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
S1E13 - Season Finale - The Longest Journey...
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A road where distance is measured in bodies, not miles. That’s where I found myself after a rough fight at home sent me back to my mentor’s monastery on the Sichuan–Tibet border. When a group of villagers arrived in leather aprons and battered knee pads to ask for a blessing, I learned they were headed for Jokhang in Lhasa—the temple that holds a young Buddha statue tied to Princess Wencheng and the moment Buddhism took root on the plateau. I joined them for a week and discovered how devotion looks when it’s repeated thousands of times on stone and dust.
We dig into why Jokhang matters, the legend behind the statue, and how a Tang dynasty princess helped change Tibet’s spiritual course. Then we get practical and visceral: what a full-body prostration actually is, why pilgrims protect their hands and knees, and how each movement honors body, speech, and mind. I walk through the math of progress at altitude, the reality of cold nights and yak-dung fires, and the humble power of tsampa that keeps you moving when everything aches. Along the way, older pilgrims glide past as I lag and learn, and boredom turns into a doorway to flow.
This is a story about faith, grit, and the strange peace that comes from doing one simple thing again and again. If you’ve ever tried to build a practice—training, meditation, writing, or just being a better partner—there’s a lesson here: shrink the step, trust the rule, and keep going. Come for the history of Tibetan Buddhism, the Jokhang temple, and Princess Wencheng; stay for an honest look at what happens when you lay your whole body on the road to move a few feet forward. If the journey resonates, subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a review—what practice are you trying to keep, and what’s your six feet today?
Yo, what's up everyone? Welcome back to Asian Uncle, and I'm your host, Uncle Wang. So I want to close out the season because it's been quite long. I think 13 or 14 episodes already. So I want to close out with this unique experience that I had. Honestly, I didn't remember this experience until just two days ago. Perhaps I've seen it so many times on my trips there that it didn't I didn't think it was anything weird. But then when I think about it, you know how, for instance, Americans, Europeans, uh, we go to church every Sunday, and that's our commitment. And Tibetans, on the other hand, have a very different commitment. Most of them have traveled or plan to travel this route at least once in their life. And you'll soon learn that it is the longest route for anyone to take, not only Tibetans. And I was fortunate enough to be a part of this journey for a week. And let me tell you, it was quite the experience. But before we start, I want to take a little bit of time to wish you and your family a happy Thanksgiving. I realized this episode launches a week before. Enjoy the turkey, enjoy the time off. And so here it goes. It's kind of weird talking about family because it's one of the reasons why I experienced this journey in the first place. It was one summer, I believe, because of stress, uh, I was constantly drinking out on business ventures that I kind of neglected the family a bit. And so I got into an argument with my wife. And the argument was turned pretty sour. And so I was pretty depressed and I wanted to leave. So I went to Tibet. I went to my mentor's monastery. I went to LB's monastery, Life Buddha, remember. We'll call him by that nickname because I don't want to keep saying mentor, mentor. So he'll be LB from now on. So I went to his monastery and I stayed there for I think two weeks. And a buddy of mine saw that I was in a bad mood and decided to tag along. The monastery just became a place, like a safe place for me, kind of a sanctuary where as soon as I enter, I forget all the troubles that I have in the world that I'm currently living. And so, like any other morning, I was having breakfast, just chilling with LB, listening to them talk to monks. Um this group of people came in. These villagers. They knocked, and they walked in after LB signaled them. They were dressed a little bit differently than what I was normally used to. And they walked in, they held their hands in prayer with their heads down, body tucked. So the first thing I noticed was this thick leather plate on their chest, kind of like an apron that you cook with, except it was leather. It was thick. Looked like you were going to do some car work or the hands were filthy. And they were all wearing this thick, dirty wrestling knee pad for some reason. So before I had the chance to clarify what was going on, they threw a couple of bucks in front of LB, like just maybe like five, ten RB, and just tossed it, crumbled kind of cash, tossed it in front of him and knelt down. And then immediately LB took out his beads, he closed his eyes, and he shook in his palm, he shook it around in his palm and swalked back in Tibetan. And later