What if?

Whenever I visited Beijing, I’d always make time to check out its bookstores. It’s been both a hobby and a habit of mine. Back in the late 1980s when I was a resident of the city, I remember the two main bookstores - one carried books only in Chinese; the other, in languages other than Chinese, both run by the States and both situated in the busy shopping district of Wangfujing- were my regular hangouts on weekend as at the time, Beijing was literally a city free of cafes and bars. Nowadays, compared to the number of coffee houses and drinking dens that are in business in the city, the number of bookstores may still be minuscule, but the quantity and variety of books they’re selling and the size of some of their venues are nothing but. The mega bookstore in Xidan - right off subway line one - claims to have 300,000 titles on display and is 3-4 times the size of any Barns & Noble in the United States. In addition, it’s perpetually crowded. To save space and to keep customers from overstaying, the store offers no sitting facilities. As a result, many people choose to squat or sit on the floor to give a quick read to the books they intend to buy - which inevitably causes more congestion. Yet despite of all this, people keep flocking in. In general Chinese love and enjoy reading.

It was during these trips that I found one particular genre of books was gaining popularity in China. Those were books on spirituality, on ethics, on moral principles and on life as a whole. Besides titles written by Chinese, many western bestsellers such as “The Secret” have also made into China and most of all, people were buying them. Yet, certain titles that would otherwise be placed prominently in the “Spirituality Section” of a western bookstore, namely books on the teachings of the Dalai Lama, were achingly missing. What if those books became available in China, translated and read by ordinary Chinese? Will it help to bridge the gap between China and the west in view of Tibet and its spiritual leader?

Based on my own experience I think it will. When I lived in China, I have never read anything about the Dalai Lama or his teachings. All I knew was the offical line that he had fled Tibet in 1959 and was a separatist. After I moved to the United States and purely out of curiosity, I got hold of some books on him and his philosophy and read them. The experience was quite refreshing. For one thing, I learned the “other side” of the story that I wouldn’t otherwise be able to if I were still in China. But more importantly, I came to understand why he is so popular in the west.

In fact, his popularity is not based on advocating for the independence of Tibet. Rather, it’s based on promoting humanity, tolerance and self-cultivation. This is the core factor why he has a huge following in the west. Most people who pay money to listen to him or buy his books are attracted to his philosophy not to his politics. Also, as it turned out, reading those books didn’t convert me into a follower of him nor a supporter for Tibetan independence. It only gave me the knowledge to exercise independent thinking.

Knowledge is power. Back to the old days, Mao had once emphasized on the importance of being skeptical. Regardless of what he was referring to, skepticism may still be a value worth being promoted in today’s China because it’s the first step leading to knowledge, the real knowledge.