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
S1E10 - China's Heaven & Hell: Mystic Tibet - Part 3/5
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Hidden away in the remote Tibetan highlands exists a world vastly different from our own - one where polyandry (the practice of one woman marrying multiple brothers) makes practical sense, where bathrooms hang precariously off cliffs offering panoramic views, and where sending your youngest son to become a monk is considered a privilege rather than a sacrifice.
My week-long journey from Shanghai to a remote Tibetan monastery stripped me of every comfort I'd come to expect - proper showers, electricity, familiar food, and even oxygen at that dizzying altitude. Sleeping on straw beds in stable-like rooms, I found myself immersed in a culture structured around scarcity. The monks followed strict dietary customs, eating only before noon and subsisting on simple fare like zamba (roasted barley flour mixed like play-doh) and mushroom soup that was, to be frank, utterly disgusting.
What began as anxiety over disconnection gradually transformed into something unexpected - peace. Watching orphaned children playing joyfully, rolling down hills in their robes like little balls, I witnessed a contentment completely divorced from material possessions. Their eyes reflected only purity, while mine surely revealed the fatigue and greed of city life. This Tibetan philosophy of acceptance rather than anxiety followed me even through a harrowing return journey when our car teetered on the edge of a hundred-meter drop into a lake. Despite the danger, I felt strangely calm, as if something was protecting me.
Have you ever experienced a place that fundamentally shifted your perspective? Share your thoughts and join the conversation about finding meaning beyond modern comforts. Sometimes the most profound wisdom emerges from the simplest living.
This is to replace what I said before. So Tibetans place a very high value on women. So women in terms, they could decide who the dad actually is, or whether or not, to tell, but most women there abide by the rules that they don't share. The older one would always be called dad, younger one would be called uncle. Now, something else that's interesting is how would you know once the older brother is in there? Well, the practice would be that, whether it's the younger one in there or the older one in there, they would put their hat on the doorknob. That would be their signal. I'll give you a second to let that sink in.
Speaker 1:I know this is all a bit crazy, but this polyandry is not only limited to Tibetan culture. Actually, they practice it in countries in Africa and also Southeast Asia, for instance, the Manchurians. More so, the nomadic tribes or heritages with less resources need to make use of whatever they have. Does that make sense? The Mongolians, the Manchurians, the Han, all the distant people that were nomads, like the Tibetans, shared that, and not only that. There was also a system, a weird system, of what you would call present-day slavery. I'm curious, though. For the listeners here, I'd like to maybe invite you to leave what you think in the comments. Do you think you would be able to accept that marrying two brothers, or would you be able to marry one wife with your brother? Let me know in the comments.
Speaker 1:I spent roughly a week there when I first went, not being able to shower or eat a proper meal and be dizzy all the time from the altitude. It was quite demoralizing and as I wandered around the temple my mood got better, especially when the sun came out and I noticed, of course, like I said before, there's lack of resources everywhere. Candles, flashlights were used, batteries were used, but not electricity as in besides the generator. In LB's room I tried what they had to eat at the temple during dinner time. So the monks they normally only they actually don't eat dinner. They only eat before noon and they don't eat afterwards. They maybe have a little snack here and there and I saw LB drinking a bowl of. He told me it was mushroom soup and I took a sip. It was disgusting. It was just crushed up mushrooms and boiling water. It was gross. It wasn't cooked well and these were mushrooms just picked out in the back and then they gave me something called a zamba.
Speaker 1:I had that for the first time it's roasted barley flour mixed in like play-doh, and it's exactly what it tastes like, too, with a little bit of salt. The good thing is it fills you up and it's easy to carry. So normally the Benz would mush it into a ball and carry it in their sleeves or pocket somewhere, and then, while they're on their journey, they would eat some. I knew what I was getting myself into beforehand, so I brought MREs meals ready to eat. Those are military packed foods, pre-packed military food, high calories. And they looked like the young monks were amazed when I started heating up the food with a heat pack. So there was a heat pack. You put some water in, you drop the food in there, it heats it up. And they were also, like I said, interested in technology. They play with my phone, they play with my camera. It was pretty cool, even though we couldn't speak the same language. Only LB and another monk could speak Chinese. Everybody else could not understand what I was saying.
Speaker 1:I remember once I woke up and I wanted to go back to sleep, but the light was turned on. It was the light bulb hanging from the ceiling of my room while I slept on literally straws and a monk walked in. A young monk who had my camera and I asked him. I was like, can you turn off the light? I didn't even know how to say it, I was just using my hands and gesturing to him turn off the light. He understood there was no switch. He just walked up and unscrewed the light bulb, smiled at me and walked out. It was not something I was used to and, like I said before, I slept in like a stable. It was some wood padding on the sides and just straw, dry grass, like a bed of dry grass, with the most amazing view. If you looked out, it was on a window. It was kind of like a crack in the wall. You could just see mountainous regions as far as the eye can see. Absolutely amazing.
