This blogpost reflects on the nature of political leadership and governance in a democracy. The first paragraph refers to Woeser’s criticism of Kalon Tripa Lobsang Sangay, where at a public event he read a list of names of Tibetan self-immolators but “failed to mention the first case of self-immolation that happened inside Tibet in 2009; his list of names was missing the first person – Tapey.”

This picture is a screenshot from the official website of the Central Tibetan Administration

On “Petty Criticism”, “Trivial Matters” and
“Establishing Authority”

By Woeser

When I disagreed with the leaders of the Tibetan government in exile, it caused hitherto unknown hesitation and confusion, even though I only suggested that when counting the numbers of self-immolations in Tibet, one needs to go back and take into account the first case of Tapey in 2009. Some voices from outside Tibet self-confidently expressed that in times of hardship everyone should be united, no one should raise petty criticism and let trivial matters influence the general situation; at this moment, one needs to strengthen leaders’ authority and must therefore not criticise… these kinds of words are all too familiar to someone like me who lives under an authoritarian regime, the autocracy uses very similar reasoning to request all members of society to entertain “collective will, collective action, and collective discipline”.

However, the criticism of leaders is an elementary state of affairs in democratic societies. By suppressing this criticism, regardless of what the motivations or reasons are, the result will always run counter to democracy. Mature democracies will never refer to a newly elected leader as the “mighty leader”, but as an object that needs to be controlled. “Don’t trust the President” is the starting point of democratic philosophy, taming the government and leaders is the basic task of democracy. And in order to achieve this, one must, above all, rely on the freedom to criticise. Hence, in democratic societies people constantly confront their leaders with “petty criticism”, regardless of how important the matter really is.

Indeed, we are in a difficult situation but this is not a reason to reject criticism; on the contrary, we need criticism to prevent leaders from making mistakes. If criticism does end up destroying unity, then it is always the leader who has to take responsibility for this, because as long as the leader accepts criticism, unity will improve. Aristotle once said: “virtue is one integral whole” – people do not respect virtues when it comes to “important matters” and then, for practical reasons, reject these exact same virtues when dealing with “trivial matters”. In fact, any abandonment of virtues, no matter how insignificant they are, represents the beginning of a whole moral degeneration. In the same line, the “general situation” and “trivial matters” are one integrated whole; the problems that “trivial matters” reflect do just as much exist within the “general situation”, criticising “small matters” does not only influence the “general situation”, it, in fact, positively contributes to it.

Of course, democratic societies can also generate great leaders, but these merits are only granted after a leader leaves office and not when he or she is newly elected. Being elected cannot serve as proof of greatness, it is merely the beginning of a process of inspection. Looking back at history or around the world today, there are many examples of leaders who have squandered the trust they enjoyed when initially elected. By accepting to learn from the mistakes of predecessors, those who have been elected should regard criticism as a kind of positive remedy, enabling them to avoid entering the list of those who have failed and hence, they should appreciate criticism.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s authority is inherent and supreme and enjoys unconditional recognition from Tibetans. The reason why His Holiness withdrew his authority from the political realm is not to have a different person replacing it. Neither is this necessary nor would the people accept this. His Holiness wants a fundamental transformation, just like the Taiwanese democratic slogan says “the people are the greatest”, he wants the people to turn into the political authority with leaders only being public servants, serving the people.

The way to inspect the level of democratisation of a specific society is by looking at its leaders’ attitudes. If they are arrogant, conceited and arbitrarily denounce other ideas and opinions it means that the leaders have not yet understood what democracy is really about and it also means that the society has not yet achieved the empowerment of the people.

Unlike the unshakable legitimacy of His Holiness, it is an inherently difficult task for the political leaders of the Tibetan exile government to establish their legitimacy as representatives of the 6 million Tibetans living inside Tibet after the Dalai Lama withdrew from politics; but their source of existence comes from Tibet and hence, the issue must be resolved. Only relying on several ten thousands of votes from exiled Tibetans is not sufficient. As long as Tibetans living in Tibet cannot themselves vote for their own leaders, the legitimacy to represent them has to be created and embodied through the close exchange and communication between the exiled leaders and the Tibetan people inside Tibet. This exchange includes praise as well as criticism and it is a process in which the leaders of the exile government should at the very minimum show their modesty, benevolence and active engagement.

A higher level of legitimacy would be achieved by providing Tibetans living in Tibet with real guidance and useful methods and by performing an effective role as leaders. Everyone knows that this is very difficult, but it is precisely those, and only those who can achieve a breakthrough in such a challenging and difficult matter that will one day become great political leaders.

I am waiting.

