A NEW POST! I'm trying to return to Tibet with some of what I have written below, soon I will update more pictures and a few more trips and then I'll try to catch up with myself here in Kathmandu.
Our lovely Foreign Student's Dorm roof.
Spring snow from our roof. It snowed only a few times in the city itself, but it never stayed for long. Once upon a time:
I think the snowman's name was harold, he didn't live very long in the high-altitude sun.
Sorry, that's the only happy stuff I got. When I went back to Tibet there wasn't much picture taking allowed. Here is something I wrote not long after arriving in Tibet for the second time in the spring of 2008:
I. When I first moved to Lhasa in September of 2007 it quickly became apparent that I was living in a Chinese city, not a Tibetan city. This didn't deter me from wanting to study in Lhasa because it was easy to get used to what seemed to be a bad situation turning better each day. I focused on studying and trekking on weekends. Other than the ban on staying overnight at Tibetan's homes it seemed I could do anything I wanted. At the end of September I was invited to represent the foreign student's department of Tibet University at the 58th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China. The depressive feeling of living in Lhasa hadn't yet seeped into my pores and it was easy to blow off the absurd propaganda about the happy and developing Tibetan communities of TAR. The successful Tibetans I met at the party and elsewhere, seemed to have a genuinely positive view of their prospects for the future. Of course the situation was difficult, but the Tibetan people were managing it as best they could. As time passed, however, I began to realize that while police in full riot gear were not on every street corner, and the monasteries were not closed, and Tibetans didn't have to present special identification to get home after work, the overwhelming feeling in Lhasa was one of an occupied and depressed territory on the far edges of a society that cared little for the welfare of its minorities. The first thing one notices when living in China is the blatant racism that is apart of everyday affairs. Not just of Han to Tibetan, but of Tibetan to Tibetan, Tibetan and Han to foreigners, Tibetan to Han, Han to everyone else. Knowing this kind of racism has been mixed with a lifetime of lost opportunities, lack of education, and poverty, not to mention religious oppression it should be a surprise to no one that violence erupted in Tibet.
I was in Seattle on break from classes at Tibet University--enjoying the espresso and other amenities of the first world--when I heard about the riots in Lhasa. I had bought my ticket from Seattle to Beijing weeks before and when I saw that first video on the BBC I thought that returning to Tibet would be impossible. I immediately tried to Skype my friends in Lhasa, but the internet was turned off there. Every time anything remotely political occurs the internet at the university is shut off for a period of time. After a few days I did get through to them. They had heard nothing but what parents and friends had been able to tell them over the phone. They saw smoke filling the city on Friday the 14th and were not allowed out of their dorm. They were required to stay inside the university grounds for five days; luckily they had some supplies of food and could explore the relative safety of the gated campus. Some were very distraught and left; others were in a state of shock but stayed on.
I didn't worry that they would be in any physical danger. A Tibetan mob couldn't get over the wall into the university, but even if they did, they wouldn't attack the foreign students, they would ask them for help. I figured the worst the Chinese government would do was deporting all foreigners for their own safety. What worried me, and still does, is the mental health of my friends. There is a climate of depression in Lhasa. It would be too simple to say that we become sad for the Tibetan people. It is more the case that there is a kind of mental milieu, a whole 'Lhasa state of mind' that seems to breed fear and depression. There is an undercurrent to culture in Lhasa that cannot be described as healthy and I think the rampant alcoholism may be a sign of this.
At first the teachers in the foreign student's department stayed in the lobby to make sure the students didn't attempt to leave the building. While they had a news blackout and saw only smoke in the distance, I learned that overturned cars were burning in front of the Jokang, the holiest temple in Tibet. Tibetans were killing Chinese and fighting with Muslims two blocks from the university. Later, I learned that after the 14th of March police and military were allowed to fire on civilians. During the first days after the riots tanks and truckloads of military personnel filled the streets of Lhasa.
