Cut Your Hair, Comrade!
Guardians at The Gate. Memories of Western "China" and the Grand Opening of Starbucks.
Nearly a decade had passed since I had left China. The year I spent living there teaching english on the border of Tibet had been one one of the most influential years of my life. It set in motion the course of everything that followed, eventually finding me uprooting entirely from my life in Colorado to resettle in Asia permanently. China was just barely opening to foreigners at the time, but I managed to acquire a special teaching visa. The changes occurring within China then, both culturally as well as infrastructurally were happening at breakneck speed. It was clear I was witnessing the end of an era. What was being built in its place, though still uncertain was rapidly coming into view.
It was initially an interest in Buddhism that brought me to China. But as chance would have it, I befriended some adventurous university students from Beijing while attending the grand opening of one of Chinas first Starbucks, in Chongqing, who invited me to join them on a journey into Tibet and Xinjiang. Soon, my interest in eastern spirituality took the backseat as a horrifying encounter with brute authoritarianism ignited a full-time interest in human rights works. The terrors that were being inflicted on the Uyghur people of Xinjiang as well as to the Tibetans was unthinkable. I quickly began learning as much as I could about these amazing people, their history, all that was occurring to them regarding cultural assimilation, land grabs, etc.
I naively sent many emails to friends around the world during this time, telling them what I was witnessing firsthand and hearing from people I met along the way. I shared stories of families being murdered by the Chinese military for no reason beyond the fact that they refused to stop being who they were, accounts of whole villages being flooded for the purpose of building massive dams and/or other large scale industrial projects, etc. As the Olympics were soon to be hosted by China, there was a small window of relative freedom to speak freely. However, those freedoms did not last long. Soon, my email account was taken down. I was unable to access it for several weeks. I quickly learned of Chinese censorship and how no one is allowed to share what I was sharing. Once I was allowed access again to my account, I quickly began emailing stories again, but this time I wrote in a cryptic voice that never actually mentioned certain words like Tib*t, Xi@jiang or, god forbid, His H0liness The 14th Dal@i Lama.
Fast forward to 2018. I was living in Thailand, had traded in my teacher hat for one made of straw. I wanted to be a socially engaged Buddhist, an advocate for peace and democracy, and to live a self sufficient life tied to the land. All of this was initially inspired by my time in China. As fate would have it, I was offered a job taking university students to China to learn about its fascinating language, history, land, people, etc. The timing of the job offered was perfectly situated between major farming seasons, so I was free to go. I was thrilled at the chance to return to the place that had played such a huge role in who I had become. I only needed to acquire a visa and soon I would be heading back to China to finally see with my own eyes the results of all the changes I had witnessed the start of while there a decade earlier.
I went to the Chinese Embassy in Chiang Mai, filled out all the necessary documents, paid the required fees, offered all else required of me and queued up. As I waited, I reflected over how extreme China had become in recent years towards anyone not falling in line with Beijing’s version of how China should be defined. I remembered the terrible things I myself had witnessed there years earlier and recalled too the stories several of my Chinese/Tibetan friends had recently shared with me of how they themselves had come into genuine conflict over certain attempts to communicate freely. No one had access to Facebook, Instagram, etc and frightening accounts of “social credit” made me wonder if I too was being monitored all these years? I suddenly felt cold.
Eventually I was called to the counter where several rather serious looking personnel spoke mandarin rapidly with each other, looking grim as they leafed through professional looking files. They proceeded to ask me what my intentions were for going to China, if I had ever been before, where I intended to go, etc. A rush of paranoia was gushing over me. I was certain they were on to me, that they knew all about the advocating I had done internationally for a free Tibet, for a free Xinjiang... for a free China. My hands got sweaty. I was terribly nervous. I didn’t know what to say, so I said very little. They asked me to sit down.
Those minutes spent waiting for them to call me back were unbearable. Finally, someone called my name over the intercom to request I return to the appropriate counter to continue my interview. I did my best to remain calm. They pointed at my passport I.D. and then pointed at me. “This person in the picture here has short hair. You do not. We cannot give you a visa into China because you are not this person.” I tried to prove to them that it was in fact me, which it indeed was, that I had since grown my hair out, but it was all in vain. My request for a visa was denied.
That afternoon I went into a barbershop and had my hair cut for the first time since I had lived in China. The following day I reapplied for a visa and was approved, no questions asked.
Do yourself a favor and check out “Concrete Avalanche” for excellent reviews on new music coming out of China. (link below)
