Earthquake in Tibet, A Tibetan Blogger Asks...

High Peaks Pure Earth has translated a blogpost originally written in Chinese by a Tibetan blogger calling themselves "The Lost Curse" and is a sharp piece on the earthquake in Tibet. The blogpost was published on April 16, 2010, just two days after the earthquake struck.

"The Lost Curse" imagines what questions they would ask in an official press conference on the earthquake. Last year, High Peaks Pure Earth translated another blogpost by "The Lost Curse" that was a biting satirical commentary piece about China forcing Tibetans to celebrate the Chinese Dragon Boat Festival instead of the traditional Tibetan festival of Saga Dawa.

This blogpost on the earthquake is in a similar ironic style that is cutting and thought-provoking and also displays impressive knowledge about Chinese history and traditions. For example, "The Lost Curse" refers to the Han Dynasty's Zhang Heng. As the China blog "Jottings from the Granite Studio" tells us: 

Zhang Heng (78-139) was quite the Han dynasty renaissance man. Despite his fame as a poet of considerable talents, a celebrated scholar of the classics, and an official serving at court, Zhang’s greatest and best-known contributions actually came in the field of science and engineering. [...] Zhang Heng is perhaps most famous for inventing the world’s first seismometer, the 候风地动仪 houfeng didongyi.

"The Lost Curse" poses a series of questions about official reactions to the earthquake and the relief efforts, along the way mocking the Chinese bureaucracy, drawing parallels with the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, quoting Mao, referring to the belief that animal reactions supposedly should forewarn impending earthquakes and sharply critiquing the Han-Chinese fad for Tibetan mastiffs that the affected earthquake area Jyekundo in Kham is famous for.


High Peaks Pure Earth has been monitoring online reactions to the earthquake by Tibetan netizens, this is our third post. The first post can be read here:
http://www.highpeakspureearth.com/2010/04/earthquake-in-tibet-initial-reactions.html

and the second post can be read here:
http://www.highpeakspureearth.com/2010/04/earthquake-in-tibet-tibetan-netizens.html

*** Update April 23, 2010: The original blogpost appears to have been "harmonised". ***

Tentative Questions for the Earthquake Press Conference

by "The Lost Curse"

1. There is something to make one angry and disappointed and confused - How was the Qinghai Seismological Bureau not able to anticipate the earthquake? Especially, how is it that no one has come out to talk about the events? Is there no Seismological Bureau in Qinghai? If there is such a Bureau what is the Qinghai Seismological Bureau doing? It is such a big department that has a lot of expenditures - are the people who work there useless? If they are of no use, then it is time to close the office or to change the staff. (I suggest: replacing the office with more sensible staff who have no political motivations, the team should be composed of snakes, rats, frogs  and 2 crows, the snake would be the Party Secretary, the frog would be the Bureau Director, the rats would be the engineers, one crow would be working as the office manager and one crow would be the press officer, this team would take over the Seismological Bureau, as soon as they start working, although they are not Party Members, I can guarantee with my own integrity that these five comrades will be more capable of predicting earthquakes than the current staff). Additionally, certain netizens, no matter how many 50 cents you get, don't tell me that earthquakes can't be predicted, be careful that the Dong Han dynasty's Zhang Heng might come out and slap you saying that you are humiliating your ancestors. If you look at Tibetan astrology, then two or three people in a small office have been able to predict many earthquakes. It is clear that the Qinghai Tibetans’ way of predicting earthquakes is backward. If you accept that it is not possible to predict earthquakes or if you consider earthquakes to fall under the rubric of metaphysics, then why establish this office and fill it with staff and spend so much money on this department? Was it to have ordinary people give their lives, homes and wealth to you? Was is so that people would be born peacefully and then not even know how they died? Was it to maintain stability before the earthquake and then to deny the "rumours", or was it to be seen as promoting knowledge about earthquakes afterwards and to count the frequency of earthquakes in the world?
   
