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Just when I thought Tibetans had seen the worst of the Chineese...
BonsaiDoug
Simply, on the path. Veteran
China plans £3bn theme park in Tibet
by Tania Branigan, 6 July 2012
Lhasa, Tibet (China) -- Chinese officials have announced plans to build a £3bn Tibetan culture theme park outside Lhasa in three to five years.
Authorities see developing tourism as crucial to the economic future of Tibet and have set a goal of attracting 15 million tourists a year by 2015, generating up to 18bn yuan (£1.8bn), in a region with a population of just 3 million.
But Tibetan groups have expressed concern that the surge in tourism has also eroded traditional culture and that the income has economically benefited Han Chinese more than Tibetans.
Full story here: http://www.buddhistchannel.tv/index.php?id=46,10998,0,0,1,0
by Tania Branigan, 6 July 2012
Lhasa, Tibet (China) -- Chinese officials have announced plans to build a £3bn Tibetan culture theme park outside Lhasa in three to five years.
Authorities see developing tourism as crucial to the economic future of Tibet and have set a goal of attracting 15 million tourists a year by 2015, generating up to 18bn yuan (£1.8bn), in a region with a population of just 3 million.
But Tibetan groups have expressed concern that the surge in tourism has also eroded traditional culture and that the income has economically benefited Han Chinese more than Tibetans.
Full story here: http://www.buddhistchannel.tv/index.php?id=46,10998,0,0,1,0
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Comments
In my country (Australia), we have basically wiped out an entire civilisation in a little over 200 years.......sad
Shouldn't we be happy it isn't another Nike shoe factory? What can the Chinese invest in building in Tibet that would make everyone happy, except building more temples?
The Chinese Communist Party's persecution of Tibetans has escalated sharply in the past five years.
The purpose of this theme park is to continue to wipe out all trace of genuine Tibetan identity by replacing it with kitsch, and flooding Lhasa with even more Chinese workers.
One Chinese report on the effect of the China-Tibet railway concluded that crime, disease and social instability have soared since the train began operation - as has environmental degradation:
http://www.cablegatesearch.net/cable.php?id=07CHENGDU297
Like many cities under Chinese government control, Lhasa suffers from a massive influx of unregulated, unregistered migrant workers.
/Victor
*sigh*
It's more complcated than the black and white image we often get.
It is very complicated. I actually really like the current Dalia Lama, I think for someone who came from where he did he is a very progressive leader in many ways. However, the rule of the lamas in Tibet before China was just as bad as China's current rule. Theocracy is always inherently oppressive whether it be Christian Europe in the Middle Ages, Islamic Iran, or Buddhist Tibet.
The question, I think we need to ask now, is what do the average people of Tibet want? It should be up to them to decide the future of their country, not China and not the Lamas. The best solution that even has a chance of happening is for them to create a secular democratic Republic and have the lamas become strictly religious teachers. Let the lamas teach the Dharama, which is what they should have been doing all along, not ruling the country.
People in pre-occupation Tibet didn't commit suicide by the hundreds, and they didn't starve by the thousands. There is absolutely no comparison between life in Tibet before 1951, and after.
Lamas were not "ruling the country." It's funny - on one hand, Chinese propaganda says there was "no such country as Tibet," that Tibet was just a patchwork of many cultures and ethnicities; then, on the other hand, that same propaganda machine says Tibet was a "total theocracy," ruled from border to border by evil lamas--95% serfs, 5% serflords (where do the autonomous nomads fit into this picture?) Can't have it both ways.
These so-called "evil lamas" didn't drop out of the sky - they were the brothers, uncles, sons and nephews of people in their region. As far as power structure, it would be more accurate to talk about family hierarchies than religious ones.
Tibet had a very religious society, certainly though, and that's how the people wanted it. Funny how we feel very secure in stating someone should "not have a religious society," as if that's somehow automatically more admirable than letting them have the religious society they themselves established and were very clearly supporting, voluntarily, at the time of Chinese invasion.
The crux is that culture and religion are often inseparable; what revisionists decry as an "unforgivably religious" society was just Tibetan culture, in the same way that Native Americans had a "religious" society which was really just their own culture. Did one burn incense in the morning because one was religious, or because one was Tibetan? Did Native Americans thank the spirit of the animal they killed for food because they were at the "mercy of a theocracy" or because that was simply their way?
However, the fact that the first time Tibet had secular schools shows the strong influence religion had over the state. I want the people of Tibet to be able to choose their leaders, their future, but if some of them want their children sent to secular schools they should have that right, if some of them want to raise their children in another religion or no religion they should have that right. Like I said I think a secular elected government, with the lamas focusing on teaching the Dharma would be the best solution.