I asked what was going on, and he told me that these are people that are making pilgrimages. And whenever they pass by a temple where there's a live Buddha practicing, they would come in first to ask for blessing, and then two to ask if their trip would you know, would it be successful? Would they be okay? Yeah, it's kind of just coming in and and getting your fortune told for a brief second while you're getting blessing. And then so I asked, what for? What kind of pilgrimage? I will look back and said their destination is the Jokhan temple. I was like, What? Because if you recall, the Jokhan temples are located in Lhasa, and that's the capital of Tibet. And before I go into why I was surprised, the reason why they go to this temple specifically is because there stands a statue of Buddha when he was 12, a young statue that looks like Buddha when he was twelve, that was blessed by the Buddha himself. Not only is that significant, but in a historical context, this is also the first time in ancient history that the Chinese Han people first engaged with Tibetans. So back in ancient China, during the Tang dynasty, they were worried about securing their borders. And in ancient Tibet, there was a Tobo dynasty, or Tubo in Chinese. That's the ancient word for actually Tibet. And they all constantly harass the borders of the Tang dynasty. So in order to reach some sort of peace agreement, the emperor decided to marry their princess. It's actually his niece, not his daughter, marry a princess to Tubo. And this princess, very famous, Princess Wen Chen. It is perhaps the first time the Chinese, ancient Chinese and ancient, first had diplomatic contact. And so the Tubo leader asked to marry their princess. Legitimate. But with her, she brought these statues of Buddha. Because back then, Tubo dynasty did not believe in Buddhism yet. They had their own religion. It was called the Bin. It sounds kind of creepy. That's their old form of religion where they worship the supernatural, some demons, um, different deities, different gods. It was kind of like voodoo in Tibet. There was a lot of rituals, a lot of evil things you can actually do too. I've heard a lot of stories. I can share with that with you a little later on. And so besides the statue being blessed by Buddha sitting right in that temple, it also carries special significance where Tibetans decided to bring Buddhism to Tibet. And so they've hired they technology they really did hire a spiritual master, believed to be from Afghanistan or Pakistan, to Tibet to teach. And that's where Tibetan Buddhism originated from. And that's where everything you've been hearing or seeing, all that mystic stuff, that's where it derived from. This visit, this temple, this statue. So as a result, they also worship the Princess Wen Chang. I've seen many of her statues around Tibet. And she had to put herself forward on this great task. Because if most of you don't understand, life was hard in ancient Tibet. Life is hard in Tibet now. Can you imagine a thousand something years ago how life was there? And to be a princess in the Tang dynasty at the height of Chinese rule, to be a princess there and then to travel 2,000 miles to the land of the barbarians to be married to the leader of what was seen to the Chinese as barbarians, nomads, outsiders. And that's the fate of most princesses in China. They were sacrificed politically to keep the border safe. But she had a very significant impact on what she did. Tibet honestly flourished afterwards. They invented their own form of writing and language, their own religion, culture, and society eventually formed around that. So now I finally know that these Tibetans, because of their faith, they need to visit the Jokan temple once in their life. But not only do they need to visit there, they need to walk there. And it's not even walking, to be honest, it's doing burpees all the way to Lhasa, modified burpees. Let me explain to you a little bit. So you have a visualization. The picture you see on this episode is this lady on the road holding her hands up above her head. Okay, so that's the first thing you do. You hold your hand in prayer, you put it above your head, and then you place the hand close to your chin, and then last time, the third time, to your chest. This means your body, your speech, and your mind. It's kind of like a uh a ritual where you cleanse those aspects. And then afterwards, you kneel down and you lie flat on the ground with your hands pointed straight forward and your forehead hitting the ground if necessary. Not hitting it, but placed gently. So technically, your entire body has to be flat, and you get back up, you walk to where your handprint was, and you do it all over again. You get it? So you start from a starting line, you do one to Ben Burpee, we're gonna call it that, and then get back up, walk a couple of steps to where their hand was, and do that, and that's how they move forward. They don't take an extra step past that. Their body needs to lie in the entire track that they travel from their hometown to the Jokan