Language Awards, Lhakar, and Tibetan Education
Recently several photos of a language awards ceremony in Lithang County were sent from Tibet. The photos show Tibetan youth being presented certificates and being offered Khatas for their achievements in Tibetan language and study of Tibetan history. The recipients of the awards range in age from 10 to 18. Because the high cost of private schools and the poor quality of state education, young Tibetans often attend community run schools.
“Most people think that because the government gives free education to Tibetan youth, it’s a good thing. But after 5 or 6 years in these schools, they start to forget Tibetan,” the Tibetan source in Lithang said.
When asked if the awards were given as part of Lhakar (literally white Wednesday), the homegrown Tibetan noncooperation movement, the source said “Some people in Lithang do Lhakar. For example, in Lithang the Tibetan alphabet is written on doorways and graffitied on walls. They need a better way to promote Tibetan [language].”
In recent years, Tibetan students attending schools in Xining, Chengdu, Beijing and other Chinese cities often complain of discrimination, inadequate job opportunities, and the absence of meaningful “cultural education.”
Similar actions to preserve Tibetan language and culture have been taken by Tibetans across Tibet. In the name of Lhakar, many Tibetans have boycotted Chinese-owned stores, made special efforts to speak and write in Tibetan, promote Tibetan culture, and engaged in acts of non-cooperation.
For more on Tibet’s Lhakar movement, go to: http://lhakar.org
No Foreigners Allowed…Again?
In March I wrote about how foreigners were banned from traveling to Lhasa, and it seems the authorities are denying entry permits to the Tibet Autonomous Region yet again.
Urban Sprawl in Lhasa, April 2011
In March, the official (read: Chinese government) reason for the ban was the over-crowding of tourists and extreme weather. These were blatant lies, as there were few tourists in Lhasa at the time—only domestic tourists were allowed permits—and the weather was sunny, occasionally cloudy and windy. The real reason was that the government did not want foreign tourists to view firsthand the current crackdown and the heightened military presence in March, due to fears of potential unrest on the anniversary of the Uprisings of 1959 and 2008
The Potala square in April, 2011, devoid of tourists.
In April, permits were re-issued, and fair-skinned foreign tourists toting heavy cameras began trickling in, trailing their tour guides around the city. It had been one month since I had seen any foreigners save the few that I knew lived in Lhasa, and I stared and studied them with the same fascination as the Tibetans, not used to the sight of them. A recent news article stated that areas of Sichuan, most likely Ngaba, were closed to tourists in April, following the self-immolation of a monk and the subsequent protests and crackdown in the region.
In May, another politically sensitive anniversary occurred on the 23rd—the 60th anniversary of the signing of the 17-Point Agreement, which China dubs the official day of Tibet’s “peaceful liberation.” (read the “17 Points of Disagreement”: 60 Years of China’s Failed Policies in Tibet)
It is now June, and the two anniversaries have passed, so why is Tibet yet again closed to foreign tourists? Documents cited the May 23rd anniversary, but it seems more likely that the ban is in response to the upcoming July 1st anniversary of the Communist Party’s founding. Likewise, the recent protests in Inner Mongolia may also have something to do with it:
In May, Beijing told foreigners not to sow unrest in its vast northern region of Inner Mongolia, after rare protests by ethnic Mongolians sparked by the hit-and-run death of a herder garnered international attention.
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu has said people overseas had an ‘ulterior motive’ and were trying to use the incident ‘to cause trouble’. (Reuters)
While blaming foreigners for unrest in Inner Mongolia is flattering, credit must be given where credit is due, and the people of Inner Mongolia, Tibet, and East Turkestan need to be recognized for their brave efforts.
The fact that Tibet is so frequently closed due to fears of potential unrest and heightened military crackdowns is absurd and horrifying. March through October is the tourist high season, yet three out of the past four months saw bans on foreign tourists in numerous areas in Tibet. Tour guides who have no work in the winter must toil grueling hours in the high season, making most, if not all of their income in that half of the year. A ban on foreign tourists means that hundreds, potentially thousands of tour guides will be making next to nothing this year.
Right now, Lhasa is being built up into a tourist hot spot, with new luxury hotels like the St. Regis Lhasa Resort and the Intercontinental popping up, along with malls, movie theaters, department stores, and restaurants emerging and vying for tourist dollars. The St. Regis Lhasa Resort opened its doors in November, boasting that they are offering training and employment opportunities for local Tibetans, but how can a hotel thrive when there are no tourists? They have built it, but no one can come.
How can tourism successfully function in Tibet today? It cannot and it will not until Tibet is a free and independent nation, free of military oppression, economic marginalization, and religious and cultural repression.
