The Virtual Sweet Tea House: An Overview of the Tibetan Cyberspace

Screenshot from a Tibetan blog

High Peaks Pure Earth is posting an original article originally written on the occasion of BlogDay, August 31, 2010. The article is a general overview of the Tibetan blogosphere and was first posted on this site I Heart Tibet. It was also later re-posted on The Comment Factory. Apologies for the late posting on High Peaks Pure Earth!

Going Minzu

It’s quite common nowadays for words with Chinese origin to be incorporated into our daily English speaking lives – we think nothing of talking about feng shui, doing qi gong, eating tofu or cultivating our yin and yang properties. We need these words to describe things, or concepts, such as losing face, that are lacking in English language and culture. Now there’s one more word to add to the list, if the Chinese government were to have their way that is.

An email that High Peaks Pure Earth received on 10th December 2008 read innocently enough: “Dear Partners and Friends, We take it an honor to inform you that, the English name of our university has been changed from "the Central University of Nationalities" to "Minzu University of China" (MUC) since November 20th, 2008”.

English website of the newly re-named Minzu University of China.
Note the announcement of the namechange on the page.

To non-Chinese speakers, it sounds, frankly, quite horrible. Minzu. MUC, that's pronounced muck!!! What just happened?! And what on earth is a Minzu? According to British Google, Minzu is a “Chinese buffet restaurant and bar in Birmingham offering superb Chinese cuisine” Splendid! So a little introduction may be required here to enlighten us on this bizarre development.

High Peaks Pure Earth readers may be interested to know that this is the university’s third name change since its founding in 1941! What started in October 1941 as the Yan'an Institute of Nationalities, moved to Beijing in 1951 with the birth of the ‘new China’ and in 1993 was re-named the Central University for Nationalities. And now it’s called the Minzu University of China. In Chinese it has only ever had 2 names, 中央民族学院 (Zhongyang Minzu Xueyuan) and 中央民族大学 (Zhongyang Minzu Daxue). Very quickly, Zhongyang means Central, Minzu we will deal with later, Xueyuan means Institute or Academy and Daxue means University. In Tibetan, it has always been known as མི་རིགས་སློབ་གྲྭ་ (mi rigs slob grwa), mi rigs means people and slob grwa means any kind of school. Later, when it became a university, the word ཆེན་པོ་ (Chen mo), meaning big, was added.

Taken from the website of the Minzu University of China -
note the happy Minzu in Tibetan dress in the bottom photo

The Minzu University of China in Beijing describes itself on its website as having "a high-quality, top-level faculty representing many ethnic backgrounds. 70% of its 15,000 full-time students is ethnic minorities. In a sense, CUN is a microcosm of the big family of Chinese ethnic groups, and it is the only university in China where all of China’s 56 ethnic groups are represented in its faculty and student body. The multiple cultures of the 56 ethnic groups harmoniously mix together here." They also accept foreign students who want to learn Chinese, to be convinced to go and study there, readers can watch this riveting promotional video.

The university is also home to 600+ Tibetan students, the largest concentration of Tibetans in China’s capital, who are mostly studying Tibetology. In the past, some of the finest scholars have taught at the MUC such as ་དུང་དཀར་བློ་བཟང་འཕྲིན་ལས་ (Dungkar Lobsang Trinley), ཚེ་བརྟན་ཞབས་དྲུང་ (Tseten Shabdrung), དམུ་དགེ་བསམ་གཏན་ (Muge Samten) and མཁྱན་རབ་འོད་ཟེར (Kyenrab Woeser). Today, two of the best-known Tibetan scholars are ཚེ་རིང་ཐར་་ (Tsering Thar) from Amdo and ཐུབ་བསྟན་ཕུན་ཚོགས་ (Thupten Phuntsog) from Kham, who are both much loved by students. Notable Tibetan alumni include writer and poet དོན་གྲུབ་རྒྱལ་ (Dhondup Gyal) as well as most of the staff of Radio Free Asia and Voice of America in DC! Also some of the foremost Chinese scholars on Tibet such as Yang Enhong and Chen Qingying have studied there.

