Step One or Becoming

Every time I had a random encounter in China, someone would smile and say 缘分 — meaning the meeting wasn’t random at all, that something would surely come from it. It is one of my favorite Chinese words: 缘分 (yuanfen) — the destiny of meeting. The first character means karma, the second means to divide or share. So, “shared karma.” A karmic meeting. Most times nothing happened, but it created a bond and a small, unreasonable hope.

I didn’t think about this destiny when I flew home for Christmas to spend a few weeks with my parents. I arrived shortly after New Year. At the airport, my parents met me, and we learned that the airline I had flown with would no longer be operating — which meant my return tickets were simply gone. “Sorry, we can’t do much,” the receptionist said. And that’s how my planned few weeks turned into two months. Being home in winter was nice. The coziness of the cold, the snow, the leftovers of the holiday mood after New Year and Christmas still hung in the air. In China, it was the dead season during Chinese New Year — the whole country stopped working, everyone rushing home to spend the only week with their families, exchanging red envelopes filled with money as gifts.

That winter, as usual, I met just one person in my city to hang out with — my old friend. She invited me to lunch at her friends’ apartment, a lunch we were meant to cook ourselves. I had never met her friends; they were a new group she had started hanging out with over the past year. These were people who worked half of the year and spent the rest traveling to India. They loved hiking and took week-long trips into forests and lakes — which are plentiful in Ukraine. And of course, they were vegans. We decided to make vegan sushi — cucumber, rice, and avocado.

The apartment was warm, crowded, and filled with bottles of homemade herbal alcohol, which I happily sampled. In the tiny kitchen we chopped vegetables, rolled seaweed, and tried not to get in each other’s way while people came and went, telling endless stories about their trips. Somehow, joining the group felt natural. Their stories were about India, and one of the newcomers had just finished his half-year trip from Ukraine to India, hitchhiking with his guitar and his girlfriend — who had left him along the way.

I couldn’t quite share their enthusiasm for that kind of life, but I had my own exotic card to play. “I live in China,” I said.

“My girlfriend and I have been there — on our way to India,” the traveler said.

“We met this guy in China,” he continued, “on the way to Tibet. My camera had broken, and he gave me his. He also gave us money, put us in a hotel, fed us.” He looked at me.

“How did you talk to him?” I asked, remembering how few Chinese spoke English then, and assuming neither he nor his girlfriend knew Chinese.

“We barely could. But somehow we understood each other. Do you speak Chinese?”

“A little,” I admitted. My Chinese wasn’t perfect — neither was my English — and I had been a very bad student. My language skills were enough for simple conversations but not for deep debates. Yet it still counted. I could speak the language.

“Then can you please call him — tell him thank you for the camera and all the help.” He handed me the phone number.

The next day, a little hungover, I called.

It was awkward — explaining that I had met this traveler who wanted to say thank you. The man on the other end, Mr. Zhang, was delighted. He asked if I lived in Beijing. When I said yes, he immediately asked when I would be back and arranged a meeting.

I came back to China in early spring. Beijing is especially beautiful then, the winds sweep away the pollution, and the first warmth of spring hangs in the air. Spring Festival, the New Year, is always a tipping point — the end of winter and the start of spring, a beginning. We met in Beijing, in an Italian café called “Aperitivo” in one of the foreigner-filled neighborhoods. The café was a bit tired, with slightly sticky tables and red-and-black walls. I usually visited it for a drink and to catch up with my Italian friends, yet this time it was different. I ordered a coffee and met Mr. Zhang.

Mr. Zhang was a man who deeply believed in 缘分. A former Buddhist who had converted to Christianity, perhaps before or perhaps after publishing a translated version of a Christian book that made him rich. He was short, thin, fond of quoting wise sayings to any person who would listen. He had both a wife and a mistress, about whom he was quite vocal. His women benefited from the profits of his book, while his other publishing projects barely stayed afloat. He believed that everything had meaning and destiny, based on his mixture of Buddhist and Christian faiths.

He was even shorter than I had imagined. There was no careful learning about each other — the word 缘分 was immediately pronounced. He became friendly at once, inviting me to dinner, eager to know why fate had pushed us together. And then he told me that he would like to have that camera back. I didn’t have the Ukrainian traveler’s contact and was secretly relieved. It was a surprise to hear this — why would anyone who gave a stranger a camera want it back? Mr. Zhang seemed disappointed but accepted the fate.

He also told me that the traveler never reached Tibet. Foreigners can’t just go to Tibet as they wish — it is a complicated process of getting a license, submitting plans to the local government, renting a car, or joining an organized group of people. In any case, they didn’t make it. And for Mr. Zhang, a new plan appeared: if destiny didn’t let those people get to the holy land, then I must do it.

At that time, China had already dulled my sense of danger. I was used to ending up in strange places. Working as a model or movie extra meant traveling for gigs to random areas, often to lesser-known cities, spending endless hours on buses or in cars. I practiced the Buddhist approach of acceptance — those long roads were unbearable if you let yourself think about them too much. But they also awakened my curiosity, made me want to see places I’d never imagined. So when the idea of visiting Tibet and Lhasa first came up, I was immediately on board. I wanted to see Lhasa. I wanted to see China. I wanted to drive 2,000 kilometers.