March 5, 2012

Further Reading: 

“Why Didn’t Kalon Tripa Read Out Tapey’s Name?”: http://highpeakspureearth.com/2012/why-didnt-kalon-tripa-read-out-tapeys-name-by-woeser-2/

“Why Are Different Numbers of Self-Immolations in Tibet Talked About?”: http://highpeakspureearth.com/2012/why-are-different-numbers-of-self-immolations-in-tibet-talked-about-by-woeser/

“Remembering the First Person who Self-Immolated Inside Tibet, Tapey”: http://highpeakspureearth.com/2012/remembering-the-first-person-who-self-immolated-inside-tibet-tapey-by-woeser/

In this post, Woeser talks about the pressures on Tibetans in Kham who work in official positions with regard to their religious beliefs.

“Do You Want A Job or Not?”
By Woeser

After the protests that erupted all over Tibet in 2008 had been suppressed by the authorities, various different kinds of “human barriers” continue to exist till the present day. Last Summer, when I was travelling through Kham I came to know that all “national government officials” in Sichuan Province are required to fill out a special form, which include: 1. whether they have any monks or nuns in their families, 2. whether they have a Buddhist shrine at home, 3. whether they have a photo of the Dalai Lama on display, 4. whether any family members are abroad, 5. whether they own a passport, 6. whether they entertain a dual belief (in the Communist Party and in Buddhism). Even though both Tibetans and Han Chinese have to fill out this form, it is clearly directed against Tibetans.

A Taiwanese friend who lives in a democratic society asked me: what is the point of filling out this form? I replied: if any of the answers is “yes” one will be blacklisted and become a target of suspicion; if all answers are “no”, one will be accommodated by the Party. But my friend continued to ask: but are they really that simple-minded? I replied: in fact, they know exactly how Tibetans feel and think, the goal of having all Tibetans to report on all these items is to terrorise and humiliate them.

In my book “The Snow-Lion Roaring in the Year of the Mouse: A Chronicle of the Events in Tibet of 2008” I recorded that back then many work units, schools and neighbourhood committees in Lhasa had to come together at a grand meeting to “criticise the Dalai clique of separatists” and everyone had to write denunciation letters, which they had to then read out to everyone at the meeting. What hurt Tibetans the most was that they had to call out the Dalai Lama’s name to criticise him, and they had to only say “Dalai” and not “Lama”, or else their position would not have appeared firm enough.

Many years ago, when I was working at the Tibetan Federation of Literary and Arts Circles I also encountered very similar “barriers”, which is why I wrote the following lines:

“All human beings are born free…”, “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion…” − those two sentences are the ones that shook and comforted people the most out of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that was announced to the world over half a century ago. But they are also the most fantastic ones. This is especially true with regards to today’s Tibet, we never know if we ever have the chance to sense the rights of these words that are directly linked to humans living in this world. We do not have these rights. Like thunder piercing through our ears, day and night, we are forced to hear that everything is not allowed, not allowed, not allowed!

That afternoon, hidden in the barrack-like dorm room of my work-unit, I looked at everything on my wall, at each item in my bookshelf. All these things that have accompanied over the years: the faded colour thangka, the not too exquisite sacred lamps, many photos of Tibetan monks that people had given to me or that I had taken myself, and also the Buddhist clay sculpture sitting inside the small home altar, with sky blue hair on his head and a facial expression as clear as water, though revealing a hint of melancholy, a melancholy that had only become visible at that time. All these things, all of them, are symbols of belief and artistic beauty. But at that time I had to take them down, pack them up and hide them in a secret corner. This was because they had given out the strict order that it was prohibited to keep any religious objects at home, it was strictly forbidden!

And the next day, they were going to go from house to house and inspect; yes, this one word: inspect! When I was hiding the thangka, the sacred lamps, the portrait and the small altar in paper boxes, I couldn’t help but feel deeply ashamed.”

These “human barriers” of large-scale inspections are common practice of the Party, always following the same set of procedures. For instance, after June 4, 1989, various political clean-ups were instigated, all realised through the process of holding meetings, declarations of one’s position, writing confessions and self-evaluations, which were all recorded in people’s individual files. The same happened with Falun Gong. Many people who admitted that they practiced Falun Gong but were not prepared to abandon it lost their jobs and were put into labour camps.

Khampa Tibetans told me that apart from filling out these forms, the local authorities hold a whole variety of other activities, such as “singing red songs”, celebrating “thanks giving”, carrying out activities to “recall the sorrows of that past and the joys of the present” etc. They even ask people to face the camera and shout “against the Dalai Clique, thank the Party”. The most humiliating fact is that every time these activities take place, the officials will press everyone, asking: “Do you want a job or not?”

January 13, 2012

As introduced on the blogpost, the 73rd event of the Three Provinces of Tibet poetry group took place on March 22, 2012. The title “Life Experience” was given to the poets and they started to write at 22:30, finishing in one hour at 23:30.

