This is Chris Bricker, and I’m thrilled to introduce you to Bill Porter – or Red Pine – one of the world’s finest translators of Chinese Poetry and religious texts. For those of you who already know him, and those of you who will get to know him, he prefers to just being your neighbor Bill Porter. Each week, Bill will bring you a series of enticing installments that we’re calling A Journey Along the Silk Road. So sit back and enjoy the journey, every Tuesday at approximately 5:20 and Friday at approximately 12:15. And lose yourself in the mystery of the Silk Road!
(Airdate: October 22, 2024) We’re in Gansu Province at the Tibetan Buddhist Center of Labrang, a seven hour bus ride south the Linxia. Most of the people who visit Labrang are Tibetan pilgrims, but Chinese and an occasional Western tourist or two also make the trek.
(Airdate: October 15, 2024) We’re traveling south of Lanzhou and Linxia, and after a long, long bus ride we’ve finally arrived at Xiahe and to our destination, the Tibetan Buddhist complex of Labrang, one of the most important training centers outside Tibet.
(Airdate: October 15, 2024) Linxia is the area where much of the painted pottery in the Gansu Provincial Museum was unearthed. Until about a thousand years ago, Linxia, and not Lanzhou, was the major focus of Silk Road trade in this part of China….
(Airdate: October 8, 2024) In addition to the great repository of Buddhist art in the Bingling Caves on the reservoir’s west shore, we’re also visiting the living repository of Islamic culture in the town of Linxia on the east shore. Among the Muslim groups that have called the Linxia area their home, one group in particular has a story that’s especially enlightening….
(Airdate: October 1, 2024) We’ve discovered that at the mouth of the gorge that leads to the Bingling Caves, there was once a stone bridge that led across the Yellow River to the town of Linxia, 20 kilometers to the east. The Linxia area is known as one of the oldest known settlements in China. Just outside of Linxia, archeologists have discovered a 5000 year old village….
(Airdate: September 24, 2024) The Bingling Caves are filled with some of the finest Buddhist sculptures in China, dating back to as much as sixteen hundred years ago. Like the caves of Maijishan outside Tianshii, they’re spread across a cliff face—only this particular cliff face is in a gorge, two hundred meters from the Yellow River….
(Airdate: September 17, 2024) We’re in Gansu Province and we’re visiting the Bingling Caves, 70 kilometers southwest of Lanzhou. After a two hour bus ride to the Liujiaxia Dam and Hydroelectric Station, we still had another three hour boat ride to the end of the Liujiaxia reservoir, filled by the Yellow River….
(Airdate: September 10, 2024) Lanzhou is the only city in China where foreigners are required to purchase travel insurance before they’re allowed to board a bus leaving town, but it’s a hassle running around trying to find the office that issues the necessary certificate…
(Airdate: September 3, 2024) We’re in Gsnsu province and we’ve just arrived in the provincial capital of Lanzhou. Lanzhou hugs both banks of the Yellow River for more than 20 kilometers, and after Xi’an it’s the second largest city on the Silk Road—a position of which it’s immensely proud. The week we arrived, the city was preparing for it’s first Silk Road Festival.…
(Airdate: August 28, 2024) Tianshui is truly a strange town! We’re waiting for the early morning express, and there isn’t a noodle stand in site, but several old ladies have set up basins on the station steps, and they’re waiting for us with towels and thermoses full of hot water. Well, the express heading west finally arrived and rescued us from the
enigma of Tianshui. Or perhaps “rescued” isn’t the right word….
