Ten Thousand Miles Without a Cloud

If Duan had suffered so much, I could not bear to think what this monk must have gone through.

The young monk said that Pu Ci was the only one who wore his robe throughout the Cultural Revolution. The Red Guards ordered him not to but he simply ignored them. They organized struggle meetings in the shrine hall and made him kneel on the floor and confess his motives for carrying on his ‘feudal practices’. He refused to say a word. What was there to say? He had been a monk for so many years and the robe was like his skin. Outraged by his silence, the Red Guards started beating him. Every time they hit him, he uttered the name of Amitabha. They did not know what to do with him. He was locked up to repent but he just meditated all the time. They thought he was mad so eventually they left him alone. I asked how he would have dealt with the blows raining down on him?

‘He probably would think of one of the ten attributes of a Bodhisattva. It is called khanti, meaning patient endurance of suffering inflicted upon oneself by others and forbearance for their wrongs. There are lots of stories about khanti in the scriptures and it is one of the qualities that monks try to cultivate. And he obviously achieved it,’ said the young monk humbly.

I remembered one of the old priests at the struggle meetings in my childhood. I could not forget how serene he was. Now I understood what kept him so calm when he was spat on, when he was made to kneel on broken glass. Deep inside, he would have prayed not for the stilling of his pain but for the heart to conquer it. He perhaps would think that the spit was raindrops and they would dry up when the sun came out. Or would he think that the attacks on him might be the result of his bad karma? If so, they were the outcome of his own actions and he should not harbour bitterness towards his attackers. He was in a different world from us, in the midst of pain, yet above it.

I looked at the stupa again, next to the giant Big Wild Goose Pagoda, not even the size of its foundation. Dappled sunshine fell on it through the thick pine trees. I stared at it, thinking of the story I had just heard. I had the sensation that the stupa was expanding, billowing out into a larger dimension, until it was huge. The Big Wild Goose Pagoda embodied Xuanzang’s spirit, and the Buddhism he disseminated. It could still be a Buddhist institution carrying on the propagation – because of this ordinary monk. He did not despair perhaps because of a simple belief: if the monks were alive, Buddhism would live on, despite the total destruction of monasteries, statues and scriptures. Xuanzang built the pagoda, Pu Ci preserved it. The spirit they stood for, the faith that sustained them, the spreading of the Dharma they carried out determinedly – the hope of Chinese Buddhism.

But the young monk said there were monks who totally despaired. He showed me a stupa next to Pu Ci’s, which looked no different from the half dozen standing there, but with an inscription longer than any of the others. It read as follows:

Lang Zhao, Secretary of the Xian Buddhist Association, was born in 1893 into a wealthy family in northeastern China, came to Xian and took vows at the age of eighteen; abbot of Wolong Monastery; made donations for the aeroplane that was used to fight against the Americans and supported the Korean people; did farming and built a commune for monks and nuns who lived on their own products and wore their own woven cloth; suffered maltreatment during the Cultural Revolution in 1966 and took his own life on August 18 of that year, at the age of seventy-two, after fifty-five years as a monk.

There is something strange about this – it simply is not how a Buddhist master’s epitaph usually reads. It seems only to refer to his patriotism, not to his contributions to Buddhism. But what I found even more bewildering is the remark I have italicized near the end: he actually committed suicide – a cardinal sin, a capital offence in Buddhism. Why did he do it?

The first rule of Buddhism is not to kill any living creature, not to take one’s own life, and not to help with any killing. ‘Rare is birth as a human being. Hard is the life of mortals. Do not let slip this opportunity,’ is the advice of the Buddha. I had read that the Vinaya, the Buddhist code of conduct, forbids monks to commit suicide, in any form and for any reason. Those who do forfeit the possibility of a good rebirth, let alone that of entering the Western Paradise. What made Lang Zhao do it?

The young monk explained. Lang Zhao was a very good man. He left home out of compassion for the poor, searching for a way to end suffering. He supported the Party for the same reason – to bring about a better life for millions of Chinese. He raised money for ‘Chinese Buddhist’ – the fighter plane that Buddhists throughout China had been asked to contribute to the Korean War effort – and he went to the front line to comfort the troops. He tried hard to help the Party realize the Communist ideal of ‘paradise on earth’. He was rewarded: he was made the head of the Xian Buddhist Association, the most senior monk in the city.