temple in Lhasa, Tibet. And so this kind of kneeling kowtau method or Tibetan burpee is has significant impact in your society. You will constantly see them do it. Because, well, I'm not going to go into too much detail of why they're doing it, because the spiritual master said so, of course. But it's part of their faith system where everyone, besides going to Talasa, visiting this temple once in their lifetime, everyone of the Tibetan Buddhist faith should complete a hundred thousand of these, at least in their lifetime. So I've done it. It took me shit, it took me 12 years, on and off, 12 years. It took both of my kids four. They woke up every morning, did 100 a day. It would take you roughly three years. So it took them four because you know obviously we had vacation, sick days. That was already the fastest we can do it. But we did it at the comfort of our own house in front of like our Buddhist statues. But the Tibetans, they were on the road, exposed. Finally, to put into perspective of how far this is, okay, Elbe's Monastery is located in Xinglong County in Sichuan province. Okay, if I walk the north path, which is slightly longer, by maybe a couple miles, I believe, which is the 317. I think that the south path is called the 318, 317 is the north path. That route from the monastery in Xinglong to Lhasa Tibet is 2,000 kilometers or 1,200 miles roughly. That's the same distance from New York to Florida, or for my European friends, from Paris to Athens, Greece. Okay, not to mention the average elevation across this path is well over 3,000 meters. From one point you'll pass a peak, it's called Chirra Sign or the Trader Mountain in Chinese. That's over 5,000 meters. That's almost two-thirds up Mount Everest. I did, I did take a picture of a yak up there once. He wasn't moving much either. But back then I was in a car. I couldn't imagine what it would be like to walk past it. And my ears wouldn't stop ringing when I was driving across. I don't want to think what would happen if I really made the trip entire trip with them. That's straight up insane. And it was very intense too to even think about it. I don't even like to hike in America. I don't even like to go on walks. I hate camping too.
unknown:Right?
SPEAKER_00:Pay to be homeless. So this was definitely not my thing. So it just. And while I sat there still surprised, you know, LB told me that his mother had done it not too long ago. He pretty much just mocked me. Because this lady was like 65 at the time. And so what he meant was, I think my mom did it too. Stop being a little bitch. And so LB suggested right after that I should go with them for a week. And that he'll come pick me up after. So he sent his younger brother, also a monk, called him Little Bro. He didn't speak much. Well, actually, he didn't speak any Chinese. He only spoke Tibet. We kind of just did it sign language style. And so I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I knew it was not going to be fun. And I didn't even know where to begin asking questions. I didn't have much time to think. So little bro tapped me on the shoulder and he gave me a bunch of equipment. And for my hands, I had these like wooden clogs with a strap nailed inside where I can hold onto it, and that's where my hands go down. Other people had on leather, like thick leather gloves, all sorts of stuff, whatever you could get your hands on. And I was just wearing my own shoes. They said to tie some cloth on it so it doesn't, you know, it doesn't uh you don't it doesn't get wet as easily, I guess, and put it put a bag over it. Um it's like okay, and also I had the knee pads, I had an apron, it wasn't as that thick, but it was still a good enough apron to keep uh the ground off my clothes, I guess. And there was nothing for my forehead, and they said just don't put your forehead on the street. So he told me to pack some clothes, some some things to clean myself off with if I needed to put it in a book bag or something, the meals or the motorcycles that are following will carry it. And for food. And we'll get to that in a sec. So having said that I can't pass the length of my hand extension, I have to walk up right afterwards. Given that I did 2,000 the first day, I did 1500 next, and then a thousand, and then just around 500 the rest of the days. And you had no idea how much pain it was after day one. These burpees are for old people, it looks like it's for old people, but if you do thousands of them a day, it hurt. I was hungry, I felt a little burnt out, and I felt every single muscle in my body. Blisters didn't form until day three. I was very lucky. But I think I should have paced myself. I uh lagged behind everybody by day three. Actually, I think I lagged behind everybody on day two. Yeah, they I think they went around 3,000. Um, they did 3,000 um burpees a day. Yeah, and I only did 2,000 the first day. I think I probably lost them on the first day, yeah. And it was embarrassing because I was probably the youngest one. I was in good shape, or I thought I was. I didn't get any altitude sickness