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What is up, everybody? Welcome back to The Honest Drink. I'm Justin. If you've been enjoying this podcast, go ahead, rate, comment, and subscribe. All right, we have a very special guest today. He is an award-winning Himalayan explorer. He has spent the last two decades documenting and tracking the ancient Himalayan trade routes and its human participants.
He is the very first documented Westerner to travel by foot the length of the ancient T-Horse Road, which is a very daunting trade route winding through the mountains of Sichuan, Yunnan, Tibet, and India. He is an expert mountaineer and has led several expeditions and was recently voted as one of Canada's 100 Greatest Explorers.
How cool is that? He is also a tea fanatic. He never goes anywhere without a stash of tea. He is an author and was the subject of an award-winning documentary called The Tea Explorer. His curated journey along the Tea Horse Road was called one of the 50 trips of a lifetime by National Geographic
I mean, this man has done some things. Today, we talk to him about a life of exploration, its cliches, its deeper meaning. We get his thoughts on social media, third culture, not being settled. We talk about the life-changing experiences on the ancient trade routes of the T-Horse Road, its historical significance,
We talk about what it takes to deal with the life-threatening dangers of Himalayan mountain expeditions. And he shares how the people he's met along the way have blown his mind and given him an entirely new perspective. This one was hosted by Howie, Eric, and myself. So without further ado, please give it up for Jeff Fuchs.
We're living in a time where everybody's either
dumbing down even further or expanding and trying to reach out to different avenues, different possibilities of living. Are you kind of an urban dweller? Are you living out more in the country? Are you moving around a lot? Are you more stationary? What's your lifestyle?
So in the last 18 months, it's been fixed in a very rural area of the Big Island. We run a non-profit, which involves a tea time. It's a mandatory two tea time session a day for youth. And the idea is just to basically get the kids outside, off of screens for sort of a set amount of time, get them putting up tents, get them interacting, get them thinking about values. So we've got...
two-week groups that come in. They're very intensive. They're overnight. So I'm kind of on totally, completely 16 hours a day with them, which is fantastic stuff. Or I'm off working on separate projects, which could be anything from writing to articles. I have a
a tea column called the Tea Sessions, which is about not necessarily the leaves, the characters who've put the leaves into the cups, the people who harvest, the people who have been living a generation upon generation lifestyle with tea, almost as a family member rather than simply a commodity. But the last 18 months has been basically adapting like everyone else to this whole concept that
You get more time to think about the things you've perhaps not done so right and the things you should be doing when things ease a bit. Before that, I was on the road for six months a year, much of the time in China, much in Nepal, in India. So there's, I think, for many, a transition. I'm fortunate that we have the nonprofit that I can sink my teeth into. I mean, I think everyone has...
their own kind of vision of, you know, what an explorer is, right? And to me, an explorer is like that, you know, you're backpacking everywhere, you're going to, you're almost taking the road less traveled, and you're going to places where most people won't trek to. And there's that kind of ideology of what we think an explorer is. And number one, I think I want to get from your perspective,
actual opinion like is that is that true and does that apply to you and number two is another thing because you mentioned it just moments before about you know social media and and being connected online i want to get your perspective as an explorer and as a person who might live maybe a different lifestyle than us like urban dwellers and people who work nine to five
What is your perspective on social media and its whole people being constantly plugged in, so to speak, 24 hours a day? That's a huge one. And I'm going to go to your first point or question first about the exploration. A lot of the exploration world, I think, is actually...
the underrated informal moments of adaptation, of being resilient, of being culturally sensitive, of being perhaps not Mr. Fitness, Mr. Backpack. Of course, that's a part of it. But the most, I think, authentic moments of my life, not just in exploration, have occurred in very informal settings, not at the top of a peak. I mean, some of those are pretty epic.
But they've been sharing tea. They've been sharing a meal. They've been sitting at a xiao kao, a barbecue, in a little backwoods tea village in Sichuanbanna in southwestern Yunnan. So I think perhaps, I don't know if this is a modern versus the old version of explorer, but I think the newer version of an explorer has to be a little...
I would say that the emphasis might be upon some of those being receptive to listening, being the third or fourth person to speak, not the first, not leading everything. And I think, for me at least, some of the great pieces of
literature or some of the great things done in history have been done by those who are not necessarily leading or fronting something, but they're rather collecting information or they're quietly building over the course of years to create something. So, of course, there's the physical components. My background is in climbing, but it's also in linguistics. And I think...
One aspect of exploration now is that we get a little more empathetic with where we're going and how to enter into a new space, a new culture. I'm always shocked when, I'm not slamming anybody here, kind of am actually, is when people go in totally ignorant where their sole goal is to conquer, they use the word conquer, to
Climb faster, higher, backwards, sideways, when they're not making any mention of the cultural aspects around them. They're not paying credit to the people who are getting them to these places, to the linguists, to the drivers, to those nice informal moments that get you to something. Because...
You know, it's the old cliche, but the journeys are really the exceptional part of it. And often the failures make for some of the great explorations. Now to touch on that bigger one, social media. I had a student about a week ago, as soon as we got back to Big Island, we had a group and a student was talking about social media.
And in her words, she said, it's up to us to learn how to discipline ourselves and to be pragmatic about the usage of social media. And I thought that that was a really, I think it's a pretty informed way of looking at it. And I found it very simple. It's not going to go away. I think Gen Z, this younger generation up to 17, they're actually...
A lot of them seem to be tired of technology. When we ask them to get off their pads, their phones for eight hours a day for a week, they have no problems doing that as long as they're engaged. And I think they're quite realistic. They've grown up with technology. So for them, I'm not sure it's exotic. It's much more of a daily need.
