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Scenes from Qinghai, Tibetan China: Now Closed To Foreigners
Just back from a trip to the Tibetan areas of Qinghai province, where things are very tense in the wake of the new year holiday. Celebrations were largely aborted by Tibetans to commemorate the shootings in Lhasa last year where ordinary Tibetans believe that thousands of their compatriots were killed. Official Chinese figures say 19 died, mostly innocent Chinese shopkeepers, while the Dalai Lama's government in exile puts the figure in the hundreds, many of them Tibetans. Whatever the truth, it's what the ordinary Tibetans believe--and the rage it inspires-- that counts. The boycott infuriated the Chinese authorities, but more on that later when we'll have a story about what seems to have been a wide scale act of civil disobedience. That could be repetaed in the Tibet Autonomous Region proper from February 25th onwards when the official Tibetan new year begins. (Tibetans outside the TAR don't much choice but to celebrate according to the Chinese lunar calendar).
We meant to go on to the town of Xiahe in neighboring Gansu province and visit the huge Labrang monastery (the site of disturbances last year that left a number of monk dead) but we were told by several people that the way was blocked and foreigners were being taken off buses or turned round and sent back. (Update: the government has now announced that all Tibetan areas in Qinghai, Sichuan and Gansu provinces are closed to foreigners, so it looks as though we got in just in time).
Anyway, this is a somewhat random collection of images that I find particularly interesting because of the accompanying sounds. Through a series of statistically unlikely failures, several cameras were out of action and I had to borrow my daughter's point and shoot. Next time I'll take a better camera. Promise.
First comes prostration, then series of shots of prayer wheels, then different kinds of prayer and chanting. I do realize that the interior shots of monks chanting sutras together are very dark, but think it gives a flavor of what makes up the day to day work of the monks. I also particularly like the wild horn that sounds like a seriously angry elephant. Last is a shot of a little fella who was out memorizing his sutras (that's the folded paper between the wooden boards he's holding). It was a couple of degrees above zero and he and all the other trainee monks only had their robes for warmth. A hard life.
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WOW!
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The number of Tibetans escaping from their home land to Dharmashala, is continuing despite strong measures taken by the Chinese government to prevent it. They have roped in Nepali Maoist government also to carefully check the buses going to India for any of the Tibetans running away. Here is the story of such a Tibetan, working for the government in Tibet, risking his life managed to reach Dharmashala. This story appeared on the following link.
globalpoliticsnews.com/?p=130 -
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Simon Elegant:
"Official Chinese figures say 19 died, mostly innocent Chinese shopkeepers, while the Dalai Lama's government in exile puts the figure in the hundreds, many of them Tibetans. "The casualty figure provided by Dalai Lama's government in exile has been proven as a fake. Many of two hundreds listed people, whose names are on a casualty list provided by the so-called Tibetan government in exile, actually never existed. The result of the investigation on this list had been officially published. Neither the so-called Tibetan government in exile nor any other party provided anything to prove the reality of this list. It is possible that you are the only one still citing such a obviously faked figure.
As for the boycott of the Tibetan new year celebrations, I am not surprised at all that some Tibetans would follow DL's call for boycotting the Tibetan new year celebrations. But, how do you know that the majory Tibetans will do so? At least, the thousands of Tibetans, who are working in Chinese government or military, will not do that. This is reminding one thing you did last year. Last year, while you are reporting a police's death on a battle against Tibetan terrorists, you did not point out that this dead police was a Tibetan as well. It seems that you did not want people know that there are many Tibetans fighting AGAINST the so-called Free Tibet Movenment.
The western media always are trying to make a extreme incident into a general picture on Tibet issures. You predict that there would be more Tibetan protests this year, due to the several "big anniversaries" in the Tibetan history against CCP'rule. I am putting a bet against you here. I am betting that those anniversaries will be quietly passed. -
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bookevil: You are probably not an extreme case, and so I think you are just typical Chinese, thinking and talking just the way Chinese government wants you to do.
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Pointless as usual.
Although you are not considered as a westerner, you have such a typical western mind. After running out of words, labeling other people as a pro-commie becomes the only thing you want to do. -
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[...] IV: According to Time Magazine online’s China Blog, lest anyone from the outside world should get an accurate picture of what is going on with respect [...]
