MCLC: enlightenment in Tibet

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: martin winter <dujuan99 at gmail.com>
Subject: enlightenment in Tibet
***********************************************************

Source: South China Morning Post (11/20/11):
http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/SCMP/menuitem.2af62ecb329d3d7733492d9253a0a
0a0/?vgnextoid=55f7d7f72dba3310VgnVCM100000360a0a0aRCRD&ss=China&s=News

The road to enlightenment
Tibet has a special allure for young Han Chinese adventurers, who view the
region differently to sympathisers in the West
By Dinah Gardner

When her best friend died from leukaemia last year, Ran Jing made a
promise to herself; she would travel to Tibet as soon as she graduated
from high school. Her classmate had been a Buddhist, and it had been her
dream to see Lhasa.

A few months after her 18th birthday, Ran set off alone from her home in
Henan province, taking buses and sharing cars, on a pilgrimage to the
Tibetan capital in memory of her friend.

"I'm doing this for her," she says, breaking her inbound trip in a youth
hostel in Xinduqiao, a small town in Kandze (Ganzi in Chinese), an
autonomous Tibetan prefecture in western Sichuan.

Ran was just one of tens of thousands of young Chinese tourists who
visited Tibet this summer. Reliable statistics are hard to come by, but
the Tibet Tourism Bureau reports that 2.25 million tourists visited the
Tibet Autonomous Region in the first half of the year, up almost 25 per
cent year on year. The entire population of the region is just under three
million. The bulk of these tourists were domestic; foreigners require a
special permit to enter Tibet and were banned in March, June and July.

National Highway 318, which links Sichuan's provincial capital, Chengdu,
with Lhasa, saw flocks of Han Chinese pedalling their way to Tibet,
sometimes their bicycles appearing to outnumber vehicles on the road.
These spiralling tourist statistics are also reflected in the success of
local hostels.

In 2006, Sichuan native Yang Xiaohui opened his first guesthouse - called
Denba, after the adopted Tibetan name Yang now goes by - and aimed it at
the Chinese backpacker and long-distance cyclist. In fewer than five
years, his business has grown from that first hostel, in Dardo (Kangding)
in Kandze, to 13 budget guesthouses: two in Tibet, one in Yunnan and 10 in
Sichuan.

The most obvious draw for the increasing number of young Chinese visitors
is, of course, the region's natural beauty. Alpine grasslands, fresh air,
snow-capped mountains and spiritual mystique hold a special attraction for
the new urban rich who have grown up in crowded, polluted cities.

"Lhasa is one of the top tourism destinations for Chinese travellers,"
says Zhou Qinwen, 35, from Shanghai, who spent two months travelling
around Tibet this summer. "It has blue skies, white clouds, mysterious
Tibetans and architecture.

"I was tempted to go after looking at other travellers' postings and
photos on the internet. Those photos were beautiful. I was spellbound.
When I got there, it was beyond my expectations."

Others say they are intrigued by the spirituality, honesty and generosity
of the people.

"My guests see Tibet as a sacred place," says 34-year-old Denba. "They
admire the religion."

Xiong (he requests that only his first name be used), from Wuhan, in Hubei
province, is 22 years old. He cycled from Chengdu to Lhasa alone, inspired
by a story a friend had told him.

"My friend was on a bus in Tibet when they stopped in a village," he
explains. "A little girl came on board and gave the driver 1,000 yuan
[HK$1,200], and asked him to pass it to her brother in the next village.
That driver didn't know the girl or her brother, but he drove to the next
village, found the right guy and gave him the money. That couldn't
possibly happen in my city. I cherish this kind of trust.

"Tibetans have Buddha in their hearts, but we Han people don't have any
religion, and this is frightening. I'm beginning to believe in Buddhism
myself now."

It's not just in tourist figures that a growing fascination for Tibet and
its culture can be seen. He Ma's The Tibet Code, a series of thrillers, is
a long-standing favourite read; Kora (Zhuan Shan), a Chinese film about a
young man cycling to Lhasa in memory of his dead brother, opened in
mainland cinemas on November 3; and a growing number of Han are converting
to Tibetan Buddhism. Thousands of Han students study at the sprawling
Buddhist Institute in Serthar (Seda), in the north of Kandze.