Mr. Zhang was harmless, with enough money to turn his spontaneous ideas into reality. In one of our meetings, he told me:

“We will leave in two weeks. I organized everything. Don’t worry about anything.”

My Chinese wasn’t good enough to catch half of what he said, but I understood the plan: a group trip with some of his friends, his mistress, and two teenagers — the children of someone from the group. We would have two vehicles: a bus, driven by him, and a Jeep, driven by his driver. The trip would take us from Beijing through half of China — about 2,000 kilometers — to the Tibetan border.

Mr. Zhang also loved another word 没事儿 (méi shìr) — “no problem.” That was his reaction when I said we needed a special permit to enter Tibet. Méi shìr, he said. Don’t worry. Everything would work out, even without the permit. 

By midsummer, we left for Tibet. Our first stop was Xi’an — China’s first capital, home to the terracotta army. I rode in the Jeep with the driver while the rest of the group took the bus. The road was long. We barely talked until I noticed dozens of small bottles of baijiu (a very strong local liquor) rattling in the car.

“Why so much baijiu? Are you drinking?” I asked.

He laughed. “When we enter a new province, we have to please the gods of the land and pour them a drink, ask for a blessing, thank them for letting us in.” He smiled. “Would you like to do it? I haven’t yet.”

I opened one of the small bottles. The 52% alcohol hit my nose with a sharp fruity mixed with plastic smell. I poured it out the window, repeating the words he taught me in Chinese. We drove on in silence.

When we arrived in Xi’an, Mr. Zhang insisted:

“Alena, go see the terracotta army. We will wait for you. We’ve all seen it, but you haven’t. You must go.” 

It was a very common communication style in China, the way at dinners the boss, seated in the host’s spot, says ‘eat this’ and everyone follows. 

He bought me a ticket and sent me off while they waited in the parking lot. Meanwhile I wandered among the tall, silent army of statues. I was walking those uncounted statues as i thought about how stopping in Xi’an also meant something personal. I had been here before, but never really seen the city. I had been to Xi’an once before, but only as a stopover, never really seeing it. When with my parents in 2006 we had our trip to China. And now, finally, I saw it, saw the army, ate the food, walked the main street.

We spent many hours in the car — every day meant 8–10 hours on the road. I stared out of the window, and from time to time tried to talk to the driver. His name was Li Qiang. He was a bit older than me, in his mid-thirties. His job was to be Mr. Zhang’s driver.

“Where are you from?” I asked, breaking the silence and turning from the empty landscape outside.

“I’m from Zhengzhou, Henan province. Have you been there?” He glanced at me. His skin was slightly darker than the rest of the group, his face pleasant, his posture confident. He was much taller than me.

“I don’t remember, but I’ve heard of it,” I replied — my usual answer to this question. The truth was, during my part-time modeling I had traveled to many places in China, but I never remembered their names.

“Do you have kids? A wife?” I asked, curious about how he lived.

“Yes, I have two kids and a wife. They live in Zhengzhou,” he said openly.

“Oh wow, so you work in Beijing while they live there?”

“Yes.”

“Do they visit you sometimes?” I wanted to know how such a household kept going.

“They did — maybe once a year. We don’t have many opportunities to travel. My wife is busy with the kids, and I don’t have anywhere to host them.”

“Do you happen to live in those underground rooms?” I hesitated, afraid I might offend him. But it was common knowledge that many migrant workers rented small 5x5m rooms on the “minus one” floors of big buildings — floors designed for workers, just above the parking lots. They were very cheap, around 300 euros per month.

“I do,” he said without hesitation.

“And do you have an apartment in your hometown?”

“Yes, I bought a place for my family.”

“How big is it?”

“130 square meters.” He looked proud.

He told me how he had worked in Beijing for ten years, rarely seeing his family, making a living as a driver and feeling lucky. Many of his friends were taxi drivers who worked nonstop, day and night, napping between rides. Even people who owned vegetable stalls were considered lucky, he said — they earned well. He had tried once, but it hadn’t worked out.

“How much do you earn?” I asked. In China, this question was common. Talking about money was never taboo — it was blunt and direct.

“I earn pretty well — 6,000 RMB a month,” he said, almost 1,000 euros. He didn’t ask me back. We sat in silence for the rest of the trip, him calm and focused on the road.

“Have you read Mr. Zhang’s books?” I asked.

“I don’t like reading. I’m happy driving.”

These kinds of conversations with locals always felt like I was a scientist observing a distant life — asking questions, watching for differences and reactions, imagining what it might feel like to live a life I would never live. This whole trip felt like that: me observing a world that didn’t belong to me but that I could study and enjoy. I often talked to drivers — taxi drivers or, like here, private ones — because they gave me small windows into the life I couldn’t live. Once in Beijing, a taxi driver suddenly confessed his love for Mao Zedong. He said he dreamt of Mao constantly, that in his dreams they talked. He had read every book about him. I was moved by this sudden opening, as if he was proud to share his obsession with a foreigner.