So how come the word Minzu in the university’s name doesn’t get translated anymore? The main universities in Beijing, China’s Ivy League if you will, have names that are translated directly into English, albeit slightly odd varying from the very quaint sounding Peking University for 北京大学 (Beijing Daxue) to the downright absurd-sounding Beijing Normal University for 北京师范大学 (Beijing Shifan Daxue). The others are mostly bog-standard names such as University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing Foreign Studies University or China Central Academy of Fine Arts.

Although no official reason has been given for the recent name change – it stands to reason that it’s due to this rather troublesome and seemingly untranslatable Chinese word Minzu. Their solution in the end seems to be a stern resolve not to translate it at all and thus avoid all the problems this word causes. How is the word Minzu problematic? Firstly, one look at the dictionary tells us that Minzu means Nationality. Doesn’t appear that hard to translate actually.

But for the Chinese government, their own unique concept of ‘nationality’ has been very difficult to communicate to the wider world. The historical background behind Minzu, as it’s used today in China, starts in the 1950s with the Minzu Shibie – a survey carried out by the central government to determine the various ethnic groups in China. That was the starting point for today’s one big happy family of the Han Chinese and the 55 minzu groups which were all identified and formalized as a result of that survey. The minzu groups are also referred to as 少数民族 (shaoshu minzu), which translates as ethnic minority.

The word minority already has enough politically incorrect connotations in English so the Chinese government has been wise to stay away from that word in recent years. They probably thought that the word nationality was less controversial but they miscalculated grossly. Outside of China, very few people understand the Chinese concept of nationality – it’s a word associated with nation, nationhood and nationalism. Mostly it’s associated with passports. Not so in China. For a Tibetan born in Lhasa, their nationality is Tibetan but they are Chinese. For an Uyghur born in Urumqi their nationality is Uyghur but they are Chinese. For a Mongolian born in Hohhot, their nationality is Mongolian but they are Chinese. This nationality word is indeed confusing.

Confusing and on top of that, politically loaded. For the Han Chinese – and let’s not forget that they account for 92% of the population, the government actively fans the flames of their nationalism in a twisted, negative way usually aimed at outside forces. Think of the crazy scenes in 1999 after the Chinese embassy in Belgrade was mistakenly bombed by NATO, think of the anti-French scenes last year in China, poor Carrefour supermarket! Even crazier maybe the whole textbook debacle with Japan a few years back. And in a country with no concept of dual citizenship, woe betide any celebrity who changes their nationality, step forward top enemies of the state Jet Li (now American), Gong Li (now Singaporean) and a kind of in-betweener Beijing born Zhang Ziyi (holds a Hong Kong residency card).

However, for the nationalities of the People’s Republic of China, nationalism is a strictly no go area. In 2008, the Chinese government simultaneously dealt with cracking down on Tibetan expressions of nationalistic feelings – suddenly even Han Chinese people knew what the Tibetan national flag looked like (even though state media calling it the ‘snow lion flag’ was lame) whilst having the Olympics reinforce their own sense of national identity and pride. So if the Han Chinese are allowed to assert their own feelings of nationalism then why not the nationalities? If only the answer to this question were as simple as thrusting the word Minzu onto the unsuspecting rest of world.

China is no stranger to forcing new words into languages for political purposes. A prime example is in Tibetan due to the fact that Tibetan has one word for Tibet, བོད་ (Bod), one word for China་རྒྱ་ནག་ (Gyanak) and no word that means a China that includes Tibetan territory. So the Chinese government officially uses the word ཀྲུང་གོ་ (krung go) which is simply a Tibetan transliteration of the Chinese word for China 中国 (Zhong guo). So whereas this concept didn’t exist before, it exists now. Interestingly, Tibetan bloggers who blog in Chinese are refusing to use the Chinese word for Tibet 西藏 (Xizang) as Xizang only refers to the Tibet Autonomous Region. Bloggers are using the word 图博 (Tubo) or sometimes simply the Chinese character 博 (bo), which sounds like the Tibetan word Bod. Bloggers are also snubbing the Chinese way of saying Tibetan 藏族 (zang zu) as the Chinese words are implicitly talking about an ethnic group (the word zu 族, the same zu as in 民族 minzu) and are using the characters 博巴 (Bo ba) which is Tibetan for a Tibetan person.