It's like having a tea or coffee in the morning. It's just there all the time. It's there to be utilized as a positive, a negative. I think here in the West and North America, it's slightly out of control right now, just in terms of what are facts anymore. And I think there's hesitation in youth groups that I deal with to believe any side.
So they're almost craving interface. They're craving personal interactions, which for me is actually, I look at that as a positive on their part. I think it's great that they're craving real interaction where you see micro movements on the face. You feel someone's energy rather than simply always interpreting what this wonderful, incredible and all-consuming screen can do.
um, super eloquent way you just shared. And I'm even kind of reading through, um, the book that you wrote. I found that you are extremely, um, lyrical and the way you write and, um,
And I think you like the level of thought and sort of that comes across in your speech as well. You mentioned a couple of things. I know we didn't kind of introduce ourselves and maybe we can kind of throughout the episode kind of allow you to get to know us a little bit better too. It sounds like you really value that, but you mentioned this kind of notion of,
of connection and journey. And the three of us actually are really good friends. We all grew up in the US and then through different circumstances, we moved over to this part of the world, a part of the world that, you know, was deeply connected to our backgrounds, you know, being sort of ethnically Chinese, but also something very, very different.
because we grew up and spent most of our formative years in the US and experiencing the culture there.
And when we met each other just randomly, you know, back in the party days in Shanghai, probably, I don't know, was it 2008, 2009? You know, we lived a very different life as well. Right. And so we kind of got to know each other and there's lots and lots of people that you can meet in Shanghai. I'm sure you've been out here. But yeah,
You know, over time, you feel like a deeper connection with certain individuals. And for me, Howie and Justin, it's just even though I've lived in different places, I've lived in Beijing, I've spent years apart, you know, in Shanghai. But there was this really deeper connection and shared value somehow. We could just kind of feel it. And so the last few years, as we've evolved our lives a little bit,
And, you know, we're trying to kind of figure out what's really important to us, what's really worth doing. And as we're starting our own families and, you know, getting married and all that stuff, um, we are re-exploring our values and, um, we're trying to, you
you know, make sense of the world in a different way. And we're trying to support each other. So, um, you know, if you listen to some of the earlier episodes, if you ever get bored, um, um, we, we talk a lot about the origin story, um,
of this show, but I think it's really important because, you know, our values are to stay connected. So, you know, like our top value is for the three of us to stay connected and then learn and grow together, support each other, have a lot of fun in the experience. And of course, in that process, a lot of that intersection between China and the Western world,
starts playing out in the conversations. And the three of us are very different. You'll, you'll see like the different sort of thought process and conversations, but, you know, we spend an hour or two, um, you know, in this dialogue. And then I think we all get, um, you know, something out of it. So I, I just wanted to briefly share a little bit. I know the focus really is more about us learning from you, but I didn't want to set that, um, that context, um, around, um,
you know, why we want you on the show. Right. And of course, like we're trying to build better habits. We're trying to deconstruct, you know, how high performing people work in different areas. And we talk a lot about the impact of social media. I think this is something that we're very passionate about. And Justin has some really interesting ideas and pet peeves around like how social media is influencing our lives, but also shaping our perception of different parts of the world and whether or not it actually brings us together or a
or kind of, you know, pushes us apart. And, you know, you touched on something, values. We do value workshops here with the kids. And a lot of what, you know, just to touch on it briefly, a lot of the values that sort of became more important to me were gained on the trails, talking to old muleteers, talking to Sherpas, talking to tea growers, because of some fundamental simplicity, right?
So I'm all about the values question. Not that I figured it out, but all about trying to explore it, especially now. Just our conversation so far, I feel like the theme is really people, right? Like the human story and things, whether we're talking about your explorations, whether we're talking about social media, whether we're talking about the nonprofit work you do, it's all about that connecting with people and it's that human story, right? And so often I think,
You know, we think in stereotypes and we think in explorer, we think of places, we think of, like you mentioned, people conquering things, like they climbed Mount Everest and they've tackled these great physical challenges of endurance and spirit. But like you say, like I can't really recall any stories about
really pushing the culture and the people and the connections, even in what people might perceive to be like the little mundane things, right? And that kind of changes my perception of what an explorer can be and where you can explore things. And I think with that principle, you can explore anywhere, right?
You don't have to go to some sort of quote-unquote really exotic place to explore. I can walk out of my apartment right here and start exploring and connecting with people that I might never have thought to connect with, and there could be a lot of value and interest in that. Your definition probably expands the...
The whole criteria for who can be involved. And that's one of the things that exploration, I think, has always been exotic. It's been, you know, there's been a very Western version of the word exploration in the past. It's been about funding. It's been about gathering information through research.
you know, sort of the colonial wanderings. And I think now this idea of exploration has a lot more to do with who we are, ethnic backgrounds, third culture, this idea, you know, you've mentioned it a couple times during this, how you all met. I grew up in Europe and in Canada and
My grandmother's Hungarian. So my perception, my perspectives, and an ever-increasing amount of youth, I think their inputs growing up are much more diverse. So their version of exploration, their version of events, how they perceive is going to be that much more rich, bizarre, wonderful, intricate, and it's not all about the massive pieces of
stone that sit in the clouds. I hope that doesn't disappear. But I do think it's going to be about the conversations in the tents getting to these places that are going to be different. And those conversations hopefully are more important than they ever were. It's not about getting to the river. It's about the conversation you had with somebody that you would have never had a conversation with getting a total
I wouldn't say a total mindfuck, but you're getting a totally different perspective on something and you're really having to assess who you are, what are you doing here, and are you open? Are you willing?
I have a question, because we didn't get to, I didn't get introduced to you before through the email thread. But I do want to ask you something, because when you're, when you talk about exploration, and plus the values that we were just discussing as well, and they kind of all go together, actually. But I just want to go even earlier to how it all started. But what kind of got you started in this? Like, what really got you going?