It reminded me of passing through Ningxia province on the way to Qinghai, when we stopped in a small village. The locals invited us into their home, offering treats. Inside, there was a portrait of Mao on the wall — old, with spots of mold. When we left, all these stories connected in my head.

The rest of the trip continued in this spirit — small chats with the group about life, Mr. Zhang bossing me about what I had to see whenever we stopped in cities with temples or historical sites, pouring leftover baijiu out of the window to please the gods of each province we entered. We passed long stretches of road through vast landscapes, stopping to eat, to visit temples, to sleep in cheap hotels. The closer we came to Tibet, the longer the roads became, and the poorer the hotels were.

When we reached Qinghai province, I was amazed by the mountains. Not tall, but we were already at a high altitude, standing on a mountain and seeing more hills and ridges all around. They were bare of trees, dotted with small lakes. Sometimes we stopped in the middle of the road to rest. I loved witnessing these landscapes I had never seen before. Most of the time I just stared quietly out the window for hours, not needing to say anything. I tried to catch every change — the color of the grass, the way the sky reflected in the lakes, how the air shifted the light. I turned off my mind just to absorb the beauty.

At one of these stops, Mr. Zhang decided to drive the Jeep, and I joined him. He started the engine, glanced at me, and asked if I was enjoying the trip.

“I am,” I said.

The drive was quiet, broken now and then when he told me about the region — stories I barely understood with my poor Chinese.

“You know Ms. Hong — she always complains. Even now.” He suddenly started talking about his mistress.

“I bought her an apartment in Xi’an” He kept talking, glancing at me as if looking for sympathy.

She was a woman who took careful care of herself — her hair, her skin, a little makeup. Much taller than Mr. Zhang. I couldn’t imagine them together; even the thought of them as a couple made me slightly uncomfortable. It felt as if he liked the idea of having a mistress more than the woman herself. But somehow they were together, in their own way. I never knew what to ask in such moments, where the line of privacy was. She had no children, had never married, and apparently didn’t plan to, but expected him to take care of her life completely.

He kept rambling about her — how he gave her everything, how she was never happy. Sometimes it seemed they were only friends, but maybe more — I could never quite understand. After a while he stopped talking, and we drove in silence. I knew he had a wife in Beijing, with two children. She didn’t work, just stayed home to take care of the family. He rarely mentioned her. But he often returned to the topic of his mistress, complaining about her ingratitude and how much he tried to make her happy.

I wanted to change the subject, to stop thinking about his private life.

“How is the publishing business going?” I asked, turning fully toward him.

“The economy is bad now,” he said without taking his eyes off the road. His posture was upright, almost stiff, as if his short height required him to sit perfectly to see the road.

“Really? But China is the second economy in the world!” I said, half-surprised, half-teasing, knowing how proud they were of this fact.

“I don’t know. Maybe people don’t read much. After the Christian book, sales of other books are very bad.” His posture didn’t change.

“Did you write that book?”

“Yes. But we also try to publish children’s books — that market is better. Aren’t you into art? Maybe you can help with visuals.”

“We can think about it,” I smiled, not really taking the offer seriously.

Later he gave me the small Christian book that had made him a fortune in the ’90s and early 2000s. He never gave me any other book from his publishing house.

We visited Qinghai Lake, the largest lake in China, sitting on the Jeep and watching the sunset — witnessing the landscape again and again. The lake was perfectly still, its endless horizon like a quiet sea. The air had already turned blue-grey with faint pink notes reflecting on the water. In such tranquility, the fact that I was the only foreign girl in the group — the surreal feeling of being there — didn’t matter anymore. It was pure joy and surrender to the beauty of nature.

We found a small town nearby, and the only hotel we could find was very small, very old, and badly equipped. It was more like a cluster of rooms where you didn’t even want to undress to sleep — the floors were dirty, insects covered the walls. The room smelled of moist wood and mosquito spray. At this altitude, the evening air was filled with a deep, misty cold. I took a shower, put my clothes back on, and buried myself under two layers of blankets, feeling disgusted that my face touching the pillow. Somehow, I slept.

The next day was another road. I still never knew our exact plans — every day was a kind of surprise for me. But they knew; they had a plan. From time to time, I reminded Mr. Zhang that I needed the license for Tibet, which was always met with the same answer: méi shìr — it will be fine.

“I looked at the map. We will find a very small route and a small border gate. Maybe there won’t be any police,” he said. Then he murmured something with a smart face. Maybe it was a proverb, maybe just a line he liked to say. I nodded like I understood, even though I didn’t catch a word.

I didn’t trust that it all will be fine, I understood the naivety of that statement, but I went along. I was enjoying the trip feeling almost outside myself as I watched these fairytale-like landscapes and people. The closer we came to Tibet, the more ethnic minority people we saw — dressed in deep reds, with long skirts, wide hats, their cheeks flushed red by the cold, their necks heavy with strings of stones. I looked at them with amazement and enormous respect — how strongly they kept their traditions, how fiercely they protected them no matter what. This was already the part of the land that used to be Tibet and now belonged to China. People spoke a dialect none of us understood. The food had changed too — there were almost no vegetables, since nothing could grow at this altitude, and every bit of produce had to be brought in from other parts of China.