I wasn't sure if returning to Tibet was a good idea, but as things calmed down in Lhasa and my friends told me they could go out in the city again, I decided I would try. Several of us had left Lhasa for the winter break and most of us were trying to return for the second semester. Each day I heard news that the students were allowed farther and farther out from the university. On the 19th they could go only to the nearest grocery store, a block away. They were issued permits with time limits that they had to show as they exited the guarded gate of the university. At each crosswalk there were, and still are, between three and six military personnel in full riot gear standing at attention. By the time I arrived in Lhasa on the 2nd of April the passes were still required but had no time limit and were not often checked. We were told to return to the university every evening by six thirty, but there was no official curfew in place. Today the permits are still required but they are merely a formality now. Our student cards are checked only when we travel close to the Barkor area and getting into the Barkor itself seems to be entirely up to the boys on guard when you pass through. While I assume there is some sort of protocol set by the local government, it is apparent that application of any such protocol is haphazard. This seems to be the rule with Chinese law at the moment. Even travel into and out of Tibet seems to be a question for both travelers and customs agents.
A fellow student and friend of mine at Tibet University had tried to get back to Lhasa from Kathmandu and was unable to get Air China to print him a ticket. They required confirmation from the Chinese embassy and a special permit to enter Tibet. The embassy in Kathmandu told him his papers were in order and they thought he would probably be allowed in, but they refused to say if he could or could not cross the border into Tibet. He flew to Chengdu instead of Lhasa and was able to get a ticket with a special letter from Tibet University explaining his situation. I also had a similar letter faxed to me in Beijing; however, I did not need it to purchase a plane ticket to Lhasa. It was actually surprisingly easy, but I did have a friend, a local Chinese man, who helped me get the ticket. Another friend of ours tried to come overland to Tibet and was turned back at the border even though she had the letter and permits to enter Tibet. She will have to fly to Chengdu from Kathmandu and enter from there.
I went to the airport in Beijing several hours early assuming that there would be a long security check process. I prepared a calm attitude and as much documentation as I could muster. When I got to the front of the first security line the woman looked at my ticket and then back at me and then back at the ticket, and then she asked me as if assuming there was a mistake, "You are flying to Lhasa?" I said yes and she told me I had to go to a special line in the airport, number 25. I was led to line 24 by a pleasant young woman in uniform. There was no number 25. At this point I thought, here we go, let the games begin. But soon enough another station was opened next to 24 and I was told to go right over. Three people looked at my information and simply seemed puzzled. I don't think they really knew what to do with me. I presented them with the new letter from the university explaining the situation when asked for a permit to enter Tibet and they were all rather amiable and let me through; all in all it took longer for me to get through customs in Canada. They didn't even rifle through my computer bag. When another fellow student of mine had flown through Lhasa they had searched all his bags thoroughly and removed an Economist that had an article about Tibet, but when I arrived in Lhasa I waited for the police to search my bags and they barely looked at me. I entered Tibet with little to do, as did three other students who have recently returned to TU.
The taxi ride to the university afforded me my first sight of the damage on Beijing Lu. A Bank of China I had often used to withdraw Yuan was completely destroyed. Most of the damage seemed to be burnt-out shops, quite a few of those classic Chinese garage-door style clothing shops were destroyed, black streaks of soot painted the rest of the buildings. Some larger buildings were damaged by fire, several three-story buildings were totally destroyed and a few shops were still fixing their front windows. Halfway down Beijing Lu from the Potala--near the bus stop--one of the larger Chinese market areas had been burned out and people were trying to sell the remaining merchandise on the sidewalk. Every corner and intersection was filled with military and police in full riot gear. Many of the streets that lead towards the Barkor area had ten or fifteen police blocking them off. When later I walked along Beijing Lu people who lived down those streets were allowed through the police line if they had special permits. I watched as some passed with little problem and others were refused. The Barkor kora area itself is now totally shut down. There are plenty of police but no shops or vendors anywhere and no pilgrims. The Potala has now become the place to do kora in Lhasa and each day hundreds of pilgrims can be seen circumambulating there instead of the Barkor.
All the police I have encountered so far are very young men. It often seems that they just want to practice their English with foreigners when they stop to check your ID. Yesterday I saw a platoon practicing movements in the street, none of them could have been over 19 years old. They were trying to be serious but the boys in the back were laughing and carrying on. I haven't seen any sign of the tanks, only military trucks full of soldiers.