I have to say tea. And it sounds like really, pretty much the answer to a lot of questions. I did grow up, I mean, I grew up in a Hungarian household with my father, a grandmother, eccentric. And my father probably in his previous lives was somewhere in, I don't know, central China or on the steppes of Mongolia or something. He was fascinated, obsessed with food, language, travel. So
in my mind as a child, it was always there. It wasn't something exotic. It's like in your DNA. It might be. It might be. And the Hungarians are a real mix to start with. But I didn't realize I had a bizarre household until I started going to school with fish sandwiches and something called percolt, which is this crazy paprika veal dish for lunch. So then I started thinking, okay, well,
This is a little bit different. And tea, my father had oolong in the house from the time I can remember. We weren't a coffee household. And so this was always lurking, I think. And maybe back to your comment earlier about the connections of humans. With all that's going around, we're still social beings. And I cling to that as an optimist because...
When people do sit down for a meal that takes three hours and you're sitting on a table that's a foot and a half off the ground and you're enjoying it, you're forgetting. I think some of the great life moments take place at dinner tables or around tea houses. And certainly not only Yunnan has that, but much of Asia, China in particular, has treated me to...
I don't know how many hundreds of hours of restorative eating, conversation, lectures, arguments, drinking baijiu. There's something very restorative. And you had mentioned this a little bit ago, you mentioned the idea of third culture. And I want to get your perspective on what third culture means to you.
personally and how you view that identity, I guess, or that idea? If I'm getting the, and I may have the description wrong, it was explained to me a couple of years ago by a friend who grew up, was actually born in China. His parents emigrated to Canada
His parents then moved back to China. He was left in Canada, and then he subsequently moved to the UK. He speaks, of course, Mandarin, speaks English. But I think his description was basically this, I don't think it's necessarily anything to do with three, but this multitude, this smorgasbord of influences at very important times of
growing up, teenage years. And so you're getting a full whack of what goes on in your home, what goes on at your dinner table, what goes on in your school, which could be a totally different cultural space and time. And then there's what's going on in your head. And so for him, and I think he described it well, what went on in his head was always a mix of
So he would explain it, at least from his perspective, that he was never thinking just as a product of parents from Hunan. He was thinking as someone with parents from Hunan who grew up in Canada, who also grew up in the UK. So he looks at things, I mean, he admitted he was confused. I thought he was quite brilliant. But he seemed to be able to pick up on a lot of things.
the world's situations more empathetically. And certainly, in my own experiences growing up in a household of ethnic food, language was treated almost as a royal tribute gift to be able to speak a couple of languages as a young person was not looked at as a chore. I think there's an empathy
a more compassionate outlook from a lot of third culture friends of mine my wife also comes from this this sort of smorgasbord of growing up in a in a very mixed mixed household um mixed language and if i had to speculate i would say that i think that it's a probably a good thing that the the world belongs to this next generation of third culture
A good portion of the world, because I think that there's a listening component that's innate in a lot of the modern third culture people I've met, rather than just dictating an older version of something, you know, a repeat of hierarchy. And, you know, some things in hierarchy are good. I'm not saying...
I'm not saying let's burn it all, but there are things I think that there are adaptive, resilient qualities in third culture that I certainly admire. You know, you don't shed your experiences and you don't shed the humility and the shame sometimes of growing up in a very mixed up, complex roller coaster of living. I never heard empathy used to describe third culture and I
When you say it, it really strikes me as true. Like there is this, and I don't want to say heightened level of empathy, but there is this level of empathy that I think is a little more unique for, I feel, a lot of the third culture kids today.
growing up because of the variety of cultural influences, experiences, exposure, this kind of stuff. And, you know, when you were talking about your friend and you were saying that he was describing himself as confused, like that really resonates with me as well. You know, when I think of me being kind of this third culture person in a more, maybe in a more simplistic way,
being raised in the US, living in China, and having this kind of dual identity where I feel it could all just be in my head, but I feel like I won't be 100% accepted in America, and I'm not maybe 100% accepted here in China either. And it's this feeling of being lost. It's this feeling of not having a real home, I guess. And
And that's kind of a scary feeling. And maybe it shouldn't be. I don't know, right? It's something I struggle with personally myself, but...
You know, I would assume that this is something that you're very familiar with having moved around so much in your life is this attachment for many people to have a need for like this home base, this home identity, a home culture that they can always go back to and identify with.
And I'm wondering if that's something that you see as more and more unnecessary as you experience life. It's a good question. I would say that since I've had a child, I'm probably more acutely aware of that than ever. I don't think I was necessarily always trying to process the question. I had my teapot. I had a duffel bag with my Trek kit.
And to some degree, that was very liberating not to need a lot of things. But now with the arrival of, I mean, I'm married now, which I didn't think I would be. I have a child. It gets the best of us. Happy to be here. Happy to be here.
The tonic of travel, the tonic of being on the move, the tonic of friction, of having situations, problems you had to solve, for me at least, was a way of getting through time periods. With this last 18 months, with a child in this last 18 months,
I'm acutely aware of this question that you just, well, this whole point you raised. But maybe that goes back to the empathy thing. Maybe that goes back to an awareness that we have that we don't really settle in anywhere. And that, to a degree, there's strength in that, too. Maybe there's something good in not being settled. And maybe there's something good in being constantly...
sensitized, sensitive, aware of the fact that we're never completely settling in. And, you know, I'm not sure anyone, even those who grew up in that small town with their whole clan around them, you know, this is what information, the information age has done. I'm not sure anyone is as settled as we may think they are. In other words, I'm not sure that we're outliers like we may think we are.