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Dalai Dilemma.
By: Jordan C. Fan, Prophet of Environment.
While the Dalai Lama has received unprecedented attentions by ignorant Westerners, his theology is really too ordinary to even sweep across Chinese minds. In our mysterious Far East, people like Dalai Lama are everywhere and simply too numerous to be of any interest to anyone. This is true not just near the Himalayas but also in every town, village and house across China, India and Indochina. Although I am a Prophet or Grand Maser of all clairvoyants, there are countless others with minor abilities to communicate with the spiritual world.
The Dalai Lama XIV is quite simply a fake. It is the law of this Universe that whenever reincarnations have past the unlucky number of “13” their power will diminish. Whoever trying to go through reincarnation will condemned to be torture in eternity Hell. So are their followers, they will also suffer from the same fate.
There are millions of people including other Buddhist monks in China who can tell the fortune of other individuals with extreme accuracy even up to the hour about when a person would die. Some people could, on a routine basis, communicate with the dead or evil spirits everyday. They could also pinpoint the exact locations with instructions from a ghosts to know exactly where they had hidden certain objects of importance. Others could conduct seances to summon spirits from another world who are truly present at the scenes. The Chinese “Hitting of the Not So Big Man” similar to voodoo could injure or even kill people hundreds if not thousands of miles away. Southeast Asian Goong Tauu could force some people's cheating love ones' miraculously return to homes from far away places or face fatal consequences. A lot of people can write thousands of pages of meaningful texts automatically without even opening up their eyes or use their minds. All these should serve as warnings to Americans and Europeans not to mess around with Asians or we will definitely strike back.
Those European and American Dalai Lama supporters are in fact teasing and laughing at the Tibetans and other Buddhists for not being allowed to conceive by drawing the world's attention on them. Such practices of abstinent are no strangers to Asian cultures. There were always thousands of eunuchs resided in Asian palaces through the centuries. All were not allowed to conceived for the security of those monarchies. Then there are always people who simply refuse to have sex. Americans have always joked about the baldness of Tibetans. Quite obviously, they should first laugh at Obama because even his name is bald! Obama supports Tibetans simply due to their common hair styles and to defeat China but use other reasons as excuses. Those foreigners are simply trying to be nasty in taking this opportunity to humiliate at Eastern culture. Such unethically foreign habits must be frowned upon and stopped by all Asians immediately.
People similar to the Tibetans can be found everywhere in the United States. First, there are special ancient religious tribes such as Jews, Shakers, Mormons, Amish, Mennonite and many more... There are also new denominations and cults. Many of them occupy exclusive area almost comparable to Tibet. I won't even dare to count those many numerous native Indian tribes and sub-tribes. There are also Cajuns and others groups living in the Louisiana Bayou and Florida Everglades. Many atrocities such as the massacre at Waco, Texas by the U. S. FBI, under the direction of Democrats, were examples of the American government's mistreatments of minorities, so why don't the Europeans criticize Americans? If I discussed such problems in Europe, it will take me an extra ten years and another ten thousand pages. I am not sure I will live that long?
Now we should discuss the issues of majorities, minorities, tribes and nomads living in China. Nomads, similar to gypsy, are foreigners who are passing through China and should not be counted as minorities but migrants or foreigners. There are in fact more than ten thousand majorities and minorities living in China. In addition to Han, Manchurian, Mongolian, Muslim and Tibetan who should really be considered as majorities not minorities because there are other tribes living in Sichuan and Yunnan who are truly minorities. In additional Hakka, Cantonese, South China Sea Islanders, Taiwanese and Shanghai people should also be counted as minorities which may also deserve some special and favorable treatments. In addition, there are always many people in different towns and villages who have very different cultural habits different from ordinary Chinese who wanted to counted as distinct people. The population of some of those people could even equal to the Tibetan population if not exceeded it. Many of those people entered this Chinese melting pot after the Tibetans. Since the inception of the People's Republic, China have been treating Tibetans very well by investing hundreds of billions yuans into Tibet for Tibetan welfare. This is even more so than other majorities and minorities elsewhere. No country should waste their time and resource tending to such mammoth and unimportant issues while the Environment is fast deteriorating.
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