The Meaning of Travel: An Introduction for the Next Generation of Pilgrims
A pilgrimage is defined as a religious devotee's journey to sacred sites. For Tibetans and those in pastoral regions, such trips are often undertaken for the spiritual happiness religion brings. Many of my travels were pilgrimages with my family; I recall some clearly, but others predate my memory. Among my family's stories, the most adventurous was when I was one year old, when my parents and grandmother carried me on a pilgrimage to Lhasa.
Struck down by severe altitude sickness and a bad cold, I came close to death during the journey. It was nightfall when we finally reached Lhasa, and my father, weeping, carried me on his back while pulling my mother along as they desperately searched the streets for a hospital. Having spent all their lives in Amdo, Lhasa was completely foreign to them, and the Ü-Tsang dialect spoken there left them unable to communicate. Just as despair took hold and they feared I would "depart this life in Lhasa," a *Böpa*—a Tibetan from Ü-Tsang—appeared, speaking fluent Amdo Tibetan and offering them hope.
My rescue remains the most unforgettable chapter in our family's travelogue. The stranger found a pedicab immediately after learning of our situation and rushed us to the emergency ward of Lhasa City Hospital, saving my life. Later, whenever my family recounted our pilgrimage to Lhasa, they never tired of telling the story of how a stranger saved me there. Of course, beyond this journey to Lhasa, my family and I went on many other pilgrimages, leaving our footsteps at sacred sites across Qinghai, Sichuan, Gansu, and Tibet.
In Tibet, the custom is to walk around mountains during the Year of the Horse and around lakes during the Year of the Sheep. Night Visit to Saizong Temple. As I recall, pilgrims in those years rented buses and journeyed together in groups. Every passing year gave each trip its own unique memories and experiences.
Based on variations in behavioral devoutness, along with effects of certain latent external similarities and subtle reciprocal identifications, some scholars divide pilgrims into two categories: pragmatic pilgrims and ascetic pilgrims. The latter travel from their places of origin to holy destinations either on foot or through full-body prostrations. The former, meanwhile, are groups who rely on modern transportation and whose everyday requirements are comparatively adaptable.
In 2003, the Tibetan Water Sheep Year, I was about preschool age, with hazy recollections and an emerging sense of self. That year's lake pilgrimage remains vivid in my memory. From my hometown's perspective, households containing both elderly and young children are often classified as pragmatic pilgrims. With my grandmother and fellow villagers, I hired a bus and circumambulated Qinghai Lake, while my mother remained at home to look after the livestock belonging to our family and relatives.
This was a lake pilgrimage, and every monastery and sacred site near the lake had to be visited without exception. As a result, the journey was simply a repeated loop of boarding the bus, stopping at a monastery, getting off to pray, and then boarding again, spanning several days and nights. Perhaps because it was my first trip away from my mother, I remained gloomy the entire time, plagued by separation anxiety, carsickness, frostbitten feet, and the sash of my Tibetan robe pulled tight around my waist—these petty discomforts all bore down on me.
Because the driver had to leave early the next morning, everyone decided to walk around the monastery and follow the mountain path in the dark, even though it was already late when we arrived. That night, before reaching Qinghai Lake, the driver had been persuaded by the elders to take us to Saizong Temple in Xinghai County, a site normally visited only in the Year of the Monkey. For someone not very experienced, this journey could be seen as quite tough.
I couldn't refuse my grandmother's suggestion that I take on the "important" task of making the mountain pilgrimage on behalf of our family for blessings. Because the route to Saizong Temple was steep and hazardous, the elderly rested at a lodge near the mountain's base, while the younger ones set out to circumambulate. Children were free to decide for themselves, but I got off the bus with my relatives and began the circuit. It was already deep into the night when we reached the halfway point.
The more thrilling the tales my male relatives told me while accompanying me, the more terrified I became—likely because a child's imagination is so vivid. They recounted how Guru Rinpoche subdued demons at this sacred site and buried them beneath the mountain; how the elder "Ganbu" of our A'ri tribe, a devout man, prayed with such passionate full-body prostrations that Guru Rinpoche manifested on the stone surface and asked him to stop; and they also mentioned the "Mirror of Yama" and the "Iron Mortar of Hell.
I could not keep going, though I followed her advice. My legs had stiffened, and my mind was filled with visions of demons showing bloodstained fangs. When the relative holding my hand sensed my fear—which she took as insufficient piety—she let go and told me to walk faster on my own. Too proud to plead for her hand again, I obeyed. The Tibetan robe and leather boots felt as if they weighed over ten pounds, and with every step they grew heavier. Soon I was at the back of the group and could faintly hear someone bringing up "demons" again. My heart thumped and my legs weakened.
