"The Embarrasing State of Modern Tibetan Art" By Kaka21

High Peaks Pure Earth has translated a blogpost by a Tibetan artist who calls himself Kaka21. The blogpost was uploaded onto his blog on November 13, 2010. Born in 1971 in Lhasa, Kaka21 had his work exhibited in last year's major modern Tibetan art exhibition in Beijing called "Scorching Sun of Tibet", see some photos of his works here on Woeser's blog.

Whilst modern Tibetan art may be becoming more visible on the international market, it is still fairly rare to find critical commentaries on modern Tibetan art written by Tibetans. Last year's commentary piece on "Scorching Sun of Tibet" by Woeser was a very popular post on High Peaks Pure Earth and below, Kaka21 offers a rather different perspective on modern Tibetan art. For readers interested in seeing more art, visit the Sweet Tea House website or Mechak Center for Contemporary Tibetan Art.



A few years ago, in a coffee shop in Lhasa I accidentally bumped into two members of the Tibetan artistic community. We instantly recognised each other, having encountered one another before in the past and so began to discuss the topic of art. I don’t know why, but I have always loved asking questions, testing my own ability to examine and understand things from a different artistic perspective. Perhaps it was because I asked too many questions, but soon enough the two Tibetan artists seemed to grow distant, simply agreeing with everything that I asked with a “Yes, yes... of course!” After a while, we all eventually drifted into silence, and the discussion stopped.

“We don’t need to spend ages thinking about how to paint a painting or finish a piece of art. All you need to do is to pick up a pencil and draw, that is modern art.” This is what they ultimately summarised as their creative motivation. I think that maybe “unconscious art” should be a sub-category of Tibetan modern art, or to put it in another way, works of art which are “intellectually simplistic”. This kind of art has only value in terms of its form, as there has been no thinking behind it. When looking at a particular style of art, it is vital to take into consideration the culture, environment and society that shape it because ultimately, what is art but a reflection of this? Especially when considering modern Tibetan art, I think it is something that we modern artists need to carefully investigate and analyse. On countless occasions, when discussing ideas with other artists, even though we all respect one another immensely, we always end up talking about things in such a cynical, joking way.

I believe that modern artists have a different set of values when judging the past and present, the modern and the traditional. The question is how can we determine modern values, when we don’t even understand traditional values? Is there even a correct system of evaluation with which to improve your creativity? In terms of artistic creativity, to blindly go against something has no merit or future, and does not allow room for progression. For modern Tibetan art, religion is a way for us to express the importance of our unique heritage and background. A lot of work nowadays is based upon the modern interpretation of religion. However, in these works, the presence of a religious element always appears to be distant and hidden to the audience, as if mourning the loss of a beautiful but fading scenery, helpless to stop it. At the same time, in many of these works modernity and its markings are always portrayed as being in opposition to this beautiful scenery, instrumental in bringing about its demise. Are we condemning modern society for its advances, or ashamed of our own incompetence? Maybe it is both. If people take religion to be the most defining part of their lives, then  its power and greatness is as strong nowadays as it has ever been, and we should not take such a lamenting, defeatist approach towards it. Religion’s real demise will only happen if it is fading within the hearts of the people. I remember an article in a magazine introducing modern Tibetan art, that once said “In our works, the Buddha will always be the symbol for life’s emotions.” From what I understand of religion, especially Buddhism in particular, the Buddha transcended our kind of human suffering, so this kind of artistic symbolism is not really applicable to the situation. Suffering is something which affects everyone’s lives, is it not possible for us to just face the reality of the situation and address it head on?

It is impossible to try and remove religion from Tibetan life and culture, yet presently, the modern Tibetan society that artists are trying to portray is also changing day by day. Tibetan culture is evolving, and the changing attitudes towards religion have become a main point of contention for many artists. Because the majority of modern Tibetan artists take religion as their main inspiration, the current crisis in belief within society has meant that consequently, the state of the art scene is also becoming rather problematic. Modern artworks are beginning to take on a rather embarrassing creative direction. Religious belief should not be just concerned with celebrating the beautiful and sublime; it is also about being ignorant and ignorance, fear, the strange and the uncanny. For such an ancient civilisation such as Tibet, we already bear so many countless examples of beautiful treasures and art, created and inspired by the unwavering beliefs of those before us. So much art nowadays has just become fickle, impatient and unfocused. We cannot deny or try to hide the fact that the modern age has shaped and forced our creativity and art into this manner, and left us with no other choice. On September 10, 2010 there was an exhibition of modern Tibetan art in Beijing entitled “Scorching Sun of Tibet”, which was received extremely well, with many people confessing that it “exceeded all expectations”. I think many people would have been surprised to find that when those artists who had been silent for so long, finally let their voices be heard, the things they had to say was actually quite informed and progressive. In addition, there have been two more exhibitions in Beijing related to Tibetan art, one called “Big and Beautiful Tibet” and another “Fascinating Tibet”. From “Beautiful” to “Fascinating” to “Scorching”, all these exhibitions seem to represent a kind of Tibet that has been negotiated and interpreted through art and creative process. However, we should pay more attention to what the purpose of these exhibitions are, and how others are engaging with them.

