Volume 4, Issue 4, May 2006 THE TIBET ISSUE Trekking in and Around Lhasa From Lhasa to Everest Base Camp The Tibetan Kama Sutra & Tantric Sex Positions The Tibetan Book of the Dead Tibetan Film & Music Reviews May Getting Out There – Your Guide to Business Traveling, Living & Culture Across China From Harbin to Hainan, from Wuxi to Urumqi and all cities inbetween Complimentary Subscription at www.chinaexpat.com if you wish to receive this magazine - free of charge via email every month - please complete subscription details on our homepage Hi, I’m Lucy Lu and welcome to the May issue of ChinaExpat.com – and in this issue we feature Lhasa and some Tibetan trekking and culture ! For the adventurous there is a piece on getting to the Everest base camp, and for the Buddhists amongst you a review of the classic “Book of the Dead” – plus a couple of films and music reviews. We also feature an extensive piece on Lhasa itself as it’s pretty much the starting point for many Tibetan adventures and there is a lot to see there. We also follow up on the rock singer Stings much publicized Tantric sex practices and bring you a piece on Tibetan Tantric sex positions, descriptions, and the history of the Buddhist Kama Sutra. Enjoy this issue and see you next month ! Best wishes Lucy SUBSCRIBE TO CHINA EXPAT !!! CHINA EXPAT LOCAL PARTNER SITES & FREE MAGAZINE EACH MONTH, CHINA BLOGS WANTED !!! OVER 50 CITY GUIDES ONLINE AND FULL ACCESS TO ALL BACK ISSUES If you have a China website or blog with details of what to go, where to stay and what’s happening in your city or province, then we’d love to hear from you ! We can provide free links to your site on our relevant city guide section and help promote your website both online at chinaexpat.com and also in this magazine – for free ! With over 500,000 web views a month we can help drive traffic to your domain – our readers want information about China on a national basis and we are happy to promote your site from ours. Complimentary subscription available NOW at : Please contact: Lucy Lu, Marketing Director, www.chinaexpat.com at [email protected] for details All materials © 2006 China Briefing Media Ltd. ChinaExpat is a brand registered with and belonging to China Briefing Media Ltd. All rights reserved. No reproduction, copying or translating of materials without prior permission of the editor. Contact : [email protected] China Briefing Media Ltd : 12/f, VIP Commercial Centre, 120 Canton Road, Tsimshatsui, Hong Kong. Lhasa – By Chris Devonshire-Ellis hasa has long been well known as a sort of mystical Shangri-La sited “on Lthe top of the world” but only now is beginning to develop into userfriendly business and commerce. LHASAIt is worth mentioning that it is not like anywhere else in China and certain precautions need to be taken, even for the fit and healthy - altitude is a problem when visiting here - during the summer oxygen content this high is 75% of that at sea level and in the winter just 50%, so beware of Tibetan Jazz Altitude Mountain Sickness (AMS) - it will affect you. AMS basically has to be put up with for the first three days - do not drink any alcohol, have plenty of water to hydrate, be aware you will be short of breath and have a few sleepless nights. Take some panadol with you - headaches are common for the first few days. Take it easy, and do not rush about. This makes it an ideal time to visit the Potala Palace, Jokhang Temple and wander around the Barkhor market - relax, and take it easy. After three days your body will have adapted and you will be Fine. Hotels? For business, we recommend the Lhasa Hotel (previously the Holiday Inn; tel 0891 6832221, email: [email protected]), which is expensive but has all the facilities you need. Otherwise the Yak Hotel (0891 6323687) is better located in the Tibetan quarter near to the Potala Palace, the Barkhor Market and a variety of ethnic shops and bars. Smaller and cheaper hotels and guest houses of the backpacking variety are also located here. For bars and cafe’s, Lhasa is slowly starting to develop, internet cafes are appearing and are relatively cheap. The Dunya Restaurant next to theYak Hotel has an excellent selection of food and beer (Tibetan Barley “Qingke’” beer is superb), as does the “Chang Lha Metok” Bar just across the street, which also houses an art gallery and tattoo parlour, we can also recommend the “Tibet Traveller” bar - turn right out of the Yak Hotel, first left and it is 100 yards on the right - other bars in the vicinity also offer internet access, beer, western and Stupa Wall near the Potala Palace local snacks as well as a variety of travelers reading material and souvenirs. THE RAILWAY ON THE ROOF OF THE WORLD Additionally, the 1,956km, RMB26bn Qinghai-Tibet railway the world’s highest and longest plateau railroad and also the first railway connecting the Tibet Autonomous Region with other parts of China begins scheduled passenger Eco-Tourism opportunities are vast in this enigmatic country services