It was rich with people, with colors and mountains and cold and a deep deep faith. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading sky burial. A vulture at a sky burial in 20 for a tibetan monk photograph by chensiyuan, via wikimedia sky burial isnt a burial at all, of anything. It was 1994 when xinran, a journalist and the author of the good women. Moving, shocking and, ultimately, uplifting sky burial paints a unique portrait of a woman and a land, both at the mercy of fate and politics. The body is dismantled for a faster and more thorough consumption by vultures. Sky burial is a wonderfully emotional story, rich in tibetan custom. It is a special day for family and friends to gather together and remember loved ones. Greatly influenced by the tibetan buddhism and bon religion, funeral rituals practiced in tibet are stupa burial, sky burial, fire burial cremation, water burial, and. Despite its tragic themes of loss and survival in one of the worlds harshest landscapes, it is an uplifting tale of.
Tibetan sky burials anthropological perspectives on death. Posts about sky burial written by justine laismith. In the haunting sky burial, xinran has recreated shu wens journey, writing beautifully and simply of the silence and the emptiness in which shu wen was enveloped. But its not just a love story, it is a story about loss and life in general. Sky burial by xinran, jessica hische, hardcover barnes. The book is an extraordinary portrait of a woman and a land, each at the mercy of fate and politics. In spite of its subtitle, xinrans second after the good women of china, 2002 is presented as a memoir, the story of shu wen as narrated to the author when the two women met in 1994 in suzhou. Years later, after going native with a tribe of yak herders, wen learns the. Xinran made the trip and met the woman, called shu wen, who recounted the story of her thirtyyear odyssey in the vast landscape of tibet.
Zhuoma was an ideal companion because being tibetan not only could she act as a. Aug 08, 2014 the plot of sky burial may sound like fiction, but xinran makes it clear from the beginning that she is telling a true story. Think youre reading a passage from a recent mystery or thriller novel. An epic love story of tibet by xinran librarything.
After a short introductory note, the author dedicated the entire first chapter to the interview which she led with shu wen in a teahouse in the city of suzhou in 1994. Narrativity in xinrans the good women of china and sky burial amy lai. It took xinran until 2004 to compile enough information about tibet to make the story make sense, and sky burial is xinrans telling of shu wens tale. What makes this book different from other books on tibet. A young tibetan noblewoman named zhuoma joins wens party, and soon the two. Sky burial is a 2004 book by xue xinran, her second. Gees comment on xinrans relationship with the other women in her book deserves a close study. In sky burial, xinran has recreated shu wens journey, painting an extraordinary portrait of a woman and a land, each at the mercy of fate and politics.
A romantic quest, begun in maos china, turns into an epic of enduranceand a spiritual parable. Shu wen and zhuoma end up living with a tibetan family. There is no need to preserve the body, as it is now an empty vessel. It is extraordinary in so many waysthe subject matter, the setting, the central character, but mostly its authenticity and the authors continuing search for the woman whose life is told here. Jul 18, 2017 sky burial is the most common, though people who have died from leprosy or infectious diseases are not given a sky burial for fear of harming the vultures. The book presents itself as the memoir of shu wen, told to xinran during the course of a twoday interview. Sky burial, named after the traditional tibetan funeral ritual in which the corpse is. Sky burial by xinran is a profoundly spiritual book, telling the story of one womans journey through the country of tibet, searching for her missing husband and how she does eventually find some of the answers she was looking for as well as an inner peace and acceptance. An epic love story of tibet is a story of heroism that transcends the centuries, a tale to be passed along from one generation to another of one womans devotion to her husband. An eyewitness account of chinas brutal crackdown in. Of all the chinese women that xinran had interviewed for her radio programme famous in china for its discussion of womens lives, shu wen had endured things far beyond the imagination of most people. If you yearn for a book that will stay with you throughout your life, and that you will recommend to everyone you love, sky burial is for you.
It was 1994 when xinran, a journalist and the author of the good women of china, received a telephone call asking her to travel four hours to meet an oddly dressed. Unless otherwise stated, this discussion guide is reprinted with the permission of anchor books. It is in many ways a haunting love story, as the reader is taken with shu wen in her heartfelt journey to find her lost husband. In 1994, xinran met a woman whose story was so extraordinary, it came to obsess her. Kejuns violent demise, being chopped up and left for the vultures, encapsulates many dimensions of power, nature, spirituality and love in its broadest sense. The revd eva mcintyre is vicar of stourportonsevern and wilden, in the diocese of worcester. A young chinese wife, shu wen, a physician, joins the army in search of her husband, kejun, is reportedly killed in tibet. If you feel inspired to write a response, please send it to editorsat. I have been to sichuan and visited some of the tibetan homes and villages in the mountainous region of jiuzhaigou. Sky burial has been selected as a book used to study chinese history in australia and it has been published in over 20 languages.
