Asian Uncle
Welcome to Asian Uncle, the unfiltered dive into Asia - from the back-alley brothels to the shadowy underworld gang, from hardcore military life to the spiritual mystique of Tibet. This isn't your grandma's history lesson on sanitized travel guide. Asian Uncle pulls back the curtain on the continent's most controversial, misunderstood and surreal corners.
Each episode, we explore the raw, untold stories - whether it's the truth behind Thailand's nightlife, untold life of pimping in China or Yakuza's business empire. Come with me on my journey that explored the hidden and dark world of Asia that you never learned about in school.
Asian Uncle
S1E8 - China's Heaven & Hell: Mystic Tibet - Part 1/5
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A chance encounter with a devout Buddhist au pair changed everything about my understanding of spirituality. After watching her weep for crabs we cooked and eventually leave her family behind to become a monk, I found myself on an unexpected journey to the remote corners of Tibet – places where foreigners rarely venture and Chinese visitors are almost unheard of.
My invitation came from a high monk we called "LB" (Live Buddha), a young man whose wisdom belied his years. Despite my extensive reading on Buddhism, our initial meetings in Shanghai revealed how little I truly understood. When he invited me to his temple deep in the Gansu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture – a mountainous region sandwiched between Sichuan province and Tibet's capital – I couldn't resist becoming the first Chinese person to visit.
The journey itself was as transformative as the destination. After landing at Kangding Airport (the world's third-highest at 4,300 meters), altitude sickness hit me like a wall. "Your mind can still think, but your body doesn't react anymore," perfectly describes the disorienting experience. What followed was a harrowing 16-hour drive in a battered Toyota Highlander along muddy cliff-edge roads with no phone signal, passing through four seasons in a single day as we crossed mountain passes exceeding 5,000 meters.
The landscape revealed extraordinary sights: massive yaks moving sluggishly through snowstorms, stunted vegetation clinging to steep slopes, and most remarkably, small caves dotting mountainsides where monks meditated in isolation for years. These glimpses into extreme spiritual dedication began a profound shift in my own worldview, transforming me from someone raised Christian but largely nonreligious into a person deeply engaged with Taoist and Buddhist practices.
Have you ever wondered what lies beyond the tourist-approved regions of Tibet? Join me as I share more stories from my numerous visits to this breathtaking, otherworldly place in upcoming episodes – where ancient wisdom meets breathtaking isolation.
Yo, what's up everyone. Welcome back to yet another new segment of Asian Uncle and I'm your host, uncle Wong. This topic, mysterious Tibet, is a stark contrast from what we discussed before. But like this segment topic suggests heaven and hell, oh Tibet. Foreigners have not been there before. Think it's an exotic place. Indeed it is. I've been there countless times. I don't even remember how many times I had suffered from the altitude sickness or how many hours I've ended up sitting in a car, for Parts of it are not accessible to foreign citizens. Pretty much. If you're in Lhasa, the capital city to the west of that are not accessible, so you would have to visit with specific tour groups and of course, they would only take you to designated areas. You could take pictures, but you're not allowed to go off without the tour guide with you. This was a result of the Tibet movement years back and that brought a lot of drama to this once peaceful group of people.
Speaker 1:I had been raised a Christian for the majority of my life, but spending so much time in China did in fact have an influence. Being engaged in Taoism, understanding Buddhism, spending a lot of time with the monks in Tibet gradually changed me for the better. I was never a religious person either, but the curiosity has always been there. I wrote my book before one of them. There was an entire research section questioning our religious beliefs. It's not if God exists or not, but how human beings view higher entities. This is in no way derived from my own opinion, but from pure science and human psychology. Even the great Albert Einstein had his own theory about why humans believe in the entities that they do, for instance the mother and father, part of what we believe in, the Virgin Mary, jesus, god, the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit all these things intertwine in a certain way. Even in Buddhist religion we have figures of mother and father. I even went as far as to interview retired Catholic priests. They're under no more restriction and I thought they could speak more freely. And as I researched this topic deeper and deeper, the more question it seemed to raise.
Speaker 1:Like everybody else, I was educated. I went on my way, tried to make as much money for my family as possible. I didn't think about religion too much at the time. I was young. All that changed when my daughter was born.
Speaker 1:We were interviewing au pairs at the time and this jolly lady from the north of China with a thick accent came up and while we're doing interview, she said that she's a devout Buddhist and that this would be her last job. When I asked her why, she said after this she would go become a monk. I was like, wow, that's pretty crazy. I talked to my wife. I'm like, look, there's no way she would hurt our daughter because she's such a devout Buddhist. Let's just hire her. So we did. She was strange at first. She didn't eat meat, she preached a lot of Buddhist teachings, but most of all, she was the kindest woman I've ever met, and sometimes when we are eating for instance, we're eating crab you cook them alive. She would be on the side, sort of weeping and praying for the crab that we're about to kill. And a year later, after she left our house, she did become a monk. She left her kids behind well, one kid her son behind and just left. I would visit her eventually where she became a monk at Lanronggar Buddhist Academy.
Speaker 1:It was high up in the mountains of Serta in Sichuan, china. I know that was a long sentence. I just said you don't have to remember it because I will go into detail later in the episodes of my visits there and, like I said before, I made way too many visits there, so there would be a lot of stories to tell. Let me bring you back on my first journey there. My wife had just given birth to my daughter and she had to take care of the kids, so I decided to go alone.