Sometimes there are words or concepts that simply have to be expressed in the original language, think ‘shoah’, ‘apartheid’ or ‘Satyagraha’. However, Minzu does not have the weight of those concepts - it is simply a word that transports the Chinese government’s entire ideology and concept of their multi-ethnic happy family, in the way that they see and present it at least. The changing of a university name may not seem like the end of the world but it is a calculated move to gain acceptance and legitimacy superficially on a linguistic level at first but that's how it starts.

So what other changes could we expect in the near future in Beijing? We already have the Minzu Hotel but the Cultural Palace of the Minorities next door could turn into the Minzu Cultural Palace. The Nationalities Park might be re-named Minzu Park and so on. Be prepared to go Minzu on your next trip to China, you have been warned!

Romance, Revelations and Revolutions - A review of “Tibet’s True Heart – Selected Poems by Woeser”

Newspaper headlines describe Woeser as Tibet’s most famous woman writer and blogger and a lone Tibetan voice, intent on speaking out. Until now, Woeser has perhaps been best known as a Tibetan dissident writer whose blogs are banned and have either been repeatedly shut down in China or hacked by Chinese nationalists. Her collection of poems, short stories and essays published in 2003 by a renowned publishing house in southern China entitled “Notes on Tibet” was subsequently banned and, refusing to be subjected to political re-education, she left her prestigious job as editor of a literary journal in Lhasa, as well as all the security such a job brought, and went to live in Beijing, where she still continues to live today.

In March 2008 she was briefly placed under house arrest, during which time she became the main source of information regarding the wave of protests and demonstrations that swept Tibet, as chronicled in the daily Tibet Updates on her blog. The threats to her personal safety have been well documented and translations into English of her Tibet Updates, published online on China Digital Times, have brought Woeser and her work to a wider audience. In July 2008, her decision to sue the Chinese government for their continued refusal to grant her a passport was a brave, audacious move, testing China’s legal system and bringing the plight of Tibetans as second-class citizens within China to the world’s attention.

Now a new volume of translations of Woeser’s poetry is available to English readers thanks to the efforts of scholar and translator A.E. Clark. “Tibet’s True Heart”, published by Ragged Banner Press, brings together original translations of 42 poems written by Woeser spanning a period of 20 years. It is a remarkable volume of poetry with translations that not only do justice to an eloquent, moving literary voice but also enlighten and educate with the copious notes, explanations and maps included in appendix.

The earliest poems contained in this volume were written in the late '80s during Woeser’s days as a student of Chinese literature in Chengdu’s South West University for Nationalities. Although born in Lhasa during the Cultural Revolution and spending her first four years there, her family moved to Kham and she spent most of her childhood in Tibetan areas of Sichuan province, Chengdu being the provincial capital. Woeser candidly writes about growing up Sinicised – her father was a high-ranking officer in the People’s Liberation Army and she grew up very much in a Chinese-speaking environment. In her 2004 poem “Tibet’s Secret” she writes “From birth I grew up to the bugle calls of the PLA / A worthy heir of Communism".

Through the poems included in “Tibet’s True Heart”, the journey of this girl, born into a privileged cadre family in Lhasa to school girl and student in Kham, back to Lhasa as a government employee and ultimately to Beijing in self-imposed exile, is mapped out not only in these places but also in the personal geography of several parallel journeys, the most remarkable being the journey of self-discovery and spirituality conveyed in the text through memories, people and heavy doses of personal experience. The year the poem was written along with the place is documented by Woeser and has been diligently translated by Clark with good reason, these details are crucial to the reader’s understanding of the context of the journeys. “Remembering A Battered Buddha” begins with: ‘Twenty days since I left Lhasa…” whilst “Return to Lhasa” begins by stating "It’s been a year. I was somewhat excited about going home". In addition to being useful markers for the reader, places in Woeser’s poetry are imbued with significance for personal reasons. Derge, in Kham, for example, is evoked more than once in painful memories:

“Derge, ancestral home!
Would that it meant nothing,
Would that no road led there!”

As Clark writes in his notes, "Derge was the birthplace of her father and was associated, in her mind, with his death".