I imagined it was the ceremonial burial of the dead in high mountains, closer to the sky. The chinese festival qingming jie, is a day for commemorating the departed. Wilkinson public librarys kit of 10 books checks out as one unit to book clubs. An epic love story of tibet is a 2005 nonfiction book by britishchinese author and journalist xue xinran who writes under the name xinran.
A sky burial is a tibetan riutal for the dead and nontibetans are not permitted to partake in it. It came about when xinran overheard a brief discussion about a barbaric act called a sky burial. Yet there really is no other way to describe chinese author xinrans second book, sky burial. An epic love story of tibet kindle edition by xinran. Tibetan buddhists believe that the corpse is nothing but a discarded.
Inspired by a brief 1994 interview with an aged chinese woman named shu wen, beijingborn, londonbased journalist xinran the good. Sky burial is the remarkable story of a young american physician who witnesses the largest. The locations of preparation and sky burial are understood in the vajrayanatraditions as charnel grounds. Love conquers all hardships the sydney morning herald. It is an unforgettable, ultimately uplifting tale of love, loss, loyalty, and survival. Im not sure if this was ever announced publicly, but, if you download the sky burial record from our labels bandcamp, and decide to donate, 100% of those proceeds go to the animal rescue corps. After being separated from her fellow soldiers in the. In this haunting book, xinran recreates shu wens remarkable journey in an epic story of love, loss, loyalty and survival. An epic love story of tibet is a story of heroism that transcends the.
Instead, they are buried in the ground or cremated. Sky burial my thoughts after reading justine laismith. After a member of the community has died, the body is cut into pieces by a burial master, and then taken to a selected site, usually in an area of high elevation. Recently qualified doctor shu wen marries her sweetheart kejun, only to see him sent to tibet as an army medic within weeks of their marriage. In sky burial, xinran gives a fictionalized account of the incredible and true 30 year odyssey of one chinese woman who went in search of her husband, who had supposedly died while.
Nov 11, 2009 in sky burial, xinran has recreated shu wens journey, painting an extraordinary portrait of a woman and a land, each at the mercy of fate and politics. The majority of tibetans and many mongolians adhere to vajrayana buddhism, which teaches the transmigration of spirits. Librarything is a cataloging and social networking site for booklovers. Wen, accompanied by zhuoma, sets off on a trek through the harsh landscape.
Jul 07, 2005 sky burial is a heartfelt journey into tibet that is in some ways more soulful than an actual journey there speaking as someone who has been. No, the passage is from xinrans latest offering, a book titled sky burial and the passage is describing the title of the novel. At the mention of tibetan funeral customs, sky burial celestial burial would pop into our mind immediately. A celestial burial or sky burial, is the tibetan practice of or the giving of the deceased body to birds. He rescued a young buddhist lama from a sky burial where corpses are eaten. The books nine chapters trace the life of that woman, shu wen, beginning when, as a 22yearold chinese medical student, she met her husband, kejun, in. Kindle store buy a kindle free kindle reading apps kindle books french ebooks. Sky burial is a sweeping memoir of mythical love and devotion. However, sky burial is not the only funeral ritual in tibet. Xue is a britishchinese journalist who writes for the guardian. Part war story, mystery, rich in spirituality, sky burial begins and ends as an epic love story that will amaze as well as tear at your heart long after you have finished your. So, perhaps my thanks should be to allow you to cry for the chinese women in my books. Jun, 2018 it was just the words spoken by wen to her listener, the events, the people, the mountains, yet it was alive the same. Download it once and read it on your kindle device, pc, phones or tablets.
An open letter to shu wen ends the book, asking that she resume contact. Sky burial is a slight booklittle more than an extended short storyand yet the ground it covers is immense, not just because of the fascinating glimpse it offers into a land and a people still largely unknown in the west. The first meet up, falling in love, hardships and so on. Sky burials or celestial burials, as they are also called are the burial rites of choice for the tibetans. As the subtitle stated, i expected epic love story with all the works.