“As you see, there are all Sichuan restaurants,” said Mr. Zhang. “They opened places all around this area — this is the business they do.”

It was true. We were not far from Sichuan, and from this point on we mostly ate Sichuan-style noodles. Once we stopped in a small roadside restaurant for lunch. I ordered tomato-and-egg noodles — I was already vegetarian at the time — while the rest of the group ordered the classic spicy Sichuan noodles.

“We are not far from my Shangshi’s place,” announced Mr. Zhang. “We will go to visit him at the temple.” Shangshi is a Tibetan Buddhist term for a spiritual teacher, like a guru.

“Alena, you don’t mind if we make a small detour? It’s not far.”

It was the only time he asked me about our plans, and of course I didn’t mind. I loved temples and was curious about this Shangshi.

The next day we drove for a long time, until finally, around midday, we turned onto a narrow road marked by a small gate with a temple sign. We had entered the Yushu region, once part of Tibet. The road wound between mountains, following a stream that shimmered beside us. We drove for hours. Slowly everyone in the car grew uneasy, wondering why we still hadn’t reached the temple. At one point we stopped by a wider part of the river, rested, touched the icy water, and continued on. More hours passed. The road stayed small and empty, without a single sign or person.

As it grew darker, we began to worry whether we were even going in the right direction. Then the sky shifted to gray-blue, my favorite time of day, twilight, and suddenly we saw a temple in the distance, standing alone on the right side. A single grand building, white walls and golden roof rising against the darkening sky. We exhaled in relief, drove closer, parked the cars, and went closer to it. It wasn’t the temple we were looking for, but at least we could ask for directions. A group of young monks came out as we approached. They were Tibetans and didn’t speak Chinese, but somehow they understood us and pointed further along the road.

We got back into the cars and drove on. Not long after, we saw the outline of a small town ahead, the tops of temple roofs visible in the distance. That was it. It felt as if we were entering a fairytale, or stepping into another world. The old temple roofs and the white buildings around it, the children in monk’s robes, the people with wind-reddened cheeks, the two long mountains rising on either side with a river running between them, it all felt so real and yet otherworldly.

On the way we began to see dozens of tiny houses scattered widely across the mountainsides. Some had two windows, some three. Rectangular in shape, they looked from afar almost like small beehives, though slightly larger, set 100–200 meters apart. The houses became denser as we neared the center of the town, until finally we arrived at the temple complex. Apparently, this was the temple where Mr. Zhang had first become a Buddhist, before his conversion to Christianity. It felt as if we were expected. A man came toward us as soon as we arrived and led us to a building next to the temple.

Inside was a large waiting room with blue-striped walls and red chairs and shelves along the edges. The room felt mostly empty. Benches and chairs lined the walls, so sitting meant being far from one another, which made the space feel formal, almost ceremonial. They brought us bowls of porridge and tea. Then a man entered, smiling warmly, greeting us, and saying how wonderful it was that we had come back home.

The monk who greeted us was tall, with big ears — almost like the images of Buddha. His name was Zaxi Nanjia, a Tibetan monk who spoke Chinese and even some English. Though high in rank, he was perhaps the only one who could speak Chinese well, so he became our guide. He told us we should stay for a few days and showed us the rooms.

“Tomorrow you can visit the Shangshi,” he said. “He will be delighted to have you.”

We were given two rooms. I stayed with two girls, the men in another room. Our room had three beds, each covered with a colorful blanket decorated with big pink flowers — the kind that were popular all over the world in the early ’90s. Somehow, those blankets touched me. The room was very simple, almost like a dormitory, but it felt cozy. The window looked out onto the temple and the mountain in front. The showers barely worked, and the toilets were just holes in the ground, yet this was one of the warmest and loveliest places we stayed.

The next morning a monk brought us breakfast — tsampa and porridge. Tsampa is roasted barley flour that Tibetans mix with yak butter. It is very filling, with a distinct, earthy taste that felt so perfectly Tibetan. Yak butter was everywhere here — even in the tea. After such a breakfast, served right in our rooms, we went outside to meet Zaxi Nanjia, who had already planned our day.

“This is a holy region,” he explained. “That’s why there are three main temples here, and so many pilgrims come to meditate and pray.”

The holiness of the place had been marked, he told me, by the discovery of a natural image of Buddha on a mountain. People from around the world traveled here to see it and spend time in meditation. The place was especially known for long, silent retreats. Pilgrims could sit for months in tiny beehive-shaped huts, just big enough for one person in a seated position, with a view of the river and mountains. There were options for longer retreats, even years, some in complete darkness, others in small groups. The Shangshi — the spiritual teacher — was also in such a meditation. In 2013, the year I was there, he had not left his apartment for 17 years. Yet because of his high rank — he was the 9th Chodrak Salga Rinpoche, a lama in the Kagyu lineage, a bit like the Dalai Lama of this school — he was allowed to meet students and visitors.

