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The first thing that I notice getting off the plane from Chengdu to Lhasa is that the air is cleaner, cooler and dryer here. The second thing is that, at 3600m above sea level, there is a lot less of it. I had better get used to it because this is the lowest elevation place that I will visit in Tibet.

China/Tibet Postcard 3 - Lhasa, Tibet

Mark Morin
2006-04-29 14:22:06

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The first thing that I notice getting off the plane from Chengdu to Lhasa is that the air is cleaner, cooler and dryer here. The second thing is that, at 3600m above sea level, there is a lot less of it. I had better get used to it because this is the lowest elevation place that I will visit in Tibet.

A Bit of Ranting
The third thing I noticed, as the airport bus arrived in Lhasa, is how much it resembles just another Chinese city. What happened to the famous Holy City and seat of Tibetan Buddhism, once closed to outsiders? Well it's still there, you just have to go to the Tibetan Quarter to find the Tibetans. But wait, this is Tibet! Imagine if the Quebecois came to be concentrated within a small Quebecois quarter of Montreal. In 1950, Lhasa was almost 100% Tibetan. Today, Tibetans represent only about 25% of Lhasa's population, and the proportion is shrinking more quickly than ever.

How could this happen? China had had an eye on Tibet for a long time and had provided military protection to an independant Tibet for much of the period from 1720 until 1911. When Mao Zedong's communists took power in
Lhasa is looking more and more like this
1949, there happened to be a leadership void in Tibet because both the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama (second highest authority) were only boys, so the country was being governed by ministers. Furthermore, Tibet had been pacifist since the 15th century with no significant army to defend itself. The Swiss have a saying that the only thing more dangerous than a sworn enemy, is a friend promising to protect you.

In 1950, Mao Zedong purportedly received a telegram from the 11-year old Panchen Lama expressing hope that Mao would succeed in unifying China. Mao interpreted this as an invitation to "liberate" Tibet and unify it with China. Defeating the tiny Tibetan army only took a few days. Under threat of annihilation and faced with unanswered pleas to the United Nations for ...