We still need to observe and take note of the many unique qualities of the Tibetan modern art community. There are two communities in Tibetan art; one which is involved with the Chinese Federation of Literary and Art Circles (CFLAC), and the other, an autonomous and independent collective, made up of artists such as the Gedun Choephel Artists' Guild, in spaces such as the the Melong Modern Art Space. The latter represent a much more organic and spontaneous representation of the Tibetan art community. All these communities have their own ways and characteristics, and artistic differences. From my experience of Tibetan culture, I can feel the multicultural conflict between the art, social environment and the freedom of artistic expression. This conflict and collision shows us in a visible or invisible manner, modern art in the context of frustration and helplessness.

Do Tibetans Benefit from “Comfortable Housing”? By Woeser

Photo taken in July 2007 in Yushu, Qinghai Province. Under construction is the village for "ecological migrants" but should be called a "new urban slum".

High Peaks Pure Earth has translated a blogpost by Woeser written on May 4, 2011 for the Tibetan service of Radio Free Asia and posted on her blog on May 9, 2011.

This blogpost follows on from the recent blogpost "Is Migration to Tibet Unrelated to Government Policies?" that critiqued a report based on the visit of a delegation of representatives of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee to Central Tibet and Amdo in September 2010.

The full text of the report is available on the official website of the Central Tibetan Administration: http://www.tibet.net/en/index.php?id=2213&articletype=flash&rmenuid=morenews&tab=1 

For more information on the policy of "Comfortable Housing", see this 2007 report by Human Rights Watch titled “No One Has the Liberty to Refuse”.

Photo taken in August 2008 in Rebkong, Amdo. Photo shows "Comfortable Housing".

Photo taken in August 2007, in a village for "ecological migrants" in Gormo, Qinghai. Photo shows their simple temple.

In the report based on the visit of a delegation of representatives of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, there is one more conclusion which is worth discussing; the report claims that Tibetans benefit from “Comfortable Housing”. “Members of the delegation were able to confirm both the extent of this massive housing initiative, and the generally appreciative Tibetan attitude about it”.

This so-called “Comfortable Housing”, together with “Ecological Migration” and the “Settlement of Nomadic People” in Amdo and Kham areas, belongs to what the government calls “guiding farmers and herdsmen towards a more modern and civilised lifestyle”. The Autonomous Region’s top-level official, Zhang Qingli, said that “this is our struggle with the Dalai clique over taking the initiative to provide basic living conditions” and praised “the Communist Party as the real Living Buddha of the common people”.

Perhaps neither the Chinese nor the American sides have been aware of the fact that the U-Tsang farmers who moved from their old huts built from debris into “Comfortable Housing” came up with a name for their new homes: “Palkhar Lodroe Khangsar” - “Palkhar” means white forehead, which is a metaphor for bad luck; if, for example, both one’s parents die at a very young age, one can say one has “Palko kharpo charsha”, meaning that one’s forehead has gone white. “Lodroe” refers to cow lungs and intestines, which in the past would only be eaten by the lowest class of people; it is a metaphor for a vulgar and poverty-stricken lifestyle. Finally, “Khangsar” means new house - from these names created on the basis of traditional customs, we can see that farmers by no means approve of “Comfortable Housing”. Yet, what can disapproval really do? These are all integration measures taken by the government, one has no choice but to accept it.

People from Kham call “Comfortable Housing”, “Lagyag Khangba”, which means “hand-raising housing”. There is a whole series of “Lagyag” sayings; for instance “hand-raising solar stove”, “hand-raising tent” etc. “Hand Raising” simply means “to agree”. Only if one agrees, one will be given certain things; but the question is, what does one have to agree to? In line with the Party’s political principles of the “politics on command” and “maintaining stability is the top priority”, the first thing someone from the Autonomous Region when going through the civil servant examination has to attest is that one is “against separatism” and that one “criticises the Dalai”. When herdsmen move into “Comfortable Housing”, they have to raise their hands in approval and express that they are “against the Dalai clique” and that they “thank the Party”.