The worst of the situation as far as I can tell is coming in the form of neighbors informing on neighbors. I cannot say how bad it is at the moment, but I can say that their are Tibetans giving each other up to the authorities as a way to settle old grudges and not necessarily because of participation in rioting or plotting of any kind. The sense of a united Tibetan people is nowhere to be seen, except perhaps in the western media and in the scenes of Khampas, notoriously anti-Lhasan, hoisting the Tibetan flag. Not that anyone should have expected much differently. I have been reading some of what phayul.com prints and as much as it might be interesting to believe, they are printing obviously false information. There was never a cell phone black-out, as far as I know. There have been very few rumors of Tibet University students being arrested in association with the riots, but there certainly wasn't a large group of students arrested. However, one person I met was told he had to cut his hair to look more "Chinese" and less "Tibetan". It is certainly a difficult time for Tibetan teachers and students at the university but they do not discuss the issues with us chee gyay. Unfortunately, I do not think that the overt oppression they are experiencing now is very different from the downward social constitution that allows for their customary state of repression. There seems to be little chance of the Chinese people learning about moral deference anytime soon. What worries me most is that their will be yet another policy shift and life for Tibetans will get even worse. However, May 1st Tibet is supposed to be opened to tourists so we'll soon see what events may bring for the future of Tibet.
II. On May 1st Tibet was not opened. I went to a special meeting held for foreigners in Lhasa, mostly populated by NGOs, missionaries, and two of us foreign students representing Tibet University. The meeting was held in the same fancy hotel that the 58th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China was held at, but this time it was an intimate gathering with perhaps twenty people sitting with the director of foreign affairs in TAR. There was an attempt at openness and they wanted everyone to ask questions, which may have been an attempt to get each of us to speak while being filmed. I don't know that any of it was used on the news, I didn't see myself on TV, but the whole meeting was essentially an attempt to pretend that things were normal and under control. The director was very very nice to all of us and simply lied the whole time. He promised that Tibet would open "very soon"--this was his mantra and he repeated it many times. Now, almost July, "open" is not a word to be associated with TAR. He also promised that each of the people in the NGOs who had issues would be able to solve them and said that they could personally come to his office on Monday and he would meet with them. As far as I know, this never happened. In fact, the situation for NGOs is worse than ever. Why? Because China does not need NGOs; why would such a developed country need an NGO? Word of advice: Never set up an NGO in China, set up a "business"--then you can help who you want. In any case, through the Tibetan grapevine--do believe in it, the Tibetans have an amazing ability to transmit information, perhaps faster than the internet, although its accuracy is often far less reliable than Wikipedia--I have been made aware of a meeting in Beijing in which it was decided that laws would become stricter in TAR after the Olympics and the laws already in place would actually be enforced, somewhat unlikely in the end, but a foreboding prospect that spells hard times for Tibetan peoples. Supposedly Tibet will be opened but this time they will be serious about the law that says you have to come with a specific tour group and stay with that tour group and so forth. This hasn't really been enforced very well over the years and I think the Chinese have decided they'd better fix that problem. But, in my humble opinion, it is hard for the Chinese to fix any of their problems, mainly because their main fix-it tool involves large numbers of heavily armed boys. They have an abundance of hammers, but they need screwdrivers, which they have, but no one seems to know how to use them.
When the Olympic torch was going up Everest the streets were locked down again and some Tibetans were stocking up on food, afraid that they would not be allowed out of their homes for days or weeks. In the end things were relatively calm, we were not allowed down Snowland road for a couple of days, and of course the Jokhang was off-limits, but this was applied half-hazardly and it was not so hard, as we discovered on the third day, to simply take a small side street and go around the police in order to get to Summit Cafe. Yes, yes, those of you who are in the know don't go there because it is run by Christian missionaries. Well, I guess I am a sell-out. I want my espresso. I want my cappuccino. I want my fake New York Style Cheese Cake with strawberry jam on the side! Besides, everyone working there is Tibetan and lots of cool educated Tibetans go there, despite the fact that sometimes you will also see a missionary. Best coffee in town and free wireless all day, what more can you ask for? Anyway, there were lots of dressed up groups of young police patrolling the streets but I didn't see them doing much except trying to stay awake and attempting to find hats that fit.