We're more obvious in that we've had experiences. Our language skills may be different. Our reference points might be different. But I think there's a great appetite to seek for everyone. For me, certainly, tea is grounding. You know, tea has been my home. I have a teapot that I travel with. I've got a stack of leaves that I travel with.
And that one little ritual every day helps ground me for however brief a moment in time I have. And maybe that's where it should be. Maybe I'm not supposed to be thinking about the bigger. Well, it's almost like tea is your settlement. Sorry? I said it's almost like tea is your settlement. Everything else is open-ended. Tea is your settlement. Yes. Yeah. Well put.
you know, settling in or settling down, feeling comfortable, feeling safe versus, you know, putting yourself out there and seeking advantage, seeking adventure and seeking, you know, different things. And I think there is this tension with that. And perhaps this curiosity that
And this need for us to seek understanding is part of all of us. And it's probably a survival advantage. I would think that if we were in different circumstances, not in this sort of modern urban circumstances, and we rewound ourselves back to some of the early human beings, if they didn't understand their surroundings, if they didn't know where the water was, if they didn't know where some of the dangers were,
They just wouldn't flat out survive. And so I feel like in some ways we're kind of all programmed, you know, to have this inner kind of thirst to seek out sort of new things.
And at the same time, you mentioned tea is like grounding and it's your ritual. And I think for me and for lots of people, meditation and mindfulness, right? Because we're trying to stop that inner chatter. We've talked about this on the show as well, this inner voice that sometimes can be very, very loud and overwhelming. And it can be very, very negative as well because it's not satisfied and it's trying to push you to do something else. Yeah.
But, you know, this side of us that we're, you know, we're trying to calm ourselves down. We're trying to be more mindful, et cetera. It feels like there's this tension between the two and finding that balance of seeking new things versus just being content is something that, you know, human beings really struggle with. And I'm wondering how you find sort of your balance, you know, in life. I think friction. Yeah.
There's a great Hungarian saying, and my grandmother said it more than once, never underestimate the importance of friction, because it's in friction that you move somewhere. And it's probably going against a lot of the thirst and the desire to be mindful, but we're problem-solving people.
energetic people. We've got chi, ki, prana, whatever we call it. And I don't think that all of us are programmed to be settled, to be calm, even without all of the noise of technology and social media, even without all of the social discord and the divide of societies right now. I think some of us need to be engaged and simply busy.
So for me, I'm not, my wife Julie can speak to this, I'm not an entirely successful homebody. I'm not very good when I'm comfortable for too long. That's an adaptation thing for me. But I need, in my own way, I need little challenges. I need to work on things. I need to be busy, physical as well as mental.
The other thing my grandmother said is, she says, one of the worst things you can achieve is comfort. I get it. I struggle with that one because we all have our versions of comfort. But I understand the point she was making because there's something in there that's like we should be striving. Whether it's putting our energies into helping others, whether it's into the common good, whether it's into collecting money,
Puerh, which I spend too much time doing. Whatever it is, or learning something. So I'm not there yet. Just, Eric, just back to your point. I haven't come to any conclusions, but I think so much of what I miss about the travel and the going to the source regions of Puerh and to some of the mountain regions is just that interaction thing.
That unscripted, that unpredictable stuff that goes on where you were one is activating your senses, your weaknesses are being activated, your strengths are being sort of, it's all happening. The theoretical world, I think, sometimes gets a bit complex and maybe almost a burden. There's something beautiful about activity.
Well, Jeff, I want to touch on some of your more publicly notable achievements, right? And, you know, I'm curious because you were the first Westerner to trek the entire Himalayan route from Yunnan to Tibet. And I'm wondering if at the time you knew you were the first Westerner doing that while you were taking that long trek, that long journey.
Or was that something you found out after? Not even sure. I don't think I knew when we did it. One thing I did know and wondered about was why no Westerners had taken an interest in this route. And the answer came from a friend of mine who lives in Yunnan. He says, well, it's easy. It's because it didn't cut your culture. It didn't touch your...
grand Western history. He's local. So he kind of, he took a little pot shot. And I think it's a good point. We weren't involved. The Silk Road was something that touched Western Europe. We have these legends of Marco Polo. Some of them are maybe a slight question about their veracity. But I think
I don't recall knowing that I was the first. I just remember thinking when I was preparing and researching, why is there nothing of this incredible journey that predates, this incredible route that predates the Silk Road? Why is there nothing in English? And there's even very little that I could access in Mandarin.
It was the story of largely oral traditions, oral narratives passed on by the Mabang or the tea buyers or tea sellers or the harvesters. So no, I don't think I knew during the time. I just knew that there was nothing I could find written in English, French, or I couldn't find anything to research except through repeated journeys.
So in Chinese, this path is called 茶马道, right? 茶马道, 茶马古道, yes. So there should be a lot of information in Chinese about it then? Yes, but when I did it, it wasn't much online.
And getting scholars to contribute was difficult because you'd have to talk. It's that beautiful thing. And in China at the time, this was in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, I was doing research. I had to speak to somebody who knew somebody whose uncle's brother's sister was the daughter of the man I could speak to who might be able to give me some information. So...
And there was a lot of that. And at first it was frustrating. And then it was, then it wasn't frustrating. It was, it was the whole point of the, for me, at least it became the whole point of the journey was that I had to connect with people. I had to be patient. I had to, you know, getting pieces of information that corroborate that the Tama Gouda actually go from this town to that town. And then you'd have a husband and wife in their eighties saying, well,
different things. No, and yes, but it went through this other townie village, and you need to go there. So, yeah. Sounds fun. It was fun. It was fun. And, you know, you don't think about the concept of time. Now, of course, I'd be impatient. I'd be probably, oh my god, I need to do this now. I don't have all this time to meet another family. But
In those days, it just became this spinning journey. It became a series of stories within the bigger narrative of the Tamagotau. How long did that journey take you? I have to start by saying I had in my head through research, tells you what research does,
I had estimated about four months. It took me seven and a half months total, and most of it on foot. How intense is the whole journey? Parts of it you need... I mean, it's incredible to think of a meter-wide ledge with a thousand-foot drop. And for us, it's one thing. We were prepared, but...