To build these housing compounds for herdsmen, during the first stage, the government provides ten thousand RMB and the people have to ask for a loan of ten thousand RMB, without any exceptions made to the single-storeyed Tibetan clay wall houses. In the second stage, the government provides ten thousand RMB and the herdsmen have to pay back an installment of ten thousand RMB, plus take out an additional loan of thirty thousand RMB, without any exceptions made to the red-tiled Han-style concrete blocks. And all houses have to be decorated with five-starred red flags, if not, they will be denounced. A local cadre said to me: “If one was really concerned about the needs of the herdsmen, instead of focusing on each village, the ‘settlements’ would be built somewhere near to where the nomads dwell during winter, this would actually help them. We know that the government is trying to use economic incentives as enticements. This is a grand idea but it does not really gain the approval of local herdsmen”.

In the vast Tibetan territory, “Comfortable Housing” in different areas has different emphases; the most terrible, however, is the method of “ecological migration”. Not long ago, the government “vigorously implemented a large-scale five year plan fostering the settlement of nomadic people from Qinghai Province, leading to fifty three thousand people leaving behind once and for all their nomadic lifestyles.” The main reason given was the degeneration of the grasslands caused by too much grazing. However, in reality, decades of continuous mining has been the main cause of destruction. I have seen some photos taken in the mid-1980s showing vast amounts of migrants from the outside who, like ants, crowded on the Matoe grasslands frantically digging for gold; today, this area has already become infertile. Another area of grasslands in Serthar, which is commonly referred to as the “swift golden horse”, has been exposed to mining for an entire ten years. Today, there is no gold left and people start to “return home”. But the area will never recover again.

Along with the disappearing of grassland areas and mineral resources such as gold, we also witness the erasure of traditional Tibetan culture and lifestyles. I will never forget the conversation I had with a few Khampa men in the new “ecological migrants” village, situated in the suburbs of Gormo in Qinghai Province, which is home to over 300 households. I asked them whether they liked it here or whether they preferred their home land? They said that of course they preferred their home land, since here there did not exist a single blade of grass and with any wisp of wind, there would be sandstorms. I also asked: when you moved here, did your Mountain Deity move with you? They lowered their heads and said: how is that possible? We had to abandon our Mountain Deity; and we also abandoned all our cattle and sheep...

Beijing, May 4, 2011

"Jampel! Jampel!" Memorial Show in Lhasa for Late Tibetan Artist Jampel

"Is Migration to Tibet Unrelated to Government Policies?" By Woeser

A report based on the visit of a delegation of representatives of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee to Central Tibet and the Amdo region of Tibet was recently made public and even translated into Chinese. As someone who has been in contact with this delegation, I am naturally interested in this report and have already discussed it with several fellow Tibetans. The general opinion is that after rushing through Tibet in 12 days, accompanied by Chinese officials, producing a report that touches upon such a vast variety of issues is quite an achievement.

However, first, it needs to be pointed out that the report states that “staff members enjoyed several hours of unaccompanied time each morning and evening”, during which they could “travel unescorted around Lhasa, observing city life and chatting with a variety of residents and visitors to the city”. To me, this just sounds like a wonderful thing.

Last year, I returned to Lhasa twice, and altogether spent four months there, witnessing with my own eyes the great show that is put on in the streets of Lhasa. For example, one day, the military police suddenly vacated the bustling streets of the city, the officers patrolling the old town changed their outfits into yellow sportswear or jeans and even the special police forces on the roofs of Tibetan houses covered up half of their bodies, making visible only a broad line of black hats appearing and disappearing on the roofs. The next day, it was reported on Tibetan TV that a group of domestic and foreign journalists had come to Lhasa to conduct interviews, and government officials asked them in all seriousness to report on the “real Tibet”. These kinds of big shows are often put on, Lhasa people have already grown accustomed to them. Hence, the report’s following sentence stating that “China’s willingness to open Tibet to foreign official visitors reflects growing confidence among Chinese authorities that conditions in Tibet have stabilised”, should be changed into “reflects the confidence among Chinese authorities in their presentation of the stable conditions in Tibet”.

In view of this, although the report touches upon many important problems, some of its conclusions are still worth questioning. For example, looking at the case of immigration, the report states that “indeed, a surprising finding is that Han migration appears to be occurring organically, and does not appear to be the result of a deliberate Chinese government policy to populate Tibet with non-Tibetans. The migration of ethnic Han settlers to Tibet is more the byproduct of Chinese economic development strategies than a goal of them”.

In reality, however, already before the protests in March 2008, Tibet went through a reform of the household registration system, so as to encourage people from inside China to settle in Tibet and provide them with a Tibetan hukou (household registration). Workers from Sichuan, Henan, Shaanxi, Gansu and other provinces who came to build houses, open restaurants, repair cars, grow vegetables etc all had a “double hukou” and quite a few even changed their ethnic status. Many migrants bring their entire families along, so special migrant workers schools have been set up to cater to these people and even in local experimental primary schools or in Lhasa middle school, the proportion of non-Tibetan pupils is high. As for “college entrance exam migration”, out of the over 60 Tibetan students admitted to Beijing’s main universities, almost half are non-Tibetans who have changed their ethnic status and are officially registered as Tibetans.

