On June 15, I embarked on a remarkable and memorable trip deep into the heart of China, returning to Shanghai on July 3. This was two different trips rolled up into one grand adventure. The first was a survey tour 访学班of several historical sites in China and along the ancient Silk Roads. It was sponsored by the Communications University of China (CUC) （中国传媒大学）and by an organization called BriDocs. The second was a tour of the northeast corner of the Tibetan Plateau in the mountainous highlands in Qinghai and Gansu Provinces. This trip was organized by a Beijing company called The Hutong, and a group of local tour guides based in the region led the trip. These two tours coincided, with just a two-day gap in between. Together, they comprised a unique journey into the heart of China, a crossroads where many different peoples and cultures mixed and mingled over millennia, and where Buddhism came into China nearly 2000 years ago and shaped Chinese civilization thereafter. 

A Survey Tour of the Silk Roads

The first leg of this long journey began on the campus of CUC in Beijing. Because I work with documentary films, I was invited to join a group of documentary professionals on this tour. I arrived at the campus Conference Center on the night of the 15th and the following day I met the people who would join me on this journey, who hailed from France, Germany, Taiwan, and Mainland China. 

The trip was led by Mr. He Siliu 何苏六, a teacher at CUC, and supported by six of his students as well as other local guides. There were around 15-20 guests on the tour at any given time. Some joined for the duration of the trip, while others came and went as their schedules permitted. Members of the survey tour included representatives of Disney, National Geographic, and Discovery channel, as well as independent filmmakers whose careers are based in China. Previously, CUC had invited people to join similar tours from abroad, but due to the conditions of the pandemic, our group was limited to people already based in China. 

Dunhuang 敦煌: Crossroads of Civilizations Along the Silk Roads

The Silk Road—or more accurately, Roads, since there were so many passageways--is the romantic name for the network of trading posts and connecting pathways that spanned from China to Inner Asia and even to Rome in ancient times. Most goods were carried by camel caravans from post to post, and slowly they made their way across the vastness of the continent. Together they constituted a network of commodities, cultures, peoples, languages, religions, and ideas exchanged across the Eurasian continent. 

Our first stop on this survey tour was Dunhuang, a desert oasis town in western Gansu Province and a stop along the Silk Roads. It is most famous for the Mogao Grottoes 莫高窟, one of the great treasure troves of culture and religion along the legendary Silk Roads. These are caves built into cliff faces carved over eons by the steady erosion of the river. Inside the caves are stunning frescoes of Buddhist art and iconography, as well as statues and images of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, guardians and so forth. The caves have a long history stretching from the chaotic period that followed the end of the Han dynasty 汉朝in the 200s AD to rise of the Tang Dynasty 唐朝 (c. 600s-900s AD). 

After the fall of the High Tang period, these caves were neglected over a period of centuries, before being rediscovered—and plundered—by foreign adventurers and scholars in the early 1900s. These intrepid adventurers took some of the greatest treasures of the caves back to Europe and elsewhere. At that time, a secret library cave containing around 50,000 scrolls in at least 15 different languages was discovered by a local monk who sold them to scholars. Now many of these precious artifacts rest in libraries and archives in the UK and other places and are now available online in digitized forms. Regarding this removal of the treasures of the caves, there are still some hard feelings on the part of locals, including one doc film director, Mr. Qin 秦, who gave us a long talk about his excellent work documenting the cave art of Dunhuang. 

We spent three days in this remote western part of Gansu Province, taking in the sites. While in the Mogao Grottoes, we were led by an able female tour guide, who took us to eight caves, including two that are normally off limits to tourists. 

In addition to a visit to the Mogao Grottoes, we also took a bus to Yangguan 阳关Pass and Yumenguan 玉门关Pass, two strategic points of entry into China from the Western regions, where we saw the great expanse of the desert lands and the majestic snow-capped mountains of Qinghai province peeking out in the far distance. 

Xi’an 西安: China’s Ancient Capital and Eastern Endpoint of the Silk Roads

After our visit to Dunhuang, we flew on to Xi’an, formerly known as Chang’an 长安, China’s ancient capital city in Shaanxi Province. This was the imperial capital of the great Han and Tang Dynasties, and its high city walls, built for defense purposes in the Ming Dynasty, still stand today. We toured the city and its environs, including the Muslim quarter 回族区, which has become much more developed since I last saw in 15 years ago.

We visited a model community, where we spent some time in the community clinic learning about TCM. We took an evening stroll along the south wall of the city, enjoying the views and the ancient buildings lit up in the evening sky.

The next day, we paid a an obligatory visit to the famed Terracotta Warriors 兵马俑who once supported the rise of the great First Qing Emperor 秦始皇 and took in a museum or two. We were also given a tour of a new sports center in the city and saw how they had cleaned up and organized the river system in Xi’an and its surroundings. And we ate some of the best cuisine the city has to offer.