Before meeting him, I was told that I must present him with a white scarf — a khata — and, if possible, offer money. It was a tradition to give as much as one could. Mr. Zhang gave 10,000 RMB, while I gave a few hundred, together with the scarf I had been handed. We met the Shangshi — a pleasant, smiling man, sitting quietly on his throne. We sat on the floor below him like children. We could ask questions, but I had nothing to ask. He spoke slowly and warmly, again repeating, “Welcome back home,” and marveling at the long journey we had made. Zaxi Nanjia translated softly beside us. When we left, another monk joined our group, but Zaxi Nanjia walked ahead, leaving the others behind. I followed him. We crossed a small bridge and began walking up the mountain on the other side, with a view of the village and the temple.

“Ask me anything,” he said suddenly, sitting down on the grass and gesturing for me to join him.

“Do you know anything about Buddhism?” he asked.

“Not really. I’m interested, but I never knew much,” I admitted.

I hesitated, searching for a question that wasn’t too simple. “Okay,” I said at last, embarrassed, “in Christianity there is Adam and Eve, there is Heaven and Hell. Do you have anything like that in Buddhism?”

He smiled at me, patient. “In Buddhism, there is no beginning and no end. The goal is to stop the cycle of rebirth — that is enlightenment. There are countless planets and universes where you can be reborn. You may have come from another one before you were born here. We don’t have Heaven or Hell, but karma decides if you are reborn as a human or something lower — an animal, a plant, even a rock. When you stop the cycle, that is the highest achievement — to become Buddha.” His voice was deep, gentle. Sometimes he used English words so I could follow him better.

“So being born as a human means you did everything good in your past life?” I asked, suddenly curious.

“Yes,” he said.

“So every human on this planet must have been a good person before?”

“Yes,” he said again, his smile growing wider.

Our group caught up with us, and we stood up to continue walking. I felt deeply pleased with his answer — I liked the thought that at the core of every person was something good, something that earned them this life.

We reached a temple built into the mountain rock, where a monk lived and meditated in silence. The inside was cold and smelled strongly of Tibetan incense — sharp, earthy, almost sour, but somehow pleasant once it settled. His room was simple, with a bed and a few ritual objects. He did not speak to us — his only work was to meditate.

When we left, we continued climbing higher. Again, Zaxi Nanjia walked faster than the group, and again he stopped and sat down on the grass, waiting for me.

“What’s the point of it all?” I asked him. “Why is everyone so excited about a man sitting in the cold, or holding his breath?”

“In Buddhism, an important part is education,” he said. “You learn to control and understand your mind and body. That is what meditation in isolation is for, and practices like the man you heard about.”

“So these different styles of meditation, and even these physical endurance tests — they are all ways to understand yourself, and therefore… become Buddha?”

“Yes. A monk can spend his whole life studying — Buddhism, the mind, the body, endurance — all as a way to reach enlightenment.”

“Can you learn from a simple life, as a normal person?”

“Of course. Not everyone needs to be a monk. Sometimes normal life can be even harder than the life of a monk. You learn from the life you live, from the people you meet.”

I hesitated, then asked the question that had been bothering me since the start of the trip. 

“But why have I never seen female temples or female monks? Are there only male ones?” He laughed deeply, stood up, and motioned for me to follow.

When we reached the next temple, a large but slightly smaller one than the others, he went inside and asked everyone else to step out. Around thirty monks stood outside, looking curious. Then Zaxi Nanjia turned toward me, his face lit with laughter.

“Alena, look!” he shouted. “These are all women. Look!”

And that was how I learned that there were female monks, too.

The rest of the day we visited more beautiful places, listening to stories and accepting yak milk candies from another monk. Closer to evening, we returned to our rooms to rest. I went to look out the window — and saw the guru standing on his large square balcony, the red borders of the building framing him, the temple rising behind, and the twilight sky glowing with the last purple light of sunset. The red and white of the buildings, the dark rooftops, and his red-and-yellow robes all seemed perfectly balanced against the soft sky. When he saw me watching, he looked back and smiled.

That evening I wanted to take advantage of the near-darkness of the village — there was barely any electricity — and go for a walk to see the stars. When I told Mr. Zhang, he protested.

“It’s still dangerous, you shouldn’t go alone.”

“It’s alright, I’ll just go out to see the stars. I won’t go far.” His words felt almost parental — something I had missed after being five years in China, far from my own parents.

“What stars? There’s nothing to look at.” Mr. Zhang looked puzzled, then seemed to remember I wasn’t his daughter. “Alright. Let me ask the monks to go with you. I’ll go too.”

He left and soon returned to say our two monk guides were waiting downstairs. Zaxi Nanjia seemed happy to see me again, and once more we walked together at the front, talking quietly, while Mr. Zhang and the other monk followed behind.

“What are your plans? What would you like to do?” Zaxi Nanjia asked me suddenly.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I wish I could travel more, learn more. I like to understand cultures and different religions.” I worried I might sound ignorant, as if by being there I should speak only of Buddhism. “Are different religions accepted in Buddhism?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said, “as long as you do it with respect and an open heart. It is all part of your study — you learn from many paths.”

“So a person from another religion can become Buddhist?” I asked, thinking of my Orthodox upbringing.

“Yes, of course,” he said. “Buddhism doesn’t reject or deny other religions. It welcomes anyone who comes.”