“Life Experience”
By Lhamo Tashi

In the turmoil and chaos of war
My hero was buried in his homeland
According to legend, his horse traversed the grassland
In the first rays of sunshine in the early morning
He wore a suit of armour, with a broad sword
Rushed forward to the enemy
Tears of his lover, cry of his brothers
A cup of fine wine was poured to the sky
From then on, what we have walked past became history

March 22, 2012 in Machu

“Life Experience”
By Logya Pema

The warmer wind opens the teeth of young animals
Snapping, the residual body of winter
Sunshine will grow out of the scarred and the battered
So will the fern, the thorn
And the concealed dark blood that has been hidden for a season
Sunshine will also grow out of the mountain streams, and the bird’s whistling
Time bores through life, I’m yearning in the seasons
There was a madman with red hair
Who cut off his own ear, to dedicate to
The sunflowers and iris that blossomed in the eye of insects

March 22, 2012 in Kardze

The post highlights one Chinese lawyer, Tang Jingling, and his concern for Tibet and a poem written in tribute to the Tibetans who have self-immolated. Tang Jingling was amongst 21 lawyers who in April 2008  offered their services to Tibetans who had been arrested in the protests of March 2008 and subsequently suffered harassment from the Chinese authorities. For more information on the Chinese intellectuals’ response to the self-immolations, or lack thereof, see this January 2012 post from Global Voices.

"Butter Lamp" By Hexie Farm

“The Light of Freedom Illuminates the Land of Hope”
By Woeser

On March 16, news came that another Tibetan had resorted to self-immolation. He was a young Khampa named Jamphel Yeshi, who left his hometown Tawu and parents when he was 20 years old and had lived in exile in India for many years. He burnt himself in New Delhi, where hundreds of Tibetans in exile were protesting against Hu Jintao, who was about to visit India. Therefore many photos recording the self-immolation spread around the world. It was reported that Jamphel Yeshi, who has died, was a ‘torch of human rights’, and he had lightened the darkness of the present world with the flame of his body.

It was very late that night that I received an email. Although I have not met the person who wrote it, his name reminded me of four years ago, in April of 2008, when many Tibetans were arrested because of the protests in March, over twenty Chinese lawyers signed online in public to declare that they would like to provide defence and other legal services for arrested Tibetans in accordance with the law. Because of this declaration, these lawyers were all warned seriously by the authorities not to get involved in any cases related to Tibet or Tibetans, and some lawyers were even barred from practice. It was one of the lawyers who signed the declaration who wrote to me.

After reading his letter, I wanted to forward it to the Tibetan language service of Radio Free Asia to broadcast, because then many Tibetans would hear it. I also wished that many Chinese people could read it. Here is the letter:

‘My name is Tang Jingling, I am a netizen, a Chinese lawyer who has lost the lawyer’s licence for struggling for freedom and civil rights. I am still devoted to promote Chinese democracy and the cause of freedom by means of a civil non- cooperation movement. I have been paying close attention to the Tibetan issue over the past year, and over 30 pure, fearless, and devotional Tibetans sacrificed their lives in the struggle of freedom and dignity! I have often talked about it with friends. I have to say that it is an unparalleled sacrifice in human history in my slender knowledge of history! On the night of March 24, some friends and I talked about it again and I could not sleep. I got up and wrote a poem to dedicate to these great martyrs and all the Tibetan people.

In front of such martyrs, I feel ashamed. Although my lousy words cannot accord with their splendid lives, I cannot suppress the voice of my own heart.

I have another request. If possible, I hope that you could translate my letter and this poem into Tibetan, so that they could be public to Tibetans who are fighting for freedom and other people who are fighting together with Tibetan people.’

Here is the poem sent by Tang Jingling, titled ‘Thirty Meteors Across the Sky’

‘Dark clouds fill the Tibetan plateau
The earth is noiseless, and everything is silent
Look, when life is burning like a torch
Meteors fall across the sky
Thirty pure and honourable souls
Sacrificed themselves
At the altar of freedom

The earth is grilled to dry-up by the fire of hell
The souls that fall in the numbness, where is your redemption?
Look, when life is burning like a torch
Meteors fall across the sky
Thirty pure and honourable souls
Sacrificed themselves
At the altar of freedom

Are there still tears in the withered eyes?
Locked throat outbreaks the last sign
Look, when life is burning like a torch
Meteors fall across the sky
Thirty pure and honourable souls
Sacrificed themselves
At the altar of freedom

Meteors fall across the sky
Piercing the deadly silence of dark night
The light of freedom illuminates the land of hope’

Here, I would like to thank Tang Jingling for this letter and the poem he wrote to self-immolated Tibetans. Furthermore, we know that there are not many Chinese people who are like him. Just like a netizen said on twitter: “Tibetan self-immolations seem really strange to many Han Chinese, and many people, even including those who are open-minded, think that the authenticity is not high. Some of my classmates are holding this opinion. Besides the information blockage of the Chinese Communist Party, I think a bigger reason is China’s brainwashing education. Many years’ education makes the lingering notion, and makes people believe that the Chinese Communist Party would not be so insane.”