Travelling is a recurring theme associated with pilgrimage, escape, voyages of discovery. Woeser is sketching the inner and outer contours of Tibet and Tibetan landscapes are a source of inspiration in themselves. In the achingly moving 1994 poem “A Mala That Was Meant to Be”, although written in the third person, Woeser’s physical journey to Amdo is internalized with memories of her father’s death three years earlier, personal struggles with identity and a re-discovering not only of her father’s past but also of her own – all interwoven with Tibetan Buddhist imagery symbolically evoked in the poem. She describes the woman at the beginning of the journey:

“She lacks the root of wisdom.
She finds it hard to visualize
An image of the Buddha or
A letter of Tibetan
On a leaf.”

By the end of the poem, the personal revelations and discovery of spirituality stemming from grief and a deep sense of loss have made their mark:

“Inside the gem-encrusted tower, a transformation:
A hundred thousand Buddha-images,
Or one hundred thousand letters of Tibetan,
Morph into as many leaves upon a tree”

These epiphanies are also to be found elsewhere in the poetry, the personal and the political slowly merging as the poet develops and forges her new identity. Subtle allusions to the Dalai Lama appear in the poetry from the late 1980s but clearly the growing discovery of faith runs parallel to the political awakening. Thus the overtly political subject matters gradually start to appear, for example the episode of the two Panchen Lamas that was both religious and political. They are metaphorically alluded to in the 1995 poem “December”, written in Lhasa, as “Two sparrows in the woods” but ten years later in the 2005 poem, written in Beijing, boldly and directly titled “The Panchen Lama”:

“If time can cover up a lie / Is ten years enough? [...] The other child, where is he?”

As mentioned previously, it was in 2004, again in Beijing, that Woeser wrote the poem “Tibet’s Secret” dedicated to Tibet’s political prisoners, some of whom she knew personally. She poses the question: “of the people in prison, why are so many more wearing the red robe than not? [...] we’re glad to leave the suffering to our monks and nuns […] With shame I count down their practically endless prison terms. / Tibet’s true hearts beat steadfast in a Hell that’s all too real.” Realising that due to her background she could easily have never heard about their fate, (“what’s the connection between them and me?”) she reflects on what they represent and compares her upbringing with theirs ending with their shared fates of exile and isolation, “Far from home, enmeshed in a race forever alien, [...] Considering it carefully, how can there not be a connection between them and me?”.

The lines connecting the disparate true hearts of Tibet are as much virtual as psychological or emotional – technology has played a crucial role and undoubtedly created new space for reflection and self-education. Woeser’s knowledge of a political prisoner’s plight comes from “a biography I downloaded in Lhasa” and “It was only on the Web I saw, spread out before an old lama, An array of handcuffs, leg-irons, daggers…”. In “Remembering A Battered Buddha” her memory of that Buddha is kept alive digitally, “I only took some pictures, So when I miss it I can turn on my computer and have a look.” The contemporary feel is refreshing and at times provides relief from the overwhelmingly melancholy tone of the poetry. In “Spinning Wheels”, the wheel metaphor is not only the classically Buddhist circle, or Kora, or Mani wheel but also “Mitsubishi tracker wheels, Beijing jeep wheels, Dongfang truck wheels, long-distance bus wheels, Minivan wheels, red taxi wheels, Walking tractor wheels.” These observations also give the reader an accurate impression of life in Tibet today where wheels symbolise the development and changes taking place as much as the religion. Woeser’s details also identify the greatest changes taking place in Tibet today, the poem “Return to Lhasa” mentions “little fake zebras [...] a pink fake lotus [...] I saw the celebrated Qinghai-Tibet railway on a concrete overpass”, even noting that the taxi drivers speak in Sichuanese dialect portrays Lhasa today exactly.

Leaving aside the Tibetan themes and subject matter, there are universal themes of love, loss, grief and struggling for identity and meaning in the poems. A highly literate poet, Woeser’s points of reference are very accessible for English-speaking audiences as she keenly cites Allen Ginsberg, T.S Eliot, Gabriel García Márquez and at least one poem owes a great debt to Jack Kerouac. It is also rare that a translator can disappear to leave the poet’s own voice resounding and A.E. Clark’s translations, sensitive and true to the originals, must be commended for their elegance. Woeser is a prolific writer, blogger and poet who has given up a great deal in pursuit of the truth in her own time and on her own terms. Overcoming both prescriptive and prohibitive censorship to ironically become a truly free thinker, Woeser is a unique and much needed Tibetan voice. In the burning house of the People’s Republic of China, Woeser has so far managed to find and make use of every fire exit and trap door in order to be heard. “Tibet’s True Heart” goes some way in ensuring that these remain open for a while longer.

