Mark Ralston / AFP-Getty Images
Protest scene: Labrang's historic monastery
Here we go again. More than a dozen monks staged an unexpected protest, interrupting a government-organized media tour to the famous Tibetan Buddhist Labrang monastery in Gansu province, a scene of unrest in March. "They said in Chinese, 'We want more freedom, more human rights, and we want to see the Dalai Lama,'" reported Caroline Puel of Le Point, who was invited on the trip. Their outburst lasted about 10 minutes, during which time government officials didn't try to silence them. Then the foreign media were urged to leave, and the unscripted moment was over.
Later a senior monk told journalists the monks would not be punished but faced sanctions if authorities found that they had broken the law. A similar scene had taken place March 27, when monks in Jokhang temple disrupted an official briefing for more than two dozen international and domestic journalists invited by the government on a brief trip to Lhasa. In both cases, the fates of the monks remain unknown. (Foreign media are still barred from making independent reporting trips to Lhasa and many other Tibetan areas affected by violent protests; there have been two tightly managed press tours to such areas arranged by authorities since March 14.)
There are many paradoxes at work here. One of the most fundamental is this: Chinese constantly wonder why Tibetan monks, urban youth and town folks who in some cases have benefited so much from China's economic largesse are nonetheless so persistent about biting the hand that feeds them? The perception that Tibetans are perversely ungrateful is prevalent among Han Chinese. One bartender in Beijing, Xiao Wang, put it this way, "Without the People’s Republic they’d be primitives living under the feudal nobility of monks. What do they want?”
It's hard to know where to begin to answer that question. The factors involved range from the Communist Party's record of religious harassment and oppression, to an influx of Chinese migrants and enterprise, to the rapturous appeal of the Dalai Lama. Issues of national sovereignty and unity -- such as Taiwan, Tibet, and Xinjiang -- are basically no-brainers for the respective sides. In other words, they cloud people’s brains, and swell their hearts.
But it's not purely about freedom and outrage. One of the simper ways to explain Tibetan motives is not unlike answering why urban Chinese who’ve “made it” are precisely the ones leading the charge to clean up the dreadful air, protest rampant consumer fraud, and assert their NIMBY rights. They're got enough to know things could always be better -- alot better. And they're fed up.
Many Tibetan clergy and other upwardly mobile devotees, likewise, have become much-better positioned --both financially and technologically -- to push to protect their unique culture, to practice their religion uninhibited, to gain a fairer share of the economic boom, and ultimately, to rule themselves.
Take for instance the driver who toted me and another journalist around a Tibetan area of Qinghai province on a recent trip to investigate the trouble spots, fully knowing the potential consequences he faced. The guy was a well-integrated Chinese-speaker from a Tibetan family whose members worked in state jobs and small businesses. He had a well-crafted retort to every Chinese defense of its Tibet policy. I started thinking of him as the rent-a-quote driver:
"The government wants to 'liberate' our culture. What they don't understand is that this is what we most detest."
"Sure, the government has built up the region. But if we really got independence, Tibetans could be the richest people [per capita] in the world...Think about it. We'd get all those oilfields in Gomud and salt flats in Qinghai."
"So the government says the Dalai Lama plotted this? Actually, there is a bit of logic to their theory. This is the Information Age. So when the Dalai Lama says something or meets someone from another country, all of us know about it...But to say that it's an organized plot is rubbish. How do I know? Because if there did come a day when he [the Dalai Lama] himself said that we had to abandon non-violence and rise up and unite our people and liberate our land, then Tibetans would all rise up and fight."
The flip side of this paradox is that many Tibetans who are in dire economic straits have been relatively calm in recent weeks -- though granted, there are a lot of reasons for that too. If you're too poor to own a cellphone, it probably took you longer to learn about the unrest elsewhere, or to be inspired by it, than if you were more tech-savvy like the lamas of Labrang. Or the monks I hung out with in Rebkong who became even more upset about the virtual lockdown imposed on them when authorities cut off their broadband connection once the Lhasa riots broke out.
In late March I visited a little countryside school, 3800 meters up in Qinghai province, in the same general area as the prestigious Labrang monastery -- but in a much poorer area. This school didn't even have enough notebooks and pens to go around. Kids’ cheeks were caked with dirt. The students began to learn about electricity in class in March, when for the first time electricity reached the village. And it just so happened that, the day before we stopped by, the school's power had gone down.
This elementary school was built nine years ago with support from an organization based in Hong Kong, but it's maintained by the Chinese government. There were 80 pupils, taught by an affable bunch of twenty- and thirty-something Tibetan men. They'd trained within the state system down in the county town of Tongren, and were assigned to this school up on the plateau. They taught three tracks of language and culture: Tibetan, Han and English. They said all three disciplines suffered from the division of labor.
