mountain pics

well ... here they are. pretty white boxes for you to click on. i guess they will take you to the pics on my worthless picasa album. if anyone has a clue why this is, holla.

river lake people

i have been trying to put a few pictures of my trip into the mountains online but they always end up sideways. i will be consulting my computer geek homeboys soon. i was able to sleep at my home a good two nights before i packed my bags for another move, this time south to the mountains of Yunnan. i will meet my man Sammy B there and we will do the run from Kunming up through the Naxi and Bai areas of northern Yunnan to the Yi and Tibetan areas of southern Sichuan. I hope to roll through Muli Gorge and re-visit Lugu Lake. I have friends and unfinished business there. the trip should end in Hanyuan, where i will spend spring festival with my gong fu family. my master looks to have landed the job i set up for him in Beijing with a security firm. It will be a proud and relieving moment for me and my master when he does get the job. he will be making the kind of money he needs and this job will inevitably lead to other great opportunities.

in Jiu Zhai Gou i met a man whose wife is from my hometown in Germany (frankfurt) and she is the head of the ZDF tv station here. That station does long documentary spots and such for the people back home. I pitched the story of my gong fu family to them -- the 100 year old yi jing masters, the grandmaster and his struggles during the cultural revolution, my master and his modern day struggles in a society with little need for true gong fu men and his eventual redemption in the Olympics. I think they are going to do it. if so, my family in germany will trip. they will get to see it. cross your fingers for me ya'll. the text version of this story -- or a small part of it, will be running in guernica later this month. will holler when it does.

now i suppose i should let you know what a river lake person is. he has a bag slung across his shoulder. he has herbs in one pocket and charms in the other. he wanders with no thought of whether or not he will arrive, or indeed where he will arrive at. he can take care of himself anywhere, anytime. in his bag is a change of clothes and most likely a book or three. he has a woman or several, but they are far away and with others. he only knows what its like to love them when he passes through. it might be like this forever and he knows it. a true river lake person knows gong fu, in china. but my entire tribe is made up of hunters and gatherers, jewel dealers and vagabonds, pirates and hobos. i am a proud member of a river lake tribe that spans the globe, undying. women can also be river lake people, but in my experience, they would rather make us into earth and wood.

"flower man loves earth girl"

in the mountains

don' worry i will add pics in a bit.

i arrived from amsterdam sunday afternoon and went to my man tenzin's house and eased back with him and his woman aliya. i booked a flight the next day for jiu zhai gou, as there was an ecotourism forum going on and my friend andrew is in charge of some scientific and other consulting. including bringing foreigners to any forum that may be organized. about ten of us arrived. the flight from chengdu to jiu zhai gou is one of the hairiest flights i know of. jiu zhai gou is in the sichuan himalayas, the plane hovers 100 or so meters above jagged peaks and is jolted by the winds careening off off valleys. the sky is absolutely clear, so you can see imminent death as it reaches up for you. the turbulence is amazing. our flight was the only one that was able to land on monday, six other flights returned to chengdu to wait for the winds to subside.

the forum itself was a joke, as these things tend to be. its the informal back hallway sessions that truly hold meaning for the development of sustainable ecotourism here. we went on several hikes and i am about to go on one now.

one note: miss russia was in attendance. a beautiful brunette with cold russian features warmed only by her eyes, the only thing about her that cannot be painted or covered in perfume. the first morning, her minders knocked a thousand times on her door, pounding and calling her name -- elena -- until she finally rose and told them to go away. she had arrived at 4am after taking a bus. her flight was delayed indefinitely. i saw her several times, including at the opening ceremonies in front of an ice waterfall. as with many such beautiful women, followed by cameras and attendants, her face held a firm closed off smile. while her eyes searched anxiously and almost desperately for a someone to talk to. whenever i saw her walking down the hall, trailing perfume and scuttling underlings, i smiled and said hello as warmly and as nonchalantly as possible. i wanted her to know that she was a person first, gorgeous sex symbol distant second. she appreciated it. it was an amazing piece of acting on my part. i am after all a man and russian beauty is extremely difficult to ignore. when she left, i took a picture with her and she took my email address and told me she would send it. we shall see.

mountains can only be fathomed when you hike them.