The Sky Burial is a very moving memoir of a Chinese lady called Shu Wen, 26, a dermatologist in China, who's husband, Kejun a doctor himself, served in the Chinese Liberation Army back in 1950 after their marriage to each other. Only married for 100 days of which they spent only 3 weeks together, she received a devastating news that her husband was certified dead.
No further explanation as to how exactly Kejun, 29, lost his life. Just a plain death notice was what the new bride received from the Suzhou Military Office of Jiangsu Province on the 2nd of June 1958.
This truly is a love story worth reading about. Shu Wen didn't accept the death notice as a reason to moan and move on with life, but she took it as a new journey, one that is to go in search of her love.
She left everyone who was dear to her and her life behind in China, and embarked on her very own search mission by joining the Liberation Army since she was a doctor. Wen truly believed her husband was alive and even if he weren't, she needed to know how he left the earth.
Her strength and determination took her through a series of events in the emptiness and vastness of Tibet. Her mission led her to more than she had expected, and the experiences she underwent with her adjustment in a foreign land and that too mid way being detached from the military due to Tibetan-Chinese attacks, was simply mind haunting as well as spiritually enriching.
Xinran, the author of the book had a chance to get Wen's story directly from the horses mouth, and had succeeded in bringing it to her readers in a very moving way. The descriptions of events, travels, births, illnesses, abductions, death and its burials, love, sincerity, self surrender to the spirits, sense of survival for self and family, were an eye opener to what Tibet is indeed rich and proud off. Their lifestyle, their hospitality and and sense of godliness is knowledge worth grasping.
Wen spent 30 years in search of her Kejun, and this book carries all that she underwent. She did find her Kejun at the end, but in the most heart breaking, self sacrificing, selflessness form one could only imagine. Kejun was known as the Chinese Menba who brought peace between the Tibetans and Chinese in the area by the 'Sky Burial' which Kejun offered to show that there were no difference between man and man!
Wen left her Chinese life and became so much more Tibetan that going back to her homeland was another task by itself. She had no identity in China as records were destroyed in the many years of political instability. Never the less, she did step foot in her homeland, only to be a stranger to what she was born with.
I am so moved by this book.
I honour her for her determination, patience and strength for the love she had in her heart soul and mind for her husband.
I truly hope Xinran gets to contact Shu Wen as she is in search of this admirable lady! A Chinese-Tibetan love legend!
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