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rubbed the hem of my robe across it a few times I was able
to look into the surface and get an idea of what I looked
like. Having looked hard and long, and feeling heartily
discouraged at what I saw, I put back the plate and made
my way in search of the barber-monk, for I was looking
like a  Black Head.
In Tibet  Black Heads are people who are not in Holy
Orders. Monks and all those coming under acolyte, trappa,
monk, or monastic Orders, shaved their heads, and so they
were frequently known as  Red Heads because that is
what we had when the sun did its worst. On the other
hand, lay people had their heads covered with black hair,
and so they were known as  Black Heads. It should be
added here that we also referred to  Saffron Robes when
we meant the higher lamas; we never said  the wearer of
the saffron robe, but only  Saffron Robes. In the same
way, we talked of  Red Robes or  Gray Robes because
to us the robe was the thing, as indicating the status of the
person inside it. It was also clear to us by Tibetan logic
that there must be a person inside the robe, or the robe
would not be able to move about!
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 I made my way deeper and deeper along the sloping
corridors of the Potala, and then at last I approached the
rather big room where the barber-monk plied his trade. He
was one who was called a monk by courtesy because it
seemed to me that he never left his particular room, and
certainly never attended services. I strolled along the cor-
ridor, and entered his door. As usual the place was filled
with hangers-on, shiftless monks who hung about, the
barber-monk, the kitchen-monks, in fact, anywhere where
they could skulk and just waste their own and somebody
else's time. But today there was quite an excited air about
the place, and I looked to see the reason.
On a low bench there was a pile of remarkably tattered
and torn magazines. Apparently one of the monks had
done some service for a group of traders, and the traders
out of the kindness of their hearts had given him a whole
load of magazines and papers which they had brought for
various purposes from India. Now there was quite a
throng of monks in the barber-monk's room, and they
were waiting for another monk who had spent some time
in India and thus could be presumed to understand what
was in the magazines.
Two monks were laughing and chattering over some
picture in a magazine. One said to the other, laughingly,
 We must ask Lobsang about all this, he should be a
specialist on such things. Come here, Lobsang! I went
over to where they were sitting on the floor looking at pic-
tures. I took the magazine from them, and then one said,
 But, look, you have the magazine upside-down; you don't
even know which way to hold the thing. Unfortunately, to
my shame, I found that he was right. I sat down between
them and looked at the most remarkable picture. It was of
a brownish color, sepia, I think the correct term would
be, and it depicted a strange-looking woman. She was
sitting on a high table in front of a bigger table, and on a
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framed affair on the bigger table there was a picture, or
reflection of the woman.
Her dress really intrigued me because it seemed to be
longer than a monk's robe. She had a remarkably small
waist which appeared to be belted tightly to make it even
smaller yet her arms were heavily padded, and when I
looked at her chest I found myself blushing with embar-
rassment because her dress was remarkably low danger-
ously low, I should say and I found to my shame that I
wondered what would happen if she bent forward. But in
this picture she was keeping a rigidly straight back.
As we sat there looking at the picture another monk
came in and stood behind us; we took no notice of him.
One of the people milling around said,  Whatever is she
doing? The monk who had just entered bent down and
read what was written beneath, and then he said grandly,
 Oh, she is merely making-up her face, she is applying
lipstick, and when she has done that she will use eyebrow
pencil. That is a cosmetic advertisement All this confused
me beyond belief. Making-up her face? Putting on lip-
stick? Putting on eyebrow pencil?
I turned to the English-reading monk behind me, and
said,  But why does she want to mark where her mouth
is? Doesn't she know? He laughed at me, and said,  Some
of these people, they put red or orange around their lips,
it is supposed to make them more attractive. And when
they have done that they do things to their eyebrows and
perhaps to their eyelids. And when they have finished with
that lot, they go and put dust on their faces, dust of various
colors. All this seemed very strange to me, and I said,
 But why hasn't she got her dress on covering the top part
of her body? Everyone laughed at me, but everyone took
a jolly good look to see what I was getting at. The English-
reading monk laughed loudest of all, and said,  If you see
these Westerners at their parties you will find that they
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wear very little on their chest, but a very great deal below
the waist!
I pored over the pictures, trying to understand what they
were all about. I did not see how the woman could move
about in such uncomfortable clothes. She appeared to
have no feet, but the cloth went all the way down to the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]