Yan’an 延安: Wartime Headquarters of the CPC

The following morning, we awoke at 5 am and took a high-speed train for two hours to Yan’an, the northern Shaanxi mountain town that was a CPC stronghold in the wartime era of the late 1930s and 1940s. While there, we toured the famous Baota Pagoda 宝塔山, visited “cave” dwellings (simple rooms dug into the mountainsides) where CPC cadres once lived, and we took in an acrobatic musical show that showcased the struggles of the local people and the CPC’s Red Army during the War of Resistance against the Japanese Empire. In my opinion, the finest part of our tour was our visit to the Lu Xun Academy 鲁艺大学, on the grounds of a former Spanish Catholic church. There we learned how Yan’an became the focal point for many of the leading artists, writers, poets, painters, filmmakers, photographers, and journalists living in China during that era.

Following our tour of Yan’an, we flew back to Beijing, where the following morning we did a debrief of our trip in the CUC Conference Center. Everyone expressed their gratitude and admiration for the organizers of the trip and for all that we had learned along the way. For me, this was a fantastic opportunity not only to see some places I’d never been to before (Dunhuang and Yan’an), and to meet and befriend others in the doc film industry, which will hopefully lead to new projects in the future.

Prayers on the Plateau: The Hutong Tour of Qinghai and Gansu 青海和甘肃省

After our debrief, I departed CUC and made my way over to the Sofitel in the Jianguomen 建国门area. There, I met up with my wife and my daughter Sarah, who had flown there from Shanghai the previous evening. We had lunch at Sanlitun 三里屯, the Embassy district commercial area, which has become much more built up and gentrified (mallified) since I last visited a few years ago. Sarah would join me for my second trip to the Tibetan Plateau in Qinghai and Gansu Provinces. This trip had been recommended to me by a former Hult colleague, who would join us along with 12 other adventurers.

From Xining to Rebgong

The next day we flew to Xining 西宁, the capital of Qinghai Province. After a relaxing evening, we embarked on our journey, first visiting Xining’s remarkable Museum of Tibetan Culture 藏族文化博物馆. The museum features a 600+ meter long Thanka painting made by 400 Tibetan artists over a period of 27 years. This was the crowning glory of many fine exhibitions on display at the museum, which offers a deep dive into Tibetan culture and history and is a must-see in Xining.

The following day, we boarded our tour bus with our able driver and headed down south. We drove over the Yellow River on an impressive suspension bridge as we followed the highway down a river valley and through impressive mountain scenery until we reached the Tibetan town of Rebgong. There, we toured the Rongwo Monastery 隆务寺and learned about Tibetan Buddhism.

A Hike in the Ganjia Grasslands and a tour of the Labrang Monastery

The next day we were on the road again, heading to a mountain valley in the Ganjia Grasslands outside of the famed monastery town of Labrang 拉卜楞寺in Southern Gansu Province 难干. Our tour leader Ben is a hirsute American mountaineer, who has spent the past ten years in this part of the world with his family. Ben took us on a hike into the valley through herds of sheep, and up a rocky pass onto the high plateau. The hike took us about five hours to complete as we climbed around 600 meters to a height of 3800 meters on the grassy plateau and back down to the valley, passing Tibetan nomads as we made our way back to the bus. We completed the hike at around 8 pm and then drove to Labrang, where we stayed in a nice boutique hotel next to the monastery.

The next morning, we had a leisurely time, and after lunch we took a tour of the Labrang Monastery. Jeremiah Jenne, our docent for the trip, pointed out that if Rebgong is a school, Labrang is the university. It is massive, with many temples, schools, debating halls, and palaces laid out between the hills and the river. A monk in red robes led us on the tour, provoking the group with questions about the meaning of life. Though we ducked into the temples, Sarah and I preferred to mosey around outside the temples and streets taking photos and filming the scenery, including the Tibetan pilgrims who were making circuits around all the temples and the grounds of the monastery. After our tour of the monastery, we headed up the hills to an old ruins. There, Jeremiah gave an inspiring talk about the history of the monastery and about Tibet’s complex relationship with China going back to imperial times.

On our final day in Labrang, we visited a local art school run by a Canadian woman named Kristel, who has lived in Labrang for decades and is married to a local man. She runs a five-year program for local students, training them in art practice. Kristel wasn’t there, but she zoomed in from Canada to talk to us about her school (apparently she will be back soon). Then we had a fun time replicating the face of a Buddha, using a model provided by the art students. We departed Labrang after lunch, but not before getting a final dramatic view of the monastery from a hilltop. 

 Langmusi, a Mountain Climb, and a Night on the Plateau

Our next destination was Langmus 郎木寺 another monastic town in lower Gansu. This was a very picturesque river town surrounded by fields filled with yaks and sheep, and beyond them high green mountains with craggy peaks. The following morning, we set off early to climb one of the nearby mountains.