The reality is sad. Therefore this letter and poem have a special meaning, making people believe that there is hope for the future.

March 28, 2012

High Peaks Pure Earth has translated a poem by Gade Tsering that was written on March 22, 2012 and is titled “Life Experience”. The poem was written as part of a poetry competition that has previously featured on High Peaks Pure Earth and made up our “Straying Far From Myself” series.

As introduced on the blogpost, the 73rd event of the Three Provinces of Tibet poetry group took place on March 22, 2012. The title “Life Experience” was given to the poets and they started to write at 22:30, finishing in one hour at 23:30. The resulting poems were published immediately on their TibetCul blog. Here is the translation of Gade Tsering’s poem. To read more of Gade Tsering’s poetry in English translation, follow this link: http://highpeakspureearth.com/tag/gade-tsering/

“Life Experience”
By Gade Tsering 

“The spirits of the dead are polishing imprecations at midnight, when the moonlight goes out,
Whose life is cultivated into endless tears?”

Distance makes us sad
Because of the suckling of love, the messenger got drunk at night, the limitless territory
Fell into a volume of scripture scrolls.
Indeed, armour was destroyed by rust, showing the lustre of wind.
Lonely history was implanted into heaven,
Shall we keep the distance between love and hate?

The eagle’s tiredness, achieves its character of silence. May the sky be calmer
Give back the scar of a cloud to the burning sun
Give it back to the vast highland. Just like my chanting:
‘Leapt over the monastery, and Gods appeared…’, lifelong honour and shame
Is trusted with numerous prostrations.

Haggard flames lit up the face. Yellow prayer wheel,
Is like a tearful wild flower, covered by dark clouds for long. At the crack of dawn,
The old man with a decayed face said:
The sorrow of humankind was born here, look—

“The land of Tibet, is covered with the dye of the whole world…”

March 22, 2012, in Kanlho

Lhasa is a subject matter that has been both a source of inspiration and a matter of deep concern for Woeser, as this post demonstrates.

“Lhasa is Being Ruined By Various Gluttonous Ghosts”
By Woeser

When I returned to Lhasa in 2010, I noticed a gigantic shopping centre being built at the margins of the old town; it was called “Spiritual Power Plaza”. Tibetans told me that this “masterpiece” was a collaboration between the authorities and the industry, which meant that it really was a “spiritual power property” exploited by Wenzhou merchants and the children of high officials. I felt sad, the world-famous old town of Lhasa was drawn into irreversible ruin by various gluttonous ghosts.

The entire old town is being commercialised at the hands of influential officials. In the north and north-west of Jokhang Temple we already find two massive department stores that exceed the temple in height; I heard that some mayor, some boss, some “pro-Tibet cadre” had their fingers in this pie. Before, the Jokhang Temple was under the big illusionary umbrella of UNESCO and relied on its reputation as a “world heritage”, which enabled it to at least struggle to maintain its traditional central position, but it is obvious that this is no longer of any use.

From the outside, “Spiritual Power Plaza” that claims to be “Lhasa’s commercial landmark”, resembles Beijing’s Sanlitun Village, occupying 30 mu of land, being four storeys in height with two underground floors, including a car park. Simply thinking about this makes me feel uncomfortable, this huge monster that is completely incompatible with the surrounding landscape will entirely destroy Lhasa’s age-old historical scenery. From advertisements on the internet I found out that among the shops inside will be KFC, Bread Talk, Ajisen Ramen, Levis, JEEP; ONLY etc., not few just being copied from modern metropolises.

In order to build the underground car park, groundwater had to be extracted for which they specially laid out eight or nine thick pipelines, which ran across half of Lhasa and were visibly exposed in the streets. This process had been going on for over a year; every day these pipelines pumped out water, reportedly several thousands of tons per day and the work is not finished yet (2011).

According to historical records, formerly, Lhasa used to be a vast marsh, referred to Skyid-Shod-Vo-Thang with a lake in its centre. 1300 years ago, under the leadership of sovereign king Songtsen Gompo, Tibetan people filled in the lake with earth and built the Jokhang Temple. Until the present day, there exists a hollow pillar near the wall of the central Buddhist Hall of Jokhang Temple; because of the story of a lake existing underneath the temple, when believers put their ears near the hollow pillar, they can still hear the faint rushing of the water. I interviewed an old citizen of Lhasa who recalled that when he was young and went to Jokhang Temple to pay homage to Buddha he could see the underground water pond. This shows that there used to be plenty of groundwater.

