Take it easy,

After staying two days on the train, I finally arrived at Urumqi yesterday. Urumqi is in the north part of China, and this city shares a boarder with of Kazakhstan. People's faces are deeper than ones I saw in the coast side of this country. Foods are also a little bit different. (I loved skewered goat's meat!!) I couldn't see the top of tall buildings in the town because of dusts. My mask, I was given from a Shanghainese guy at Tibet station, is one of lifelines now. Thanks!!

A plan I had in this town was to get a Kazakhstan visa, but I just heard that I can't get the visa until the beginning of December because of an international political meeting in Kazakhstan.

"I heard it's not a problem for a travelers visa!! I'm sure because I've called your embassy in Osaka, Beijing, and HonKong!!"

"Hey, I have the most reliable passport in the world here, look!!"

"Hey, I'm Chuji!! Chuji Yamada!!"

People at the embassy of Kazakhstan just closed their ears to my words. So, what happens now is that I go to Kyrgyzstan instead. I still don't know even how to get there, but I lost the option to get into Kazakhstan and my Chinese visa will be invalid soon. A Chinese guy at my hostel said "There is no a way you can surely arrive there as you planned...", but this is not even a problem for me. This is what I was expecting in this travel. I will think about another destination if it didn't work out.

Take it easy, my life wouldn't be finished if I didn't succeed. By thinking that, I talked waiters at my favorite restaurant in Urumqi. Asking very basic language and culture, and enthusiastically try to understand them...this is how I catch the people's heart at the first meeting.



Go for it!! Chuji,

I don't know...

I'm on a train to Lanzhou from Tibet. I stole in a restaurant for the first class passengers, and just had a cup noodle. I will be on this train for 30 hours, and transfer to another one to go to Urumqi in the north west part of China (Almost Kazakhstan!!). Tibetan steppe goes forever from the window. I thankfully could learn millions of things in Tibet too. Especially in the holy city Lhasa, where I spent more than half of my staying in Tibet, was the unforgettable memory now. Tibetans live in a historical space with sophisticated manners and clothing. Every single moment of their lives were clearly infiltrated by their own history and religion, Tibetan Buddhism. Of course, not everyone is a Tibetan Buddhist though...They pray in their own manner in the evening. I don't know how to call it in English, but we say it gotai-tochi in Japanese. The Kanji for the Japanese word means "through a whole body to the ground", and my dictionary says "a prostration in which both hands, legs and head are pressed to the ground, and expresses his heart of repentance through his body". They move on the road toward the Mosque in the center of Lhasa with gotai-tochi style walking.

At the schools I visited, kids honestly pray for their god to express thank for foods. Tibetan Buddhists have their own political leader called the Dalai Lama as you know, and some other people like officials are also chosen according to their own way. They have their believes on the nature too. Lives in the water are believed that they have poison (Badness), so Tibetans don't eat fish. On the other hand, yakus (cows) are respected in Tibet.

Many many things and moments are so sophisticated, and these spiritual values, which don't exist in globalized countries anymore, attract people from all over the world.(Tibetan students told me that they little bit dislike the unmodernized city.)

Only thing I didn't like in Tibet was that there were always Chinese armies in anywhere. It's impossible that you finish your day by not seeing guns and solders in Lhasa. They were in anywhere in Lhasa such as on the road, roof, and around the Mosque. The reason is for safeness, but only a thing needed in order for Tibet to be safe is that Chinese armies leave from here. This is only it. However, it's true too that Tibetan's lives are much more profitable than before because of the solders and foreigners like me. We can reach this city because of the rail which laid on the highest attitude in the world. In the sense, I'm still not sure if my visiting in this city was good for them or not. Other foreigners talked about the "Free Tibet" without understanding that they are part of unwanted people for Tibetan traditional. I wondered what I should do in this city is really only shopping and sightseeing, but this is actually what I did just like other foreigners do. This fact still make me powerless and sad... I don't dislike China, but I just want all people in the world to live in own custom, history, and culture, language, happiness, believe. No one is allowed to invade such values.

"I don't know what a really best approach for them"

This is what I wrote on my note right before getting on this train. But I want to believe that my visiting in Tibet was good for the future of both Tibet and Chuji.


"I will be back"


Go for it!! Chuji,

The happiest experience in the Silk Road,

I still write about my story in Tibet. When I am asked the most favorite place I visited in my Silk Road journey, I answer "It's Tibet Lhasa, Tibet is not where you want to visit before your death, it's where you go after your death."