*sigh* The more samsara changes, the more it stays the same.
Aside from the apology to the indigenous Australians, one of the Australian state governments (South Australia from memory) recently made a public apology to all the teen mothers and children from the 1950's, 60's and 70's who were "coerced" into giving up their kids for adoption during that period.
The lamas never killed over a million people.
Here's a nice list of Tibetan deaths since the 1950s Chinese occupation.
There are even a variety of sources, so you can pick and choose what death-toll you like to believe.
Highest estimates:
Tibetans killed by the Chinese since 1950: 1,200,000
Died in prisons and labour camps between 1950 and 1984: up to 260,000
1959 Uprising: 430,000 died
Killed in Reprisals: 87,000
Our Times: 1,200,000
Courtois: 600,000 - 1,200,000
Walker, Robert: 500,000-1,000,000 (all ethnic minorities)
Lower estimates:
Rummel: 375,000 democides inflicted on ethnic minorities
... incl 150,000 Tibetans
Margolin, "China" in Courtois, Black Book of Communism, p. 546
The population of Tibet plunged from 2.8 million in 1953 to 2.5 million in 1964 [ a loss of 300,000]
Porter: 100,000 to 150,000.
Eckhardt:
1950-51 War: 2,000 civ.
1956-59 Revolt: 60,000 civ. + 40,000 mil. = 100,000
Harff and Gurr: 65,000 Tibetan nationalists, landowners, Buddhists killed, 1959
Small & Singer say that China lost 40,000 soldiers in Tibet between 1956 and '59.
Fun fact. When China invaded this last time, one of their first acts was to finally make slavery illegal and free the many slaves that the richer Tibetan households maintained. They also abolished feudalism, where the peasant was ruled by the local landowner and not allowed to even move without permission. The rulers were not chosen or elected. Since the rulers were busy "educating" the deliberately ignorant peasants that only the enlightened monks should be in charge, people accepted this. Is this the Tibet government and culture you want reestablished if China leaves? I'd rather the little guy over there gets a fair shake for once.
Even opressive nations are full of nice and well-meaning people, and that includes the halls of power. But when you rule because your family ruled or because the priests and monks say you are destined to rule, instead of having to listen to the people under you, then we have problems.
And that includes democracies. Once the election becomes a machine that churns out which ever winner has the most money and powerful connections, we become a republic in name only.
Gedhun Choekyi Nyima was just 6 years old when he was recognized by His Holiness the Dalai Lama as the 11th reincarnation of the Panchen Lama, one of Tibet’s most important religious leaders. Just after this he and his family were taken into custody by the Chinese authorities and he has not been seen since.
April 25th, 2012 was his 23rd birthday. This will be the 17th birthday he has spent in captivity.
Wake up people. Economies are fake. They bear no real resemblence to what people actually need or how able they are to get what they need. Were Tibetans fed, clothed, and sheltered before the Chinese got there? Yes. Does putting a flashing neon sign up on every street corner improve that? No.
For hundreds of years, Chinese traded happily with Tibetan "slaves" for furs, medicines, etc. In turn, the "slaves" much appreciated Chinese cloth, tea, and other goods. Only in 1949 did China suddenly discover their "slave" status and decide to "liberate" them. Women played a significant role in the tea trade between China and Tibet (see Peter Goullart: Princes of the Black Bone. München: Paul List Verlag, 1962.)
Dartsendo, a big trading town, in the early 1930s--a few years before my grandparents got there:
Tibetan slaves/serfs/peasants were actually farmers, herders, craftsmen, salt traders, shamans, monks and nuns, exporters/importers (traveling sales[wo]men!), nomads, and so forth--the standard palette of vocations for that region and time period. The hierarchy of power was no more fantastical or unusual than any other regional society. A little-mentioned fact is that there were notable female spiritual teachers, often not in robes, who had a great deal of influence in some areas.
In 1949, the societal power imbalance in China was actually notably more severe than in Tibet - China had increasingly centralized power, massive cities (with all the highs and lows of society that brings), and far greater imbalance between the sexes in many cases.
Rural, herding societies in general offered more freedom to women, for example, than "refined," urban cultures. Tibetan women, for example, were not crippled by their parents from birth by having their feet cruelly bent in half and bound, as were many Chinese girls (my grandma was a traveling nurse and saw all manner of feet in China, Tibet and Turkestan!)
Tibetan girls had been educated in the literary arts for over 500 years when China finally gave thumbs-up to female education with the establishment of Jan Gwong school in Hong Kong in the 1800s.