Because of a momentary lapse in attention, I tripped and landed on a mound of earth beside the trail. As I thrashed about in panic, a large hand took hold of mine—likely someone from another group of pilgrims, given the accent we did not recognize. Honestly, it may sound absurd, yet the instant that hand pulled me upright, I found myself weeping silently but uncontrollably. Fearing that my unsteady voice would expose me, I chose not to answer the kind stranger’s questions. Instead, I gripped their hand firmly and kept pace with them, step for step.
Only after my emotions had calmed did I recall my grandmother's blessing request. That night, despite being too young to fully grasp the meaning behind such a devout pilgrimage, I prayed with a sincerity I had never known: may every merit gained from this journey be dedicated to that stranger. Having survived that terrifying night, we reached Chixiu Jiamu Basin—Qinghai Lake, China's largest inland lake—the following day. Though it is a lake, it possesses a suggestion of the ocean.
My fascination with the ocean comes from the film *Titanic*, though I can't say where most people draw their limitless imaginings of the sea from. Whenever my cousin—an avid lover of Hong Kong movies—made her way down from the summer pastures to buy supplies, she would bring me along to a video parlor in a small town. During busy times, the parlor filled to capacity with construction workers, miners, shop owners, and herders who were there for supplies. The room was small, dark, and cramped.
Narrow and noisy, the room was thick with smoke from the men, who lit one cigarette after another, blending the smells of sweat and tobacco. The owner had a number of unzipped CD cases, each packed with pirated discs, Hong Kong crime films for the most part. But one day, he put on the dubbed *Titanic*. At that time, my grasp of Mandarin was weak, and the plot escaped me. Still, inferring the narrative from the images alone provided its own amusement.
That day was unlike typical crime films: as the prelude to *My Heart Will Go On* started, the North Atlantic sunset shimmered across the screen, and I was overcome by an indescribable beauty. Perhaps nature's most beautiful filter is sunset—oceans, lakes, grasslands, deserts all become indescribably gorgeous when touched by its glow. I was likely the least qualified pilgrim among us. When I first reached Qinghai Lake at sunset to offer homage, I forgot both to prostrate and to sprinkle blessed water.
In my mind, Qinghai Lake and the Atlantic Ocean had been blended together, with the Titanic set afloat on its surface and a horse imagined galloping along the shore, racing the vessel. My grandmother broke in on this reverie and insisted I hasten to the incense altar to prostrate. That, perhaps, marks the distinction between a seasoned pilgrim and a naive one: adults regard Qinghai Lake as the most sacred shrine of worship, whereas for me it was a lake embodying both meanings at once.
Only after my grandmother haggled at length with a lakeside vendor did I manage to take a photo with Qinghai Lake—this took place once we had walked around Sacred Lake following the completion of the entire ritual. Because of that pilgrimage memory, or because of her importance to our community, I have since been unconsciously drawn to every picture of Qinghai Lake. Yet the ones I’m drawn to are mostly those made by people who know her intimately, far from the vivid, emerald shades that outsiders’ lenses usually capture.
When I first viewed Chunjian's creations, what touched me was perhaps the portrayal—free from any voyeuristic gaze—of Qinghai Lake harmoniously interwoven with the local herders, their culture, and the landscape. More precisely, it was the effort to restore the lake to the herders dwelling along its banks. Only those who truly know her seem able to catch that singular quality: the saline, tough texture lying beneath her sacred aura. "Blue Gemstone" © Chunjian In early winter, the lake surface starts to freeze.
For the people who live beside it, Qinghai Lake is simply part of everyday existence: they are born and die there, and the lake, along with all it represents, is woven into the fabric of their lives. For pilgrims, however, the lake itself—combined with the mountains and waters of the Chixiu Jiamu Basin, the herders grazing sheep along its shores, the gravel-strewn ridges, and every layer of meaning attached to them—forms a complete Sacred Lake. Along the way, novice pilgrims like me transform into "new" pilgrims, and in doing so, we come to know this place's people and landscapes.
With a sincere heart, we incorporate pilgrimage into daily life—to travel, to mature, to purify. As we circle the lake, we learn to cherish all beings that flourish along its shore. This could be yet another type of trek. The text here is translated from YangMo's blog.