You know, you think about meals, how to load meals. So the muleteers had to load these meals in a particular way that were sort of biased on one side so that when they were going along a ledge, more was on the outside than the inside, because if not, you'd plunge. And I think the, I mean, one of the special elements of the T-Horse Road is that in order to journey it successfully and make this journey,
this entire journey for the traders, you needed to know who you could depend on. You needed to know the host families that would take care of your mules. You needed to know where the thieves were. You needed to understand relationships. This is something that came up again and again on the journey through the elders that were still living, was the importance of
And of course, this is a 1300 year history. So this would have been the case for all of that time. But the elders would emphasize you needed to have good relationships. You needed to be listening and understand not only the weather, but the people, the cultures you were traveling through. So, you know, what's incredible about the trade route is that for 1300 years, trade never ceased. I mean, that says something about...
It says something about economics as well, but it also says something about an understanding of relationships, I think. Wow. It sounds fascinating. Like just even hearing what you're saying with that one meter ledge, it's a very visual, I visually see it and my palms are getting sweaty just thinking about it. You know what I'm talking about, Justin. Oh, I do. Yeah.
One thing I'm just curious about, did you find out throughout this journey, because of this 1300 year history, when you went on it in the early 2000s, comparatively with 1300 years of history, was there any big change or has it always just stayed the same in terms of the route, in terms of the structures and the path, etc.? The path we took that we focused upon was the path that was least
molested, lease-changed. The irony of the T-Horse Road, the main hubs of it, through Sichuan, through Qinghai, through Yunnan, into Tibet and down into India. The blueprint of a lot of major highways, the G214, I think that's the one that goes through Yunnan, all of these blueprints of the Tamagwudaw provided this sort of
uh, uh, grounds for the highways that we see today. So in fact, a lot of the, the trade routes that could be asphalted and created into two major roadways were not all of them. And, you know, just back to Eric's, uh, backdrop, what we're looking at, Sashi, that's a perfect example. When I first went there in early two thousands, uh,
It was, I mean, it's always been a beautiful village, but it was sleepy. It was this tired, gorgeous little place where the mists would start playing on the sunflowers and the fields. Now it's got boutique lodges that are formidable. And souvenir shops. And souvenir shops selling identical things.
How could you tell where it was just by that one photo? I don't want to say I've been there. I've lived in Shashi. I've lived in parts of the route for long periods. I mean, Shangri-La, I was living there for over a decade. But Shashi, I know exactly where that building is. I know. I've passed that.
Yeah, I know that well. Shashi's a place I imagined living there at one point, so...
Trying to figure out your travel plans is always an interesting topic. Some people put months and months of time in. You mentioned that you took months of time to prepare your route. I was just in Guiyang. I was trying to plan this really, really nice trip for seven days, but it wasn't until I got to Guiyang that I started talking to the people in Guiyang who then pointed me out to another place like Zhaoxing.
And then from Zhaoxing, then, you know, meeting the owner of the lodge there, then that person then pointed me out to the only, the last tribe in China that's allowed to carry guns because of their tradition. It's called Biasha. And so it was really interesting that only along the route could I kind of figure out what the next point was.
My internal nature is to have everything sort of in my head and planned, right? Eric's a control freak. Eric is the ultimate control freak.
Yeah, absolutely. Even with this show, I feel like, but, but that's where some of the tension comes in. And so, but it wasn't until I went on to different points in the, in the, in the, in the journey that I could see the next one. And so I taught myself then that there has to be a certain, you have to kind of let go a little bit, right? So have an overall framework, go to the first place and then know that if you build the right relationships in that place, then
The people that are there, they know their area the best, right? And it's like what you're saying with this particular Sashi village. Only if you actually live there would you recognize it. And that's sort of a metaphor. So the people that really understand things to that level of detail are the ones that are there. And you'd never be able to ask someone in Shanghai, you know, what the right village to go to in Guizhou would be until you actually get to Guizhou. And I think that's sort of the beauty of it.
Very much. I mean, that, I think, played out on the T-Horse Road. I imagine it did. So structure is an illusion, as you well know, being a control freak. So it's only for our own sort of subconscious mindset that when we think we're in control, that we can depart and engage, and then we're happy to lose control. I mean, at least I am. I think the control thing is...
That's fun stuff. It's fun to get. I mean, there's nothing better than getting lost on your own when there's other people to satisfy. That's different. But getting lost and having that that beautiful luxury of time is pretty, pretty exquisite. Yeah, Eric, you mentioned. Yeah, well, I'm glad I found a kindred.
Um, well, I, I'm, I was just only trying to control like a seven day trip. Like Jeff goes on these, you know, seven and a half or however, eight month tracks, and he's got to sort of manage all the details and actually survive it. Um, Jeff, you mentioned, um, I don't know if I understood this correctly earlier, but, um, you know, first of all, understanding the, the, um,
the kind of the structure of the T horse road, because over time people's interpretations change and probably over time, the different routes change based on, I don't know, weather patterns or, you know, other factors in it. So you spend some time kind of understanding that structure. And then you also mentioned that, um, you know, in modern times, of course, we don't need the T horse road, right? Because we have highways and we have planes and all that stuff. But, um,
Am I correct? Kind of in the comment you made where some of the modern highways, I guess some of the routes are,
are sort of grounded in the paths that were chosen by the people who went on the T-Horse Road so that there was some, I guess, logic and understanding of the terrain so that later on, literally hundreds of years later when we build highways, those decisions still played out sort of in a kind of a logical way. Very much, very much. And I think that might be true throughout
Throughout a lot of the geo spectrum of the world, waterways were certainly great pathways to follow instinctively way back when. And I think the other thing you mentioned is this notion of a trade route. It's not something that I think that I think about on a regular basis.