But for all his efforts, he was one of the first targets of the Red Guards – August 18, 1966, the day he took his life, was when Mao received one million Red Guards on Tiananmen Square, openly showing his support for them. They would be his vanguards for the Cultural Revolution. He met some of them in person afterwards, including a girl called Binbin, meaning ‘the polite one’. Mao told her that revolution was not a gentle business and she should change her name to Yaowu, ‘with force’. There could not have been a clearer signal for the use of violence. As soon as they heard the message on the radio, the Red Guards in Xian stormed Lang Zhao’s monastery, destroying it completely. He felt a great injustice had been done: he had been so loyal to the Party; he had really tried to use Buddhism in helping to build the new China and he had allowed himself to be showcased as an example of a remodelled monk. And in the end, he was repaid for good with evil. He despaired. That very night, he killed himself.

The two monks’ stories were grim, but telling. Standing next to each other, their stupas, and lives, invite a comparison. Pu Ci was a simple man, but a true Buddhist monk; Lang Zhao was a master, but in the end shamed himself, however understandably. He was too conscious of his achievements and his sacrifices, too attached to the world and his role in it. He could not bear being reviled after all he had done, by the very people he had tried to support. He was only human. He died, and his monastery with him. Pu Ci just did what he had to do. He raised himself above all his pain and lived; he saved Xuanzang’s Big Wild Goose Pagoda and never knew he would be buried and honoured alongside it.

The queue to climb the Big Wild Goose Pagoda was long and those who came down were panting and fanning themselves vigorously, sharing their experiences up there with their friends who were content to admire it from below. They would not bother to stop and examine these little stupas. Perhaps this was why the young monk was happy to spend nearly an hour and a half talking to me. ‘The Buddha preached to those who were willing to listen,’ he said, when I apologized for taking so much of his time. ‘I’m pleased you are so keen on Buddhism. I hope all the visitors will share your interest.’

He had been enormously helpful. I had learned so much from what he told me. It was well past lunchtime and I offered to take him for a meal. He happily agreed, and chose a tiny family restaurant nearby which served nothing but noodles. While we ate, he asked why I was so interested in the stupas. Most people would come, climb the pagoda, have their picture taken and leave. I laughed and told him it was different for me. When he heard that I was going to India, his eyes lit up and he exclaimed, ‘Really? Can I come with you? Next year will be Master Xuanzang’s fourteen-hundredth anniversary. Won’t it be a great thing to do if I could follow in his footsteps too?’ But like Xuanzang, he could not get the permission from the government to travel abroad. For a moment, he looked crestfallen, but soon he cheered up. ‘You know we are doing something about Master Xuanzang too?’ I had heard a little about a Memorial Hall. ‘Have you seen the construction behind the pagoda? I’ll show you after lunch.’

Against the back wall of the monastery, builders were working away on three huge halls in traditional Chinese style. ‘We’ve always felt ashamed about not doing something special for Master Xuanzang. I am sure you understand why. Now things have changed.’ He was getting excited. ‘Just imagine. The walls will be decorated with carvings and statues by the best artists and craftsmen in China. The ones at the two ends will show the master’s life, his journey to India, his studies in the land of the Buddha, his return to Xian and his translation of the sutras. The middle one will hold the master’s statue and on the white marble wall will be carved scenes of the Tushita, the paradise of Maitreya Buddha, the Buddha to Come. This will be the fulfilment of a dream.’ He seemed intoxicated by the prospect. ‘You will end your journey here, won’t you, as the Master did? When you come back, all this will be finished. Then the visitors will learn about the real Xuanzang and all the amazing things he did. No more Monkey King rubbish,’ he said with a big smile.

It was near closing time when the young monk finished showing me the site and the monastery. There were very few visitors left. Quiet was descending on the temple and the air was full of the fragrance of flowers and shrubs. Monks walked about briskly on a security round. In the early-evening light, the pagoda looked ever more imposing, austere and majestic. It was extraordinary that it had been standing here for nearly fourteen hundred years. Now I realized its survival was far from being just good fortune.