We passed through a temple complex and then into a forest, following a stream bed up the valley, where it opened up into green mountain vistas in all directions. We climbed the valley pass up to a U-shaped crest and then did a switchback up along the high hills and over the ridgeline into another grassland plateau. 

The hills and grasslands were now covered with wildflowers of various colors, shapes and sizes. The entire group made it to the top and we gathered near a chorten with colorful prayer flags flapping in the wind, while a local Tibetan dog joined us for a picnic lunch. Then we headed back down along the ridgeline and made a long slog down a steep hillside and through a field of yaks back to the village road. Altogether it was around an 8-hour hike with once again a 600- meter elevation gain up to around 4000 meters at the top. 

That evening we stayed in tents above the town on the land of a Tibetan nomad family with their yaks and horses. I had brought my guitar along for the entire journey, and that evening and into the morning we did a lot of singing and playing. Gombo, one of our local tour guides, a young man who had graduated from Minorities University in Xining, joined me in playing some songs on guitar, and he played some wonderful Tibetan and Chinese folk songs. Jeremiah also joined in with a few songs of his own. Altogether this day was one of the most memorable of the entire trip.

The following morning, a Tibetan sky burial was held on the hillside just above our tents, and vultures swept into the place where they left the bodies of the departed. I woke up early and watched the nomads take out the yaks and horses from their pens and let them roam free on their lands. Rain and cold slowly gave way to warmth as the sun rose over the mountains.

Sarah rode on horseback up to the place where the sky burial was held and she enjoyed a morning riding around the hills, while we watched the grandmother of the family milk the yaks. The mom of the family then showed us how to make the milk into yogurt. This was a fantastic experience for us all, since it was the first time that we were so close to the Tibetan nomads and their culture.

Returning Home

The trip ended soon after that. We headed to a fairly nondescript town in Gansu called Hezuo 合作, and stayed in a hotel that had seen better days. The following day, we drove 1200 meters of elevation down the plateau to the provincial capital of Lanzhou 兰州. Running along the Yellow River, this appears to be a very intriguing city, and I would have liked to stay there longer. We had lunch at one of the city’s most famous (and largest) restaurants, supping bowls of hot and spicy Lanzhou noodles 兰州拉面. After arriving at the airport around 1:30 pm, everyone departed for their next destinations. Sarah and I were stuck in the airport all afternoon and into the evening, as we waited for our plane to get permission to take off for rainy Shanghai. We finally arrived home around 1:30 am, after a very long day of traveling.

Takeaways from Our Journey to the Center of China

Altogether, this was a stunning and spectacular journey deep into the heartlands of China. With the aid of our various guides, we were able to see and understand Gansu and Qinghai Provinces from multiple perspectives. Through our docent Jeremiah Jenne, we came to appreciate more deeply the complicated, intricate, and nuanced relations between all the different peoples who occupy this traditional frontier zone.

We ate many Tibetan meals featuring yak meat, milk and butter, and we also had plenty of good meals in Muslim restaurants. I learned a few Tibetan words and phrases and deepened my understanding of the history and culture of this region of China. Most of all, it was the experience of seeing the breathtaking vistas and climbing the mountains, as well as the temples, grottoes, and monasteries dedicated to Buddhism that formed a long-lasting impression of this rugged mountainous region and its culture. 

Meanwhile, we witnessed firsthand the incredibly rapid development and changes of the towns, cities, and regions that we visited during these two overlapping tours. Overall, the quality of the roads and highways was very impressive, and it’s hard to imagine how people got around these remote mountains and desert regions without them.

I was also impressed by how modern the places we visited have become. I last visited Xi’an around 15 years ago, and the difference between then and now is very apparent. Even the smaller towns we stayed in were far more built up than I had imagined them to be. Everywhere we went, with the exception of some high mountain passes, we had access to phone and Wifi signals. With the exception of our one night in the tents, we slept in comfortable beds in hotels with electricity and running hot water and we took in fine meals in decent restaurants. In other words, the modernization of this region has made it far more accessible and comfortable a journey than it would have been ten or twenty, let alone thirty or more years ago.

To be sure, everywhere we went on the Plateau, there was a palpable police presence. We were frequently stopped for police checks, and sometimes police would visit us in the hotels to get our passport info. We were also followed at times by not-so-inconspicuous plain-clothes police officers. Kudos go to our local guides for navigating these security procedures and ensuring us a smooth trip up and down the northeast corner of the Tibetan Plateau.

What came together in the end was an unforgettable journey, which has deepened and broadened my understanding and my love for this country and for the diversity of its landscapes and people. It was also a great learning experience for my daughter Sarah, who will be leaving us soon to go off to college next year.

As a Shanghai-based American academic working for a JV university in nearby Kunshan, my usual travels are between those two small nodes in the dense and relatively flat coastal urban network of China. It was a huge treat to head out to China’s own Wild West and have some rugged adventures in the sunny open fields and deserts and big blue skies of the mountains for a change before heading back into the hot, wet and rainy summer of Shanghai.