A Happy New Year to all High Peaks Pure Earth readers!
2012 was the fourth full year of translations and blog postings on High Peaks Pure Earth, thank you all for reading, commenting, supporting, sharing and getting in touch. It was also the year we had a re-design and unveiled the new site which also has pages in Tibetan and Chinese. In addition to our regular translations and posts, we started a new section containing book reviews, offered our first resource for translators and also opened a modest online shop for Tibetan writings in English.
We’re happy to see so many readers not only here but also with us on our Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus pages.
Here is a quick round-up of our blogposts that were popular over 2012:
1. The two most read postings on High Peaks Pure Earth in 2012 were both by Woeser about the dismissal of Ngapo Jigme from his post as head of the Tibetan service of Radio Free Asia. “Why Was Ngapo Jigme, Director of Radio Free Asia’s Tibetan Service, Suddenly Dismissed?” brought public attention on the incident and was later followed up by “The Responsibility for the Ngapo Jigme Incident Lies with Radio Free Asia and not with Tibetan Exile Society”.
2. As regular readers will know, Woeser is the most translated and most read Tibetan blogger on High Peaks Pure Earth, this general link to her articles is one of the most-clicked links on the site: http://highpeakspureearth.com/category/woeser/
Over 2012, apart from the two articles above about Ngapo Jigme, the most read articles by Woeser on High Peaks Pure Earth were “Self-Immolations Cannot Go On Like This!”, “Lhasa is Being Ruined By Various Gluttonous Ghosts” and On “Petty Criticism”, “Trivial Matters” and “Establishing Authority”.
“Song of Sorrow” By Dawoe from HPeaks on Vimeo.
3. Translations of music videos from Tibet have always been popular on High Peaks Pure Earth, the general link for the Music category received many hits in 2012: http://highpeakspureearth.com/category/music/ In particular, the weekly series of music videos that started in November 2012 have attracted visitors. “Song of Sorrow” by Dawoe (embedded above) has been the most popular music video in that series so far.
4. The High Peaks Pure Earth reading list continued to attract readers with both the Summer and Winter updates.
5. A letter written in prison by Tashi Rabten was published on a Tibetan blog and the English translation was widely read and shared: http://highpeakspureearth.com/2012/tashi-rabten-writes-a-letter-from-prison/
“Laundry Song” Performed by Peng Liyuan from HPeaks on Vimeo.
Finally, a special mention goes to our “Red Songs” post from June 2011 that enjoyed a spectacular revival in 2012 thanks to huge interest in Xi Jinping’s wife Peng Liyuan. The “Laundry Song” was featured on websites of major news outlets such as New York Times and referred to in articles such as this one in TIME, the Vimeo video above has amassed over 21,000 views to date.
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