One of the oldest nunneries, Rakhor (Lhasa, 12th century) was destroyed in July of 1997, and all nuns forcibly expelled.
No society has ever been perfect, so trying to say a society should be invaded because of imperfection is always a non-starter. Regardless, to say Tibetans were imprisoned in droves under feudal leaders is completely inaccurate. Forget the state-published history books (of any nation) and talk to real people, or check books by independent authors.
The monastic system was populated by people from the local community - family members. Monks and nuns were were brothers, sisters, aunts and uncles of people in the community, supported by their community, and supporting it back in return. People have a right to their own way of doing things.
Bhutan had the same basic culture as Tibet, and has modernized nicely. If the old way of doing things offends our sensibilities, it still doesn't give is the right to invade and forcibly change it, but Bhutan is proof that Tibet would have done just fine on its own--and without a foreign-imposed famine and holocaust.
As for actual slavery, that myth too has been debunked (again, by Chinese scholars). There simply was no infrastructure nor enslaving force in place to enslave the number of people the Chinese propagandists claim were enslaved.
Another thing the propagandists have forgotten - where are the Hui, Chinese, Salar, Mongguor and other "minority" slaves? How do they fit into the 95%/5% split - were they serflords, or serfs? This is never mentioned, and imho is one of the biggest errors in Mao's revisionism (since the missing minorities contradict his claims of an extensively multicultural Tibet, and the claims of a multicultural Tibet contradict the 95% serfs claim).
I highly recommend reading this 2009 Chinese analysis of historical Tibetan society - I don't believe there is a translation yet, but Google Translate will at least give the gist, and the historical population figures cited are quite extensive. The comments in response to the article are enlightening (and humorous) as well: http://www.rxhj.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=23802
The author concludes, "Based on the above discussion, I think that the so-called "serfs accounted for more than 95% of old Tibet's population" claim is unfounded--there is no material to support this assertion. Not only that, many other aspects of the old Tibetan serfdom arguments are untenable."
Tibet wasn't perfect - neither was it remarkably imperfect.
I would love to go back, and especially go west and over the border. My uncle is astounded at the changes in Lanchow - he's been back there, but not to Tibet or Turkestan.
I think a picture of historical Tibet is not really that murky - because it was so remote, travelers and visitors tended to write pretty extensively about what they were experiencing. Between the Tibetan historians themselves, Indian scholars, pre-1949 Chinese travelers and traders, Western missionaries and botanists, and the occasional undercover Japanese monk, Tibet is actually better-described than many other remote areas of the world, I think.
Given the number of Chinese Buddhists converted to Adventism (the Tibetans, Hui and Uyghurs politely declined), I like to think that how I turned out sort of repaid the favor in a small way
Seriously, though, other than the Adventist holdouts (cousins and such), I think there's probably a different religion today for just about every family member, lol. That makes me happy.
[Irreverence Alert!]
Daily News (Los Angeles, CA) | January 31, 1999
JANE ROBISON
DISNEY and China, two great countries, two effervescent spirits searching for light and meaning in the universe, are joining forces.
Coming soon to a great wall near you, the world's second-largest entertainment company wants to open a theme park in the world's most populous country.
It is a beautiful dream. To create peace and harmony and an animatronics Mao welcoming the masses to the Happiest Place on Earth.
Of course, there are going to be artistic differences, but nothing that former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger can't work out.
...Still, it must be nerve-wracking trying to design a theme park that will pass muster with the incredibly detail-oriented Chinese government while providing the kind of entertainment that will please a mass audience.
Disney has been courting China in much the same way that Kenneth Starr courted Linda Tripp. Neither side is saying much, but both are wired to the hilt over the possibilities for mutually beneficial alliances.
Since the Disney folk are reticent to disclose too much information, we can only guess what those Imagineering people are dreaming up. I have a few humble suggestions for East meets West.
First, the Epcot "Patriotic Education'' Center could retrain the nuns at the Rakhor nunnery as ride operators. It would establish the kind of warm, open-door, working relationship that Disney is noted for.
I understand the nuns are now looking for work, following the closure of their 800-year-old nunnery in Tibet over "artistic differences'' with the Chinese government. So this could be a great win-win for everyone.
Speaking of win-win, imagine how popular Space Mountain could be for both the East and West. The beauty of this ride is the flexibility and privacy it affords the Clinton administration and Hughes Electronics to hand off vital U.S. military and technological secrets on a blood-curdling ride.
Continued: http://bit.ly/PwEm23