PERHAPS I WAS destined in this life to become enthralled in the vast bliss that is Tibet.
Those wildernesses which captivated me dance gracefully with the arc of time.
With only 150 minutes remaining on the 1st of October 2004, a moment that could have disappeared into the darkness of night for eternity, history was made. Perhaps there was no great event of national importance to attract global attention, so naturally, we cannot infer a collective memory.
The sky had not yet fallen dark, it remained slightly illuminated. The evening light ignited Kunlun's snowy peaks, as if to place an elegant sheet atop a bed. One by one, they fell, and they were met by the dusk that rose gradually from the walls of Gelmud City, and they became muddled together as a pink swathe of sky. The scattered clouds dispersed, and heroically, casts their last spell in a spectacular showdown before going into hibernation. It waits, waiting for a thousand years of blessing, or perhaps, a thousand years of inexorable doom.
I sat in the small drawing room of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway head conductor of the China Railway 20 Bureau Corporation. The Kunlun Mountains wrapped me in the desolate sheet of night, enveloping me in an eagerness and impatience. Sitting face to face with Kuang Chengming, I was at a loss for words. Since the words heroes, miracles, and fervor had already been deconstructed in our lives, and gradually erased from their mainstream context, I felt like I'd already become numb, or hard like ice, unable to again be swept away by a turbulence of emotion, unable to be moved ever again. However, the moment I set out upon the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, my emotional world, which had been still like stagnant water, suddenly entered a tempest from which emerged song and scenes of heaven and earth, as if to blow away the dirt, brush away the hardships of life, as waves and purity of a pool of emotion reappeared.
On many ordinary days like this, there was an oxygen tube inserted in my nostril, as I quietly listened to the ordinary female workers who had labored to build the railway tearfully describe the depths of their emotions. I couldn't help but choke on my tears—they were mothers, daughters, sisters; they were kind, delicate, loving. In their presence, a man need not wear a mask of pretense.
There were many nights such as this, where I drank a little light alcohol, where I gazed at the male laborers on the line who were the same age or still younger than me, and their words touched an emotional tender spot. Underneath armor was man-after-man, awash with emotion. Suddenly, the soft side of a man arose, sad and teary-eyed, I let it all out, accidently wiping tear stains, trying my best to hold onto my manly pride, but in the end, my masculine guise was smashed to pieces by a wave of roaring and uncontrollable emotion.
In my gaze was the head conductor Kuang Chengming, quietly narrating, and the Fenghuoshan Pass which rose over 5,000 meters above sea level, seemed to rise like a city wall in my line of sight. Limitless wild fields, and the prayer flags seemed alive, simultaneously leading to heaven and hell. This had almost become his Waterloo, he narrowly escaped, but an army burning with righteous indignation is bound to win, and he fought to win or die, for himself, for the respect of his men, and for the heroic souls of the 10th Division of People's Liberation Army (PLA) railway engineering corps who had perished. He spoke of when the 20 Bureau nearly lost their segment to others, and he spoke about his wife and son in faraway Xianyang City, and how he couldn't be there to accompany them. When he talked about the world's highest tunnel at Fenghuoshan Mountain finally becoming the Qinghai-Tibet rail's finest piece of engineering, he suddenly choked, unable to speak, and became teary.
But Kuang Chenming was a proud man, he didn't allow himself to cry. But tears welled in the corners of my eyes. Overwhelmed by uncontrollable emotion, my eyes were moistened by a wave of feeling from the people of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway.
At that moment, the atmosphere in the room became solemn, almost suffocating in awkward silence. It was difficult to continue the interview. The tissue I had been using had gradually disintegrated, and I wished to relieve the stifling and awkward atmosphere in the room. I even hoped that at that point, another person might appear to save the day.
The sound of a ringing mobile phone pierced the silence, and I took a great sigh of relief. The caller ID displayed the name of China Central Television's director of logistics department, Yin Jianbai. Before I left Beijing, I had bid farewell to the long-standing senior official, eighty-two-year-old first secretary of the Tibet Autonomous Region Party Committee, Yin Fatang. I heard that he had attended commemorative activities for the centennial of resistance against the English in Gyangze in Tibet with his wife and daughters, Jianbai and Yanong, and I hadn't expected him to return this quickly.
"Hi Jianbai, it's me. Where is your father these days?" I asked excitedly.
"He's already in Golmud City. Dad was on the train from Xining all day today. He just saw the construction headquarters of the Qinghai-Tibet rail, the logistics department, and the Golmud office of Tibet before returning. He's going to climb the mountain at 6am tomorrow morning."
"Climb the mountain? Tomorrow?" I was stunned, he was elderly and had only arrived at Golmud yesterday. Without a step-by-step acclimatization, people were sure to be concerned.
"Indeed! So I wanted dad to sleep a little earlier, but he said he wanted to see you." Jianbai seemed a little anxious.
"Oh!" I raised my wrist to check, it was already 9.30pm. "Which hotel are you staying at?"
"Jinlun Hotel, at room number 601 on the sixth floor."
"What a coincidence. I'm also staying at the Jinlun Hotel." I was almost surprised on the telephone, "at precisely room number 608, only a few doors away."