Simultaneously, in the name of development and the need for outstanding talents and investment opportunities, a series of preferential policies was passed; for example in the 2000 “provisional regulations to attract talent” in Lhasa it is declared that “special preferential policies should apply to talent with regards to job title, research funding, salary, bonuses, accommodation, and household registration”. After the opening of the Qinghai-Tibet railway, “Phoenix Weekly” reported in a special article titled “Gun Shots Startle Potala Palace”: “in 2006, the Tibet Autonomous Region formulated a series of policies and measures to encourage Chinese and foreign business people to participate in mining activities by providing them with special assistance regarding tax, land seizure, finance and other formalities”. In 2009, the “the summary of preferential policies for Lhasa Economic and Technological Development Zone” was launched, which placed emphasis on “combining the preferential policies regarding Tibet put forward by the Fourth Work Forum on Tibet with the actual situation of the Development Zone” and provide attractive preferential policies regarding land, tax, loans, foreign trade, industry and commerce, and administration. In terms of household registration, those who invest more than 100 thousand RMB will be promised to obtain a non-rural hukou for “themselves, their spouse and their children”. The rural hukou can solve the problem of the so-called special “blue-print hukou; after having worked or lived in the Tibet Autonomous Region for 3 years, people’s hukou will change into a non-rural, permanent one”.

Furthermore, the state examination to become a civil servant does not require a test in Tibetan language, which also represents an invisible encouragement to migrate. As for taxi drivers, which are even required to have a local hukou in the capital city Beijing, in Lhasa out of the over 1300 taxi-drivers, only a minority number are actually Tibetan. Also, after 2008, Tibet has started offering positions to former members of the PLA; for example, in the Tibet Autonomous Region Federation of Literary and Art Circles, which I used to work for, many non-professional former members of the PLA have been employed over recent years.

Beijing, April 27, 2011

"Kirti Monastery Facing A Great Disaster" By Woeser

High Peaks Pure Earth has translated a blogpost by Woeser written on April 19, 2011 for the Tibetan service of Radio Free Asia and posted on her blog on April 27, 2011.

The unrest in Ngaba, Eastern Tibet, the subject of this blogpost, has been ongoing since the self-immolation of young monk, Phuntsog, from Kirti Monastery - on whom Woeser wrote in a previous blogpost. Woeser also wrote a poem dedicated to another Kirti monk who was detained on March 25, 2011, in Beijing. In this blogpost, Woeser also remembers another monk from Amdo's Labrang Monastery, Jamyang Jinpa, who died on April 3, 2011, due to torture in detention following his protest in front of foreign journalists at his monastery in April 2008.

The most recent report from Ngaba was released two days ago by International Campaign for Tibet, to read, follow the link.
 


On March 16, after the young monk Phuntsog died from self-immolation, over a thousand military police armed to the teeth surrounded the unarmed and defenseless Kirti Monastery. Starting from March 20, cadres and officials from all levels of Sichuan as well as Ngaba region and county took over 2500 monks through “patriotic education”; it is said that high officials from Beijing had hurried down to issue such strict instructions.

This “education” didn’t spare anyone. The monks in the monastery were divided into four groups and the armed police and cadres also separated into four work teams, supervising every single person, meticulously registering every single monk. In fact, the word “supervise” is too moderate; they monitored them, talked to them insistently and forced them to obey. If someone did not obey, well, the outcome would be very simple, they would brutally start beating them and then make them disappear; as for where they would disappear to, whether to prison or some other inhuman world, we do not know, we only know that up to now, hundreds of monks have been arrested. More than ten days ago, the news from a different monastery in Amdo, Labrang Monastery, arrived that the monk Jamyang Jinba had died from torture and other savage treatments. Three years ago, he was arrested for 15 days because he petitioned for peace and when he was released he had not only lost his sight in both eyes, every single bone in his body had been smashed to bits.

Not a single government official made their position known publicly or explained why the situation in Ngaba was this grim. On the contrary, they still preach how incredibly happy Tibetans are, how much freedom and human rights they enjoy, and how grateful they are to the Party etc; not a single word has been said about Kirti Monastery being surrounded. But on top of the presence of massive military force guarding the monastery, they even put up barbed wire netting, piled up sandbags, and erected watchtowers, thus setting up a defense structure, far exceeding that of an ordinary prison and more resembling a war-time concentration camp.