on 1 July 2006. There will be daily services from Beijing (taking 48 hours), Chengdu and Xining and departures every other day from Shanghai and Guangzhou. Tickets for the first trains are already sold out, according to officials from the Qinghai-Tibet Railway Company. Some 960km of track are located 4,000m above sea level, and the highest point is 5,072m, at least 200m higher than the Peruvian railway in the Andes, formerly the world’s highest altitude railway. The line runs across the frozen tundras of the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau, and links Golmud in Qinghai with Lhasa, capital of the Tibet AR. The railway s engineers faced many challenges, not least as the line runs through an area where the earth, although frozen, is unstable owing to strong sunshine and a high ground temperature. The tracks were laid on a so-called slab-stone railbed , invented by an engineer working on the project - the one metre thick slab-stone layer keeps the rails a safe distance from the frozen earth. The railway carriages will have two oxygen-enrichment systems on trains to combat the effects of altitude sickness. The oxygen level in the carriages will be about 85% of that in low-lying plain areas, and oxygen masks will also be installed near seats for passengers in case they are affected by the high altitude. The railway is expected to bring an additional 800,000 visitors annually to Tibet, and is expected to be further extended from Lhasa to Xigaze City in the southwestern part of the region by 2010. Freight trains are already running on the line, which will open up new business opportunities for Tibet, too, allowing the import and export of more goods. We will cover this journey in a future issue of China Expat. CE CHINA EXPAT | Volume 4, Issue 4, May 2006 3 Tibetan Buddhist Kama Sutra and Tantric Sex – Achieving spiritual orgasm though Meditation – By Chris Devonshire-Ellis Tibetanantra, by that name,Buddhist derives from Vedic/HinduKama Sutra and Tantricdrawing representations Sex of Treligions, and was most common in Northern India, the shakti. Over the years although it became mixed together with Southern Indian she was drawn smaller and local religions such as the worship of Kali. A strange smaller, however. In the offshoot of it - is in the Tibetan mixed-religion sometimes Vedic (Hindu) Tantra sects, called Tibetan Buddhism, but also referred to as Tibetan the shakti is represented Lamaism. by a woman of normal size, or perhaps a little smaller-than-average. In the Tibetan In ancient times, Tibet had a native local god/goddess tankas, the shakti is smaller-than-average on down to religion, parallel to the Indian local/regional god/goddess little more than doll-size. She is always there, though, systems. Around the time of the Aryan invasion of India, in the Bodhisatva's lap. Asking about this from a Pokara Aryans consolidated the triple-god concept (Brahma, Monk, China Expat was told: "Well, without his shakti, Vishnu, Shiva) by absorbing the various Dravidian local the Bodhisatva would not be enlightened." So they are goddesses as "shaktis" (originally the word meant "power" acknowledging this ancient tantric (for lack of a more but it came to imply "female consort") for their triad. universal word) union as a prerequisite for what they now Meanwhile, the Tibetans were left on their own, hence (being nominally Buddhists) call "enlightenment." their "Lamaism" does not resemble classic Hinduism. Tibetan Buddhists, who are, more properly speaking, Buddhism then swept in and the Tibetans really took practicing a Buddhist veneer over their native nature-sex to it in a big way, but rather like the parallel example religion, have come up with ways of allowing the Buddhist of the Mayans in Mexico adopting the Catholic religion search for "nothingness" and the "absense of desire" to but warping it to fit their own local religions (viz. The meld with their earlier sex-worship religion. Virgin of Guadelupe) - the Tibetans never abandoned their ancient god/goddess pairings, so suddenly you The way it used to work (pre-Chinese Communist have these big Buddhist tankas (religious paintings) invasion, of course) was that they would take young male showing the 108 Bodhisatvas (108 is a sacred number for candidates for the monastery at about the age of 17 and mathematical reasons in many cultures, most notably give them a good two years training in Tantric sex with a Asia, while Bodhisatvas are nearly enlightened monks female teacher (generally a woman in her 30s or 40s, who who could achieve nirvana ("nothingness") but choose taught many men - nice work if you can get it) and then as good Samaritans to reincarnate and help other souls they gradually weaned them from actual physical sex into evolve to the point of nirvanahood) -- and each of these spiritual sex, so that they could experience the same sort 108 Bodhisatvas is shown with a naked woman, his shakti, of sexual-spiritual bliss through imaginative meditation.