Speaker 1:And let me tell you, the bathroom was, you would expect me to say, disgusting, but it's actually not. What they do is, of course, they dig natural bathrooms. They dig holes and once it fills up, you cover it up and you move to a different spot. Everybody knows that. But one spot in particular got my attention. I still remember it to this day Now.
Speaker 1:Imagine the side of a cliff, a couple hundred meter drop. You cannot see what's been the lead, what's under, like what is on the bottom of that cliff? Okay, let's just say and you see, and then you take a bunch of logs okay tree logs and you jam it on the side of the mountain right, you jam on the side of the hill, forming a like kind of like a bridge right that extends further past. So I hope I'm making sense. In other words, it's creating like a little scenic spot out past the cliff and that is where you shit. If I remember correctly, there were four to five logs jammed in on the side. There was some plastic covering along the side so people couldn't see you. But when I walked in there, the four or five logs were placed evenly, with space in the middle. That's where your shit and your piss went.
Speaker 1:It was insane and as I sat there I was thinking, not holy shit, I hope I don't fall. I was hoping my phone doesn't fall. But as I was squatting there taking my shit, of course I looked down and then I looked up. It was just a panorama view of just beauty. I just squatted there just taking a shit, enjoying the view, and that was probably the best view obviously any man could hope for while taking a shit. But it was just so different from the city life that I became so accustomed to Living in Shanghai. This was unheard of. I didn't even know a place like this existed until I got there in Shanghai. This was unheard of. I didn't even know a place like this existed until I got there. I was a bit anxious for the first day or two because my phone had no signal and there was nothing to do there. Nobody spoke Chinese or English and I was there alone with nothing to do except sit, wander around, pray with the monks and meditate. And for the first time in my life, I think, it gave me some peace of mind.
Speaker 1:And on a sunny weekend LB brought me out to the mountaintop on a different side of the mountain to enjoy the weather. It was beautiful that day, it was sunny, and he brought out a bunch of candy and snacks. I saw the orphans all playing together. All at once they climbed on top of the hill and then they started rolling down like little balls. It was really cool. And to see who's faster, they just tuck themselves in and just roll down the mountain. And all these monks had their robes on and they're, and it was really cute how they wrapped it around themselves and they all look the same. Not only did 100 or so orphans stay in this temple, but LPO also had other temples elsewhere that had even more orphans. Like I said before, parents who were sick couldn't afford it or check this out.
Speaker 1:The youngest in the family normally would end up as a monk. So if you had three kids, the youngest boy would end up as a monk. So if you had three kids, the youngest boy would end up as a monk. And this is not a bad thing in Tibet. So in Chinese culture, for instance, or even any Asian culture, if your son comes up to you one day but hey dad, I think I'm going to be a monk, hey mom, I'm going to be a monk, you probably would not take that very well, but in Tibet it's a privilege, and so the youngest one, because of the scarce resources, they would go off and become monks themselves. They typically stayed at the temple, regardless of how old they are when they came in. They would stay there until they're 18. And at that point they can choose whether or not to become a monk for the rest of their lives or to go out into society, and I heard most of them, if not 90% of them, end up staying and remaining as a monk. And I was amazed at just how people just drop their kids off there. And I guess just how we don't understand practicing polyandry. And I guess just how we don't understand practicing polyandry, we will never understand why it's such an honor to have your kid become a monk.
Speaker 1:And from a distance I noticed this girl because she was wearing all white, very noticeable under the sun. She was carrying something very heavy on her back. Her back was slouched over and I walked down to give her a hand. I had nothing else better to do. She was a very pretty young Tibetan lady and it was then I noticed that she only had one arm. Life Buddha told me later that her arm had an infection when she was young and they had to amputate the entire arm due to the lack of medical attention there.
Speaker 1:They all said eyes are the windows to one's soul and that is absolutely true. Coming from the bustling city, all I saw in their eyes were purity and I bet all they saw in mine was just greed, tiredness, fatigue, and for them they didn't seem like they had a care in the world. I admire that, just like on the side of the roads when your car breaks down. These guys just sit there, because they know panicking or being anxious about it would not help. There's one around. Might as well enjoy yourself, and that's the kind of creed that the tibetans live by.
Speaker 1:And the car ride back was a little bit scary too, because because um it was raining pretty hard.
Speaker 1:There were landslides everywhere, and at one, one of our wheels fell into this deep mud mud like pool, and both of our wheels. The entire car just tilted to one side, and I was on that side. The driver told me to scoot on the other side so the car would balance out while he tried to get the car out, and beneath me was like a hundred meter drop into a lake. It was frightening as hell, and if this was anywhere else I think I would have panicked, but for some reason I just wasn't worried, and even if the car did fall over, I just felt something was protecting me. I don't know. It was probably because I was too tired or I was lacking oxygen a lot at that time. Deep down inside, though, I knew I wanted to come back, I wanted to explore, and I wanted to bring these stories back to my family, because this time I went alone and it wouldn't be too long until I stepped foot back into bed again.