It has already been going on for a whole month; the monastery is unable to hold any normal Buddhist classes; the monks are unable to meditate or engage in religious practices, not only are they being encapsulated by “education” all day long, even their food supply has been cut off and is decreasing by the day. The people outside the monastery are burning with anxiety, they wanted to deliver butter, tsampa or bread to the monks but were ruthlessly rejected. The local authorities are trying to break up the close relationships between the monks and the ordinary people. Even when people want to go to the nearby temple to pray, they are only allowed to do so under the close supervision of armed police, only permitting one person at a time to enter and leave the temple.

The monks who told me about the above situation are in deep pain; although they are refugees living in exile in India, they are at least blessed with freedom, away from such fears. They said that it is extremely hard to get in touch with people from within Tibet so perhaps the actual situation there is even more grave. The human rights disaster that has befallen every monk in the Kirti Monastery, will have tragic effects upon this monastery with its long history and rich culture and will result in it being swamped with disaster. This reminds me of an event several years ago, when thousands of monk huts of Serthar Larung Gar Buddhist Institute were destroyed and thousands of Buddhist nuns were made destitute and homeless. At that time, the Khenpo (Abbot) Jigme Phuntsok reluctantly asked the nuns to accept their misfortune because any protests would have resulted in the destruction of the arduously established Buddhist institute.

The officials have no interest in trying to engage in conciliation, instead they step by step close in on the monastery, sending numerous vehicles to arrest the young monks. And when the people of Ngaba utilise the age-old method of blocking the streets to obstruct the arrests, what really shocked people was that the armed police suddenly let loose trained police-dogs, which fiendishly pounced on elderly, women and children. Honestly, such horrifying scenes I have only seen in films about, for example, World War Two, when the Nazis would release dogs to tear to pieces completely defenseless people. Yet, after “liberation”, aren’t Tibetans today supposed to be enjoying the best time they have had in history? But these kinds of cruelties have never occurred before on Tibetan ground in history!

There are almost 20 small monasteries attached to Kirti Monastery, spread over Sichuan, Gansu, Qinghai - Amdo regions. Its prominent position in history and influential status today will not just be perished by the barrels of guns; it survived the disasters of the Cultural Revolution and will also survive the disasters today; also, it will widely spread this indomitable spirit throughout the entire Tibetan region. Every single monastery will become a Kirti Monastery, every single monk will become a Kirti Monastery monk, and Kirti will be remembered forever by Tibetan people for its solemn sacrifice, just as written in a poem for Jamyang Jinpa: “When you, countless and nameless, abandoned the flesh of your human body, did Buddha shed a tear or did he wear a smile? But at that moment, my confidence multiplied.”

Beijing, April 19, 2011

"Why Was the Documentary To Commemorate the Yushu Earthquake Banned?" By Woeser

High Peaks Pure Earth has translated a blogpost by Woeser written on April 7, 2011 for the Tibetan service of Radio Free Asia and posted on her blog on April 14, 2011, the one year anniversary of the Yushu earthquake. 

The seizing of the documentary film "Hope in A Disaster" that Woeser writes about has been reported on by Radio Free Asia and Voice of America.

Short clips of the documentary can be found here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZuNY6ihfJA (Tibetan version)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPuB-giZDuo (English version)
http://www.youtube.com/user/VOAKunleng#p/u/2/fDTeahhyigY (News report in Tibetan)





Late at night in early spring, a DVD from the disaster area took me right back to April 14, 2010. In the morning of that day, “a massive earthquake took the maroon-red soil of eastern Tibet by surprise. Jyekundo, a place I had visited many times, was within an instant turned into ruins; many of my fellow countrymen, those I knew and those I had never met, lost their lives in the twinkling of an eye”. This is what I wrote at the time. For an entire 49 days, like many other Tibetans, everyday I cherished their memory in front of my altar at home, lit a lamp and prayed for the protection of the victims who had abruptly been forced upon the path of reincarnation.

Beyond personal traditions or customs which we are all familiar with, there are many ways to commemorate those who left their lives during the disaster; this is human nature. One of the monks who had taken the lead to rush in and offer support told me that a list of victims put together by a monastery in Nangchen alone showed over 5000 names. The Communist leader Joseph Stalin once said the following cold words: “One death is a tragedy. A million deaths is just a statistic.” A quick analysis of this sentence makes it clear that tragedy corresponds to the relatives of the victims, whereas statistics correspond to the state machinery. For those genuinely commemorating victims, thousands upon thousands of dead people are not simply statistics, those are real tragedies.