Since the first section of what I wrote above I have learned of more disturbing happenings in Tibet so I thought I might revise my earlier statement that "The worst of the situation as far as I can tell is coming in the form of neighbors informing on neighbors." This is one of the worst things, but many many monks have also been "disappeared" and there are camps of some kind set up to "receive" them, ostensibly they are to be reeducated because they forgot communist principles the first hundred times they were forced to study them. I am extremely wary of the news coming from Tibetans outside of Tibet. I wouldn't believe much of the specifics given by "Free Tibet" people. As far as I can tell they make stuff up as much as the Chinese do. But they just happen to be vaguely correct in the sense that lots of bad shit is going down over there. Still, the picture given to many Americans is not accurate, and neither is the picture given to many Chinese. My perspective is partly in agreement with Chinese propaganda, but for very different reasons. They say that the "splitists" are only making it worse and I agree. People genuinely wanting separation of Tibet from China are delusional and actually hurting Tibetans in Tibet with their protests. But people who want to make life better for Tibetans in China and who want to stop or slow the cultural disintegration taking place there really need to get their act together and separate themselves from the "splitists".
A moment in the day: I wait in the sun smoking a Hangshan cigarette and watching a young girl play with a long red string. There are people passing and staring at me but the police don't bother. I watch as twenty soldiers march buy, barely able to hold their riot shields up, some of their helmets slant to the side and they don't seem to like today's hot sun much. In contrast the police in blue uniforms march in groups of eight or ten and don't so much march as drag their feet about the city. The place I picked to sit is one of their meeting spots and they exchange duties and patrols there. One young Chinese cop has been trying to get every passing policeman to switch hats with him, he's has no resorted to trying to grab their hats from them and he checks their size each time finding them too large. He exchanges half-joking insults with what appear to be his friends, but isn't able to find a hat that fits. In between the piece of concrete I sit on and the policeboys a steady stream of old Tibetan pilgrims pass, malas in hand, prayer wheels spinning.
I left Lhasa in early June and visited Kathmandu for a day before meeting AB in Paris for two weeks. On June 19th the Olympic torch was in Lhasa. All my friends were locked in again as usual. Only certain Chinese people were allowed on the streets to see the torch. Many Tibetans were very afraid and didn't leave their homes at all. I am not sure if many would have been allowed anyway. But today, June 27th, Lhasa is more open than ever and I have been informed that there was a sighting of non-Tibet University cheegyays near the Barkor. Who knows how they got there. --NEWS UPDATE! I just talked to a tour guide here in Kathmandu who says he will be getting official notice from the Chinese (good news he thinks) as to whether or not he has the permits to take tour groups on short trips to Tibet. He says there will be restrictions according to the country you are from, Americans will have a harder time traveling. Also, the permits will be for shorter periods of time than before and the places one is allowed to go will be heavily restricted. So, technically, as of this week Tibet is open to tourists.
Lets go back in time to happier days when the same oppression existed but was not as visible or overt:
Marcus and friends take a trip to Shigatse and Gyantse!
After a cold cold tea break with oranges instead of biscuits we got on our way to Zha lu Gompa, one of the oldest existing monasteries in Tibet.
Zha lu is famous for the unique architecture it displays primarily on its roof and inside a large square passageway covered with ancient paintings.
Alice, Anne, and Jeannine reading...
...the stone inscription at the gate:
First we entered the protector shrine to pay our respects:
So far it has been rather unusual to see the Karmapa's picture under the mouth of a protector. In Tibet the Dalai Lama's image is forbidden but the Karmapa's is not and you can find him in monasteries of many different types all over Tibet. Perhaps he is standing in for HHDL or perhaps he exerts influence in many different areas, an interesting thing to contemplate given the recent talk that he may be the next face of Tibetan Buddhism throughout the world. The Dalai Lama himself specifically told him publicly that when he died the Karmapa was to become an important leader for the Tibetan people.
A small area in the main assembly hall where monks perform their various daily tantric rites:
In the main hall also reside the sacred texts, part of which is what I work on preserving for the TibetanHimalayanDigitalLibrary:
And here are the wood blocks used to print the texts:
Some of the most amazing wall paintings in Tibet. They are a special style, I can't remember the name of it now, but you can see the different colors and the many smaller figures surrounding the main Buddha image, which are the hallmarks of this style that I believe was brought from an area which is now Nepal. (Thanks to Alice, who's Tibetan is awesome, we were able to take pictures):
Outside you can see the unique roof influenced by Mongolian conquerors of China.
You will see some of this style in Beijing. It is particularly this green color that is not common in Tibet.
After Zha lu it was on to the exciting city of Gyantse. There are two Nangmas in Gyantse, right next to each other. We were the only business there and the kids at the doors fought over which we should enter. In the end both were pretty lame. But we did get to see nonstop Michael Jackson videos projected in an empty room.
MORE TO COME SOON...
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