China Archives | The Land West of Long Mountain Project

The Fabled Land of the Three Frontiers

“From dark to dawn and dawn to dark again. At night, he wakes in dark and, straining his face against the hood, he believes he sees starlight. Dawn, and they have him up on his feet, walking. Finally, on that afternoon, they reach the foot of the snow mountains. The fabled land of the three frontiers, where the Pamirs and the Karakorum meet the Hindu Kush at the westernmost end of the Himalaya on the roof of the world and the mightiest mountain ranges on earth wed and become one.

Their journey has ended, though his odyssey into the frontier of his true country has only begun.”

The Frontier of Our True Country

“From dark to dawn and dawn to dark again. At night, he wakes in dark and, straining his face against the hood, he believes he sees starlight. Dawn, and they have him up on his feet, walking. All day they cross a vast and awesome land. In his vision, the land is the earth at the dawn of creation, back in the beginning, when light and darkness still ranged over the face of the earth.” So begins “The Frontier of Our True Country,” a story of war, flight, travel and transformation out of the Wakhan Corridor of Afghanistan.

Journey with a boy, a mule, a band of Pashtuns, and an American soldier, a deserter, to the fabled land of the three frontiers, where the Pamirs and the Karakorum meet the Hindu Kush at the westernmost end of the Himalaya on the roof of the world and the mightiest mountain ranges on earth wed and become one. An elemental land where the sky seems eternally sprent with stars and existence brushes up against the mythical, the lyrical and the violent and even human drama seems wed to the timeless course of a river.

The Kora-Walkers of the High Plateau

“Outside night has descended upon the high plateau. Beyond the adobe walls of our yard, the thirteen black-haired yaks huddle in the pen, and their warm bright breath exudes from their dark shaggy bodies and fumes from their nostrils in the cold bare moonlight.”

So begins “The Kora-Walkers of the High Plateau,” a poem out of Kham, sung by Lobsang the yak-herd and bard of Manigango and inspired by Joseph’s travels in Tibet. The poem is excerpted from the story”Lobsang and the Snow Lioness,” which is also live at The Land West of Long Mountain Project.

Lobsang and the Snow Lioness

“Listen, friend, and I will tell you an old story that’s still good. One day, the Buddha went up to the snow mountain to pray. This was long ago in one of the Buddha’s past lives, before the Buddha was the Buddha. Back then, in his own boyhood days, he was still a young bodhisattva full of unfulfilled yearning and struggling to find his way.” So begins “Lobsang and the Snow Lioness,” a story of modern-day Tibet imbued with elements of myth and mystery; an imaginative work of literary fiction rooted in a real-world place and inspired by the author’s travels in Tibet.

Journey with Joseph and The Land West of Long Mountain Project to the Land of Snows, to the Roof of the World and the heart of the earth, to a small town called Manigango in the green highland heart of Kham, in the grasslands of Eastern Tibet, where a yak herder and young boy named Lobsang with a love for the earthy, for the bardic and the lyrical goes on a quest in search of annihilation in the wake of his brother’s self-immolation, but in the end experiences the transformative force of mystery and the healing power of violent grace and finds something closer to enlightenment and to peace of heart. In short: to an experience of the sublime on earth. Come, friend, and listen, and the Bard of Manigango will sing to you the story of “Lobsang and the Snow Lioness,” a story which aspires to be a modern-day myth for a myth-starved modern world.

Portraits of Asia

In this collection of photographs taken by writer Joseph Modugno during his decade of travels (2009-2019) in Western China, Central and Southeast Asia, and the Greater Himalaya, the beauty and diversity of the myriad peoples of Asia are visible in vibrant mosaics that capture character, charisma and charm with a wealth of color and light. Join Joseph and The Land West of Long Mountain Project on a photographic journey and decade-spanning odyssey through the hinterlands and heartlands of Asia in search of our common humanity and in pursuit of the sublime on earth.