Inner Mongolia: Finding God in the grasslands
ER YANG BO VILLAGE, Inner Mongolia — I spent a good chunk of a week in Inner Mongolia — and I met not one person of Mongolian descent. I did meet three Roman Catholics, however. And thus, after one month on the road in this officially atheist country, my curiously lengthy list of religious run-ins grew a little bit longer.
This was in Er Yang Bo — population less than 100 — an increasingly touristed farming village in the central part of Inner Mongolia, the autonomous (in name only) region that covers a long swath of land in northern China, stretching from the northwest to the northeast and bordering eight other provinces or autonomous regions, Mongolia and Russia.
More than 85 percent of Inner Mongolia’s population is Han Chinese, and tourists who visit the region in search of Mongolians or signs of a traditional Mongolian way of life often leave disappointed. But, while post-1949 Inner Mongolia may be somewhat culturally barren, its rolling and wide-open landscape is beautiful — a wonderful place to get lost for a while and escape a sultry Chinese summer.
Johnson and I traveled by train, a four-hour ride eastward from our base in Baotou, to Zhouzishan, a town only worth visiting because that is where you can find transport to the grasslands.
I wrote the following in my tablet shortly after stepping off the train in Zhouzishan: “Shit hole.” And I stand by that first impression today. Its main street is a muddy mess lined by dingy storefronts and random piles of dirt and tires. The train station looked to be the newest building of the bunch, but even it didn’t have a bathroom. People are instructed to walk down the road a ways to relieve themselves. There, a rutted driveway leads to a vacant lot containing two makeshift outhouses, the contents of which are so vile, so repugnant, that most people choose to squat out in the open in the vacant lot.
We did our business and then quickly negotiated our way out of town. RMB 100 ($12) got us a round-trip van ride — less than one hour, one way — to Er Yang Bo, a smattering of small, cookie-cutter homes, touristy yurts and old stone dwellings dug into the hillside. A short hike or horseride from Huang Hua Gou, or Yellow Flower Valley, the village is surrounded by vast grasslands and one of the biggest skies I have ever seen.
The van dropped us off on the Li family’s doorstep. They owned a small, boxy home with a peaked roof. In their front yard were four yurts for rent and a table topped with a dead sheep. We stayed in a room in the house — the yurts just seemed too silly — for RMB 50 ($6) a night.
Our room looked lived in. It was small, a simple square with two levels, one for standing and one for sleeping. A big pile of blankets rested atop the tile-covered raised level — the bed — which is warmed from beneath by heat piped in from a wood stove in the kitchen next door. The room smelled of mutton grease and appeared to be home to a rather large family of flies.
It took us a while to realize that our modest room in this small home in a tiny village in the middle of nowhere had satellite television, and later that evening we watched the Iron Chef, in Chinese … dubbed over English dubbed over Japanese. (This tiny village in the middle of nowhere also had its own mobile phone tower, but I have come to expect such things in China.)
I did not expect, however, the color print of “The Last Supper” on our bedroom door. Nor did I expect the crucifix in the window or the crucifix on the wall that was emblazoned with a skull and crossbones and the Chinese characters for “Don’t know when, It has to come.” I made a mental note to investigate this further … but only after I investigated the grasslands.
Not too far from Er Yang Bo there are other tourist villages, which look to be in competition to see who can pack the most yurts on a single hilltop. Johnson thought they looked more like concentration camps. (Er Yang Bo, itself kind of tacky, appeared to be the only place where any locals lived.)
When you are in sight of these settlements, there are annoyances. There are loud groups of tourists. And, inevitably, there are individuals in these groups who believe that upon arrival at any cliff, or outcropping, or medium-sized hilltop, it is their duty to yell — really, really loudly. Usually, upon hearing the call of one of their kind, another tourist on another hilltop will yell, too. And so on. And so on. Johnson said this ritual is part of Chinese culture. I’m not sure about that, but it at least serves one useful purpose: The yells help tell me which directions I definitely want to avoid.
Thankfully, it doesn’t take long to hike out of earshot. With only 20 people per square kilometer, Inner Mongolia is the big empty, a place that crushes the stereotype of an overcrowded China. And my guess is that 15 of those 20 people are only there to try to get you to go on a horse ride.
So keep walking. You know you’re on your way to solitude when the amount of trailside trash drops off sharply. Littering, unfortunately, is definitely part of Chinese culture.
Keep walking. Soon you will be standing alone in a field of wildflowers, bright and bountiful, like something out of a Pixar movie. The air will be brisk and breathable, and the sunlight will dance on the endless landscape before you, making it seem as though everything is covered in velvet — as though you could reach out and change the green of the grass with a single swipe of your hand.
And then there is the sky, not just a backdrop, but a being, with volume, depth and mass. Clouds, with grand shapes and shadows, often appear more solid than the earth that lies beneath them. You almost expect a grand collision on the horizon.
To the west of Er Yang Bo, far off in the distance, hundreds of huge wind-powered generators spin round and round, giant white pinwheels stuck in the ground. They make the scene surreal, turning Inner Mongolia into outer space.
Perhaps hypnotized, I started hiking toward them, past horses and hogs and sheep, into ravines, over hilltops, through brush that rose above my waist. If there wasn’t a trail, I made my own, rousting flocks of birds — and the largest rabbit I have ever seen — out of their resting spots. I walked and I walked and I walked, making a b-line for that peculiar field of poles with propellers.
