Pyramid Asia. Ian Purdie
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Tashi’s mother gave Ping a present. It was a very old pair of turquoise and Himalayan coral earrings. They had been given to her by her mother-in-law when she and Tashi’s father were married. They were a family heirloom whose origins receded back through many generations of the women in Tashi’s family.
Tashi was both pleased and mortified.
He was very happy his mother had given the earrings to Ping because it meant his parents accepted Ping into the family. Most ethnic Tibetans opposed their children marrying Chinese, believing the Chinese had done immeasurable damage to Tibetan culture by destroying monasteries and murdering monks since the invasion of Tibet in 1958.
They had exiled the Dalai Lama, the spiritual and political leader of the Tibetan people and flooded Tibet with 25 million Han Chinese, who now outnumbered the Tibetans by five to one. Tibetans were second class citizens in their own country. They were forbidden to practice their unique form of Buddhism and were constantly harassed by soldiers and the police, controlled by the government in distant Beijing.
The capital city of Lhasa had suffered unspeakable atrocities as cultural imperialism insisted that one of the most spiritually advanced societies on Earth renounce their cherished beliefs and conform to the dictates of the spiritually inert elite in Beijing.
The earrings were a powerful symbol, but Tashi was afraid a wealthy Chinese woman would find them ugly and primitive, the stones unpolished and the silver dull. He couldn’t imagine Ping ever wearing them. He had seen the contents of her jewelry box, laden with precious stones and golden trinkets.
However, despite his misgivings, Ping appeared ecstatic. She understood that the gift symbolised her acceptance by Tashi’s family. That was worth far more than money.
She also knew the value of genuine turquoise which is rare. The vast majority of turquoise available in markets and shops was in fact hard plastic, sold to the gullible and ignorant who had never seen the real thing.
She hugged and kissed Tashi’s mother while Tashi and his father stood back and enjoyed the generational moment.
Then the four of them squashed themselves, and Ping’s and Tashi’s luggage onto the cart to make the journey to Nagqu railway station. The tractor was being used to drag boulders from the river so it wasn’t available for the return journey. The horse whinnied a brief protest at the extra weight before resigning itself to the task.
Tashi and Ping waved a teary goodbye from the train windows as Tashi’s parents and Nagqu railway station slowly receded from view.
Despite the complete absence of any luxury, the trip had ended far more successfully than Tashi’s first visit to Hong Kong. Not only had nobody been arrested or hospitalized, they had the Oracle of Singh Ma, or a very convincing copy, packed safely inside Ping’s luggage. They sat contentedly together on a bottom bunk as the rugged countryside flashed past.
Tashi suspected it was the same train. He spent most of the first afternoon trying to locate familiar aspects of the carriages that would confirm his belief.
By the time it was dark he’d given up. Trains all looked the same. They sounded the same and smelt the same. They were the same even when they were different.
The return journey back to Xi’an was far less painful. The dread and fear that had grown progressively more oppressive going the other way had all proved unfounded.
They were young. They had each other and time on their side. The mountains were replaced by the dry monotony of the Gobi Desert, which eventually surrendered to more interesting vistas of trees, hills and rivers.
Suddenly, or so it seemed, lost as they had been in each other’s company, they were back in Xi’an.
The traffic was still fighting to arrive before itself, the sky was hidden behind an enormous canopy of stale pollution and the air was warm and humid. Nothing appeared to have changed since they left, a stark contrast to the myriad inner transformations they had experienced.
They boarded another train and within half an hour were back in Xian’yang.
Nobody was waiting to meet them and the university didn’t appear particularly interested in where they had been or what they had done.
That was until the afternoon of Ping’s first archaeology tutorial.
“What’s that supposed to be?” asked Professor Guo.
“It’s either the Oracle of Singh Ma itself or a very old copy,” claimed Ping proudly.
“The Oracle of Singh Ma was blue,” said the professor dismissively. “Give it to me,” he added with professorial disinterest etched into every learned syllable.
“Where did you get this?” he asked.
“Mt Luguna.”
“Where’s that?”
“Tibet.”
“Ungh?”
The silence that followed smelled strongly of traffic and stale duck.
“Can I take this away for examination?”
“No. The wind is strong and I need it as a paper weight,” teased Ping.
The learned professor looked beyond his glasses for the first time in several semesters. He was young in professorial terms, being in his mid thirties, tall, thin, unmarried and lacking a developed sense of humor. He sported a Spartan growth on his upper lip which looked like somebody had attempted to sew his lips together with a few strands of wispy black cotton but had somehow missed his mouth. He’d spent all of his short existence engrossed in academic study and appeared awkward in the presence of attractive female students.
“Of course,” corrected Ping as the trafficky, ducky silence threatened to merge with the sweet smell of her own perfume.
This was followed by an even more meaningful, “Ungh.”
Later that afternoon, when Ping returned to her flat after lectures were concluded, she was surprised to find Professor Guo waiting on her doorstep.
“Can I come in?” he asked after a brief exchange of courtesies.
“Of course.”
Once inside, he produced the Oracle from his bag.
“Where exactly did you get this?” he asked, this time displaying genuine interest.
“My friend, Tashi found it on Mt Luguna in Tibet when he was a boy.”
“This could be the greatest find since the terracotta warriors,” he declared, throwing traditional discretion to the wind. “I’ve already checked with the major museums. It’s too early to know for sure, but nobody seems to know of anything quite like it. A colleague of mine, who specialises in rare antiquities, is on his way from Beijing to examine it personally. He should be here tomorrow morning. Have you told anybody else about this?”
“Besides Tashi who told me about it, no I haven’t.”
“Good! Until we can verify its authenticity, I think we should keep it to ourselves.”
“Is it valuable?’
“I can’t be sure at this stage. Do you mind if I keep it in the faculty safe until it can be properly examined?”
“Not at all.”
FIVE - IRFAN MULLARAMZAN
In a remote village in the mountains of central Tibet, an ancient spiritual rite was nearing conclusion. The monks from Sera Monastery had located the reincarnation of one of Tibet’s greatest spiritual masters. The seven-year-old boy had correctly selected the old master’s rosary beads, his cloak and finally his bowl, from amongst four similar objects. He had addressed one of the more elderly in the official party by his first name and recognised him as his old retainer.
Outside, across the valley spread a magnificent rainbow.
The boy