Everyone in Lhasa already feels anxious about this. Many residents reported to the relevant authorities the dangers that lie in the extraction of groundwater for the building of the “Spiritual Power Plaza”, but the answer they got was that construction work should not stop, on the contrary, it should be continued at an even greater pace, mentioning only one sentence, “so as to reduce the effects this has on the surrounding geological environment”. This clearly shows that they know exactly that this does indeed “have effects on the surrounding geological environment”. In May 2011, a crack was discovered on Tsomonling Road, approximately 1.2 metres in length. Recently, the Tengyeling district experienced two water cuts of one and four hours; local residents said that these were directly related to the extraction of groundwater.

The younger residents of Lhasa started losing their patience, appealing on Weibo that such large-scale extraction of groundwater will likely result in the cracking of roads, serious subsidence and even the emergence of sinkholes. Furthermore, within a radius of about 1500 metres from the area, we find the Potala Palace, Jokhang Temple, Ramoche Monastery and many other ancient buildings, if the ground subsides it will cause an irreparable loss, relics that have thousands of years of history will be destroyed and Lhasa will be faced with severe water shortage. There are also some text messages circulating stating that Lhasa residents will gather for a protest in the “Spiritual Power Plaza” basin on December 3, 2011 at 10 am.

Yet, large-scale protests are difficult to put into action in today’s Lhasa that is heavily guarded and surrounded by soldiers. Even individual petitions or appeals to the higher authorities are considered as political action and hence suppressed. But people’s dissatisfaction cannot be restrained. Seeing Tibetan people’s holy land of belief, their spiritual home and cultural centre being swallowed up and brought to the brink of ruin by those gluttonous ghosts who claim to have “spiritual power”, how can anyone who loves Lhasa not feel extremely anxious?

A western expert who over ten years ago voluntarily engaged in the restoration of old Lhasa and was thus deported by the authorities, expressed his grievance in an email to me: “Water is a huge issue in Tibet because they are building hydroelectric power plants everywhere. Also, Lhasa’s environment has already been severely damaged and polluted; greedy developers with the support from greedy government officials have made Lhasa’s rivers and valleys resemble a big factory. If Lhalu starts to dry out, well then everything is already too late.”

November 15, 2011

Lake Kokonor is the Mongolian name for Amdo’s most famous lake and is also known as Qinghai Lake, in Tibetan it is called Tso Ngön – literally meaning Blue Lake. Lake Kokonor has inspired many Tibetans in cultural spheres, perhaps the most famous ode to Lake Kokonor in recent times is the popular song “Tso Ngön” sung by Amdo singer Dorje Tseten and also covered by Dadon, itself a song composed on a poem by Dhondup Gyal.

“Lake Kokonor, Please Forgive Me”
By Adong Paldothar

Please forgive me, Lake Kokonor
I’m over 40 years old, but still haven’t offered you seven bowls of pure water* of the Muse…
but repeatedly enjoyed your beauty
and walked away

It is my ancestors, forgetting the cover of the well
making you gush all over the grassland, and be reduced to
an orphaned girl entrusted to the great mountain by the great ocean
forgive my inability to use brush and ink
to defend your elegance
or paint your primordial beauty

Forgive me for not often addressing you with the honorific title
The Queen who destroys 10,000**, you are my faith
a verse of the divine epic
standing before you, I have no words
nor have I song, because
your blueness and sacredness
are the banner of my soul
are the word-symbols which have been chanted for a long time

Forgive me for being unable to protect
the scenery on your beloved grassland
where there are sheep white as clouds and horses
gently tossing their tails
or defend the sound made by cows and their little calves
while devoting themselves to nibbling the grass

Forgive me, in the distant city
losing the memory of how to use your colours
to bring myself into the quiet
to meditate on the water element
And feel gratitude for the mountain where
snowflakes are in full bloom.

Forgive me for, from far-away windows
with sketching eyes
taking the heart’s words, and writing them on
your waters, for taking the heart’s places
to paint the state of mind in your sky
for taking the moment
and playing in your waves

Forgive me for coming and going for a dozen years
Yet failing to pay my respects to you
nor have I bade farewell to you.
please forgive my silence.
I still feel a burst of searing pain caused by
the spilling of your diluted salty water
over the wound of myself and history

Please forgive me

====

*Maybe a reference to Lu Tong’s Seven Bowls of Tea 七碗诗 卢仝（唐. 790~835 )

**མཚོ་ཁྲི་ཤོར་རྒྱལ་མོ་ Trishok Gyalmo, “Queen Who Destroyed Ten Thousand,” another Tibetan name of Tso Ngön (Lake Kokonor) and also the name of the deity of Tso Ngön

This post is about a Tibetan artist Tenzing Rogdol’s art installation that took place in Dharamsala in October 2011 and at the time garnered much media attention, see these news reports on CNN and Wall Street Journal’s China Real Time Report.

