Ever wondered how Tibetans view the Han Chinese?  Domestic media has focused on Chinese views of Tibetans, highlighting recent tales of barbaric behavior. How rioters carved chunks of flesh from the buttocks of a young police officer in Lhasa is the story many Chinese repeat, a report carried by the state-run Xinhua news agency. Both international and domestic media meanwhile have published reams of copy on Beijing's official diatribes against the  exiled Dalai Lama and his "separatist clique".

Some ordinary Tibetans' perceptions of ethnic Chinese are equally emotional in tone -- but they paint a very different picture. Consider this burst of rage from an educated, multi-lingual Tibetan: "They are a disaster for the world because they destroy everything. They destroy all the forests in Tibet so there are big floods in China and big floods in Bangladesh...they are digging all the minerals, and that's why there are so many landslides. They are killing animals and they're destroying everything, and they still expect Tibetan people can feel grateful."

For its part, Beijing sees itself as pouring money into Tibet to lift its people out of poverty: "Tibet has moved forward and become more developed," was how Premier Wen Jiabao summed it up to foreign journalists last week. So when educated Tibetans, such as the source above, say things like "They are very greedy, they are cheating, they are killing, and they are the liar[s], they always praise themselves", it suggests Beijing is failing to convince even those Tibetans who've benefited the most that China's economic drive has been good for them. 

Discrimination can make it hard for educated Tibetans to get the jobs they've trained for, because they're not always trusted by Chinese employers: "They just push you away", says the Lhasa resident, who does not want to be named for safety reasons. Overseas jobs and studies can be barred as getting a passport can prove difficult. Those who've managed to get passports may still find themselves unable to travel freely. This year some Tibetans were asked to surrender their passports even before the March riots, according to a foreign teacher with more than four years' experience in Tibet.

Government jobs are open to Tibetans and Lhasa cadres' salaries are nearly twice the national average for officials (USD$2,862 annually in 2001 compared to USD$1,590), according to Tibet-expert Robbie Barnett of Columbia University. However, there is some anecdotal evidence that job discrimination has increased recently. The Lhasa resident says it's become a hot topic and even affluent Tibetans in mixed marriages "start to talk about it because so many [government] jobs are going" to ethnic Chinese. 

So much for the elite. Poorer Tibetans are also facing upheavals as they struggle to cope with competition from Chinese migrant laborers and businesses. The Tibetan plateau is often portrayed as a vast, gorgeous wilderness whose tradition-loving people follow ancient ways. In reality, it has become the base for a huge experiment in mass migration and resettlement, thanks to three modernizing policies - urbanization, nomad resettlement, and contemporary housing.

All involve moving farmers and nomads to new towns where there's often little work. And the cash inducements they're given quickly run out. China's blueprint aims to create 110 new, small cities in Tibet this decade; there are plans to resettle 100,000 nomads in Qinghai and Sichuan provinces. A quarter of a million people were moved in 2006 alone as part of the modern housing scheme (ribbons of new homes have sprouted up along roadsides), according to Chinese statistics. Many of the new towns have few economic opportunities, so migrants head towards Lhasa. “One of the side effects of the urbanisation policy is everyone rushes to the capital and that’s a factor in the violence. People are there trying to make money, and not doing very well,” says Barnett.

Once there, Tibetan ex-farmers must compete against Chinese “who’re better qualified and more skilled, so you get an underclass who’re hanging around in the towns,” Barnett explains. The lack of vocational training means Tibetans are “breaking the rocks, not making the roads” in fast-growing Lhasa’s construction sites, the foreign teacher says. The influx of Chinese migrants makes it hard to find even unskilled work. “If you don’t speak very good Chinese then you won’t get any job, [not] even as a waitress, no way,” says the Lhasa resident.  

Just how many Chinese have sought their fortunes in Lhasa is hard to say. Plans for a sprawling new suburb near the railway station give some hint of the scale of migration. Liwu New Town will house 110,000 people in 42 square kilometres, nearly doubling the size of Lhasa by 2009, the official Xinhua news agency reported Shi Wenjiang, head of the district government, as saying.

The Lhasa-Beijing railway has made the roof of the world an easily accessible destination for migrants from across China to pursue dreams of affluence. Recent Chinese TV footage of those who lost loved ones in fires set by rioters showed them grieving outside burned-out businesses in Lhasa. It also portrayed the contemptuous  feelings some have towards Tibetans."These destructive activities won't let children go to school, won't let us work normally. It's destroying our prosperity", one woman said.

There is no doubt that Tibet has got richer. But even where Tibetans are more affluent than in the past, they're now able to see many others who're more affluent than they. Above all, cultural and religious issues create bonds and resentments that matter as much as money. Affluent civil servants can be sacked from their jobs if they're caught performing a korra, the prayer walk round Lhasa's Jokhang temple. Spy cameras have been placed on the route. Lhasa these days contains pleasant suburbs. But some of them have been built in insensitive places such as Karma Kunsang, near the riverside picnic spot where Tibetans used to go to celebrate the Dalai Lama's birthday -- until the popular 6 July festival was banned in 2000. Even affluent people get angry.