Hence, a year later, a documentary film about the April 14 earthquake was released. From the title, “Hope in a Disaster", we can see that the film did not only portray grief but also contained some necessary reflections and, through this, offered visions for the future; otherwise it would not have been 2 1/2 hours long and extend over 7 sections. I came to understand that the producers, a few lamas who had with all their energy participated in the relief work, starting from August, spent over four months in the three regions of Amdo, Kham and U-Tsang to interview almost 50 monks and lay people, including some survivors, and then produced this DVD; the project was entirely self-financed; they had no other aim than to appease those who are alive and offer consolation to those who lost their lives.

It is hard to imagine the emotional strength those lamas had to generate to carry out this project. Watching this valuable documentary, we once more see the much noticed maroon-red of the relief work, the merciful and altruistic spirit, the colour of traditional Tibetan Buddhism. Because of the outstanding actions and the attention gained, even the Chinese media had to later on admit that at the time, over 40 thousand Tibetan nuns rushed into the disaster area to assist with the relief work. In fact, it wasn’t only nuns who selflessly engaged in relief work, fellow Tibetans from the entire Tibetan region did their utmost to help. So this documentary also praises the unity of the Tibetan people that was revived by this destructive earthquake as the “hope in a disaster”. I am convinced that this film, as it did for me, will leave a profound impression on anyone who watches it.

During the first anniversary of the Yushu earthquake, following Tibetan traditions of commemoration, a grand religious ceremony was supposed to be held in memory of those who had been killed; yet, it was a great pity that the local authorities did not grant permission for this to take place. They even refused the immediate relatives of the victims to invite the senior monk to come to the disaster area and hold a Buddhist ceremony. Yet, the worst news was still to come; thousands of copies of the documentary, which had not long before been sent to Yushu to be handed out to the families of the victims, had actually been brutally confiscated by the local legal officer. What were they afraid of? Were they afraid that the truth about the earthquake would be known to the world or that, as a result, Tibetans would be more united than ever?

In actual fact, this was by no means the first case in which the recording of images was restricted. Monks from Serthar Larung Gar Buddhist Institute made a 40-minute documentary titled “An eye-witness account of the Yushu Earthquake by monks from Serthar”; they uploaded it on the internet and produced and circulated DVDs. The local authorities believed that it was an act of protest against the government, so not only did they delete the documentary from the internet and recover all hard-copies, they also went to the Buddhist Institute to issue a warning to the monks who had been involved. At the same time, the local authorities tried to gloss over the image they left of their own relief work; by means of maintaining control over all resources, they try to snatch the truth. However, is it true that the more clamour they raise, the more the truth is at stake? In any case, with regards to respect for individual life, it will never be achieved on the basis of eviscerating the victims of this fatal disaster.

Beijing, April 7, 2011

"The Ten Greatest Tibetan Swindlers" By Penpa Tashi

High Peaks Pure Earth has been following a blogpost titled "The Ten Greatest Tibetan Swindlers" that was originally posted on Penpa Tashi's TibetCul blog on October 1, 2010. For unclear reasons, the original post on http://penpatashi.tibetcul.com/107391.html is no longer accessible (the rest of the blog is unaffected), it was either removed by the author or removed by the TibetCul administrators.

The post created a big storm amongst Tibetan netizens when it was first published and was shared widely amongst Tibetans on social networking sites such as RenRen.com. Notably, some Tibetans criticised those who posted the article, calling them "extremists", advising them to remove their posts. 

It is rare in the Tibetan blogosphere within PRC to come across such a critical and divisive blogpost, focusing on what the author sees as negative aspects of Tibetan society. According to his blog, Penpa Tashi is based in Kunming, Yunnan province, and his post does seem to focus on Tibetan areas of Yunnan, such as Dechen Prefecture. High Peaks Pure Earth readers may remember a poem from January 2009 titled "Silent Dechen" in which Dechen's population were mocked as not being Tibetan for not protesting in 2008.

"The Ten Greatest Tibetan Swindlers" was translated into Tibetan quite quickly and posted just days later on several Tibetan language sites such as http://www.gdqpzhx.com/bo/html/special/20101004779.html and http://youshun12.com/?p=3838. More recently on March 29, the text of the blogpost was re-posted on Woeser and Wang Lixiong's joint project, a Tibetan news and blogs aggregator website http://tibet.woeser.com/?p=26103 However as Woeser reported yesterday on her Twitter, their website suffered a malicious attack and all content has since been lost.

1. Tibetan Poets: Tibetan scholars are poets and the ideas which those poets represent have shaped the desires of today’s Tibetan intellectuals. They long for cultural rubbish that Chinese and foreign scholars already discarded long time ago, for example, third generation or some other Western schools of poetry. They lag behind modern progressive culture and unintentionally destroy the so-called glorious poetry, which their own ethnic group once possessed. Their poems are nothing but a random accumulation of great abstract nouns, messy language, which they themselves are unable to understand.
   