I loved that openness — that acceptance of difference and complexity, not insisting on a single way of being. We walked a little more, enjoying the darkness of the village — the roads lit only faintly, the vast sky filled with stars. Exactly what I had wanted to see. Soon after, we returned to our rooms.

The next day began as the others — more tsampa, more walks, more sitting on the ground with Zaxi Nanjia, who sometimes asked me to take his picture in certain spots with a view. He posed like a happy child, as if these places — which he had seen countless times — still delighted him. That day we visited the holy picture on the mountain. To reach it, we first had to complete a ritual — driving in a circle around another mountain before approaching the sacred place. When we returned to the village, we took a different path and started climbing toward the top of the mountain. The monks told us we were going to see 天葬 (tiānzàng) — Sky Burials. I didn’t know the word, just as I didn’t know so many new words I learned on this trip. They explained: when a person dies, the monks bring the body there, cut it open, break the bones, and feed the flesh to the Himalayan vultures that circle in the sky.

As we approached, the birds began flying above us, hopeful that we had brought them food.

“Usually there are special monks who do this work,” our guide said. “But during the big earthquake, so many people died that every monk, including me, had to do it.”

The vultures kept circling. I felt sorry for them, knowing we had nothing to give.

“In Buddhism, the body is just a temporary tool,” the guide said. “Once you die, you no longer need it. You can still do good for others with it — feeding the hungry birds.”

Later, when visiting another temple, I saw piles of clothes being given away. I learned that the clothes of the dead are given to those in need. For the poor, bodies were buried instead of offered in the sky, and the bodies of children were sometimes placed in the river, given to the fish. 

All of this was told casually, with no hesitation, no sadness. Death was simply part of life, not something to fear. If you believe there is always another life, then dying is not such a tragedy.

“Is it possible that the birds refuse to eat certain people?” I asked, looking up at the black silhouettes circling above.

“Yes,” Zaxi Nanjia said. “Some people are not good — even monks — and the birds will reject them.” He bent down and pushed a small bone lying on the ground over the edge of the mountain.

“Then what do you do with them?” I asked, watching him.

“We just push the bodies off the mountain,” he replied calmly, then glanced up at the sky. “And the animals, or simply time, will take care of them.”

He apologized softly to the birds for disappointing them, for bringing them the wrong kind of hope. We walked a little more. I saw another small piece of bone.

“The birds eat everything,” one monk added, “even the bones.”

It was my first time encountering death treated so simply — so effortlessly, so naturally. No sadness, no desperation. Just the understanding that life and death coexist. If you are reborn, you may even have some clues, before you die, about where you will return. No one glorified monks or ordinary people — either could be good or bad. And as I walked next to someone who had cut open dozens of bodies, cracked skulls, and fed them to birds, I noticed the ground was perfectly clean. There was nothing ceremonial about the place — just a small, bare patch of earth, a little away from the road, with no structure, no marker, nothing but grass around it. It looked like any other place, except for the circling vultures, the only hint that something darker had happened here. 

We returned to our building, passing rectangular meditation houses where monks sat alone or in groups, with no sign of life from inside.

As we approached our rooms, Mr. Zhang said,

“Ms. Hong wanted to 皈依 (guīyī), but she changed her mind. It was supposed to be tomorrow. Maybe you would like to do it?”

I didn’t understand. Another new word.

“What does 皈依 (guīyī) mean?” I asked.

Zaxi Nanjia, who hadn’t yet left us, watched me curiously. He stayed a little longer so we could discuss it.

“It means taking refuge in Buddhism — to become a Buddhist,” Mr. Zhang explained.

I was surprised. I hadn’t expected this turn, hadn’t even known it was an option.

“Chodrak Salga Rinpoche is already prepared for the ceremony tomorrow,” he said. “Since Ms. Hong changed her mind, perhaps you would like to do it.”

“Wait — I need to understand it first,” I said. The idea intrigued me. I wasn’t sure I was ready, but I wasn’t against it either.

“Why do I need to do 皈依 (guīyī)?” I asked, looking back and forth between them. “Can’t you just… be Buddhist without it?”

“There are three steps in Buddhism,” Zaxi Nanjia explained with his usual calmness and bright eyes. “First, you take refuge in the Buddha — you accept the path. That is the first step. The second step is education: you study, you learn about your body and your mind, you practice. This can take a lifetime. And only then — maybe — you reach the third step, becoming a Buddha yourself, ending the cycle of rebirth. You cannot take the second or third steps without first taking refuge.”

We discussed it further, approaching the idea from different sides. Then suddenly I heard myself say:

“I want to do it.”

“Good,” Zaxi Nanjia said, smiling, and left our room.

That night was not an easy one to sleep. It was our last night in the temple — the next day, after breakfast and the ritual, we planned to continue our way to Tibet. Through the night I kept thinking: had I done the right thing? Was it a mistake? But every evening since we had arrived, I had felt a deep sense of meaning. Every encounter, every conversation seemed to fit together. Not everything had registered in my head — some things were beyond my language, my concepts — but somehow it all made perfect sense. The meaning of life suddenly felt clear to me: life is study. The puzzle came together. Meaning is what you learn on the way. The goal may never be enlightenment, but the goal is still to take every experience as a chance to learn. At twenty-four, this felt like the most logical, most beautiful thing I had ever heard.

