Despite modernization in Tibet, Tibetan Buddhism and culture are preserved by the Chinese. Chuck Chiang, a writer from Vancouver Sun presents his views on the development of Tibet under the Chinese.
A classroom in the Nyingchi Guangdong Examination School in Nyingchi, Tibet. Every one of the 15 classrooms features an interactive video board embedded in the chalkboard.
Photograph by: Chuck ChiangCultural preservation is a touchy subject in Tibet.
As with China and the world beyond, Tibet increasingly faces the pressures of modernization and the influence of the global economy.
In China, for example, Beijing’s own historic hutong neighbourhoods have largely fallen to the wrecking ball in the city’s rapid transformation. Although officials have enacted strict bylaws protecting the patches that remain, many locals still lament the loss of the historic, less-hurried pace and communal atmosphere.
Tibet’s situation is more sensitive because its unique culture is also under pressure from that of China’s majority Han Chinese.
A big part of Tibet’s cultural backbone is Tibetan Buddhism. My brief visit was not enough to explore in depth how it is being preserved, but clearly Buddhism’s role in Tibetan hearts hasn’t diminished. Every home we visited, whether rural or urban, had a substantial Buddhist hall for private prayers and worship. People universally identified themselves as Buddhist, although belonging to a variety of sects.
The famed Jokhang Temple in Lhasa’s central Barkhor Square was awash with worshippers on the day we visited. Even though it was the low season for pilgrimage (Tibetans traditionally makes pilgrimage to the temple starting in late fall, after the harvest is complete), monk Nima Ciren said there were still at least 5,000 worshippers lining up at the temple each day, waiting to offer their homemade yak butter to the monks and Buddhist figures. On a busy day, the crowds can be four times as big, he said.
“Tibet remains a region with a very heavy religious flavour,” Ciren said. “We get so many worshippers that we really have to organize the temple in such a way as to facilitate everyone who comes to worship.”
The temple was also crowded with tourists — officials said they are working on putting daily limits on the number of visitors allowed for non-religious purposes. Ciren said the tourist numbers are so great in summer months that he, as a guide, has to do his prayers and religious duties late at night and early in the morning.
Outside Barkhor Square, worshippers are conducting their prayer rituals — which includes kneeling and prostrating themselves — in public.
The square was the scene of violent ethnic unrest before the 2008 Beijing Olympics and there has been a controversial modernization that included moving Tibetan street vendors to another location, officially to improve public safety and crowd management. Yet there was no sign of any uniformed police or soldiers, although it is likely that plainclothes Chinese security officers were present.
Most of the tourists we saw during our two days in Lhasa were Chinese, both of Han and other ethnicities. Many businesses in Barkhor Square had Tibetan vendors, with a few Han Chinese. Store signs throughout Lhasa had both Tibetan and Chinese text.
Language preservation appears to be the backbone of Lhasa authorities’ strategy for cultural protection. Schools in Tibet are free from kindergarten to Grade 12, and government officials subsidize rural students to come to urban centres to receive education. At the Nyingchi Guangdong Examination School (abbreviated to an unpronounceable LZGDSYXX), 504 pupils — about two thirds are ethnic Tibetans — study in 15 classrooms equipped with state-of-the-art classrooms with interactive digital blackboards. Tibetan students study Tibetan, Mandarin and English from the beginning, and many are from rural areas far away from Bayi township, the centre of Nyingchi. Room and board is provided at no cost to enrolling students, officials said.
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