But it was one of the key, I suppose, factors driving the economy. Because now you basically have FedEx, whatever, you're just shipping stuff all around. But before, the physicality and the terrain and the geography of where things were were very, very important. And so these routes were...
I mean, they basically shaped how you lived and they shaped sort of society in a much more profound way than it would probably now. And if you think about the economy on these trade routes in terms of modern GDP, it would be really interesting to see, OK, in this particular area, these trade routes, they contributed X dollars to the overall GDP overall.
And then kind of, you know, look at things and those terms. I think it's quite fascinating to see how the world has evolved and what the factors driving competition, driving, you know, improvement of people's quality of life, et cetera, et cetera. It's really, really kind of interesting to see how things have changed. Yeah. And I mean, with the ebbing of trade and travel along the route, the physical, you know, you mentioned physicality.
a lot of places just evaporated. Places became ghost towns. And, you know, one thing that came up again and again was a lot of these informal, very, very simple people who were involved with tea trade. And it wasn't just tea trade. It was resin. It was salt. It was copper, leather. Anything with value is traded. A lot of these formally uneducated, so they never had formal education. They were ruffians.
But a lot of them were extremely cultured. They could speak two or three languages because trade necessitated it. And a lot of these trade families started out simple and built up and became very erudite, very cultured. I heard or I read this somewhere where I think spinach came into what we see now as China cultured.
Over one of the trade routes, some seeds came over from the Middle East. I'm not sure if I'm getting that right, but something significant. It wasn't just, you know, tea and salt and copper. It was all kinds of other things. DNA was flowing as well. So, you know, these trade hubs, I mean, Shanghai, great example. The history of trade is the history of
economics to a degree it's also the history of how cultures share themselves recipes you know I think there's a lot more to economics than economics because you you've got movement especially in the days of trade now it's it's quick it's there's no residue left on the on the commodities anymore where we've lost a bit of that but I think in the the old days you you had all of these
You had linguistics. You had, you know, there was these gentlemen, they were traders of rugs and leather in West Bengal. We sat with them. They spoke flawless Mandarin. I mean, it was you could feel that there was an accent, but their Mandarin was perfect. And when I asked them, you know, what was their education? They said, oh, we the equivalent of grade four Mandarin.
but we learned languages. And I thought, that's brilliant. They can speak Mandarin, they can speak Gorkhali, they can speak Newari, and they could speak to me in English. It was amazing.
You know, and how much are we sort of losing of our own identity? How much are we losing in terms of the richness of our own journeys now by having everything automated? We talked about, the three of us talked about this on a show called, I think it was the Survival Kit for Life. I think we've talked about this a couple of different times.
But basically everything is handed to us now. And then we're extremely specialist. And, you know, maybe you're an accountant in a company that specializes in a certain type of accounting and that's all, you know, right. And so that along with just basic communication skills, you really don't need to do anything. If you live in Shanghai, you,
You have a decent job. You live in your apartment. Everything is taken care of you. You don't even have to clean your own apartment for some people. You order everything online. So these so-called trade routes, in a sense, have expanded, not just the physical exchange of things that you need, but it's completely automated. And there's a route for almost every single thing. You just need to have one skill that's needed so that you can earn a living. And pretty much, you don't have to do anything.
And so how much do we lose by that? You know, not having that complexity. When you mentioned the problem solving pieces, like human beings are wired to problem solve because it's our survival advantage. We've got to continually adapt to our environment so we can gain the upper hand so that we're not overwhelmed by our environment.
And we don't really have to problem solve anymore. Whereas, you know, in the past, like these people, first of all, you had to learn multiple languages just to be able to trade. Right. Then you had to find the route where you're not going to fall. You know, your mule is not going to like keel over and fall a thousand foot into this physicality around that. Yeah. And, and then who can you trust? Because, you know, back then there weren't, maybe if you're crossing multiple like areas, there's not like a government, uh,
Right. There's not like a police force like I mean, that's managing like now we have national level COVID management in China. Like literally we're managing case counts to that person. I mean, that's just like it's it's it's incredible. Like I just flew back and it was seamless. I waltzed out of the airport. I showed them the code. There was I mean, it was easier than a U.S. airport when there wasn't COVID in the U.S.,
And at the same time, it's safer than anywhere else in the world because they literally are monitoring. I shouldn't say this too loud, but they're monitoring you. You know, like that GPS is literally they can see the hairs on my arm.
And so that's why you can just waltz around, show a code, but they basically know exactly where you are and what the risks are. Everything through technology, through better process management, and all of this infrastructure that's built up, it's almost like all the problems have been solved. Whereas before you were on your own and you might travel that village. And if it's like, if I go right, I'll go to this village. I don't know anyone there, they're gonna rob me. But if I go left,
you know, Jeff's my buddy and he's got my back. And so I think in a, in a, in a lot of ways I can, I can kind of understand, you know, why you would go out there like, um, and be an explorer and try to see the world truly, not just theoretically, like, as you said earlier, but truly, you know, go through the problems that life, that, that, um, life has to offer you to really feel, you know, kind of alive. It almost makes me want to, um, sign up for your next, um, adventure.
Well, I mean, I wouldn't be the only person, but I mean, I've had many clients over the years. And there's usually day three or day four, someone in a group. If it's a client, that's different. If it's clients and it's a little more relaxed.