The next morning, I was nervous. I asked to go into the Shangshi’s room. He was still seated on his throne, smiling as he welcomed me. The ritual began. It was a series of devotional bowings, the special kind Tibetans do — each time starting with palms together, touching the crown of the head, then the forehead, the chest, and finally lowering the whole body to the floor before rising again. We bowed three times: to the Buddha, to the Dharma, to the Sangha — marking the beginning of the ceremony. After that, I was given a small “passport” with my Buddhist name, the lineage I now belonged to, my teacher’s name, a few prayers, and simple rules. They also gave me tiny “holy things” — blessings to keep with me; one I could even eat when I needed protection or luck. I gave my photo to the guru for his prayers. The ritual was short. When it ended, I was free to go. But Zaxi Nanjia stopped me and said, “Your name is Zaxi Wangmo. Usually the guru gives the name, but we broke the rules a little. I chose this name for you. It means freedom and luck. As I got to know you, I felt it suits you best.”

When we left, Zaxi Nanjia said goodbye by touching his forehead to mine, the way monks say farewell to one another. I tried to hide my tears. I couldn’t believe a place that had been completely unknown to me just three days ago could now feel so much like home. But our journey wasn’t over. We still had more days ahead, and Tibet waiting for us.

We weren’t far, but the plan to take a smaller road and a detour added an extra day before reaching the border. We stopped for the night, stayed in a small hotel, and prepared ourselves for the final stretch — the part that would determine whether we could enter the holy land or not. As usual, I stayed ignorant of the details of the plan and was simply reminded, again, that it would be fine — méi shìr.

The next morning, we departed in the two cars as always. For a while we followed a main road, but later we turned onto a smaller one winding through the mountains. By afternoon we were on a road so narrow and rough that it could hardly be called a road at all — just dirt tracks, patches of mud, and endless bumps stretching like scars across the mountainsides. It was slow, difficult driving — dangerous but breathtakingly beautiful. Hours passed, and we hadn’t covered many kilometers. Mr. Zhang began to look uneasy, slowly realizing how bad the plan really was.

“Can you drive?” he asked me suddenly, turning his tired face toward me. We were in the Jeep again, just the two of us, with the bus carrying the rest of the group following behind. 

“I can’t,” I said quickly, my eyes flicking to the edge of the mountain road. 

“At all? You’ve never tried?” His voice was strangely calm, maybe just exhausted. 

“Nope. Never even tried.” I almost laughed at how unusual that sounded, people were always surprised when I said it. 

He looked thoughtful. “You know, it’s very easy. I think you should drive. I am very tired.”

I stared at him. We were on a mountain, on a road that felt like it could crumble at any moment, and he wanted me to drive? “I don’t think it’s a good idea. It looks dangerous and I’ve never done it.” 

“Méishìr, it’s going to be fine. It’s easy. You’ll see. I’m really tired. You need to drive.” And then he stopped the car. Before I had time to argue, he got out and switched seats with me. Hesitantly, I listened as he explained a few basic things. I pressed the gas and the Jeep rolled forward, bumping slowly along the mountain track. 

“This is not a good idea,” He said realizing the danger just after a few minutes, gripping the wheel. 

We switched back. That was the only time I have ever driven a car.

We continued until night began to fall, still nowhere near the border. We made a few stops, switched drivers to fight the exhaustion, but everyone was tense and silent. The endless bad road had swallowed hours of our time, and there were no hotels anywhere nearby. The next city was across the border, in Tibet, so we had to keep going. As the sky darkened, the road grew emptier. When we finally reached a more proper road, hope returned, only to vanish again when we realized that both cars were almost out of gas. Rain began to fall against the windows, and the dark clouds over the mountains made our mood even heavier. 

“If not for that girl, we would already be there. Why did we need to take this road? We’re all so tired,” someone complained from inside the bus. I didn’t react. It was what it was.

Night fell. The gas tank was nearly empty. We were panicking now, driving through the dark, rain falling, the road silent. Somehow we kept going, until we finally saw a small village. By then it was very late. The village was dark and quiet, only a few windows still glowing with light while everyone else slept in their warm beds. We stopped, and the driver got out, knocking on doors to ask if we could buy gas. By some miracle, it worked. We paid nearly three times the normal price, but he returned with a few big containers and filled the tank. We kept driving. The complaining grew as everyone’s nerves wore thinner. Even the young boy in the group took a turn driving for a few hours, nervous but steady enough to keep us going. We had been on the road the entire day, exhausted, rattled, hungry, wet. When we finally approached the border, it felt like we had survived something much bigger than just a bad road.

Mr. Zhang had hoped that since the road was so small and the entry so rarely used, there would be no police. He was wrong. As we got closer, a small tent appeared ahead, lit by a single dim bulb. There were no other cars, just ours, and the sight of that lonely light made the place feel even more remote. Police control.

“Alena, go walk behind the tent and hide behind the bridge. When we finish, we will pick you up,” Mr. Zhang said.

