Author: Former Anhui TV reporter Shu Ling
The next morning when I arrived in Lhasa, I was disturbed by the lack of oxygen and woke up very early. We only had this day in Lhasa, and we didn't know what to do about it.
Suddenly I want to slip alone. The night before, I wanted to sneak away to Barkhor Street to take a look, but I was bluffed by everyone. In the end, they were embarrassed to be too maverick, and they criticized them for not having a collective concept, so they had to participate in collective action.
The procession of Barkhor Street in the early morning
Now is the perfect opportunity to go solo. With a camera on his back and a hat, he left the hotel and took a taxi straight to Barkhor Street. The sky was overcast, as if it was going to rain. Get off at the pedestrian street and walk along the sidewalk towards Barkhor Street. Eight o'clock in the morning is equivalent to six o'clock in Lhasa, Lhasa has not fully woken up, all the stalls on the street have not opened, but there are groups of Tibetans, or shaking prayer wheels or pinching Buddhist beads, hurriedly walking in the opposite direction from me, as if they are in a hurry to go to some market.
Walking to the gate of the Jokhang Temple, the kowtowing believers are still the same as those seen in many TV movies. According to the locals, the flow of people kowtowing in front of the Jokhang Temple is never interrupted 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, regardless of wind, rain, snow or even hail. It's just that now the kowtow person has an extra sponge cushion of the same length as the body under the body, and no longer kneels directly on the stone slab, and the stone slab in front of the temple gate has been polished to the knees of generations and stubble worshippers.
A large number of people walk silently around the Jokhang Temple in a clockwise direction, and the circle around the Jokhang Temple is the famous Barkhor Street. Following the flow of people into Barkhor Street, Lhasa is the only street left that still maintains Tibetan-style architecture. The shops have not yet opened, the tourists have not yet gone out, only the procession of prayer turning is marching through the streets, countless prayer wheels under the gloomy sky, in the white smoke from the simmering mulberry furnace, stirring up the dark and obscure morning air......
The simmering mulberry stove outside the walls of the Jokhang Temple
A young security guard sat on a bench in the middle of the street, and when he asked him where he could eat Tibetan breakfast, he pointed me to the front in Chinese, which I was not fluent in, but I didn't know exactly where he was pointing.
There was an extra fork in the alley around the corner, and as soon as I turned to the left, I went through it and came back. There was no sign at the door, and four Tibetans sat around a table in a small room. I asked if there was any earlier, and I replied that there was milk tea and Tibetan noodles. Sitting on a corner facing the street, the four Tibetans sitting at the next table took out a clean cup from the table behind them, poured milk tea from the thermos on their table and handed it to me. I smiled and thanked him, and took a big gulp, it was hot and sweet. They told me it was sweet milk tea and butter tea was salty.
After a while, the girl in the back room brought out a large bowl of Tibetan noodles and a small thermos flask, these were my breakfasts, and my milk tea was in this small thermos. Only then did I know that the first cup of milk tea I drank was when the four Tibetans invited me.
I thanked them again and began to eat the Tibetan breakfast I had for the first time in my life. Hehe, Tibetan noodles are actually very thick noodles, put in soy sauce-colored water, and float a few corianders. The noodles were raw, and I understood that this was the reason for the high altitude and the lack of cooking, but the milk tea was delicious, and I sat there and drank it one bite after another.
A small shop that drinks milk tea
People came in one after another, and the shop quickly filled up, and found that they were all only drinking milk tea and chatting, and no one ate Tibetan noodles. Ask them to be all shop vendors on Barkhor Street, and drink milk tea and chat enough before opening a business. This simple shop is almost unfrequented by tourists, and is a tea room for local Tibetans to gather and chat.
I'm an intruder-on anomaly, and the devil sent me into this little shop. The milk tea is very fragrant, and after drinking cup after cup, it seems that the milk tea in the small thermos bottle will never be poured. I took out my camera and drank as I listened to them speak Tibetan that I didn't understand at all...... After drinking the fifth glass, I decided to leave to restore the original ecology of this small shop......
It was raining a lot outside, and it was raining in Lhasa, the city of sunshine. The clouds were thick and the rain was cool. Raining on the plateau is no fun. Wrapped in wet clothes, I got on a three-wheeled car, and on the way back to the hotel, shivering, watching the Lhasa people walking in front of the Potala Palace with umbrellas...... Aha, if you don't slip alone, how do you know that Lhasa's Tibetan noodles are raw, Lhasa's milk tea is fragrant, Lhasa's Tibetans are hospitable, and the rain in Lhasa will also wet your hair and clothes a lot......
(To be continued)
Introduction of Zhu Haiyan
Zhu Haiyan, a native of Lixin, Anhui Province, enlisted in the army in 1976 and served as a soldier, platoon commander, deputy instructor, and cultural officer of the division's Political Department in the Seventh Division of the Railway Corps.
In 1983, he was transferred to the "Railway Soldier" newspaper, and in February 1984, he was transferred to the "People's Railway" newspaper as a reporter, chief reporter, and chief reporter. In 1998, he served as editor-in-chief, president and editor-in-chief of China Railway Construction News, and a senior reporter. In March 2010, he was transferred to the Engineering Management Center of the Ministry of Railways as the deputy director at the bureau level, specializing in the writing of railway construction reports.
The winners of the 6th Fan Changjiang Journalism Award are the "four batches" of talents in the national propaganda system, leading figures in China's press and publishing circles, and senior experts directly controlled and contacted by the central government. He has won the China Journalism Award eight times, won the first and second prizes of provincial and ministerial news awards more than 90 times, and won the "Five One Project" award of the Central Propaganda Department for his long-form reportage "There is War in the North". He has published 40 collections of various works, with a total word count of 20 million words. He enjoys the allowance of the State Council and is a member of the Chinese Writers Association.
Edit: Have fun