You'll have someone on day three or day four who was previously aggravated about the lack of certainty, the lack of, I want to know exactly how many miles and how many hours and what the altitude, you know, how much we're ascending today. On day three or day four, that same person, it's almost, I could almost draw a psychological profile on that person. They will say something like, you know, I woke up freezing this morning in my tent and it felt extraordinary. Or it felt...
great that I have no cell coverage, where the previous two days they were saying, how come you didn't tell me? It's kind of sketchy. I thought I'd be online. So there's that whole, I mean, to some degree, I think we have the ability to curate. We've got all of these wonderful easements of the previous efforts of generations before us.
And yet it goes back to that comfort and that activity. We have the ability to be selective in what we choose to believe, to select. I feel this way at least. And we have the ability to say, you know, I'm just going to order that. I'm not going to go down to the shop and buy this. And, you know, I think innately a lot of humans were suspicious of
When things get a little too easy, I mean, you can see it with society. When things get too easy, things don't get easier. We start asking more questions. And when things should be easy, they're usually not easy. They're not simple because we complicate them. Sometimes we overcomplicate them. You know, Justin asked the significance of the T-Horse Road and like what's the –
you know, how does this fit into the bigger picture? What can we learn from it? That kind of stuff. And it is very interesting that it was kind of, it sounds like it's kind of a self-contained economic ecosystem, right? Because it existed apart from the Western world. So that's really cool because we grew up in the West. So to be able to connect those dots and say that when human beings have to trade and survive and collaborate and connect and all that stuff,
it's really interesting to learn from examples that are into completely independent. And I think this goes back to the, the what was it? The third culture or I'm not sure I'm not familiar with that term. Yeah. Because I think that, you
You know, if you grow up in a homogenous society, okay, great. You feel like you belong. Everyone else is like you, you know, you're part of, you're deeply rooted in the tradition, but there could be some closed mindedness or, um, you know, just lack of awareness of, you know, no, not, you don't know what you don't know. Um,
And so when you are exposed to almost orthogonal cultures, right, that don't have a lot to do with each other. I mean, you know, like lots of people now are Western and Asian, you know, they're mixed, right? Maybe their mother or father is Chinese and the other side is Hungarian or whatever it is, right? And when two cultures are almost like orthogonal cultures,
then you can really draw different perspectives because there could be tension. There could be elements of these two cultures that actually oppose each other, but they all reside within one person. And I think that's the beauty of that tension, that clash and that process of reconciliation. Even growing up in the U.S. for us,
And, you know, going to Western schools, but then being raised in a very traditional way, it's created tension within me. I mean, there's like literally two sides of me that are, you know, kind of fighting each other. So the I feel like this, you know, this all of this conversation helps us expand some of our perspective and draw connections and, you know, kind of metaphors.
between like T horse road and versus other things that, that we're familiar with. And I think the other thing, interesting, you mentioned like resin, Indigo, all these things. So some of these things were finished goods, right? They're finished products that you could trade and use, but a lot of them sound like they were components or their ingredients or something. And it almost reminds me of the global supply chain. Hmm.
Because now there's so much specialization in the world. Very few companies really can build everything. They, you kind of have assemblers, right?
And then you have like parts makers in a sense. And, you know, it's very, very complex now, but the global supply chain, you know, obviously hugely impacted by COVID, whether it's like technology or other types of things, but the T horse road and this, this area almost had to create its own supply chain so that people could get everything, um, you know, they sort of needed. And now we also talk about like, is it better for a country to be closed and sort of like America first or
or whatever it is, or is it better to open up and have free trade across different boundaries? And so all of these things, I'm sure, were relevant a thousand years ago. Same conversations were happening, but they were just in a totally different context. So it is really, really, really fascinating. Yes, and to the point where also problem-solving skills and technologies would also have been important, and a mindset, right?
Um, many of the, the muleteers would say that they had had conflicts as young people along the route, but they quickly learned that in order to continue with this, this way of living, this, this occupation, they needed to learn the art of conciliation, which you either learned or you didn't. Um, and so, yes, and the, the, you know, the, the trade route was an ecosystem to a degree, as much as it may have been,
I think there was an ownership depending on what geography you were going through, but there was an understanding that to trade along the route, to be a part of it in as insignificant a way to the hierarchy, the top of the hierarchy, it functioned as its own thing. And very much after having traveled it,
That is a feeling I had that the T-Horse Road was almost like talking about this other empire or this other history to a degree. I mean, it touched so many cultures, but to a degree, it was like this long pulsating artery that fed and continued sort of unchallenged and untainted for centuries.
It sounds like it had an identity. And I'm curious, how did people refer to this ecosystem or this thing? What was the identity perceived as? A lot of the traders in Yunnan referred to just the overarching road as the eternal road. And that's something I really enjoyed hearing because
It's timeless for them. I think for them, they couldn't imagine a time in their lives where it wouldn't still be active. And of course, they watched it become inactive. It was referred to as a potential gateway of hope. You could make money, you could import. But I also heard people refer to the route as devastating. We spoke to someone in Yunnan. She'd lost everything.
three or four male relatives to the root. So I think it was daunting and inspirational in equal measure. But I think, well, one of the things that was communicated was if you did the root, if you survived the root and you became a regular, so every year or two years you'd come back, you were looked at as somewhat of a regal personality, almost like sort of a...
A superhero of sorts, because you were not only bringing commodities, but you were surviving. You got that street cred. Right, right. Were there any moments in your experience traveling this route where you felt you were in real danger, like your life was in danger somehow? We had a blizzard very early on, and we were still in Yunnan.
where we almost lost one of our key members. Actually, he never recovered. He was stuck in a crevasse that was covering with billowing snow. And we didn't realize he was missing because we'd unroped from one another, which was a silly thing. But he was about two inches from being totally covered, his orange windbreaker, totally covered by snow.