There was no way back — we were deep into the mountains, in the middle of the night. I didn’t know what to do except agree and follow his instructions, forcing my mind not to think too much about what I was doing or how dangerous it was. The darkness was complete, the mountains like black silhouettes, the tent glowing faintly ahead. Maybe this would work, I thought. Maybe we could really do it.

“I will go with you,” the young girl said suddenly. I felt relieved not to be sent into this madness alone.

The Jeep was in front, and our bus followed behind. The girl and I got out quietly and walked behind the tent, moving toward the small bridge and crouching down so we wouldn’t be visible. We were close enough to hear the voices of the police. The space was completely empty around us, the night so quiet it made every sound sharper. I felt restless, impatient, and stood up to walk forward when suddenly a voice shouted:

“Who is there?” A flashlight cut across the dark, pointing in our direction.

“It’s our meimei — our little sister — she went to pee,” Mr. Zhang’s voice called back from the car.

The girl stood up, and at the same moment I instinctively crouched lower, staying hidden. She walked back to the car, apologizing softly as she passed the police, who accepted the excuse and continued talking with Mr. Zhang. 

I stayed still for what felt like a long time, then slowly began to move forward, this time carefully, no sudden movements. I walked until I was far enough from the checkpoint to stand upright and walk normally. But I couldn’t run — the high altitude made every step heavy, my breath short. I walked until I could no longer see or hear the tent, then stopped behind a low hill, deciding to wait there. The place was utterly silent, dark, and cold. The road was just a thin strip of shadow between the black shapes of the hills. I stood there, alone in that vast emptiness, when suddenly I saw headlights — a single car coming from the direction of the police. My heart stopped. I thought perhaps it was them, coming for me. But it wasn’t our bus or the Jeep. It was just one car. I froze, barely breathing, and stayed where I was. The landscape offered no hiding places — no trees, no tall grass, just the bare hills around me. The car passed slowly, its lights sweeping across the road, then stopped a little further ahead. We stayed like that for a while — the car idling in the distance, me standing motionless in the shadow. I couldn’t go toward it, and I couldn’t go back. I called Mr. Zhang, whispering, trying not to let my voice carry. I couldn’t fully understand what he was saying over the line, but I stayed where I was until finally the car ahead of me started moving again, disappearing into the dark. Relief flooded me. Five minutes later — five minutes that felt like forever — my group arrived and picked me up. I climbed back into the bus, exhausted and cold, and we drove on in silence. We had crossed. We were finally on the holy land.

We could have felt relief, but we didn’t. Tibet is highly controlled by China — literally controlled. Every city entrance is patrolled by police. They check the cars, ask for your destination, and give you an estimated time of arrival for the next city. You cannot arrive earlier or later than that time, which means cars often sit waiting on the roadside before entering a city, just to avoid suspicion. You can’t stop to do anything that isn’t part of your declared plan.

When we entered the first city, we were met with police control again. To avoid complications, we decided it was safer to pretend I wasn’t there, hiding me under a pile of coats. It was the middle of the night when we finally arrived. We found a hotel in a small city, and surprisingly, there was no problem checking in. The rooms were decorated with traditional Tibetan paintings and carved wooden panels. They were beautiful, but we were all too exhausted to notice much. The city sat at such a high altitude that I felt breathless just walking to the room. Even turning in my sleep felt like effort.

The next morning, I woke up with my decision already formed. “I can’t do it like this,” I said. “We have to go back. It’s too dangerous.” Somehow no one protested. The group seemed relieved, and Mr. Zhang agreed. The others took the bus and continued on their way to Lhasa, while Mr. Zhang and I took the Jeep and drove back toward Qinghai. I would catch a plane back to Beijing, and he would return to his mistress and finish the trip as planned.

The road back toward the nearest city with an airport was magnificent. In a single day we passed snow mountains where we saw Tibetan antelopes — chiru — running across the white fields. Later we entered a desert, with mountains glowing in colors of red, yellow, and green, and then into wide open pastures where wild horses ran free. By evening we reached Xining in Qinghai province and stayed in another hotel. I booked myself a massage that night — a quiet symbol of ending, a way to let the trip go. The next day we said goodbye.

For Mr. Zhang, the Tibetan trip had been a failure — the mission unfinished. So after returning to Beijing, he booked me proper plane tickets and secured the necessary visa. I went back to Tibet in the autumn of the same year. That trip was beautiful, but in a different way. We followed every rule, booked the guide and the car, planned every day without a single change. Tibet felt like a space outside of time — sacred, yet heavily observed — filled with holy lakes no one was allowed to touch, snow mountains, and the yellow earth. The air was thick with the smell of burning wax and incense from the temples, and with the dust of pilgrims who had traveled for months, bowing with every step: touching the crown of the head, the forehead, the chest, lowering the whole body to the ground, then rising again to take the next step.

Yet my heart stayed in Yushu, in that first journey through Qinghai province, where the magic still felt untouched by the Communist Party’s restrictions — a little less holy perhaps, but raw and distant, far from everyone else.

When we returned to Beijing, Mr. Zhang decided that now I must write a book, as though reaching Tibet had completed the mission. But I didn’t feel like I had achieved anything. I had only taken the first step, and now the real work — the study — was meant to begin. 

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