Review by High Peaks Pure Earth

"Tibet’s True Heart" – Selected Poems by Woeser
Translated by A.E. Clark
Published by Ragged Banner Press, 2008

Available for purchase online at:
http://www.raggedbanner.com/orders.html

Why Armchair Revolutionaries Hate Tibet

This is an original feature by High Peaks Pure Earth in response to Brendan O’Neill’s article titled, 'Why Liberals Love Tibet', published in the American Conservative. Although the article appeared in a right wing magazine, Brendan O’Neill was the former editor of the now defunct magazine Living Marxism and is currently a columnist for the British paper The Guardian.


As Brendan O’Neill began his idiotic piece with a confession, let me begin with one of my own. I too have a long history of marching on the streets of London. In fact, longer then O’Neill. I first joined protests against Indira Gandhi’s imposition of emergency laws in India. Since then I have lost count. If O’Neill thinks people protest because they desire a pat on the back, he is sadly mistaken. We march because we are opposed to injustice.

As a political activist, I am familiar with all the adjectives that are dished out against us. When I marched against the Stop and Search laws that were imposed by the British police to intimidate Asians and Blacks; protested against the virginity tests imposed by the British immigration services, I remember being described as a wog and a social security scrounger, and, when marching with the CND, being described as an agent of the Communists. When marching against the Apartheid regime, I remember being told that I did not understand the blacks and had never lived amongst them. So there is nothing new in O’Neill’s criticism. He is part of the privileged class that he is supposed to despise, which fashions cliché as a novel and original insight.

The main point of O’Neill’s piece is to say that the pro-Tibetan protesters are disillusioned romantics and made up of the western middle class. All protest movements in the world have been accused of being romantic and composed of middle class do-gooders. So, there is nothing new in this kind of criticism and O’Neill is merely regurgitating criticism that is most commonly leveled against any protest movement. The environmentalists and animal rights protesters are often accused of being romantic as a result of being brought up watching Bambi and viewing too many National Geographic programs (in South Africa they are now called ‘white bunny huggers’). I guess O’Neill would have described anti-apartheid protesters as romantic middle class being brought up hugging “golliwogs” during childhood. The Israelis often describe the pro-Palestinian movement as imbued with romantic images of revolutionaries in colourful headgear. The Western powers often disparaged the CND movement as an agent of Soviet Union. Such attempt to denigrate protesters is a common strategy of oppressors and their allies.

The fact that the middle classes engage in protest movements speaks more of the nature of Western society and particularly of Britain’s class and caste ridden social structure. At one level we might criticize the class origin of protesters but the ability to recognize injustice is not bound by class. The most iconic of all revolutionaries, Che Guevara, came from a middle class background and was a doctor, the most bourgeois profession of all. Was he romanticising the lives of the Bolivian peasants or had he recognised the injustice that permeates South American societies? The fight for justice cannot be bonded by class loyalty; if this were the case, no revolution would ever have taken place. Let’s take the case of the remarkable Tony Benn in Britain, since his family originated from high echelons of British society and have never crawled into the mine pits and blackened their faces from carrying sacks of coal. Does this mean that his support for the working class of Britain is imbued with romantic visions of the green valleys of Wales?

Another point O’Neill makes is that the Tibetan cause serves the interest of Western governments. If one has a modicum of understanding of history, one would know that since Western Imperialist penetrations into Asia, the West has also been pro-China in its relations with Tibet. It is evident that through Western interaction with Tibet, China has been a valuable strategic ally of the West. In the 18th & 19th centuries, Western powers adopted a pro-China stance because of fears of Tsarist Russia. China was seen as a means of countering Tsarist expansion in Central Asia. If the West was so anti-China, why did the Western Governments not recognise the independence of Mongolia and Tibet? Mongolia declared independence in 1911 from the Qing Empire and it was only after the collapse of Soviet Union that the Americans recognised Mongolia. Similarly, when Tibet declared independence in 1911 it did not have the support of the British nor of other Western powers. During the Cold War period, China was the de-facto ally of Western powers against the Soviet Union. For many Western intellectuals, China was the acceptable face of Communism. Despite the fact there were people fleeing from China to Soviet Central Asia, because life was better in the Soviet Union.