Their job wasn't getting any easier, either. Just that week, new requirements for teaching ethnic minorities had come down from the Ministry of Education. Now their first graders and sixth graders have to take special Chinese and English exams in order to advance to the next level. Minority teachers themselves also have to pass new tests. Said the headmaster: “This puts a lot of added pressure on the students… and on us."
Inside the teachers’ office, there was evidence that the school was belatedly entering the tech age. They had a huge television set and a desktop computer. Nailed high on the wall above was a picture of the previous incarnation of the Panchen Lama, whom teachers described as one of their “gods.” He died in 1989 under suspicious circumstances and, at least during his earlier years, was considered by many Tibetans to have been something of a pro-Beijing traitor.
The same could be said of the teachers, of course. After a little persuading, they agreed to answer some questions. Their minds were clear, but it was hard for me to tell where their hearts lay. They were audibly nervous, and the headmaster's comments (below) could be read as either diplomatic or conflicted, pragmatic or idealistic. While some Tibetans their age have grown into angry young monks, these guys represent the “why-can’t-we-all-just-get-along?" camp. Alternatively, you might classify them as scared loyalists, apologists for the regime, or just plain country bumpkins.
In any case, during a grassroots trip through Tibetan communities in Gansu and Qinghai I didn’t meet many Tibetans who seemed interested in distinguishing politics from religion and reconciling Chinese government interests with those of ordinary Tibetan folks. In fact these schoolteachers were the only ones.
Here’s an excerpt from my exchange with the headmaster:
Q: What changes have you seen here in the past nine years?
A: Well, originally the roads were really really bad. Then in 2001 they started building this new road…
Q: So how long does it take now to drive to Lanzhou (the nearest provincial capital, in Gansu, several hours away)?
A: [Looks around at colleagues]. I don’t know. We’ve never been to Lanzhou.
Q: I see you have new power lines?
A: They just turned on the electricity, on the 25th of the lunar year (March 3).
Q: So how will that change things?
A: Everything will be more convenient. Now the teachers can watch television and be better informed. We can use the computer to prepare our lessons. There’s no Internet here. We cannot go online. But before, all we had was candlelight. We could barely work at night.
Q: So are you satisfied with the level of development?
A: People’s ambitions can never be satisfied completely. This here is our fate. But overall, we’re very satisfied. The government has done a good deal.
Q: You know about the trouble in Lhasa and Xiahe and other places right now?
A: Yes, we watched the news on CCTV (China Central Television).
Q: Did you hear about it through other sources?
A: Yes, people are talking about it, over the phone and so on. Because of the pace of development, news travels quickly now.
Q: How do you view your role as Tibetan men teaching Tibetan children in a Chinese country?
A: Teaching is our job. We are both the people’s teachers (renmin laoshi), and our people’s teachers (minzu laoshi).
Q: Do you identify more strongly with your people or with the state?
A: [sighs] Tibetan people cannot be separated from China and China cannot be separated from Tibetans. They’re like mother and daughter.
Q: So what’s your opinion of the clashes between Tibetans and Chinese?
A: To be honest, I don’t even really want to hear about these things…But we are all Tibetans, after all. So when I saw the news, I was extremely hurt. I cried, not in my eyes but my heart. Do you understand what I mean?
Q: What about the Dalai Lama. What is his role in your lives?
A: [pauses] The Dalai Lama is my god (shen), my religious god. The rest I don’t care about.
Q: Do you think Tibet should be independent from China to one degree or another?
A: Because I never studied politics, I do not know.
Q: What’s your feeling about other Tibetans who are protesting right now?
A: It’s not easy for us to talk about these things. [Another teacher interjects:] When you ask about these things, our hearts feel very hurt.
Q: But how do you think they will affect you?
A: Even if the skies come crashing down, I’ll still be a teacher.
Q: What’s the next step? How would you like to see hostilities be resolved?
A: It’s harmful to Tibetans. It’s harmful to the country. We’re all people. We need peace.
Q: Some of the young kids here have older brothers in monasteries and could even end up as monks themselves. What do you think of children being schooled in monasteries and the teachings they receive?
A: The state has one way of teaching and the Tibetan Buddhist religion another way. They both have their place. Only the form is different.
Q: What’s the biggest challenge to your form of teaching?
A: There was this professor from Harvard who came here once. He asked about that. I told him we have three tracks of teaching: Tibetan, Chinese, and English. Right now, the kids just use Tibetan. But when they grow up, they need Chinese and even English. So we have to teach all three. But the result is that they’re not very good at any of them. Neither are we. So that is a source of pain for me.
Q: Do think that system should be changed then?
A: No. In reality, it’s necessary. My principle is: ‘For Chinese people you must write Chinese. For Tibetans you must write Tibetan.’