   
2. If it is because of lack of intelligence or resources that you failed to predict the earthquake, then at 5.39 am when the 4.7 earthquake happened what were you doing? Logically speaking, when the earthquake happened, the National Monitoring Centre should have known at that time- and the prefecture and county Seismological Bureaus should also have known. At the very least there should be someone on duty 24 hours. (Even hiring an illiterate person who could just sit and watch and shriek in the monitoring office at 5.39 am would be enough) Heaven sent a clear signal; why wasn’t a warning sent early, why wasn’t a notice released? Was it to preserve harmony or to maintain stability? Was this why a warning was suppressed? Was it to show that Chinese and Tibetans are one family and that the people and the army are inseparable like fish and water? Was it for the Shanghai World Expo? Or are there other unknown reasons? Out of generosity, I am making these conjectures: if it wasn't that they knew but didn't warn, had doubts but didn't warn, it can only be that they weren't able to issue a warning because they are retarded or they are careless and failed in their duty, right, my bureau leaders? Please answer, how come no one is replying? Is it because they all died in the earthquake?
   
   
3. In the past there were several earthquakes in the 1990s and there was an earthquake two years ago. Why was it not possible to take bitter lessons from those disasters and establish an early warning mechanism in the Yushu prefecture? Is there a satellite warning system? At 5.39am when the first earthquake struck, were all the Jiegu leaders asleep? After the earthquake struck, what happened that there was such a lack of medicine and relief materials and it turned into an emergency? Weren't there any emergency relief supplies? Even in the Mao era, it was said that preparation of war and preparation for natural disaster was for the people!!!
   
   
4. After many school dormitories collapsed during the Sichuan earthquake, how come the Yushu prefecture didn’t take any notice? Don’t you know that Yushu is on the seismic belt? The school dormitories were not renovated-isn’t it possible to reconstruct? Apart from natural disasters, where is the responsibility of the related persons? What lessons can we learn from this experience? How is it that in the Prefecture headquarters area all the people’s houses are of such poor quality that they have broken like eggs? If these houses that could not withstand earthquakes are built privately, then shouldn’t the government issue some advice or policy regarding this? Likewise, in Yushu, why is it that in the aftermath of the earthquake, there is such a big difference to be seen between the people’s houses and government offices? Why is it that during a 7.1 Richter scale earthquake, the first was shown to be so poor and the second was so strong? I saw an electricity pole that had fallen at a 45 degree angle and behind that I saw people’s houses that had totally collapsed. This was almost satirical. If people say that these people’s houses had been built a long time ago, then how do you explain the new houses that farmers and nomads have moved into which are now in ruins? This is something to turn your stomach.
   
   
5. Right after the earthquake, the distance was very far and transportation was blocked- so to arrive there on the spot was very difficult.  The current conditions are better than the conditions in Wenchuan- why is it not possible to airdrop food and rescue workers from planes?
   
   
6. Were there no animals in Jyeku at that time? Didn’t they have any abnormal reactions (to predict the quake)? Have our people sold off all their Tibetan mastiffs?

............

There are many questions. But for today I will stop here. I will continue to monitor the relief effort. At the same time, I thank the nation’s people for their support. I thank the brothers and sisters who are participating in the relief effort without regard for altitude sickness.

"An Owner and His Pet - Tibetan/Han Relations" by Woeser

This new translation by High Peaks Pure Earth of a blogpost by Woeser from 24th June 2008 focuses on Chinese/Tibetan relations and was written at the height of unrest and tensions that had started in Lhasa on March 10th. It was from 14th March this year that the Han fascination with all things Tibet suddenly stopped, a phenomenon that Woeser examines below. The "Tibetan Incident" that Woeser refers to are the violent incidents that took place in Lhasa on 14th March, footage of which was constantly played on Chinese State TV and news for months and popularly known in China as 3.14 (san yao si).

Tibetans, even those living in Beijing - far away from the Tibetan plateau - felt the difference in their treatment and standing in society. Tibetans were portrayed as violent and out for blood, the Dalai Lama was blamed for the unrest and accused of sabotaging the Olympics and the Tibetan Youth Congress was described by China as "a terror group worse than Bin Laden's". By the way, for a truly mind-boggling analysis of the Tibetan Youth Congress, High Peaks Pure Earth recommends this China Daily article!

In her post, Woeser has also documented the fad amongst the Chinese nouveau riche of keeping Tibetan mastiffs as pets. Numerous Chinese websites extol the virtues of the Tibetan mastiff that fetch prices of up to £250,000. For American readers, that is almost half a million dollars! This may be an unexplored export commodity for Tibetan nomads and a possible future development programme for the plateau - thus solving the grasslands degradation problem! At the height of its fashion, The Times of London reported on this phenomenon.