There were four major persecutions in earlier Chinese history, two before Xuanzang, and two after him in 845 and 955. That in 845 was the most devastating and the most complete. In just one month, almost all the monasteries in the country, some 44,600, were destroyed; the entire Buddhist community, over 260,000 monks and nuns, was forced to return to lay life. It was such a heavy blow, Buddhism was yet to recover from it. The Cultural Revolution effectively demolished what was left. Duan told me a story which showed the low point that had been reached by its end. In the early 1970s, the Chinese government was looking for a rapprochement with Japan. A delegation of over a hundred Japanese monks was invited. They wanted to come to Xian, which they recognized as the fountainhead of their own Buddhism. There was only one problem: where could an equal number of monks be found to meet the visitors? Party officials from the Religious Bureau looked up the records and found where the former monks had been exiled. They combed the countryside – eventually more than a hundred were assembled, many of them now married, disabled or decrepit. And when they had to perform an appropriately grand ceremony, it was soon clear that they had forgotten their sutras and how to chant and play the drums and cymbals. Experts were drafted from Beijing to help rehearse them to an acceptable level. The shaky ensemble managed to perform adequately, and honour was satisfied.

The Big Wild Goose Pagoda has weathered all the storms. Xuanzang was the inspiration. Monks like Pu Ci defended it at whatever cost. If monasteries were destroyed, they would be rebuilt. Even without monasteries, monks like Duan could carry on the faith. Because of people like them, Buddhism has survived in China for almost two thousand years, and will continue to be an important part of Chinese life. I had received a powerful lesson right at the start of my journey: the strength of faith. This was what motivated and sustained Xuanzang. The three monks at the Big Wild Goose Pagoda were his followers. They had already given me an impression of what it was in Buddhism that made them, and Xuanzang, so different, so special. I began to understand what Grandmother had said about monks being the gentlest of men. But they were also the toughest. I began to grasp what our minds could do if we indeed could cultivate them as the Buddha said.

Clack! Clack! There was a sharp, hard sound: a monk walked past us, banging two pieces of wood together. The young monk said it was time for the evening services. Before we said goodbye, he went back to his room and returned with a little book. It had a folded paper in it. ‘This has the Heart Sutra translated by Master Xuanzang himself,’ he said. ‘It is the core of Chinese Buddhism. Whenever Xuanzang was in trouble, he always recited it. Please use it as your guide too. It won’t be easy, but keep going. And when you begin to understand this sutra, you will be getting somewhere. I hope you will find the way.’

Late that night, I went back through the city gates, and headed for the station, catching a late-night train for the next stage of my journey, the Jade Gate, the frontier of the Chinese empire in Xuanzang’s time. After I had settled down in my hard-sleeper booth, I took out the monk’s little book. I opened the folded paper first and found myself face to face with Xuanzang: young, energetic and purposeful, his eyes firmly on the road ahead and his backpack full of scriptures – it was a rubbing of Xuanzang’s portrait from a stele in the Big Wild Goose Pagoda. But his gifts felt heavy in my hands. Perhaps I should not just make the journey for myself. I should try to help bring the real Xuanzang back for my fellow-Chinese, just as the abbot and monks of the Big Wild Goose Pagoda are doing. It would be like restoring a part of our heritage.

THREE (#ulink_d549e7ac-a5a6-5933-997d-132ff0976ecb)

Fiction and Reality (#ulink_d549e7ac-a5a6-5933-997d-132ff0976ecb)

IT WAS AUGUST 627. The great Western Gate of Chang’an closed at nightfall. On the drum tower, the watchman was ready to strike the hour. The streets were emptying. Traders in the Western Market were putting up their shutters and seductive attendants were waiting outside taverns to lure them in. Among the throng of people leaving the capital were Xuanzang and another monk, clad in long robes. They had all their belongings wrapped in cloths slung over their shoulders. They walked briskly, with their heads down, trying to avoid the gaze of the officials, who were checking travellers’ passes at random.

Once on the road, Xuanzang took a last look back at Chang’an in the twilight. He was excited; his dream of going to the land of the Buddha was beginning to come true. He had failed to get permission to travel and was leaving in defiance of the emperor’s edict, but that could not dampen his spirits. He felt free. How he wished he could fly like a bird to India. But he would have to make his way laboriously, on foot or on horseback, along all the thousands of miles lying ahead.

As the train pulled out of Xian station in the middle of the night, I was excited too. This was the start of my journey in his footsteps. I could have flown, but I liked the pace of the train – I could not walk as he did but at least I would see what he saw. The rhythmical rattling of the wheels sounded a bit like footsteps, though the train did in one hour what took him two days or so. Still, 1,400 years apart, we were on the same highway, the famous Silk Road.

