No Slave to ShangrHa.docVIP

No Slave to ShangrHa 　　REACHING for descriptions ofTibet,the word mystery rollsoff many peoples tongues.However Harvard TibetologistLeonard W.J.Van der Kuijp refused touse this word,believing as he does thatTibet is in a kind of conceptual slavery toromantic notions held in the West.Peo-ple tend to impose their imagination onTibet.Tibet is not heaven,neither hell.Itis a place between heaven and hell,likeany other place in the world. 　　 　　Failing for Tibet 　　 　　If anyone dares venture such a no-tion,few people know better what theyare talking about than Van der Kuijp.In197o,when 18 years old,he happened topick up a library book about Tibet.It wasa translation by the well-known Germansinologist Reinhold Giinther.Van derKuijp was a college freshman and mathe-matics and biology major at the time,butat once succumbed to a fascination forthis remote place.My interest had noth-ing to do with religion; it was purely aca-demic.It was a hunger for knowledge. 　　He soon arrived at the University ofSaskatchewan where Reinhold Gfintherwas teaching.There he obtained a mas-ters degree and studied the Tibetan,Chi-nese,and Mongolian languages.In 1976Van der Kuijp left Canada for Germanyto devote himself to Tibetology,Sinol-ogy,Indology and philosophy,getting hisdoctorate from Hamburg University in1979. 　　The Tibetologist always credits hisacademic success to his studies in Ham-burg.Liu Maocai,a famous linguist,wasone of his strictest teachers.He taughtme and one.other student the Book ofMencius, Van der Kuijp recalled.Wehad to read ancient Chinese texts lateinto the night,but he never failed us inthe examination. 　　Armed with academic credentials,Vander Kuijp returned to Canada and foundhimself jobless,and possibly unemploy-able - a painful price for his decision tofollow his interests as a career choice.Myfriends all laughed at me,but I never feltregret. He got a job driving a cab and un-dertook the study of agroeconomies. 　　The turning point came a year later.His tutor