China closes Tibet to foreigners until July 26 (AP)
UPDATE 1-China closes Tibet to foreigners ahead of anniversary (Reuters)
Stand-off in Ngaba: Tibetan monks need your help
Tibetan monks at Kirti monastery in eastern Tibet are in danger – and need your help.
As Beijing intensifies its sweeping crackdown on dissent, Chinese troops in Tibet are on the verge of “disappearing” hundreds of monks.
Tibetan monks in Dharamsala, India have received an urgent call for help from Ngaba County (Chinese: Aba County). They are reporting that Chinese troops attempted to storm Kirti monastery this morning. According to reliable sources, residents fear Chinese authorities are planning to forcibly remove all monks between the ages 18 and 40.
Local Tibetans, being alerted to the troops’ arrival, rushed to block the monastery entrance. The armed police and soldiers tried to break through the crowd by beating the Tibetans and setting police dogs on them. In spite of the violent attacks, the Tibetans stood their ground and the troops failed to enter the monastery’s inner gates. As of now, the standoff continues.
Tibetans fear Chinese authorities are planning to transfer the monks from the monastery into local prisons where they will be subjected to China’s repressive political “reeducation”.
Tension in Ngaba has been high since the self-immolation of Phuntsok Jarutsang (pictured right), a 20-year monk from Kirti Monastery, on March 16, 2011. Chinese forces have been stationed around Kirti Monastery for weeks and more than a dozen monks have been arbitrarily arrested.
According to the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights & Democracy as of yesterday, troops had completely sealed off the monastery. The monks’ dwindling food supplies are prompting fears of starvation in the monastery. The lives of many Tibetans are at stake.
Take Action: Let the Chinese authorities know the world is watching
- Sign the petition and demand an end to the siege.
- Organize a solidarity rally at the Chinese consulate nearest you or at a public landmark in your community. Find details of protests here. Send information about your protest to grassroots@studentsforafreetibet.org so we can alert others.
- Spread the word. Forward this email to friends & family. Update your Facebook and Twitter status to “I stand with Tibetans in Ngaba”.
For more ways to take action, visit: http://www.studentsforafreetibet.org/ngaba
Let’s work together to end the siege at Kirti monastery, and to protect the monks and local Tibetans who are defending the monastery.
For more information, read the reports & articles below:
Chinese armed police cordon Ngaba Kirti Monastery, 2500 monks face food shortage (TCHRD)
http://www.tchrd.org/press/2011/pr20110411.html
Security step-up in Kirti monastery likely to starve monks (Phayul News):
http://is.gd/iaQ7tN
Ngaba Kirti Monastery Under Lockdown (Voice of America):
http://www.voanews.com/tibetan-english/news/Ngaba-Kirti-Monastery-under-Lockdown-119696874.html
More information about the incident on March 16th self-immolation:
http://www.studentsforafreetibet.org/article.php?id=2306
Tibetans boycott Chinese vegetable sellers in Kham
There is a developing story from Tibet that reminds one of the power of nonviolence displayed during the time of Gandhi and MLK. Tibetans in Nangchen, Kham in eastern Tibet are reported to be boycotting Chinese vegetables. Read the full story at Tibet Post International. What began initially as a response to skyrocketing food prices has now grown into an organized boycott of Chinese vegetable sellers. Many Chinese vegetable stores have lost much business since the boycott started, while Tibetans are now buying their vegetables from Tibetans who travel to Xining to buy vegetables in bulk.
This is What 1,000 Tibetan Students Protesting for Equality Looks Like!
In the early morning hours of October 19th, thousands of brave students — as well as many teachers — in Rebkong, Amdo in eastern Tibet marched to the Mahlo Prefecture government office to demand “Equality of Race and Freedom of Language.” The students are protesting the Chinese government’s plan to replace Tibetan language textbooks with books in Mandarin, changing the medium of instruction to Chinese.
As of 2pm today, there were 20-30 police cars that arrived on site but no one had been arrested yet. No news has yet surfaced about how the protest ended or whether it’s still going on.
Radio Free Asia’s coverage of the protest.
Sydney Morning Herald’s coverage of the protest.
BBC’s coverage of the protest.
What’s going on in the Tibetan Blogosphere? Ask Dechen Pemba
A Tibetan netizen in her own right, Dechen Pemba, publisher of High Peaks Pure Earth (the remarkable blog that translates the writings of Tibetans living in Tibet and China) provides insight into the importance and the vulnerabilities of the Tibetan blogosphere in her following post:
The Virtual Sweet Tea House: An Overview of the Tibetan Cyberspace
As a place to meet, share and exchange, the Tibetan blogosphere has created opportunities for Tibetan netizens that would be unimaginable in the offline world. Keeping in mind the state of internet censorship in the People’s Republic of China today, these new spaces can be seen as new outlets but also as new areas involving personal risk. Tibetan cyberspace has opened up a new opportunity for expression, which has also brought new risks to this community.
