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
S1E12 - China's Heaven & Hell: Mystic Tibet - Part 5/5
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Death rituals reveal profound truths about a culture's deepest beliefs. My journey to witness a Tibetan sky burial transformed my understanding of mortality, compassion, and spiritual connection.
The day began innocently with breakfast at a Buddhist academy before my guide (a Tibetan spiritual teacher I call LB) drove me to a remote mountain burial site. What awaited shocked me to my core – an ancient funeral practice where human remains become offerings to vultures. The site itself foreshadowed the experience, with fierce deities and skull-adorned structures creating an atmosphere of sacred intensity rather than peaceful repose.
Few outsiders get to witness what followed. A master ritualist began with haunting chants that vibrated through my entire body. Then, methodically and with practiced precision, he dismembered a young woman's body into exactly 108 pieces. I fought waves of nausea as blood splattered against my protective raincoat. Most astonishing were the vultures – hundreds circling overhead, yet waiting with uncanny discipline until the priest signaled them to descend. Within minutes, they devoured everything but teeth and nails, completing what Tibetans view as the deceased's final act of compassion – giving one's body to feed other creatures.
Beyond the visceral impact, this experience opened profound spiritual discussions with my guide. He explained how Tibetan Buddhists use meditation on corpses to overcome attachment and physical desire. More personally, LB revealed we had known each other in past lives, though our ages differed then. We apparently died around the same time, returning in this life as contemporaries – a mysterious connection that continues to unfold. If you've ever questioned conventional funeral practices or wondered about deeper spiritual truths, this journey offers a perspective that will challenge everything you thought you knew about life's final transition.
Early next morning we had our breakfast in their food hall. It was pretty cool, all vegetarian, of course. Afterwards I made like 20 circles around that structure and the LB said let's jump in the car and go somewhere. And, like I said before, we went to a burial site. It was a 20-minute drive and it was around the backside of the mountain that we were on. It was a deserted mountain range on the backside of a mountain and if you Google Langrongar Buddhist Academy or Sky Burial, you'd find horrifying pictures of skull-built structures and statues of deities all around that burial site. It was under construction when I went, but I did go a couple of times. I actually have some photos, maybe I'll upload one and these deities all had angry faces on.
Speaker 1:It didn't look like a pleasant place. That place literally looked like it was there to scare you. It looked like a haunted place you would see at an amusement park. That was the entrance to the burial site and the burial site was a little further away, maybe 500 meters or half a mile or so down a path. I was very lucky. Like I said before, nowadays they clear off the path with red cloth. You're not allowed to walk further, so you would have to view the burial from very far away, so you wouldn't see anything that was actually worth seeing other than the chanting and the ceremony. That's because a bunch of stupid-ass tourists decided it would be nice to take pictures of deceased bodies being buried and post them up on social media, and what you're about to hear next you'll know why these things you should not be posting. Right, there would be what we call a master ritualist, and in slang we kind of call him the master, the master butcher. He will start by sitting cross legged, reciting scriptures with the deepest voice you can imagine. It was skull penetrating and vibrated your very organs. They must have practiced this a lot. There's that tone. It was just so relaxing and soothing. The chanting lasted a lot longer than I expected, maybe 30 minutes to 45 minutes. My wife and I were kind of getting a little restless.
Speaker 1:We woke up early. The sun was blazing in the back of my head, and I asked LB at the time if I could walk up further into the platform and see the actual body, and he nodded, and so, without much hesitation, I started walking up to see the body. My wife handed me a face mask and I told her I didn't need one, a face mask and I told her I didn't need one. I really regretted it because my male ego thing kicked in, and immediately when I made my, when my head peeped through that little ledge, a wave of warm wind brought with it the smell of rotting flesh. It was disgusting. It broke me down. I turned around and I just vomited. I puked my brains out. It was awful. Everybody stood there laughing, including LB. Once I recovered, maybe 30 seconds later, brought myself together, I started walking up and there in front of me I saw a body, the body of a young woman. It was cold, it was rotted, completely dead, laying on the grassland Naked. I could see hundreds of vultures Circling on the hilltop, but none came down Yet.
Speaker 1:Then the ritual began the high monk, the butcher, needed to dice up the body into 108 pieces before the vultures were allowed to start their feasts. I was given a disposable raincoat, and this time I gladly accepted it. I was so stupid, not taking the face mask and I was literally trying to hold in my second round of pu it. I was so stupid not taking the face mask and I was literally trying to hold in my second round of puke. I have a very weak stomach, especially for this stuff. The purpose of the raincoat was not because it was raining. Like I mentioned before, the sun was beaming down on my head. It was to prevent the blood from being splashed on you Once the high priest started hacking away with his sharpened knife.
