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Questions of Heaven:
The Chinese Journeys of an American Buddhist
by Gretel Ehrlich
The warning came at the end of Gretel Ehrlich's travel. "Remember, use soft words. We are still in danger," said Xuan Ke, a musician who lived in Lijaing. Gretel Ehrlich, an American Buddhist, visited China in 1995 to find Buddhism in China. What she found was a countryside dedicated to progress and a people struggling for survival. The signs of Buddhism were rudimentary: A monk, a temple, a bell.
Gertrude Ehrlich reflected on the nature of pilgrimage as she began her ascent of Emei Shan, the sacred mountain. The word for pilgrimage in Chinese means "paying one's respects to the mountain." The mountains were the home of the immortals and linked Heaven, earth and man. When one walked the mountain there was a transformation of the inner and outer environment. Every step and breath altered the environment. Path and goal became the same.
But her pilgrimage to the summit of Emei Shan was a disappointment. Gertrude Ehrlich asked Questions of Heaven, "How many miles is the journey?"
She did find a Tibetan lama near the Wolong preserve in the northwest corner of Sichuan province. 80 years old, he had lived through the upheavals of China. "I did something bad," he confided to our guide with a smile. And with that he unwrapped a bundle of red cloth. Inside were Buddhist scriptures written in Tibetan on long narrow sheafs of yellowing paper between two wooden boards. "I hid these during the Cultural Revolution," he said. "If they had been found, I would have been killed." When asked to read them, he began to chant.
I have always wanted to visit Tibet. So did Gerturde Ehrlich. Neither of us has been there yet. Reports of political danger, bad water and altitude sickness kept me within the pages of my books on Tibet. Gertrude Ehrlich was turned back when her driver, Tong, refused to drive into Tibet's high mountains. "We have no permits," he said.
Instead she went to Lijaing, near the Tibetan border in the Yunnan province. There she found some semblance of peace, of order, of beauty. And it was in Lijaing that she found music and good food.
She met Xuan Ke and his orchestra of Naxi musicians who played the music of South of the Clouds. Xuan Ke again warned before his concert of Chinese and Tibetan music, " Music is medicine. It can bring life or death. Both players and listeners must always be careful." Gretel Ehrlich felt that she was seeing a fragment of culture being brought back to life as she watched the concert.
In telling her journey, Gretel Ehrlich explored tenets of Buddhism as well as the history of China. She described the taste of the dust, the press of the crowds, the greyness. Gertrude Ehrlich brought the mountains and music, the poetry and people, the art and the landscape alive. There was no sugar coating in this journal. She showed the urban sprawl, as well as the tops of the mountains.
I am fascinated by China but desire only armchair travel. And so I content myself with the accounts of others. Here are some other recommendations, if you too, would like to visit China.
North to the Orient. by Anne Morrow Lindbergh. Harcourt, Brace & Co. NY. 1935.
Moment in Peking: A Novel of Contemporary Chinese Life. by Lin Yutang. The John Day Company, NY. 1939.
Spring Moon. by Bette Bao Lord. Harper and Row. 1981.
Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China. by Jung Chang. Simon and Schuster. 1991.
Copyright©1999 Mary Jo Kelly Wilhelm
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