Xuanzang would have known the Silk Road well. It acquired the name in the late nineteenth century, long after its demise, from the German scholar Ferdinand von Richthofen, but its history usually begins with the mission of Zhang Qian in 139 BC, almost seven hundred years before Xuanzang. Zhang, an official in the Chinese court of the Han dynasty, was assigned to seek an alliance in Central Asia to fight against the foremost threat to China, the marauding Huns. He was captured and imprisoned by the enemy, but he never forgot his mission, and managed to escape after thirteen years in captivity. His report and the tale of his adventures inspired the emperor. Before long, watchtowers were built and manned along the way within the Chinese empire. Sogdian merchants began braving the arduous journey to China regularly, trading the most treasured and valuable commodity: silk.

The ancient world, the Romans in particular, could not get enough silk, alluring to the eye and delicate to the touch. They spent colossal sums on it – it was half of their imports. The Emperor Tiberius was so worried that he tried to ban people from wearing it – the Romans would have nothing of that. But they would not have minded paying less for the fabric, which was said to cost as much as gold by the time it travelled the whole length of the Silk Road. Agents were sent out, trying to reach directly the distant land that they called Sere, from which came sericus, silken, but they never made it. Although the Chinese were willing to sell silk to the barbarians, they did not want to relinquish the secret of how it was made. Pliny, the Roman historian, wrote: ‘The Seres are famous for the wool of their forests. They remove the down from leaves with the help of water and weave it into silk.’ As late as the mid-sixth century AD, the Romans believed his account.

The Silk Road was not a single road but many, stretching from Chang’an, across the Taklamakan Desert, over the Pamir Mountains, through the grasslands of Central Asia, into Persia and then to the Mediterranean, with spurs into the northern Eurasian steppes and India. Over 5,000 miles long, it traversed some of the most inhospitable terrain, and linked up some of the greatest empires in the ancient world: Rome, Persia, India and China. This was where Xuanzang’s journey would lie.

When the day broke and the sun came into my compartment, I saw ranges of mountains, brown and dusty, with terraced fields stepping up them. Walnut and persimmon trees, laden with their fruit, stood here and there in clusters, sheltering old brick houses, their chimneys smoking as people cooked the morning meal. When we left the villages behind, the farmers walking on the windy mountain paths made me think of the Silk Road again.

The Silk Road no longer exists, and most Chinese have forgotten it, although every one of us is familiar with silk. Even I had raised silkworms as pets. One winter, Grandmother came back from a visit to her village and brought us apples, peanuts, chestnuts and a small bag of strange, fluffy white balls – silk cocoons. She said if we looked after them very carefully, putting them in a clean place not too hot, not too cold, and making sure insects would not bite them, we would have butterflies and then silkworms when the spring came.

I put my cocoons in a shoe box next to my pillow and examined them every day. They looked dry and dead. How could butterflies ever come out of them? Grandmother said not to worry, they were only sleeping and would wake up soon. I waited as eagerly as I did for the Chinese New Year. One day when I came back from school, the cocoons were open and there were some white moths. I was fascinated but disappointed; they were quite ugly, not at all pretty like butterflies. Grandmother said I should just wait. And then very soon the moths dropped tiny white blobs on the bottom of the shoe box and a few days later some ant-like creatures appeared. Before long they began to crawl, tiny caterpillars, shedding their skins like snakes. It seemed an extraordinary process, and it was magical to see the beginning of their life.

Every day I ran back as soon as school was over to check them. Grandmother said they liked mulberry leaves best but our city had so few mulberry trees, we had to make do with cabbage leaves. My sisters and I had a competition among us to see who had the fattest and whitest silkworms. But the most fascinating part was when they secreted a shiny thread, which seemed just to go on and on. We asked Grandmother what the thread was for. She said it was silk, and it made the most wonderful material. We did not believe her. Then she opened the wardrobe and pulled out a bright red quilted jacket which I had never seen anyone wearing. ‘This was what your mother wore when she got married,’ she said happily. ‘This is made of silk. You feel it.’ It was so smooth and shiny, like my hair. It was hard to imagine such beautiful cloth could have come from those insects in my shoe box.