Speaker 1:It wasn't a knife, sorry, it was like a machete. It was a huge knife. When he was hacking down the body, a part of the body the face, I presume flew onto my raincoat. It stuck on there and I puked again. So there it is.
Speaker 1:The high priest knew exactly what he was doing. Oh my god, he was just like an experienced butcher. He was Seattle, like a Chinese market. He knew exactly where to slice and how to butcher. You see out like a Chinese market. He knew exactly where to slice and how to cut it the most efficient way. It's fucking amazing, I tell you. Well, not really, but it was just so unseen before, unheard of, and I was there right in front witnessing this. It maybe took him less than 10 minutes to cut up the body. You could not recognize it anymore. You could see parts of the hair, the foot, the hand, and that's about it. That's pretty much all you could recognize.
Speaker 1:And after we were signaled, it wasn't many of us obviously to take a couple of steps back, and we did. By then the vultures had already landed on the hilltop not too far from us and if I hadn't known any better, I think the vultures were home-trained. They understood every instruction, every word said by the priest. I shit you not. They didn't dare to move or step over a certain line until the priest was finished with his chanting. And the chanting continued for another 10-15 minutes and the vultures were still patiently waiting, like more patient than us spectators, especially me. Hundreds of vultures Again. Never seen anything like this in my entire life.
Speaker 1:And once the chanting stopped, the high priest stood up, waved at the vultures and almost instantly the vultures pounced on the corpse and devoured everything within a minute, eating the bone with it, every last piece. You couldn't even see much of it because they were fighting. Dust and foul odor just filled the entire air. Everything was gone within minutes. Nothing left, Just some teeth, nails, the circle of life. You know LB would tell me later that it's the last passage. Give your body to feed other animals, your final deed of compassion. I can respect that, and the Tibetans also believe that the vultures are symbols or avatars of enlightened deities. Eating your body was a symbol of being blessed. They made a connection with you and a probable reason as to why the vultures behaved so well. In a matter of minutes, these vultures mysteriously ended back on the hilltop and disappeared. There was only a few flying around the sky. They were gone.
Speaker 1:I had so many questions in my mind that night it was hard for me to sleep, so I did make more circles around that structure. I found myself talking LB. It was still hard for me to absorb what I just saw. And it was still hard for me to absorb what I just saw a young lady's body just being hacked up and eaten by vultures. And of course, lb was always patient and willing to answer all of my stupid questions. But what was interesting was that night he mentioned to me about how to train yourself to give up lust and to not be a pervert. It's to meditate while you're staring at the corpse of a young woman, for instance, witness her dead body being cut into pieces and devoured by animals. That lust that you cling on to is nothing but a pile of dirty flesh.
Speaker 1:I learned so much from traveling there, from talking to live Buddha, even though sometimes it didn't make sense yet. Nonetheless I felt there were answers. I should have been searching for them a long time ago. I felt a special bond with that place, as if I've been there before. The structures look familiar, some of the chanting, some people look familiar and, oddly enough, lb and I, I felt we were close. But he never say too much or go into a lot in depth about the supernatural or when I talk about past lives or things of that nature. Perhaps I wasn't ready to know yet. Of course, later on he would tell me.
Speaker 1:But one time it was very interesting because it was right after this trip that I invited LB back to China, back mainland, to relax, because we couldn't always be there. And this time we were in Yunnan, under a pristine lake. It was beautiful. The moon just reflected off the lake. It was just lovely Standing there with LB.
Speaker 1:I asked him the stupidest question. I said did we know each other, our past lives? He nodded to me. He said of course. Why do you think we met again? I said you're right, that's a stupid question. I asked him again what were we friends? You're right, that's a stupid question.
Speaker 1:I asked him again what were we friends? He said again, of course, but he said I was a lot younger than you. So I couldn't help but keep asking him was I a lot different in my past life? Lb took a step back. He had some jokes too. He wasn't always serious, actually, he was not much serious than I am and he looked at me, sized me up and said you are taller, and it just made the atmosphere feel more relaxed. And he said that last life he was a lot older than me, maybe by 30, 40 years, but apparently we died roughly around the same time. So this life we're around the same age. But that's a topic for a different time, because I couldn't help myself but be attracted to the science behind what LB would preach to me later on.