Indeed, the fascination with Tibet has led to the coining of a new term,
zang piao ("Tibet drifter"), which describes someone who leaves urban life
to temporarily hang out in Tibet in search of their own Shangri-la. Zang
piao can be compared to those young Westerners who flock to India in
search of spiritual meaning.

Han Chinese enchantment with Tibet is akin to a similar trend in the West,
which began in the 1980s, but differs in a number of ways because of the
politics of the region. Beijing insists Tibet is historically part of the
nation but exiled Tibetans and many people in the West believe Tibet was
invaded by China in 1950.

The Western obsession with Tibet has long been the subject of academic
study, and there are plenty of scholarly books on the subject - Prisoners
of Shangri-La (1998) by Donald Lopez; Imagining Tibet: Perceptions,
Projections and Fantasies (1996), a collection of essays; and Virtual
Tibet: Searching for Shangri-La From the Himalayas to Hollywood (2000) by
Orville Schell, to name a few. In contrast, Han Chinese fascination with
Tibet has been little studied.

Dechen Pemba, a British-born Tibetan rights activist, is a Chinese studies
graduate from London's School of Oriental and African Studies. She
suggests that increasing affluence and urbanisation are part of the reason
for Tibet's growing mystique among Han Chinese.

"Whilst it's difficult to generalise about an entire generation or section
of society, I do agree that there is a certain type of Han Chinese person,
usually of the post-Cultural Revolution generation, who tends to
romanticise Tibet and Tibetan people," she says. "At the same time,
because of economic growth, Han Chinese are equally searching for roots
and tradition, perhaps even spirituality, and looking to other cultures
for this."

There are two other factors that colour Chinese perceptions of Tibet that
are not prevalent in the West. First, from a young age, mainlanders are
taught that in 1950, Tibet was liberated from a cruel, feudal society in
which the vast majority of people were bonded to a life of serfdom under
the tyrannical landowning classes: the aristocracy and monasteries. Thus,
modernisation in Tibet can be attributed to the generosity of the Han
Chinese. This leaves many Chinese with the impression that Tibetan society
is backward, despite its spiritual allure.

"Han views of Tibet are not unlike white American views of Native
Americans 50 years ago," says Lopez, a professor of Buddhist and Tibetan
studies at the University of Michigan, in the United States. "Tibet is
seen as a kind of Wild West, inhabited by a savage and colourful people,
with exotic dress, primitive food and uncivilised ways. [Tibetans are
often seen as oversexed as well.] Just as Native American religion became
romanticised based on works by Black Elk, [Carlos] Castaneda, et al, so
Tibetan Buddhism, seen often as a form of magic, is seen as some kind of
alternative to modern life. White American children would often dress up
to play `cowboys and Indians' and go see the latest Western at the movies.
But none of this led to the view that Native Americans somehow should be
given their country back."

Because Westerners tend to see Tibet as a victim, they downplay aspects of
its former feudal society in favour of glamorising the role of the
Buddhist monks.

"Romanticised views of Tibet among Westerners are scarcely mitigated by
any knowledge of the nature of Tibetan society prior to the mid-20th
century," says Barry Sautman, associate professor of social science at the
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. "Few educated Han people
lack such knowledge, and thus their romanticisation is somewhat tempered
by it."

This contrast is reflected to a certain degree in two films: Serf, a 1963
Chinese government film depicting the misery of feudalism, widely seen on
the mainland; and 1997 Hollywood hit Seven Years in Tibet, starring Brad
Pitt, which paints the Tibet of the late 40s as a paradise of peace-loving
Buddhists about to be crushed by the cruel Chinese Communists.

Seven Years in Tibet sparked a huge outpouring of sympathy for Tibet's
status and a fascination among young middle-class liberals in the West.
But both films are, in essence, propagandistic, albeit with different
motivations, and both are perceived as factual portrayals by many among
their respective audiences.

"Tibet has always been part of China, at least since the Ming and Qing
dynasties," says Zhou. "Before liberation, Tibetans were all serfs, and
then the Communist Party liberated them so they could be their own
masters. In the old days, they had horrific practices like skinning people
alive."

The Western image of Tibet as the victim of aggression is incomprehensible
to most young Han.