Looking back, it is equally hard to imagine that the thread from the silkworms could have been the source of so much wealth and beauty, and changed history. Today the Silk Road has declined, but something else, something more enduring, still touches our lives. For over a millennium, religions, technology, philosophy, culture and art were transmitted along its branches. It was through this highway that four of China’s greatest contributions spread westward – paper-making, printing, gunpowder and the compass – and it was along the same road, in the other direction, that Buddhism came to China. The seeds of ideas travelled across the barriers of mountains, deserts and languages. Some took root; others died; some flourished and spread extensively. What each traveller carried was small, but wave succeeded wave; and in the process, all the peoples along the Silk Road enjoyed the fruits of the diffusion.

The Silk Road was possible because there were strings of oases to supply the caravans. One of the biggest oases in the region west of the Yellow River was Liangzhou, the capital of several short-lived dynasties set up by nomads as well as the Chinese. It was very popular with the merchants, who had long used it as their base from which to make forays into the rest of China. Mostly they prospered. But things could go wrong. In the early fourth century AD, a merchant based in Liangzhou sent a letter home to Samarkand, reporting that many of his fellow-merchants had died of starvation because of a peasant revolt and war in China, and claiming that he himself was on the verge of death too. ‘Sirs, if I were to write to you everything about how China has fared, it would be beyond grief.’ He asked his business partners to look after a large sum of money he had left with them, to invest it on behalf of his motherless son, and to give his son a wife when he grew up.

But for all the dangers the lure of the Silk Road and its high profits was irresistible. When Xuanzang arrived in Liangzhou from Chang’an in 627, after travelling over seven hundred miles in one month, he found a bustling city of over 200,000 people, many of them foreign merchants who took up five of the seven wards within the walled city. He was pleased to see monks from as far as India, Central Asia and the Western Regions, in monasteries, temples and caves in and outside Liangzhou. He decided to spend some time there and find out from them, and from the merchants, about their countries and the border crossing.

The local people were delighted to have a master from the capital, and they pleaded with Xuanzang to preach the Dharma. Although he was worried about being exposed as an unauthorized traveller, he could not refuse. Impressed with his clear and eloquent preaching, they showered him with gold, silver and horses to show their appreciation. He kept one horse and some money for his journey ahead and gave the rest to the monastery where he was staying. But as he had feared, his popularity brought him unwanted attention. Warned of his intention of going to India, the Governor of Liangzhou sent for him and ordered him to return to the capital. ‘The emperor has just come to the throne and the borders are yet to be secured. No one is allowed to go beyond here,’ the governor reiterated the imperial edict. That night, Xuanzang slipped out of Liangzhou, secretly guided by two disciples of a senior monk who had listened to his preaching and sympathized with his ambition.

My train arrived in Liangzhou, or Wuwei as it is called today, the next afternoon, fifteen hours after leaving Xian. The loudspeakers in the compartment were blaring out a potted history of this ancient, glorious city, and its emblem, the bronze Flying Horse, which is about the only thing that ordinary Chinese know about Wuwei. A few peddlers were trying to shove a replica through the train windows. It originates in one of our most famous archaeological discoveries, a pit with eighty of the magnificent steeds: they are shown taking prancing steps on powerful long legs, with defiant expressions and flared nostrils. In real life they were renowned for their stamina and agility, far superior to China’s short, stocky steppe ponies. They were the ideal mount for Chinese cavalry defending against the nomadic tribes, who could not be stopped by the Great Wall. They were so important, they were worthy of a lengthy comment from Si Maqian, the most famous Chinese historian, in his Record of History.

The Son of Heaven greatly loved the horses of Kokand [today’s Ferghana valley, shared by Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan], and embassies set out one after the other on the road to that country. The largest of them comprised several hundred men; the smallest fewer than a hundred … When they were refused, the Son of Heaven sent a great quantity of silver and a horse made of solid gold in exchange for the horses. The king accepted the presents but refused to part with his horses – he reckoned that he was out of reach of the Chinese army. The ambassador was murdered. So the emperor sent 60,000 men … and a commissariat well stocked with supplies besides cross-bows and other arms … Only half the army survived the journey and laid siege to Kokand in 102 BC. After 40 days, they succeeded, and were offered 30 superior or heavenly horses and 3,000 of lower quality. Less than half these survived the return journey but sufficient to provide for judicious breeding under the imperial eye.

I decided not to stop in Wuwei. It is no longer the cosmopolitan city of old, whose music was enjoyed by emperors and commoners alike, whose wine was relished by the rich and powerful in Chang’an, whose inhabitants drank from silver ewers decorated with figures from Greek mythology, and whose remoteness and exotic blend of peoples and cultures fired the imagination of any number of poets. Like many cities in western China, it has languished into a long slumber, and all its ancient past has been erased. The station was just a low building and a dusty platform with a semi-abandoned air. When the train moved off, it sounded a soft peep, instead of the usual strident whistle, as if not to wake anyone in the sleepy town.