For Woeser’s previous posting about the contemporary Tibetan art exhibition in Beijing, see this post titled Those Giving Voice to the Scorching Sun of Tibet.

“Tibet” is a Mark Deeply Impressed on Our Foreheads
and in Our Hearts
By Woeser

A Tibetan artist did an extraordinary thing, he took the risk to fetch and distribute from inside silent and tightly controlled Tibet, 20 tons of his homeland’s soil. He is the young 29 year old exiled Tibetan, Tenzing Rigdol.

When I saw his photo on an Indian media website, I remembered that the modern Tibetan art exhibition held in Beijing in the Autumn two years previously under the title “Scorching Sun of Tibet” had exhibited some of his works, comprising his portrait and a collection of drawings covered with Tibetan script; they left a deep impression on me. I muttered to my friend who I was with at the exhibition that probably only very few people would know what kind of book the artist on the picture was holding in his hands. But we of course recognised at once that what he was holding was the works of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Of course, the face of His Holiness had been thoroughly covered up by the artist, otherwise it would not have been allowed at an exhibition in Beijing.

One year later, Tenzing Rigdol created a new work of art of astonishing imagination and perseverance; he curated an exhibition in the heart of the Tibetan exile community, in Dharamsala, titled “Our Land, Our People”. The home soil comforted countless exiled Tibetans, including the elderly who had left their homes over 50 years ago, the youngsters who had crossed the snow mountains to escape the gun muzzles as well as the middle-aged people who had been born abroad and never set foot in their home country; with hot tears in their eyes, they worshipped the portrait of His Holiness, offered khatas to the “Tibetan Soil” on the Tibetan flag and prostrated; finally, they walked on the soil that had been brought back from home, some also took up a handful of soil as if they were able to espy their homeland. In this way, the artist and the visitors together completed this epic-like artwork.

Particularly memorable was the participation of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. During the organisation of the exhibition, Tenzing Rigdol had an audience with His Holiness and offered some homeland soil; on the spot, His Holiness used his fingers and wrote the Tibetan letters for “Tibet” into the soil. This was the soil which His Holiness has been separated from for 52 years and even though it was only packed in a small box, which one could not even set foot on, it was of auspicious origins and signified a future return and thus gave 6 million Tibetans a vision to one day be united with His Holiness on Tibetan grounds.

The Radio Free Asia journalist Dolkar La interviewed the artist Tenzing Rigdol. While listening to it, I went through a surge of emotions, repeatedly brimming over with warm tears of excitement. At the exhibition, the exiled Tibetans who had suffered from being separated from their homeland could pour out their feelings in front of their homeland soil. The words of a young person deeply moved me, he said in a choking voice: “The karmaless me who was born in exile and who had never seen the soil of his homeland, finally got the chance to see it today.” I told this sentence to Wang Lixiong who responded by stating a different fact: “although being exiled is sad, but exiled people also have karma because they can meet the Dalai Lama, they are together with the Dalai Lama who is equally in exile.”

This sentence suddenly made me realise my own plight. I remembered a long conversation I had with some Khampa Tibetans in Chengdu at the beginning of last year; they were all civil servants, teachers etc. and came to speak of the fact that up to the present day it had been impossible to apply for a passport, and that it is thus equally impossible to realise the dream to meet His Holiness. Later I asked what would happen if one day His Holiness was no longer there? I should not have said these words, they sat there with their heads low and when they raised their heads, their faces were all covered in tears, “we have already lost all our karma, Buddhas and Bodhisattvas will show solicitude for us, should not let us have lifelong regrets”, “if this day comes, and if His Holiness still cannot come back, then we will stand up, and if even people like us stand up, then many Tibetans all across the Tibetan region will be burning with rage”.

Finally, Tibetans inside and outside Tibet all endure the same suffering, even if they live on their own soil, they are not the masters of their own soil, they have all lost their homeland. However, the word “Tibet” which His Holiness wrote into the “Tibetan soil” is a mark deeply impressed on our foreheads and in our hearts; we will never ever forget the name of this piece of soil, it is “Tibet”.

Beijing, November 1, 2011

Here at High Peaks Pure Earth we love food and all things food-related, today’s blogpost reminded us about the article about Tibetan identity assertion through food that we published last year. This blogpost continues the themes we raised in that post! From the blog, it would appear that the author is based in Chengdu, the provincial capital of Sichuan province and, according to this recent state media article, home to “more than 30,000 permanent Tibetan residents and a floating population of 150-200,000 Tibetans”. 

If any readers know about the quality of Tibetan restaurants in Chengdu and have any comments to make, please let us know!