   
2. Tibetan Professors: Most Tibetan university professors are cultural robots, they arrive on time and they take their monthly salary on time, apart from the courses they teach, what else do they understand? What else can they teach? They only continue to pass on their narrow-minded ideas and beliefs. The professors are Tibetan language professors but they send their own children to non-Tibetan speaking schools.
   
   
3. Tibetan Postgraduate Students: Those postgraduate students with a postgraduate certificate really don’t have any proper level of education; their graduation theses consist of stolen ideas and if not stolen, at least plagiarised. They relied on guanxi (connections) to get into graduate school and their research revolves around the graduation certificate and has little to do with any cultural substance.
   
   
4. Tibetan Editors: Tibetan (language) editors can be divided into two types: the first type works for government run publications and the second type for private ones. The first type is of course not very smart and also corrupt. The second type talks about ethnic spirits in theory but in practice he changes his mind, thus disturbing the stability of the Tibetan region and threatening ethnic unity.
   
   
5. Tibetan Monks: Monks have a ‘home’ outside their ‘home’, which is the monastery. Today’s monks regard the monastery as their hotel. Only when they don’t have anywhere to go, they go to the monastery. For the monks in the Dechen region, becoming a monk is a question of survival because as a monk one would not have to care about complicated family matters and one even gets a small salary from the monastery. For outsiders, these people are students of Buddhism. Nowadays, these students have become increasingly rare.
   
   
6. Tibetan Historians: I once came across a sentence in a Chinese article which said that history serves the government; this sentence holds a great deal of truth. Also, history books by contemporary historians rely on plagiarism, as the authors are only concerned with seeking fame. We only need to look at the history books written by followers of different religious schools and we know what is happening. In fact, the quarrel between Bon Religion and Buddhism is starting all over again. So aren’t today’s Tibetan historians great swindlers?
   
   
7. Tibetan Fortune Tellers
   
   
8. Tibetan Thinkers: Many people in the Tibetan region want to become thinkers, so everyone who has some knowledge of Tibetan considers him/herself a thinker or a poet. Those people like to grow long hair and their ethics are unusual. Those two criteria are considered the basis for becoming a thinker. If any wise and knowledgeable person closely examined them, he would come to realize that these people don’t know anything about traditional Tibetan culture and even less about Western progressive culture. They are the just a group of madmen deceiving the masses.
   
   
9. Tibetan Tibetologists: The Diqing and Dechen counties are home to a few Tibetologists but what have they been researching? Tibetan Tibetologists do not understand Tibetan, how can they research Tibetan culture? Last time in Zhongdian Bookshop I saw some magazines and books published by local Tibet experts, they had all been written in Chinese, those Tibetologists probably don’t understand any Tibetan! People from other minorities would quite certainly not trust those works; these people are really not able to conduct research on Tibetan culture. They are just a group of Tibet specialists to fool Han Chinese.
   
   
10. Tibetan tour guides: Among today’s Tibetan tour guides there aren’t any who have any tour guide culture, they are just a group of swindlers betraying the outstanding local culture. They are turning cultural value into cash value. But apart from being able to speak their own language, tour guides actually need to possess profound knowledge of local history and traditional culture.

To Be Continued

Comments:

Comment by Guest:

Ok, so maybe you and I, we are all swindlers! But nothing should be covered up, ignored and even more, one shouldn’t disrespect those who are struggling for the preservation and development of Tibetan culture. Also, you should focus more on people’s strong points, those strong points we can learn something from.

Author's reply: To reveal weak points is our responsibility and aren’t you guys constantly repeating and stressing the strong points?

Comment by Potala:

I totally understand the blogger. He is not covering anything up. He is even less disrespecting those who struggle for the preservation and development of Tibetan culture. Of course he knows about other people’s strong points. Everyone should be aware of this important situation, everybody should make an effort.

Comment by Tubozhizi:

Your insults towards Tibetan scholars are unworthy. Of course there exist some of the problems you mentioned but they only refer to a small group. Why don’t you also write about some good things and make a comparison?

Author’s response: Thanks for sharing your opinion.


Comment by Potala:

Over the past few years, there have been 4 so-called representative scholars who gave talks at a conference in Beijing. They claimed that the 20th century Tibetology is our Tibetology and we have great faith in the future. None of those 4 people could write or even speak a single word of Tibetan, what kind of future is that?

"Only This Useless Poem, Dedicated to Lobsang Tsepak" By Woeser

High Peaks Pure Earth has translated a poem by Woeser that was posted on her blog on April 17, 2011. Woeser's poem is dedicated to Lobsang Tsepak, a monk of Kirti Monastery, Ngaba, who was studying at Beijing's Central University for Nationalities and was arrested on March 25, 2011 for unclear reasons.

