Dali's name suggested a more surreal place than we found. The streets were markets and tourists made their way on the terraces of the restaurants. We are on the way, leaving behind the profile of the three Buddhist towers, that guard the city. I had the same feeling again: I wanted to get away, Leave behind the Maraña de Human, Freeze noise, The spit concert.
Chou continued to lead with the same parsimony, As if traffic was invisible for your mood. We escape north looking for a more leisurely China. We needed stone towns, Calm corners, Farolillos hanging from the roofs, facades from another time and we arrive at Lijiang. It was already at night and the city offered everything, Hit. There was hardly anyone walking the alleys. The roofs sponged with grace, With that oriental form, as with torn eyes. The doors of the houses were carved wood with a thousand filigree that came to transfer me for a moment to the Gion neighborhood, in Japan.
The roofs sponged with grace, With that oriental form, as with torn eyes
We stayed in a hostel with Yacuzzi and a round bed, Very horta, With red cushions and everything. Something happened in that place to offer the traveler an accommodation like that. When we wake up, The magic went out with the crowd. There was no trace of the charm of the previous night. The wooden doors were no longer, They had disassembled to show the interior of the premises. There were clothing stores, of cheap crafts, cigarette, Restaurants and even centers where some fish made you a peeling on the feet, that you should introduce for a half in a fishbowl. There were many terraces, All crowded with Chinese, Jewelry, Pitteries, Karaokes and dozens of hostels ... The city of Lijiang was a large shopping center. We did not see a single house and the traditional attire of the old women were just a way of charging the photographer on duty.
For the Chinese bridge that seemed to me a story last night, African groups now passed playing the drum. The main square, that hundreds of years ago served as an inn to travelers, it was now full of discos where music crashed with our desire for peace, And the neon of colors shattered any good taste symptom. The Chinese had emptied the city. They maintained their facades, rebuilt in most and Lijiang stayed at all, In a circus, In artifice that no one believes.
Lijiang stayed at all, In a circus, In artifice that no one believes.
We got, yes, A good peeling on the feet with those fish and we continue on the way, already runaway to the north. We crossed roads that were stripping of traffic and went further. We approach the mountains and reconcile with the valleys and then we saw a herd of Yaks in a meadow and we breathe the cold air of a territory that aspires to be Tibet, monk's soul. The houses changed appearance. Here they were bigger, square, Without Chinese roofs. The facades were decorated with simple shapes, White squares on red facades and the occasional Buddhist symbol, Like the swastika, that once overcome the first impact, I stop looking Nazi.
Thus we arrive in Shangri the, hoping to find that place trapped in the time that the novel narrated. But the name responds more to a marketing strategy than a legend. Even so, It seemed like a pleasant city. He had something mystical his place topped with a golden tower, With Buddha reliefs that were turning. The wooden buildings had more truth than those of Liujang, But less than a year ago a fire had taken half the old town. We walked between the ashes and the debris of what I sensed a neighborhood that invited yourself to get lost. The burned trees rose ironic in the supposed city of eternal youth.
For the Chinese money is the first, Then there is the family.
But Shangri resists it in some way. There are Buddhist drawing schools where all paintings show some figure of Buddha. THE PHILOSOPHY IN THE STREETS, It is mixed with backpackers and restaurants. The temples turn their backs on China and look at heaven or lassa.
The bars that survived the fire were debated between disc music or live groups of Tibetan music. We have dinner listening to a concert of a local band. Then we chat with the owner of the bar. He had brown skin and occasionally joined the band to sing old Tibetan songs. There was some nostalgia in his way of speaking. The bar had been saved by little from the fire and the truth is that he could not compete with other modern music stores, But his words defined an unprecedented character in China that we had known.
-For the Chinese, he said- money is the first, Then there is the family. But we are not Chinese, We are Tibetan.