either. So I didn't know. It was just too mentally it was more mentally frustrating than it was physical. We slept out in the open at nights, except for one night, uh, because it was raining. And it was cold as fuck. And so Little Bro brought me somewhere, this this where a local Tibetan was living, like this hut. He spoke to him a bit, and he let us share his fireplace. Oh, and a little about a bit about fireplace in Tibet. To keep that running, they don't use only wood. Like you can't just be chopping wood to keep that fire running, especially when it's cold. So what they do is they use uh dried yak shit. Like they even use that to paste the house to avoid humidity or to, I don't know, I guess to strengthen it. But there was it didn't smell. It was just it was really clean, to be honest, and they put that inside the fire along with the wood and it helped it burn a lot longer. So, in terms of food, we had zamba. It was like what I described before, it was flour dough, plus barley, and some other stuff. It was gross. It was chewing, it was kind of like chewing on play-doh with sesame seeds inside. That's exactly what it tastes like. It didn't taste like anything. But if you ate enough of it, it does fill you up. It's easy to carry. You could just mold it and stuff it anywhere. You could even bring the powder and just mix it yourself while you're on the road. So that was our main source of food. And for some reason, it kept me going. I only did when I went to the hut, he also gave me a bowl of kind of I think it was crushed cauliflower. I killed it, I destroyed it. I was so hungry by that day, and I was wet too. After I dried my clothes, I just passed out. Uh next morning, you know, I just kept going. Like that trip really, this just short voids really humbled me. I started losing my mind. I didn't understand their language. No, nobody was talking. Mostly they were just praying to themselves, mumbling some things. And so I started joining them. I started, you know, doing some chanting, some mumbling. And when I got bored, it just got even worse after that. Extreme boredom, where you just are so in tune to what you're doing at the moment. As irrelevant as you may think it is, you're so focused at the moment that you reach a state of flow. That's all you're thinking about. Your mind, body, soul all focused on this one burpee that you're doing. And I remember vividly at one point that the scene from Forrest Gump when he ran across America, when he said he had a lot of time to think. You know, no phone, nothing. Just me, my movement, and the never-ending role you see ahead. So, anyways, if I kept my pace on day one, okay, let's just say I did 1800 burpees a day. I kept that pace every single day. And I'm under six foot with my arms extended, let's just say six foot with my arms extended. Okay, that would equal a little bit over three kilometers or almost two miles per day. So if I kept up that pace, I would make it to Lhasa in around two years. But most people make it in the fastest. I've heard LP told me from their monastery, they made it in nine months. And a week passed. It passed by rather quick. The first day or two, it was so hard to endure. But when you reach that flow, you know, you feel like you're floating. It didn't feel that horrible anymore. And so I finally reached my destination on day seven. I didn't shower. Um, I didn't stink either. Not because I'm Asian or I have deodorant or not, it was just maybe something in the air, just like the cow shit. If you put that shit down here, it'll probably stink. But there, for some reason, the air will just circulate so well. You know, it's hard to really stink or you smell the stench unless you're like nose up to it. And if you had to go, you just shat or pissed in the bushes, or men and women. The ladies would go down further into the bushes or have a drape covering them. And so I saw LB pull up in his broken down car, once again smiling, mocking. Okay, because the truth is I just made it down the mountain that the monastery was on. I was barely 10 kilometers out. And the hut that I stayed at that I mentioned before, that was a relative of Lai Buddha. I thought the trip was so long, but it was so it was embarrassing. I just made it down the mountain barely. I spent at least two days recovering. Uh, blisses all over my foot, and I knew they were mocking me too. I couldn't understand what they were saying, but I knew they were talking about me. And so that was quite the experience I wanted to share with you. And if you ever get the chance to travel to Tibet and you see people like that on the streets, you'll know why. It was very amazing to see. And I don't know if I have that kind of determination to make it all the way there for the monastery. Uh that's just too much. But maybe. Maybe one day I, if this podcast blows up, I'll podcast my way, my two years, my two year journey to Lhasa. That'd be pretty cool, right? But, anyways, this episode's been long enough. Thank you for uh tuning in. And again, happy Thanksgiving. I'll see you on the next episode. Peace.