Speaker 1:I had met this high monk through my au pair high monk through my au pair. I had to admit, when I first met this monk that came to my house, my business mind kicked in. I thought he may have been a cheat. There's many people in China that wear monk's clothes, tricking believers for money on the streets. To my surprise, it turned out to be the opposite. We spent a short week in Shanghai, mainly trying to understand each other's culture. He didn't speak too good of Mandarin Chinese and, of course, I couldn't speak Tibetan. He did bring with him a translator. I had thought I was somewhat familiar with Buddhist teachings because I read a lot. In the end, after talking to him for that short duration, I learned that I knew nothing.
Speaker 1:This high monk that I speak of we would later call him LB for short, not LeBron, but live Buddha. Him LB for short, not LeBron, but Live Buddha. People in his culture believe that he is a reincarnated Buddha here to help us. So this is just for short, so we don't keep calling him a high monk. He was only a couple years old, maybe two years, but the maturity and wisdom that he displayed were astonishing. We were both in our very early 30s when we met, but it felt like he understood everything and he couldn't do nothing about it. I was so eager to take up his invite and visit him. It would have been my first time there and he also told me that no other Chinese person has been there to his temple and I would be the first. I was thinking why? Little did I know that I would take an insane journey into the depths of what was considered old Tibet. They split it up and part of it integrated with the Sichuan province. The entire part east of Lhasa are actually inhibited by Tibetans. Lb's temple was located deep inside Gansu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture. Like I said before, this is west of Sichuan province but east of capital city Tibet, stuck right in the middle, a mountainous region.
Speaker 1:I flew from Shanghai transfer flight to Chengdu, sichuan. From there, at overnight layover, I took another flight to Kangding airport the next day. Next morning the elevation at the airport was over 4,300 meters. I believe it's the third highest airport in the world. Almost immediately after I landed, when the doors opened, I could feel the thin air. Altitude sickness kicked in. Almost immediately. I found myself dizzy. If our listeners here don't know what altitude sickness feels like, you're not only dizzy, you feel disengaged from your body. Your mind can still kind of think, but your body does not react anymore. It's very scary, especially experiencing it for the first time just not even getting off the plane. Yet. I didn't know at the time but lb's temple is far as shit and is isolated as hell.
Speaker 1:It was located deep inside the Gansu Tibet Autonomous Prefecture, as I mentioned before.
Speaker 1:That is a mountainous region stuck right in between Sichuan Province and Tibet capital city.
Speaker 1:They split it up after Tibet integrated with China capital city. They split it up after Tibet integrated with China. But anyways, once I got off there was no airport. We just got off on the airport strip. It was, I believe, early May, but the airport was already covered in snow. He sent his older brother to come pick me up. The dude spoke no English and drove a broken down Toyota Highlander that looked like it's been through a war. Nothing worked on that car, except what was necessary. There was no AC, no stereo, nothing. But he was a lifesaver. As soon as I saw him, he smiled, greeted me, gave me a hada, which is kind of like a silk quilt that you put over your neck it's the way Tibetans greet you. You've probably seen it all over the place and he handed me a small oxygen bottle and smiled. He knew that I probably would be dizzy by now or at least LB knew and told him to bring one for me.
Speaker 1:The plane ride there wasn't long, including layover, maybe eight hours or so. From Chengdu to Kangding it was like 45 minutes. It was barely even a ride. But it was scary as hell because our plane was not a jet, it had propellers, so flying into thin air it was getting really wobbly. When it landed it scared the shit out of me. But the drive, on the other hand, wasn't so pleasant. There was barely any cement roads after we got out of Kangding, maybe the first hour or so. So for the next 15-16 hours we trotted in mostly mud and dirt on the edge of cliffs, but everything around me just looked like paradise. There was nobody in sight. There was nobody in sight, or even a car in sight for hours at a time. I brought a simple duffel bag with me and a big camera. I promised my wife that I would take some great photos and of course I did.
Speaker 1:Along the way, because of the high elevation, you would see four seasons, sometimes all in one day. As you cross the caps of the mountain, it would just be blizzard. When you come down, you would see colorful trees as it fall, and when you make your way around the other side of the mountain, it would be sunny like summer. It's crazy. It was just beautiful. There was not many tall trees. Everything was kind of short and stumpy, even the grass and the flowers. It's probably due to the high altitude.
Speaker 1:I remember very clearly that we drove over a mountain that was around 5,000 meters high. As we approached that mountaintop, I could already hear my ears buzzing. I was huffing and puffing on the oxygen and it began to blizzard. I saw huge yaks they look like bulls, but they're called yaks Just chilling along the side of the road. They moved terribly slow. I was wondering if they get altitude sickness, just like me, and sometimes I'd be just shitting bricks when the driver was just driving along the edge of a mountain down a single lane, muddy road. We did not have a phone signal and there was nobody around us. For hours I thought to myself what if our car just broke down? Not even dive down the mountain, what if it just broke down? Thank God it didn't, but some of the landscapes I passed really took my breath away. Thank God it didn't, but some of the landscapes I passed really took my breath away.
Speaker 1:I couldn't stop taking pictures of everything I saw, and sometimes I would pass by this mountain and it would be the only mountain, for instance, not covered in snow, and then I would see little holes inside the mountain. Later on I would find out that there would be people meditating in those holes for years at a time. It's ridiculous, and one of these times that I visited, one of my buddies actually climbed up. It took him maybe 45 minutes to climb up into the hole and he did see a female monk inside the hole meditating and she gave him some spiritual little pills and he came down all happy. So it was pretty cool. I never wanted to climb it, nor do I have the urge now, but you will see that a lot when you're driving just along the road.