There are several blog-hosting sites, both Tibetan and Chinese, that are favoured by Tibetans in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) today. One of the of the most popular Chinese language sites is called Tibetan Culture Net or simply TibetCul. TibetCul was started by two brothers, Wangchuk Tseten and Tsewang Norbu, and their head office is in Lanzhou, capital of Gansu Province. According to Alexa, the web Information Company, TibetCul receives over 400,000 hits every month. TibetCul is primarily a news and blog-hosting site but there are many different sections on the site related to Tibetan music, literature, films and travel. There is a BBS forum (bulletin board) and there is even a section dedicated to “overseas Tibetans”.
For all Tibet related news, blogs and cultural activities, TibetCul is an invaluable resource and source of information. Many posts translated into English by High Peaks Pure Earth come from TibetCul, such as the translation of the popular Tibetan hip-hop song “New Generation” by Green Dragon that was first featured on the group’s TibetCul blog in February 2010 in which a gang of Amdo rappers boldly proclaimed:
“The new generation has a resource called youth
The new generation has a pride called confidence
The new generation has an appearance called playfulness
The new generation has a temptation called freedom”
In a similar surge of pride in Tibetan identity that featured on Tibetan blogs post-2008, TibetCul blogs featured many poems and prose articles with the title “I Am Tibetan” and new posts are being written even today.
Heated discussions and debate take place on TibetCul every day about all matters of concern to Tibetans. One major example would be the online vilification of well-known Tibetan singer Lobsang Dondrup following photos posted on blogs of him and his wife both wearing fur at their wedding ceremony in early 2009. The photos were quickly re-posted across many blogs, incurring the wrath of angry Tibetan netizens and comments criticising the couple flooded the internet forums both in Tibetan and Chinese. This must all be seen in context, in 2006, after the Dalai Lama’s injunction against the wearing of animal fur, a wave of fur burning protests took place in Amdo and Kham. Hence the netizens anger and loathing for the couple. Shortly after, Lobsang Dondrup posted an apology online through his friend’s TibetCul blog.
The above observations on TibetCul demonstrate the nature of cyberspace in the ability to bring people together in discussion and debate and also the ability for the online content to transcend national borders, “New Generation” has gone on to become a popular song amongst Tibetans all over the world and the “I Am Tibetan” poetry and spirit has sparked Tibetan exile groups to hold events to amplify voices from Tibet.
In a paper from 2004, Tibetan scholar Tashi Rabgey referred to the Lhasa tradition of the Sweet Tea House: “Throughout the 1980s, sweet tea houses had served as important gathering places for Tibetans to exchange news, air opinions and discuss ideas.” However, “with the tightening of political controls in the early 1990s [...] this unusual space of lively, open debate was brought to an end through constant surveillance.” The new virtual Sweet Tea House contains Tibetans who are literate in many languages but mainly in Tibetan, Chinese and English and Tibetans from Central Tibet, Kham, Amdo, India, USA and beyond, all in contact and dialogue.
Whilst the potential for contact and dialogue in the Tibetan cyberspace is great, control of the internet and the politicisation of the blog content poses difficulties and risks. Monitoring Tibetan blogs reveals that throughout the year, at times deemed “sensitive” by the Chinese government, Tibetan blog-hosting sites will suddenly with no explanation or prior warning either be taken offline or be offline “for maintenance”. This happens typically for Tibetan blogs around the time of March 10, the anniversary of the Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule in 1959. See this link for an example of TibetCul suddenly disappearing offline and this link for Tibetan-language blogs being taken offline.
Similarly, individual bloggers are in danger of being targeted by the state for blog content deemed to be dubious. The most famous example is the Tibetan poet, writer and blogger, Woeser, who was writing two blogs, one on TibetCul and another on a Chinese blog hosting site but both of which were suddenly shut down on 28 July 2006. Woeser then had no choice but to start a new blog on a server hosted outside the PRC but has since faced a new set of problems such as server cyber-attacks by Chinese nationalists, both to her blogs and her Skype accounts.
Tibetan language blog-hosting sites have been even more vulnerable than TibetCul and two previously very popular sites have been inaccessible since 2009, http://tibettl.com/ and http://www.tibetabc.cn/ The latter was particularly a great loss as prominent singer and blogger Jamyang Kyi’s blog had previously been hosted by Tibetabc but she seems to have stopped blogging altogether since the site was closed down.
