When I was in Lhasa during Losar (Tibetan New Year) last year, my friend said that now we should not use “Tashi Delek” ) to greet each other because we are neither “tashi” (auspicious) nor delek (fortunate), so what we should use to admonish others is “zab zab je”.
Running-Dog Propagandists
In response to my recent piece Barefoot Experts some readers wrote in to say that Tibetans should not fritter away their energy picking on experts and journalists in the West but should focus on countering propaganda from China. A reasonable request, on the face of it, but…
It’s Not the Economy, Stupid!
What is really interesting is the fact that there was, on the whole, no looting or pilfering. The protesters did not steal from the Chinese stores. They just piled the stuff in the streets and burned them.
The Long March Home
Among the marchers is an ex-paratrooper who has received a medal of valour from the prime minister of India for single-handedly wiping out two Pakistani bunkers at Kargil. Right now these Tibetans are marching peacefully for freedom. One day these same people could be marching with rifles. What happens will in large part be dictated by how China deals with its Tibet problem. But the March will go on.
Barefoot Experts
Among the many half-cocked (and often disastrous) schemes dreamed up during the Cultural Revolution, the institution of “barefoot doctors” was one much admired by Western Maoists and celebrity pilgrims to the middle kingdom as Shirley MacLaine.
Karmapa and the Cranes
After his dramatic escape from Tibet in December 1999, the young Gyalwa Karmapa became an immediate celebrity in the exile community – in a reverential Tibetan sort of way, of course. A group of students from the Tibetan Children’s Village decided to dedicate their class environmental project – on saving the Tibetan crane – to the boy lama.
Thinking of Burma
It was somewhere in an article by George Orwell that I came across the phrase “the solipsism of the sick man”, i.e. the inability of people mired in depression, disease or suffering to see beyond their own condition.
Remembering Thupten Ngodup
On April 27th, 1998, the patriot Thupten Ngodup set himself on fire in Delhi, and died for the cause of Tibetan independence. Exactly ten years later to the day, on April 27th, 2008, in New York City the Tibetan Independence Torch was lit by Gyen Palden Gyatso and handed to me. As the first runner I jogged down Broadway with the torch raised high.
A Prayer Song for the March to Tibet
NOW LET US RETURN TO TIBET
(A Prayer Song for the March to Tibet)
By Rakra Thupten Choedhar
KI KI SO SO LHA GYALO
Victory to the Gods of Tibet
A Letter from Lhasa
Yesterday it was quite hot outside and the soldiers guarding one of the petrol stations had a big umbrella to protect them from the intense sunlight. Today it’s the opposite: cold, cloudy and even light snowfall as storm-fronts hover over the mountains and sometimes close in on the valley. Like the weather here in Lhasa the rules are quickly changing too.