Views on Tibetan Restaurants

Although I heard about the new restaurant in the Tibetan area, I didn’t get a chance to go for a long time. Last Saturday, I had an opportunity to go there with some of my friends. Neither our little money can make much difference for those Tibetan restaurants, nor will our absence affect their finances. The workers of the restaurants might be praying to get rid of such customers like us. However for me, whenever I go to the Tibetan area I always try to find a Tibetan restaurant. I always give my first preference to a Tibetan restaurant when I have enough free time. I may not be the only one who thinks like this, many other Tibetans who are living in this big city might be thinking the same as me. Because I know, it is not easy for any kind of job and business such as restaurants and shops to run successfully in this competitive place. That is why I think it is very important for those Tibetans living in this big city to support each other. I went to the new restaurant with this kind of motivation.

Unfortunately, like many other Tibetan restaurants, the workers and the service in this new restaurant was not satisfactory. For instance, I asked for a Tibetan butter tea but it took so long that finally I had to warn the waitress that either she should serve it or I would have to leave the table. It is truly not easy to own and to run such an expensive restaurant so I tried to put some helpful suggestions for their betterment as follows.

First and foremost, to serve good food should be the prime concern of any restaurant.

Therefore, it is very essential for any restaurant to have their speciality or uniqueness in the taste of their food. For example, vegetarians like me would say the vegetarian noodles of this restaurant is good and the potato momo of that restaurant is better. Like this, whenever people talk about any restaurants, they come up with their speciality. It is also very important to give importance for the quality of food you serve.

Secondly, food should be served on time.

These days, apart from one or two Tibetan restaurants, many of them take an hour or an hour and a half to serve food. As a result, it is very rare for people on tight schedules to visit such restaurants. In this case, usually people prefer to go such places only when they have enough time.

Last time as well, they took half an hour to serve my first dish and an hour and half for the second dish. If they run their restaurant like this, people who are busy and people who don’t like waiting may stop coming to this kind of restaurant.

If the restaurant took less time in serving the order, there would be more possibility of more customers which would then make a great difference in making a profit in their business.

Thirdly, hygiene and keeping clean is the chief requisite of any restaurant.

This is especially for those who have been running a restaurant for a long time. The surroundings in the cities are not as clean compared to Tibet, so keeping your restaurant clean and hygienic has to be the prime concern of any restaurant.

One of my non-Tibetan friends told me about his experience, he loves to have Tibetan food and usually likes to visit Tibetan restaurants whenever he has time. One day, in one Tibetan restaurant, he found many houseflies and from that very moment on he never went to that restaurant again. At that time, with an opposing voice and unwilling expression, I told him that this is not only with Tibetan restaurants, many other restaurants have the same kind of problems. But if you really think deeply then I think my friend is right to some extent. This is due to our lack of attention to cleanliness.

Therefore, I think every restaurant has to be very careful about their cleanliness. And it is better for the entire Tibetan restaurant to give their attention towards cleanliness and provide a specific time of the day mainly for cleaning. As for this new Tibetan restaurant, I noticed that they do keep clean and it would be great if they could maintain this.

And the fourth point to ponder is the necessity of training for the staff.

Many of the Tibetan restaurants are deficient even in their body language towards customers. This is also one of the most important things to pay attention to for all Tibetan restaurants for their business to run well. It would be great if the waiters would welcome customers with pleasant smiles, this would make all the customers feel at home. Waiters would have to pay full attention while taking orders and respond to all customers with respect.

When a customer needs something, you have to serve them with a smile. And sometimes when it takes long to serve their order, then you should apologise respectfully to the customer for taking time. By doing so, customers will feel better and they will like to visit again. If it is the other way round, if you don’t serve well and don’t respond well, this will lead to fewer customers. So just as in other restaurants, it is very important for the staff of Tibetan restaurants to practice how to serve customers with a pleasant expression.

Fifth, all staff in the restaurant should be advised clearly about their duty.

Regarding Tibetan restaurants, mostly customers come for lunch and dinner. That is why workers should be given specific jobs for specific times. Like this new Tibetan restaurant, they have many workers which is enough capacity to serve well even if there is a rush of people. But still, this new Tibetan restaurant fails to satisfy customers as they have to call the waiters twice or thrice to give their orders which is mainly because they were not clear about what job they are doing. All Tibetan restaurants have to think carefully about these things too.

Sixth, some points which I want to share with you.

These days, restaurants are being adorned with many sacred thangkas which I think is not good. Places where people drink, smoke and where people eat meat is not an appropriate place to hang sacred thangkas. These sacred relics have their special place and have been put on altars for aeons. We are responsible for keeping our culture and traditions alive, not others. So, we have to take care of these things. Why don’t we put portraits of our Tibetan heroes on the walls like they do in Russian restaurants?

For me, I am totally new about these things but since I love Tibetan food and being a Tibetan, I thought we Tibetans should think about these things. I offer my apologies if my words have hurt anyone.