I got off at Liuyuan, the Willow Station, in the early morning. It was in the middle of the desert without a tree in sight. I could not understand why the station was here nor how it came by its name. Perhaps it was wishful thinking, taking its inspiration from a Chinese saying: ‘Drop one sprig of willow on the ground and a whole forest will come up.’

At least my taxi-driver was happy after sleeping at the station overnight in the hope of a fare. I told him I wanted to go to the Jade Gate, and I was about to explain to him where it was. He cut me off: ‘No problem. It’s so famous. All the tourists want to go there.’ Off we went, into the desert that seemed one endless dusty grey world. Surrounded by a void, it was hard to imagine that we were on what was once a thriving commercial thoroughfare. At least it was a good road.

In less than an hour we were in the district of Anxi, or Guazhou as Xuanzang knew it. This was the oasis he came to after Liangzhou. Here he found himself in serious trouble. His horse died suddenly; the two novices who accompanied him became frightened: one left him and the other was sent back to his master for his own good. Then orders reached Guazhou to arrest him and send him back to the capital. The local governor was a pious Buddhist and after hearing the monk’s story, he tore up the warrant and urged Xuanzang to leave as quickly as possible. But Xuanzang did not know the way through the desert and he could not find anyone who dared to challenge the imperial edict and take him past the Jade Gate and the five watchtowers beyond it, the last frontier posts. Finally, after a month’s wait, the monks in the monastery where he stayed found Pantuo, a Sogdian merchant, who was willing to be his guide.

We drove through Anxi. It was a quiet town, small and orderly, with few buildings higher than three storeys. The wide featureless streets were empty of cars and bicycles. A scattering of people could be seen walking slowly along its pavements, or lingering to speak to each other before the few shopfronts. There was none of the life of the Silk Road I imagined from my reading. And this was not the actual town where Xuanzang was beleaguered – that is now a ruin out in the desert. I told the driver not to stop and go straight to the Jade Gate.

The gate was the frontier in Xuanzang’s time. For the Chinese, it marked the divide between the ‘centre of the world’ and the ‘periphery’, the ‘civilized’ and the ‘barbarians’. Over the centuries our poets had poured out their fears of the unknown world, their yearnings for home, their sadness at saying goodbye to friends who ventured further west to conquer the barbarians, and their pity for the royal princesses who were given to the barbarian chieftains as brides and as the price of peace. The poems are beautiful, sad, evocative and haunting, and they live in our memories and imaginations, even today, more than a thousand years later. ‘The crescent moon, hung in the void, is all that can be seen in this wild desert, where the dew crystallizes on the polished steel of swords and breastplates. Many a day will pass before the men return. Do not sigh, young women, for you would have to sigh too long.’

Xuanzang shared none of these sentiments. The world beyond the Jade Gate was one of knowledge, learning and wisdom. The earliest Buddhist missionaries came from there, bringing copies of the scriptures and votive images. Then they devoted the rest of their lives to translating the scriptures into Chinese – he and all Chinese Buddhists had been reading their translations for centuries; they had changed Chinese life and culture fundamentally. He could not wait to see this world for himself.

We had been driving nearly an hour and I was worried. The gate should have been very near Anxi. Where was he taking me? ‘Are you sure we’re going to the right place?’

‘Don’t worry, Miss. We’ll be there very soon.’ He turned and gave me a friendly smile, as if to reassure me.

Half an hour later, I caught sight of the Jade Gate from a long distance away. I was greatly relieved. I could see its tower, standing like a vast ruined chimney in the middle of nowhere. My heart began to beat faster as I came near. Once Xuanzang passed it, he would have left China behind. We drove right up to the site. There were railings surrounding it, and at the entrance, a man in a blue Mao suit was sitting in the sun. Behind him was a big sign: ‘Ruins of the Jade Gate, Han Dynasty.’ I almost exploded. This was the wrong gate, already seven hundred years old and abandoned by Xuanzang’s time. ‘Where is the Tang dynasty gate?’ I asked the watchman.

‘It’s near Anxi,’ he said.

I rounded on the driver. ‘What have you brought me here for?’