But I never seemed to get much closer. The fields go on forever. It was getting dark. I gave up and headed back for dinner.
Afterwards, I talked to a Chinese Roman Catholic about God and growing up on the grasslands.
Twenty-eight year old Er Yang Bo native Li Fu Gui was introduced to Catholicism in 1998. An uncle in the nearby city of Jining let Li borrow one his Bibles. Li was baptized soon thereafter and has been a practicing Roman Catholic ever since.
Li said many Inner Mongolians “found God” in the late 1990s in an effort to secure their souls just in case any of the Y2K doomsday theories proved to be correct. When the year 2000 came and went — and their souls remained intact — most of the recent recruits walked away from religion. Li says his search for God was deeper than that.
“I truly believe in the spirit,” he said, gently sipping a cup of tea. “I believe that when we die we are not completely dead. Our spirits live on. I believe that there must be a reason why we are here. Something must have created us.”
To Li, a husband and recent father, Roman Catholicism is Christianity in the purest form. And he refuses to follow the watered-down version of Catholicism mandated by the Chinese government. He belongs to Sheng Gong Hui, or the Holy Catholic Church, illegal in China, its followers forced underground. In fact, Li said his bishop has been under house arrest since 2002.
“The government is trying to make everyone believe in its own Catholicism,” Li said calmly. “They have their own state-appointed bishop. Non-Chinese government Bibles are confiscated. Priests are arrested all the time for having masses.”
A little context from a recent Associated Press story:
China broke ties with the Vatican in 1951 and demands that Catholics worship only in churches approved by the state-controlled church group that does not recognize the pope’s authority.Many Chinese Catholics, however, remain loyal to Rome and risk arrest by worshipping in unofficial churches and private homes. The state church claims 4 million believers, but the Cardinal Kung Foundation said the unofficial church has 12 million followers.
At least 19 clergy from the underground church are now in detention in China, the foundation said.
“In China there is no religious freedom,” said Li, who estimates that around 10 percent of Inner Mongolians have some sort of religious beliefs. “The government officially has given people freedom of beliefs, but when someone actually starts believing in something, the government gets in the way.”
Li has introduced seven villagers, including his mother and father, to Catholicism. Sometimes they hold private underground masses, but often he reads the Bible and prays by himself.
Li splits time between Er Yang Bo, where his parents live, and Jining, where his wife and 7-month-old son are. During the summer — tourist season — he stays in the village. The rest of the year he teaches children piano, an instrument he took up 10 years ago.
Er Yang Bo has changed quite a bit since Li’s childhood. The villagers used to depend on farming and herding for their survival. Then, 12 years ago, a couple villagers built eight yurts and started renting them out to tourists. They were fairly profitable, so more villagers did the same thing. This caught the local government’s attention.
“When the village was poor, nobody cared about us,” said Li, whose family brings in a healthy RMB 300 ($36) per day during the tourist season. “Then, when the government heard about the tourism, they came and took over.”
Li said villagers were forbidden to house tourists for nearly three years. Despite village protests, the government handled tourism in the area and then sold the whole business — and a big chunk of land — to a Hohhot-based hotel for RMB 4 million ($480,000).
So now the villagers had no tourism, and less land to farm. Again, they protested. And, this time, the government responded with a token peace-offering. Each village household was given the right to open two yurts to tourism, which Li said the government knew was not enough for the families to survive on, especially with the hotel outfit operating right down the road.
So the government still gets its cut. Families are fined RMB 200 ($24) per extra yurt. And the bureau of hygiene also comes by on a semi-regular basis to shake the villagers down for some cash.
“If you are unhappy with the government and try to fight them, you will find yourself in trouble,” said Li, showing no signs of anger or frustration. “We used to file suits with the central government about our local government. But then our village leaders started getting arrested all the time.”
It was getting late. We ran out of tea. And the conversation ended there. We headed outside for a quick breath of fresh air — but we were stopped by the stars. Thousands of them. Millions of them? As our eyes adjusted to the darkness, more and more appeared. It seemed the sky was filled more by brightness than blackness. It was stunning.
It was enough to make you stop and think. About big things. Unexplainable things. About what else is out there. And why we are down here.
I looked over at Li. He looked back and smiled, comfortably, confidently, like a man sure he had all the answers.
Click here for photos.
More from Inner Mongolia coming soon!
09.02.2004, 10:45 PM · Inner Mongolia, The Trip
5 Comments
The Biggest of big sky country brought to you by the BIG GUY. Wonderful post!
Very nice mate
Hi Dan,
I enjoyed this one very much. Your comments about Catholicism in Mongolia reminded me what I read on this topic not too long ago: back in the 13th century, the Mongols’ lesser khan Arghon tried to form an alliance with the Church. He built many churches, and one of his sons was baptized a Christian. But Rome was slow to respond, and Arghon died before any real ties developed. The next ruler was a Muslim, and Islam became the religion of Mongolia. Blessings on your journey!
Those grasslands look like windows xp backgrounds. OS preference aside, I mean they look amazingly crisp, clear, and almost unreal.
A related link from Reuters: Vatican Says China ‘Once Again’ Abusing Catholics