Woeser has previously written poems dedicated to Tibetans who are missing or imprisoned, see these "Two Poems for the Panchen Lama" and also "Secret Tibet".

Lobsang Tsepak, from Amdo, Kirti Monastery monk, 26 years old.

1.
Today is already the twenty third day.
Yet on a certain day, I read a poem called "Disappeared",
At once what I thought about was you.

You were disappeared on the afternoon of the 25th of last month,
I only have teardrops, write poems, have no other choices.

2.
Like a film needs empty frames,
My feelings, sometimes when they are disorderly and numerous,
Flash some illusory picture frames:
Flowers inundating the horseshoes, the black tent on the grassland,
Prayer flags blown by the gentle wind, bird and beast being released,
All this beautiful scenery I have seen in my homeland,
In fact, now in this most difficult time,
Such as you, it seems you have evaporated from the world.

3.
The absurd is the reality,
I have become my own helpless poison,
But you, have actually turned into a sacrificial offering by drinking poison.

When closing my eyes, all I see is you,
That year in March, flames spread across the Land of Snows,
Compatriots carried the protesters whose blood was shed back to the monastery,
Worshipping them in the sacred temple of one’s heart.

4.
"March is the cruellest month."
A refined foreign journalist said that to me,
He went to Tibet during two Marches, it seems he saw something.
It again seems he didn't see anything at all.
But he clearly fell into one of the traps of the thirty six stratagems.
"Did you say, 'Tibetans emit wolf-like sounds when they cry out'?"
Embarrassed, he revealed a look which showed his pride was injured.

5.
Akhu [1] Tsepak, where are you?
Have you been brutally detained and escorted with force to your home of Ngaba?
Or been held in a dark room, suffering the torment of others which makes one’s blood boil?

I have heard one Akhu's experience of torture and being extorted a confession,
He was hung upside-down and beaten, with three ribs broken,
Changes in weather led him to huddle up in pain,
Ah, I forgot to ask him, it recently snowed in eastern Tibet, is he safe and sound?
But who can I ask, to know the whereabouts of Akhu Tsepak?

6.
"We live, deaf to the land beneath us,
Ten steps away no one hears our speeches"
This sentence, is by a poet of conscience who died under Stalin [2],
It is also a portrayal of China at its heyday.

Late at night, I incoherently reveal:
"I don't know if it's of any use but I will still say it.
I know for a fact, that it's useless to say it..."

Those friends from "rangwang lungba" [3], say sonorously:
"They always want to make people think that speaking out is useless.
But we must not stop speaking out!"

7.
Both my hands are empty
But my right hand grasps a pen, my left hand holds memories.
At the moment, although the memories wish to be expressed through the pen,
But between the lines, endless flow of tears is for
the trampled dignity.

8.
The gaze of hell is too long,
Very possible we’ll be eaten up by hell little by little.

Are you open to compromise?
If so, tell us your conditions and we will listen,
If they might lead to his safe return.

But I suddenly remembered a gloomy afternoon,
A gloomy hired thug, started to speak ferociously:

"You, could you, not write about Tibet?"

9.
If I don't write about Tibet, there are no poems.

Just like if it weren't for Tibet, Akhu Tsepak,
would not be disappeared.
If it weren't for Tibet, Akhu Tapey [4] and Akhu Phuntsog [5],
wouldn't have self-immolated.

And moreover, this list of names, could be very long, very long ......

And this "Xizang" - -
Of course, the complete name is "Tibet".


[1] "Akhu" is an honorific term for a monk used in Amdo

[2] These lines are by the Russian poet Osip Mandelstam. He was a Silver Age poet (late 19th to early 20th Century), a talented and outstanding poet. He was charged with counter-revolutionary crimes, arrested twice, exiled for many years, attempted suicide several times, on December 27, 1938, he died in a correction camp.

[3]"Rangwang Lungba", Tibetan, meaning a "free country"

[4] On March 16, 2008, in Ngaba, monks and lay people took to the streets in protest but were harshly cracked down upon by armed forces. Therefore, March 16 is the anniversary of this repression. On February 27, 2010, 24 year old monk from Kirti monastery, Tapey, self-immolated in protest on the street in Ngaba, he was shot by police, maiming his legs and right arm, to this day he is still confined in the military hospital.

[5] On March 16, 2011, 20 year old monk Phuntsog from Kirti Monastery self-immolated on the street in Ngaba, he shouted slogans "Let His Holiness Return!" "Freedom for Tibet", "May His Holiness Live for 10,000 Years!", he was beaten by special police, armed police and undercover police. On March 17, 2011, at 3 am, Phuntsog passed away. Monks and lay people staged a protest march and military placed the monastery under siege, there were many arbitrary arrests and more than 2500 Kirti Monastery monks faced disaster.