The protests in Tibet and international outcry, the anger and humiliation felt by the Chinese at the Olympic Torch Relay beset by protestors all over the world along with the subsequent anti-CNN and anti-French sentiments in China all sparked a new wave of nationalistic feelings amongst Chinese citizens. In this atmosphere, Woeser travelled to Kham and Amdo and wrote this post on the road in Kunming, Yunnan Province, on 2nd June. More anecdotes about being Tibetan in China by Woeser have been translated into English by Ragged Banner and can be found here.

"An Owner and His Pet - Tibetan/Han Relations"

In the aftermath of the “Tibetan Incident” in March this year, one of the most significant changes has been the relationship between the Han and Tibetan ethnic groups, in other words the question of the status of Tibetans in China.

It can be said that relations between Hans – who make up the majority of Chinese society - and Tibetans have never been so clearly revealed than after the "Tibetan Incident" last March. In the past, it was as though a veil separated the two and this not only made thing unclear but also produced a very beautiful effect similar to looking at a flower through the fog. Moreover, many Tibetans used to sing their own praises and believed that amongst the 55 minorities in China, their status was the highest, their minority was the one most likeable to the Han people, and they in particular meant much more to Chinese people than Uighur people. Tibetan reincarnated lamas and Tibetan monks, for instance, often come and go between Tibetan and Han areas, have numerous Han disciples and feel proud to serve as Hans’ Lamas. However, among the Chinese people there are many so-called “Tibet fans” and some of them call themselves "drifters in Tibet". Hardly have they spent a few years in Tibet that they find life has no taste. In 2006 when the train entered Lhasa, it seemed that the whole of China started feeling excited about the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, and nearly everyone wanted to climb to the Potala. It can be said that it has been a very long time since Hans and Tibetans, I mean the relationship between the common people of the two people, have been permeated by tender feelings that cannot endure the truth.

And after the events in Tibet last March, this veil was lifted. It turns out what many of the Tibetans are satisfied with is just their status of finding favour with the Han among the fifty-five ethnic minorities. Many Han people, be it their love for Tibetans before the events or their hate for Tibetans after the events, have clearly shown that the feelings they nurtured were similar to the feelings of an owner towards its pet. This can be compared to the Tibetan mastiff, the most famous animal living on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. It seems so rare and so valuable that some Chinese tycoons or those who pose as lovers of culture spend vast amounts of money in a rivalry to purchase the mastiff which they also have to feed with lots of meat every day. But one day, the Tibetan mastiff all of a sudden gets angry and bites the person who has become its owner, and the animal is beaten to death on the spot. Chinese newspapers often relate this kind of story. And it perfectly illustrates the relationship between Tibetans and Chinese. This is actually the real and fundamental relations between ethnic groups in Chinese society. If Tibetans are content with being pets, the Han people will maintain the tender feelings they once had towards Tibetans; and just like they are willing to feed cats or dog they like, those Hans will keep on “loving” Tibet. But human beings are not pets: pets do not have a volition of ego, whereas human beings do. Tibetans do not want to be pets, for the consequence of being a pet involves the loss of self, and ultimately the loss of Tibet. Therefore, as long as Tibetans are not content with being pets, or not content with accepting their fate of being pets, and bravely fight for the their being human beings and being Tibetans, then this is what brings trouble. In fact, trouble is already there; Tibetans are sometimes arrested, detained, tortured or even massacred. These are punishments inflicted by the country’s regime. To the Han people who evolve in the non-government sphere, the fact that some Han people changed sides so quickly allowed the truth to surface. And the truth is that Tibetans cannot act as humans. As soon as they do, they are exposed to fatal risks.

Actually, Uighur people obtained the same kind of result a long time ago. The bottom line is that Tibetans and Uighurs are the same: they have not been able to secure a status equal to the Hans in a Chinese society mostly made up of Hans. And this is what was revealed through the events that unfolded last March in Tibet. For many simple-minded and easily satisfied Tibetans, this was like a hit in the face or from another angle, a very significant lesson.

Kunming, 2nd June 2008