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On the road from Kathmandu to Lhasa, Martin discovers that the modern Tibet is a fascinating land of contrasts where nightclubs outnumber monasteries and nomads carry cell phones.

Seven Days in Tibet

Martin
2003-11-11 21:51:23

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mule, also jogging along the side of the road. I suddenly realized: the man was chasing a runaway mule.

We decided to intervene. As our driver pulled alongside the frightened animal, Andy positioned himself in the front of the minibus. Holding on to the bus with one hand, he leaned out of the open doorway, waited, then jumped from the bus and grabbed the mule around the neck. When the breathless man finally caught up, he nodded his head a few times, gestured something with his hands, and then walked away with his mule, perhaps still struggling to understand exactly what had just happened.

These encounters are becoming more common as centuries old traditions collide with the realities of the modern world. Isolated in the heights of the Himalayas, Tibet remained closed to the influences of the outside world for hundreds of years. But today, in the fabled Himalayan kingdom, you're equally likely to see someone holding a prayer wheel as a mobile phone. Nightclubs outnumber monasteries. Stores sell yak cheese and Oreo cookies. And the voices of Eminem and Britney Spears are heard more often than monks chanting mantras.

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The following day, as we approached Lhasa, we passed the crumbling ruins of a monastery demolished by the Chinese. When the Chinese invaded Tibet in 1949, there were over six thousand such monasteries and temples throughout the country with over half a million resident monks and nuns. But the Chinese authorities soon realized that religion was the principal obstacle to consolidating their control of Tibet and these monasteries were systematically destroyed. By 1976, only eight remained.

Nowhere is the legacy of Chinese occupation more evident than in Lhasa. The city is a sprawling gray grid of mid-rise apartment buildings erected by the Chinese. During the last twenty years, in a final masterful ploy to consolidate their power over Tibet, the government has encouraged millions of Chinese settlers to migrate to Tibet, offering attractive salaries, interest-free loans and other incentives. As a result, over 70% of the city residents are now Chinese.

Today, the Tibetan quarter is a segregated ghetto of crumbling heavy stone-walled homes, shops and businesses, zigzagged by stone streets. While the magnificent Potala Palace still towers above the city, it is no longer the religious and political nexus of Tibet. Largely abandoned since the Chinese occupation, it now functions as a tourist museum.

Our guide preferred not to talk about the effects the Chinese occupation. "I don't like to talk about politics," he jokingly evaded our questions, later explaining that the government didn't allow him to talk about the Chinese occupation. But when someone once made the mistake of calling him Chinese, Tashi responded emotionally in a rare display of anger. "I am not Chinese," he snapped back, "I am TIBETAN."

Copyright 1988-2003 Martin Wierzbicki.

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