I also got the happiest experience in my journey in here Tibet. Today is about my happiest experience in the Silk Road.

I have visited an orphanage, as I wrote before, and a public school in Tibet. The happiest experience was given by kids at these two schools. This experience was that kids wrote "I want to be like Chuji" on crane-origamis, which they just made by following my direction, as an own dream. I don't know which points of Chuji they liked. Maybe I'm traveling the world, maybe I'm slightly richer than their situation, maybe I can make origami better than them, or maybe I am handsome...My Tibetan friends, who are students at Tibet University, helped me out to translate dreams that I brought back from the schools, and I was almost crying because I was very very happy to hear that their dreams are to be like me.

This is true. When I introduced my self, and told them where my home country is, some boys pretended to hold guns and get ready to shoot. They looked like saying "I know your country!!" to me although I didn't understand what the boys were saying. Because of the complicating history between China and Japan, I was unhappy to know that there are still only unpeaceful histories rather than peaceful futures. But some kids wrote that they want to go to Japan. This is a so good news for me too. I guess they would write "I wanna go to USA" if I were from the sates. I think they would write "I want to beam threats from my wrists" if I were a spiderman.

Yes, I think kids are so susceptible, so they are influenced by others a lot, such as adults around them, so easily. The most number of dream I gathered from the public school is "teacher" with whom kids spend the most of time. I also found the same phenomena when I was reading dreams from the orphanage whose principal is a painter, the vice principal is a musician, and a doctor also supports kids' health. The most number of dream I got from there is painter, the second one is musician, and the third one is a doctor. I could know how kids are susceptible, and I think all people, not only kids, identify "myself" many parts of which are made of external facts such as parents, country, friends, media, and so on.

I have met many people's saying in China "We can't understand kids in these days because they are blah blah blah". I heard this kind of saying anywhere not only in China, but this is not children's fault. They just show us how we are, just like a mirror. We affect each other... This is so true. In a process toward the Silk Road project, I have faced thousands of problems such as gathering financial supports and local information where no one has visited before. Consequence of suffering experiences is that I certainly find supporters or people who introduce me supporters, and I can always arrive my goal even though there is no way to there. Since I'm in an environment where my languages, Japanese and English, don't work, I have been learning such a "sense" between people.

I thankfully could experience the inter-affection between people, so it means everyone is responsible for others not only kids, but also for you and me. I have to be happy so that others can be happy too. Others' matters are mine too.


So therefore, the hugest matter I found in China is mine too. I will scold local people who spit everywhere on the road. I hope I won't be affected in this point...


Go for it!! Chuji,

Extreme

I went to a base camp of the Mt. Everest from Tibet. Our team fairly slept with all layers each of us had including a nit and a blanket for each at a poor guesthouse around the camp. Woke up at 6pm in the dark morning, we, Australian couple, a Thai guy, and the super awesome Japanese guy, left for the camp with our guide by a truck.




We certainly figured out a way to WALK to the camp instead of driving. We got off the car around 5km away to our goal. Our limbs got numb so easily because of super weak oxygen, and my heart was almost exploded. But I’ve never felt that much achievement when we finally arrived in front of the highest ground in the World.

Since we were already at 5000m altitude at the camp, I didn’t feel like the mountain was so high, but the wind comes down from the top and rocky surface inspired me a lot. The tallest mountain had the manly power and the soft motherhood… I was the literally on the top of the world to be there. We have to thank our guides to take us there.

There were many small stones piled up with wishes. I saw many of them even on our way to here. I think this is how locals make wish. Family’s health, forever loves, successful study… So, I decided to do so. But people who impudently write own dreams with oil paint on stones which are parts of the great nature of this district, the god on this mountain won’t hear such selfish guys. I sat in Japanese style (it’s like sitting straight with my legs folded underneath.), and thought what I should ask her or him. But I’m already healthy, I’m the happiest boy because I’m doing what I wanna do, I’ve never worried about my next meal in my life, and I’m broadcasting what I’m doing on this blog. There is no dissatisfaction with my life. It’s already perfect. I just swore that I will challenge more and more, I will always beat myself in this moment to improve myself in the next second, be honest and manly. I will keep running to be greater like this mountain. My ambition is always highest like the Mt. Everest, not like Mt. Fuji or other high levels. “I will be extreme. I will be different” That’s what I was saying by myself when I said goodbye to the mountain.








To be extreme, it should be extremely tough and difficult.








But I think it’s extremely worth challenging.








That’s what I was saying when I was extremely urinated on the extremely altitude.




Go for it!! Chuji,