I watched a guy, one of our partners, fall down a glacier right in front of me towards a crevasse. He would have been gone. Somehow he stopped. In the mountains, at least, my experiences have been it's almost worse seeing somebody you know close to you, both in relationship and physically close, take a tumble, a spill, a fall,
It's almost worse seeing them go through something because you, I mean, on the journey itself, I was, there were a couple of times where I was thinking, oh, this could get interesting. But when you see somebody fall, when the Nobu, when this gentleman fell down this glacier, that was one of the worst feelings I've ever felt in my days standing, just because it was all happening right in front of me.
and there was nothing I could do, and it was up to him and the fates. And after several of these incidents, we would always sit down, or we'd have tea, and we would talk. Are we all okay? Is this still worth continuing? Is the intention still there? There would be this moment where we came together
to talk about what had happened, if necessary. Sometimes we just looked at each other and acknowledged we're all good to go. You know, you come together and you have those moments where you speak to one another and you get everybody to contribute. Nobody's leading those conversations. It's very much everybody equally contributes to the fate of an expedition. A lot of the underrated elements of expeditions are the relationships or lack of.
And there's a lot of expeditions which don't work because of the personalities, the hubris, the egos, the lack of communication, the them and us scenario. And in my experiences, at least I've learned more from often the porters, the people who are running the mules, the Sherpas, wherever I am, I often defer to them because they have a, a lot of them have a very good problem solving approach.
ability. It's amazing to see an entire group sit down and spend three hours on a very small decision. And even the assistant cook or even the person who you wouldn't expect to be a decision maker, even they are involved in the decision or the ideation or the talking out of an idea or the plotting a route. I mean, I think there might be something to learn from the methodology of
not only assessing risk, but of coming to a consensus about how to move forward. Well, before we wrap it up, you in the beginning even used the term "mindfuck" as kind of some of these moments where you're talking to somebody that kind of just completely changes your perspective or shifts your view in some way or some sort of revelation. And I'm wondering if you can share any examples
of that where you were just maybe talking to a Sherpa or talking to somebody along the way and you were completely mindfucked. Yeah, one particular story comes to mind very easily. We were bedding down in a nomadic pasture at about 4,000 meters, quite high.
And we were sharing, I mean, we had, I think, three different ethnic groups were all sitting around this fire. Part of it was our team. Part of it were the nomads who were endemic to the area. Anyways, we're around the fire. And at one point, we all had a cup of tea and we went away from the fire to look at the stars. And there was a small beeping satellite that was moving across the sky.
And I knew it was a satellite, but I remember the surprise of them. And they were saying, oh, it's a moving star. This means this. They were coming up with all these different interpretations. And I wanted to just say, it's a satellite really fast. I've just, no, it's a satellite. And at that point, I remember thinking, I'm not going to say anything until they've had a bigger discussion.
And I remember thinking, too, the way in which I bring this, the way in which I identify what that really is to them, I have to do it in a certain way. And I was asking myself the question, do I have the vocabulary to explain it in a way that's not insulting them, in a way that's not mind-fucking them? And I realized in my head, I was thinking, okay, then I have to explain what a satellite is and what it does. And I thought, do I want to go there?
Do I even want to get into that? Because, you know, they were coming up with some stories that were quite beautiful and honestly, probably more invigorating for my mind than a satellite. However, I did bring it up and I explained it. And I remember we sat up. There were three of us, four of us. We sat up and I was trying to figure out how to explain all of the things a satellite could do.
And when I went to bed that night, I was realizing that, you know, does it matter if it's a satellite? I mean, really, does it matter who's factually correct? And the concept was their perception based on the way they've been brought up, education, culture, is going to be totally different than mine.
And I remember thinking about the concept because this is happening weekly, not with a satellite, but every conversation that would go into any depth, there would be this moment where it wasn't about being right or wrong. It was being sensitive to other perspectives. You know, just the idea of having a cigarette in Yunnan province is an example too. I don't smoke. I never have.
And I go to this little tea village every single year. And there's an elder that I know. I know his son. I know his daughter. I know his family. And he doesn't smoke much. But when I used to show up, the first thing he would do is we'd drink Baijiu, the local wine, whiskey. And he would offer a cigarette. And I always refused. And then one day I said, you know what? Fuck it. I'm going to have it.
And the idea that I accepted it, not the fact that I smoked it, which I didn't, I put it behind my ear. The idea that I accepted it made a whole, and I don't know if it made a difference, but I could see that it brought him some joy. And it,
Talking to his son later on I realized that it was one of the few things he felt he could offer me so me rejecting it because I don't smoke wasn't the point the point was Take it you don't need to smoke it but what you're doing is you are allowing him to be the host to offer something and I and I another moment where just the perspectives are different. Yeah, so powerful and
Well, Jeff, it was a real honor and pleasure speaking to you. Where can our listeners find you? You can find me at jefffuchs.com. We've also done a documentary film on the T-Horse Road with CBS. Yeah, the T-Explorer, right? T-Explorer. An award-winning documentary, I might add. The T-Explorer. That was fun. It was fun.
I'm co-founder of Jalam Teas, so I get to source the teas that I fell in love with while traveling. Just Puerhs. And the Tea Sessions, which is co-sponsored by Outpost magazine. We do this, basically I'm allowed to just run wild with writing about tea, but I think more vitally the people behind the leaves and some of those precious moments. - Well, that's beautiful.
Good luck on everything else. Hope to speak to you again soon. And thanks again for coming on our show, Jeff. Cheers. Thanks for having me. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. It was awesome. Wow. That was... Oh, did he bounce?