Today, Western governments and businesses are enamoured by the success of China’s economy. Recently, Fiat the Italian car company made an apology to the Chinese government for using well-known pro-Tibet American actor Richard Gere in its commercials. What for? Who has heard of a multi-national company making an apology to an authoritarian regime? Imagine if a Western multi-national company made an apology to a Latin American dictator or the Apartheid regime for using well-known opponents of the regime in its commercials. Why is it that major Internet companies, such as Google and Yahoo are happy to oblige the Chinese censors and are willing to allow bloggers to be sent to jail? Do they represent anti-Chinese forces in the West or are they allies of the Chinese regime for profit?

Another point Mr. O’Neill makes is that the Tibetans and their allies are Luddites, opposed to development. What O’Neill fails to understand is the nature of the opposition. Tibetans are not opposed to development. The essence of Tibetan opposition is about colonial exploitation and resource extraction. If he read carefully and studied the pattern of development and resource extraction in Tibet, it is classic colonial exploitation, where the people of the land are left disadvantaged and the colonial authority usurps the profit. Take for example the building of the railway link between Tibet and China; no doubt this is a great technological accomplishment and required huge investment but the primary aim of the railway was for the accomplishment and consolidation of colonial conquest. So, why should Tibetans support developments that strengthen their own subjugation? Do you think the Chinese are grateful to the Japanese for building the railway in Manchuria? In fact many of my Tibetan friends are not even allowed to board the train to their homeland.

Armchair revolutionaries like O’Neill hate the Tibetans because we do not speak their language. We do not carry placards with faces they know, like Che Guevara. We do not adorn ourselves with Khaki revolutionary uniforms. Our leaders speak in a language they do not understand, we do not espouse textbook revolutionary speak, and bow down to figures like Marx, Engels and others god like figures that are familiar to them. Therefore, we are alien.

For Western armchair revolutionaries, we present a danger because we destabilize their image of the world, where everyone must conform to the old fashioned western image of progress and modernity. For them China is a perfect example of progress. Today, China has discarded its heritage and become a master at emulating all things that represent the west, from learning to play the piano or wearing suits. At a simple level, look at the mode of dress, no Chinese would be seen dead in anything resembling traditional Chinese attire, which to them indicates “backwardness”. Whilst, we Tibetans cling to wearing our traditional clothes which is seen as a sign of resisting modernity and progress. For us, it is a mark of our refusal to surrender.

The armchair revolutionary has inherent prejudice against anything to do with religion and so our protest movement stems from unfamiliar territory. He cannot accept that religious values can be a source of social change. Martin Luther King’s fight for justice for black people in America was impelled by his Christian values. Similarly, the staunch ally of Tibet, Desmond Tutu of South Africa lead his fight against Apartheid regime. The Catholic Liberationist theologians were the forefront of opposition to South American dictators. So, Tibetan Buddhism can also provide a basis for the fight for social justice. O’Neill quoted that the Dalai Lama is not elected and claims that the Dalai Lama is an obstacle for social change. Whilst it is true there is nothing democratic about the institution and authority of the Dalai Lama, in any struggle the people allow what is most conducive to their struggle. At present, the Dalai Lama provides a unifying strength for our cause and has been an able-spoken person. Why should we abandon him when he has served the Tibetan people well for the past five decades? There are masses of disposed Kings and pontiffs around the world, they have retired to the South of France or established themselves as new age gurus but the Dalai Lama has shouldered the responsibility for the people whom he represents, this is precisely the reason that he continues to have meaning for the Tibetan people.

Whatever labels armchair revolutionaries choose to inflict on Tibet protestors - tree huggers, Bambi lovers, woolly-hatted lesbians, romantic hippies - we know we are in a long line of protesters belittled by the powerful. Armchair revolutionaries can be idiots, but they are always useful court jesters to authoritarian regimes.