A Buddhist Monk's Search for the Lost Heart of China.
In 1959, Tsung Tsai fled from the Red Army who had destroyed his monastery and walked three thousand miles across Communist China, determined to carry on the teachings of his old master, Shiuh Deng. Hidden under his peasant jacket he carried a book of poetry and his monk's certificate, both capital offences.
Nearly forty years later, Tsung Tsai travels back to his birthplace with his friend Crane, a hedonistic American poet with a dislike of authority. His mission is to find Shiuh Deng's grave and build a shrine in his honour. Flouting bureaucratic restrictions, they re-enter a lost world of superstition nearly extinguished by history.
On the way they encounter foxy town girls and rural shamans, morning meditations and drunken feasts, sand-scoured wilderness and a master of black magic. As their quest culminates with a nearly fatal climb to a remote mountain cave, we glimpse the power of a timeless faith to endure in the heart of suffering.