Two recent examples of individuals using blogs and the internet for purposes of social justice have been Dolkar Tso and Shogdung. Dolkar Tso, the wife of environmentalist Karma Samdrup, was blogging almost daily in June and July 2010, documenting the events of her husband’s trial and expressing her personal feelings about the injustice of his sentencing to 15 years in prison. Amazingly, Dolkar Tso persistently kept blogging on Chinese blog-hosting site Sohu and, at the last count, is on her fifth blog as the others kept being shut down rapidly.
Tagyal, a writer and intellectual who used the pen name Shogdung meaning “Morning Conch”, openly spoke out in April 2010 following the devastating earthquake that hit Yushu. He, along with several other intellectuals, published an open letter on Tibetan language blog-hosting site http://www.sangdhor.com in which they expressed condolences and at the same time were critical of the Chinese government in their handling of the earthquake relief efforts. Following this open letter, Shogdung was arrested and is still facing trial. Following Shogdung’s arrest, the site Sangdhor was taken offline for several months and has only recently come back online.
The last two examples of Dolkar Tso and Shogdung illustrate the importance of Tibetan blogs as sources of information and as ways to highlight injustice but evidently this comes at a great price for the individuals involved. The virtual Sweet Tea House is ultimately as vulnerable as the Lhasa tea houses of the 1990s were and is likely to remain so as long as Tibetan blogs remain behind the Great Firewall.
______________________________
Dechen Pemba is a UK born Tibetan, based in London. She is the editor of the website High Peaks Pure Earth, which provides insightful commentary on Tibet related news and issues and translations from writings in Tibetan and Chinese posted blogs.
Massive Mudslide Claims Lives in Amdo Drugchu -Updated
Drugchu County REUTERS/Aly Song
During the early morning hours on Sunday August 8th, a massive mudslide struck Drugchu County in eastern Tibet (Ch: Zhuoqu County, Gannan Tibetan Autonomous prefecture, Gansu province).
Media reports from Friday August 13th, put the death toll of Sunday’s tragic landslide at 1100 with at least 600 people still missing.
Heavy rain last week reportedly caused a temporary dam on the Drugchu river (Ch: Bailong river) to burst creating a 2-mile long lake that overflowed sending waves of water, mud, and rocks onto the town adding to this natural and man-made disaster. The scope of the devastation in Drugchu County can be seen in a video by the BBC here and photos here.
Woeser, the Tibetan writer and blogger based in Beijing has been monitoring tweets from the region which are available in English language here. @melissakchan corespondent for Aljazeera is currently in Drugchu tweeting updates.
Drugchu County is located just 30 miles from Labrang Monastery, a site of intense protest during the 2008 Tibetan uprising.
All of us at SFT send our heartfelt condolences to families who have lost loved ones in Drugchu.
Let’s Be Clear About the Lhasa Protests
Following Human Rights Watch’s thourough 73-page report on the 2008 Uprising in Tibet, I Saw It with My Own Eyes , The March 14th protests in Lhasa have once again been the subject of international scrutiny. This week the Economist published an incitful piece “Through the eyes of witnesses,” written by James Miles the only foreign reporter present in Lhasa during the March 14th protests.
As conflicting stories by Tibetans, Chinese, and foreigners who were present in Lhasa have emerged, it is important that we are clear about what actually happened and the language we use to describe the protests.
To be clear, between March 10th and March 13th several peaceful protests occurred in Lhasa. These protests involved monks, nuns, and lay people. No acts of violence occurred and no property was destroyed. These peaceful protests involved sit-ins, mass gatherings, and other tactics that were repeatably used in the over 150 (almost entirely peaceful) protests across Tibet in 2008. It is incorrect to refer to the unrest in Lhasa as a single violent riot.
On March 14th, acts of violence took place in Lhasa. The violence on both the part of Tibetans and Chinese soldiers is real. While the world was only shown images of Tibetans burning Chinese products in the streets, turning over cars, and attacking Chinese civilians by China’s state media; another side of the story has emerged by eyewitnesses and participants in the unrest.
Contrary to Miles’s article, images have emerged “hinting at security forces’ use of lethal force.”The below mobile photos sent to Woeser by a Tibetan in Lhasa show Tibetans carrying the dead body of Tibetan protester.
Photos from uprising archive via Woeser’s blog
Not mentioned in Miles’s article is that the vast majority of property destruction in Lhasa was aimed at symbols of China’s occupation. We should not remember the unrest in Lhasa as random acts of violence but as the expression of Tibet’s simmering resentment to China’s occupation and 50 years of oppression.
- polo shirts
on NEW PHOTOS, NEW PROTESTS, AND A NEW GENERATION
- NYC Summer Lhakar Actions « Lhakar Diaries on SFT in DC
- Jurmedth Khampa Lotay
on “Ngapo Ngawang Jigme: The Death of an Historical Figure” by Woeser
 |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
 |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
