Six Days in Tibet 


My Brother George (World Traveler) has stayed in Japan for the past 3 years teaching English. Then he moved to China last year and even made a trip to Tibet. I thought that everyone might enjoy hearing about his stay in a region of the world that few people ever see. 



Potala

First...I just gotta say it. GEORGE WINS! I'm the one who has been as far away from civilization as people from Sacramento, CA can go and still be in the inhabited world! Hahahahahahahaha!

There...hmmm....now onto the story....

First a little Tibetan history... You have to know it for anything I'm going to say to make sense. I'm sure you all know that Tibet is an occupied territory of China and has been since 1950. But that's not the first time Tibet has been taken over by "China". The first time was around 1780 and Tibet was taken over by the manchu armies. The same manchu armies took over china(here refering to the area populated by the ethnic group called "han" or the people that americans commonly assume are "chinese"), mongolia, Taiwan, beat the tar out of Korea, squashed the muslims in Xinjiang and even attempted to "absorb" North Vietnam. Yes, the manchus were a bunch of busy little belligerent steppe nomads. Because they were in control of a vast territory far larger than modern china and the sovereigns of a multitude of ethnic groups the manchus developed a janus like ethnic policy. To the numerous chinese they said they were the inheritors of the mandate of heaven and the epitome of confucian virtues. To the muslims in Xinjiang they claimed to be caliphs and the choosen of Allah. To the Tibetans they claimed to be living Bodhisattvas and ruling in accordance with the Dharmic Law. Some of the Manchu emperors sponsored Tibetan Tantric buddhism as the manchu religion.

Well...as with all empires and states, it died. In 1911 the manchu empire was overthrown by a chinese nationalist movement that wanted nothing to do with a multiethnic state. "China" would be ruled by the "Chinese". Instead of neatly demarking china as the area that encompassed the chinese ethnicity, the new chinese state declared that they were the geographical successors to the Manchu Empire. Tibetans were of course not consulted. (Neither were muslims...or even the chinese masses for that matter...all of this was decided by a self elected elite...whether commie or not)

100 years later GEORGE arrives in Lhasa heralding a new chapter in Tibetan history.
(Play the star wars opening sequence music in your head now)

As soon as you get off the plane the altitude sickness starts. Headache just gets worse and worse for two days. By the third day you have adjusted but until then you just feel weak, sick and exhausted. Even ascending stairs winded me.


City of Lhasa

Luckily these chinese tour guides seemed to know that for the first few days tourists can't do anything except complain and buy aspirin. (As an aside--Chinese tour groups are filled with friendly if clueless (Tibet has always been part of china!) people who will only eat chinese food.) I didn't get to eat ANY Tibetan food while I was there! Chinese people don't want to eat it. "George! Get off your *ss and go by yourself to some restaurant! Geez!", you might be saying to yourself. All true I guess but the chinese tour guide told us that, "Lhasa is not a safe city. If you go out during the day go out as a group. NEVER go out of the hotel at night for any reason". Maybe it was all bullshi* but the Tibetan resistance/terrorist group (depending entirely on your own point of view) called "The Khampas" has been known to kidnap westerners and ransom them. I have no idea how frequent that is. I also realize that spreading fear of contact with the locals and westerners is a cornerstone of control. That being said, I never left the hotel after dark and I had only ONE opportunity to talk to Tibetans during the whole seven (six) days. Why? Because Lhasa isn't a Tibetan city anymore...

Driving into Lhasa...and all I could think was "this looks just like Beijing....plus mountains..." Lhasa has been utterly sinified. Most of the population are chinese from neighboring Sichuan province. Lhasa has all the hallmarks of an imperialist held capital city...namely the native ethnic population lives on the periphery of their own capital.


Potala

At least the Potala is still there. Although it was undergoing reconstruction it was still an impressive sight. At all hours of the day Tibetans were circumambulating around it spinning prayer-wheels in their hands. I was heartened to see that after 50+ years of oppression (at the hieght of which the red guards DESTROYED nearly every single Tibetan temple in the entire province) the Tibetans still maintain their religion. (You can play the music from the star wars part 4 award ceremony in your head now.)


Tibetan Prayer Wheels

The coolest thing about the Potala was that the caskets of the former Dali Lamas are all in there. The current one of the 14th. But I saw the caskets of the 5th and the 8th in there. (Can't take photos inside). It must have been wierd for the current Dali Lama to walk around in there and see the dead bodies....of himself. They were all "himself" in a former life after all! Imagine him asking some attendant after he arrived when he was 7 years old, "who's the dead guy in the box?". "Oh...that's you. And your other dead body is over here".

One thing that hit during this whole trip was how wrong Ghandi was. The current Dali Lama and late Ghandi essentially have the same creed and goal. "No matter how invincible a tyrant may seem they will always fall in the end." That might have been okay against the brits in 1945, who can't take the ultimate steps to uphold their empire. Unfortunately for the Dali Lama, China can and does take the ultimate steps to uphold theirs, such as closing the border, imposing martial law and imprisoning and executing resistance leaders. The current Dali Lama is almost 80 now and hasn't seen his homeland since Tibet revoled in 1959. I doubt he ever will see his homeland again.

I've rambled on too far. Enjoy the pictures.  

Posted: Fri - May 12, 2006 at 06:31 AM          

©