On leaving Lhasa:
Some moments release a lifetime. My fingers reach for the mani stone filled with blessing. As I see the Potala for the last time, my eyes fill with tears as they did the first time. But between those tears and these exists the journey into Tibet. I have touched Tibet; Tibet has touched me.
-
On farewells:
Tucked into the box was a note from Pascal:
To say farewell
Is to be sad
Be not sad, my love
For after every parting
Comes another meeting
Tsangyang Gyatso, The Sixth Dalai Lama
-
On a hair-raising mountain bus ride:
We can see the Himalayas covered in snow, their frozen peaks almost within reach, and still we climb. The front seat changes from blessing to curse. I am on the cliff side. When a truck approaches we pull over to let it pass, my fingers grip the seat and I feel grey with terror, shuddering with the engine on the edge of a looming void, waiting to suck us into eternity. No road is visible under the wheels.
“He’s a good driver,” Pascal reassures me…
quotes
“Excellent – Niema Ash really understands the situation facing Tibet and conveys it with remarkable perception.”
Tenzin Choegyal, brother of the Dalai Lama
“Thought-provoking and enjoyable … it will evoke a deep desire to go to Tibet.”
Geographical Magazine
“Almost surreal in its assemblage of improbably colliding facts – a marriage of the bizarre and the beautiful that chills the spine as often as it warms the heart.”
The Times
I had always longed to go to Tibet, a yearning fired by the allure of the unattainable. The mysteries of the remote mountain kingdom were kept jealously intact. For over a century no foreigner was allowed to enter the city of Lhasa’s holy domain. Now I am on my way there…”
Niema Ash
reviews
A captivating account of a journey I wish I'd been on.
(5* review)
This is one of my top 5 books. I read this book when it was 'Flight of the Windhorse' and I made a point of buying it in its new format.There are only a few books I've read that have pulled me along with them but this one did much more - it changed my outlook and my aspirations.I would like to thank the author for a story I will never forget.
Beguiling and thought provoking
Niemaen route to a hot destination. Sludging through thick Scandinavian snow in open-toed sandals and thin trousers was no fun, but I had the last laugh when a sweaty Santa decanted into Bangkok's 80% humidity! I have also demonstrated disco dancing to the Chinese.Also like Niema, I have wept in Lhasa. I entered on one of the few organised tours allowed into Tibet after the Chinese clamped down on border crossings and made Niema's style of independent travel in Tibet a thing of the past. When she went, there had only been a handful of tourists before her. When I went, there was even a Lonely Planet Guide. Much of what I found was a result of the bastardization of the Tibetan people, their home and their culture. There was little of Tibet left. This is far removed from what Niema witnessed as the clinging vestiges of an oppressed country. I recognised that Tibet had lost against overwhelming might. And this is why I wept.Niema's writing comes in three quite different styles; narrator, storyteller and political activist. As narrator, Niema's recollections resound with the day-to-day trivia and props familiar to the global traveller; guidebooks, guest-houses and market-place bartering.
extras
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