At the time of Woeser’s post, exile Tibetan Jamphel Yeshi had self-immolated in New Delhi but was still alive. Jamphel Yeshi passed away on March 28, 2012 and was cremated in Dharamsala on March 30, 2012.

The photos show the New York Times and China Times reporting on the self-immolation of exile Tibetan Jamphel Yeshi on March 26 in New Delhi. Sustaining very serious injuries, he is currently in hospital receiving treatment, we can only pray for him.

“Breaking out of Tibet’s Predicament Should Start
from Village Autonomy”

By Woeser

In the last section of his article “Apart from Self-Immolation, What Else Can be Done?”, Wang Lixiong elaborates on what he thinks is the best way for Tibet to break out of its predicament. He writes:

In my opinion, the way Tibet can break out of its predicament is by starting from village autonomy.

Village autonomy does not refer to general questions of ethnicity in China, instead it is directed against mining, in favour of environmental protection and to protect the specific rights of religious activities; this interpretation helps to avoid opposition from nationalists, promotes the integration with and becomes a part of the Chinese civil rights movements, hereby obtaining wide-ranging support from the Chinese people.

The Cantonese village Wukan serves as the latest model case. Villagers stood up together and put the local Party Secretary and Village Head to rout. Every household nominated a representative who then jointly elected a village council. This autonomous village council did not only make sure that the village affairs were dealt with in a neat and orderly manner, it also guaranteed that during times of oppression at the hands of the government and military police siege, villagers stayed calm and social order was maintained; finally, as a result of negotiations with the local authorities, it became what Hong Kong media praised as “the first case of a democratically elected village organisation that is officially recognised by the government”.

Can Tibetan villages achieve the same kind of success? Their conditions are by all means similar to those in Wukan. If one village succeeds, Tibet has a model case; if 10 villages succeed, it will represent the rays of light at the end of a dark night and mark the beginning of a new era; if one hundred villages succeed, genuine regional ethnic autonomy will be on the verge of becoming reality…

At this point of the argument, I am convinced that someone will raise the commonly heard objection: what Han Chinese can do, Tibetans cannot, as they will be framed as and accused of splittism and thus oppressed… and so on and so forth. We have always been hearing these kinds of doubts, in fact, we have heard them for too long, too many times. One has to only use one sentence to reply: if one is not even afraid to self-immolate, what would one possibly be afraid of?

The courage of an ethnic group will in this situation become the magic weapon of victory.

In this context, the American Tibetologist Elliot Sperling calls into question the notion of “genuine autonomy”. He believes that the premise on which one could request the implementation of “genuine autonomy” is that the Chinese government admits that current “autonomy” is not genuine, which they will not do. And how can Tibet be granted “genuine autonomy” but not Xinjiang or Inner Mongolia? As long as there exists no international basic human rights, how can there exist “genuine autonomy”? As long as there is no freedom of speech, there cannot exist any “genuine” governmental structures. And if there did exist freedom of speech in Tibet, wouldn’t all other Chinese want the same kind of freedom? And the main difference is that the autonomy of Han Chinese townships will not bring about problems of ethnic nationalism.

To this, Wang Lixiong replies: the kind of village autonomy he advocates does not need to be approved by anyone, it only needs the villagers’ own approval. Village level autonomy can be acquired by the villagers themselves. There is no need to always concentrate on single large-scale solutions, focus should instead be placed on present activities; if one advocates too ambitious goals, one will not know which direction to go in and there will be no result. As long as village autonomy is achieved, villages can join together and bring about township autonomy, and when townships join together, they can perhaps push for county autonomy… and once this stage is reached, there will be many other possible options.

However, Elliot Sperling calls to attention that the issue of ethnicity in general has a direct effect on different forms of autonomy within Tibet, ethnic conflicts will be unavoidable. Tibetan and Han Chinese experiences of autonomy cannot simply be lumped together. Further, if one includes freedom of speech, issues of Tibetan ethnic identity will inevitably emerge and controlling the identity of an entire ethnic group is very challenging, so not only will the central government not accept such autonomy, even a future democratic China will be reluctant to accept the request for Tibetan self-determination. Yet, Wang Lixiong is right in saying that starting from village level to achieve autonomy can mark the beginning of a new era of attempts. The problem lies in the fact that I believe that the Chinese government quite clearly sees where this path will lead to in the ethnic minority regions and hence, will try everything to prevent it.

However, this once more leads us back to what Wang Lixiong said in his article, “the courage of an ethnic group will in this situation become the magic weapon of victory”.

Some Tibetans have posted Wang Lixiong’s article on Facebook: this is perhaps a wise choice. After all, the holy land will not be reached in an instant, but requires a long tiresome journey.

January 15, 2012