"Part of the Western romanticisation of Tibet juxtaposes a spiritual and
pure Tibet against the forces of power, materialism and oppression
embodied by [Beijing] and the Chinese presence in Tibet," says Elliot
Sperling, an associate professor at Indiana University, in the US, whose
research interests are Tibetan history and Sino-Tibetan relations. "The
lack of this part of the image of Tibet - a result of government
strictures on what can be said about the Tibetan situation - is
significant. It cuts the dissident, even counter-culturally subversive,
part of Western interest in Tibet out of its Chinese manifestation."

The other factor shaping Han perceptions of Tibet are the 2008
anti-government protests, which started in Lhasa in March that year and
spread across the Tibetan region. They were portrayed by domestic media as
violent riots - several Han Chinese in Lhasa were killed - instigated by
separatist forces from abroad. As a result, many on the mainland perceive
Tibetans as aggressive and anti-Han.

Says Sautman: "Many younger Han people do romanticise Tibet, chiefly as a
place of exceptional spirituality, in contrast to most of the rest of
China. But this age cohort is, of course, huge, so there are still many
younger Han who think of Tibet as still relatively backward and, after the
racial killings in Lhasa in 2008, as harbouring some people very hostile
to Han generally."

"There is an estrangement between Tibetans and us Han Chinese, but I'm not
afraid," says Ran. "There are lots of police around."

Since the troubles of 2008, People's Liberation Army and People's Armed
Police camps have been positioned next to or close to monasteries in many
towns across Kandze (two among the recent spate of self-immolations took
place in the county).

Over the summer, the sound of monks praying was frequently drowned out by
the sharp bark of military orders and the crunch of soldiers marching.

Of course, the elephant in the room is the Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual
leader, who in 1959 escaped to India, where he's lived in exile ever
since. According to the Western narrative, the Dalai Lama is a man of
wisdom and peace. To Beijing, however, he is a "wolf in sheep's clothing"
and a dangerous separatist. He represents a threat to authority because he
still commands a huge following among Tibetans in China.

What do young Han Chinese Tibetophiles think about the spiritual leader?

In the Xinduqiao hostel, Xiong cautiously explains his feelings as a
picture of a man he says he doesn't recognise smiles down on him from a
shelf. The picture is of the Dalai Lama.

"He is the Tibet people's spiritual leader, and so he should be here in
Tibet helping the Tibetan people. It's possible he is doing some political
business. It's possible he wants more power and more prestige, because now
he is overseas in exile."

Denba sees the Dalai Lama as someone who is being manipulated.

"As long as we don't politicise the issue, the Dalai Lama is just a symbol
... but the nature of the symbol has changed," he says, in one of his new
hostels, in Dardo. "The Dalai Lama is now in a difficult position. He
cannot express his own views. He's not in control of his role. He's just a
tool, and controlled by all these stakeholders - NGOs, foreign governments
and now the Chinese government. It is a really complicated problem."

"Among those Han who romanticise Tibet, the demonisation of the Dalai Lama
is scarcely relevant," says Sautman. "They regard it as a political
stratagem that doesn't detract from the Dalai Lama's spiritual role.

"Even Han who romanticise Tibet deplore the murders of 2008, but are
perhaps more understanding of the demonstrations that took place."

Sperling suggests: "Even though interest in Tibet within China is still a
minority taste, it may well happen that an interest in a romanticised
Tibet will lead a few who hold that interest to confront very real Tibetan
discontents."

However, for Beijing-based Tibetan writer-poet and activist Tsering
Woeser, Han admirers of Tibet - particularly the zang piao - lack even a
basic understanding of her culture.

In a piece she wrote this year for Radio Free Asia, translated by
London-based Tibet blog High Peaks Pure Earth, she says: "As for the
currently quite popular `Tibet drifters' and those middle-class inland
people who call Tibet a `spiritual home' ... those people are in fact
quite unfamiliar with the suffering Tibetans endure; perhaps they are even
totally oblivious to suffering.

"I have encountered those 'Tibet drifters' sitting at the main entrance of
Jokhang Temple [Lhasa's main temple] laughing, giggling and snuggling up
to each other. Cigarettes dangle from their lips; they drink beer and
sunbathe while watching Tibetans prostrating ... they also go and
prostrate a few times as if it was just some kind of game, just some type
of popular amusement."