"Why Was the Documentary To Commemorate the Yushu Earthquake Banned?" By Woeser

High Peaks Pure Earth has translated a blogpost by Woeser written on April 7, 2011 for the Tibetan service of Radio Free Asia and posted on her blog on April 14, 2011, the one year anniversary of the Yushu earthquake. 

Replaying the Film “Serf” Won’t Brainwash Anyone! By Woeser

High Peaks Pure Earth has translated a blogpost by Woeser written on March 30, 2011 for the Tibetan service of Radio Free Asia and posted on her blog on April 10, 2011.

The Chinese government proclaimed in January 2009 that a festival called "Serf Liberation Day" was to be celebrated in Tibet on March 28 every year to commemorate the "liberation" of Tibetans by the People's Liberation Army. Woeser takes this festival as her starting point and in particular the replaying of the 1963 propaganda film "Serf" on Tibetan TV. Amongst Tibetans, the film is more commonly called "Jampa", the name of the protagonist.

Tibet Saves The World? Tibetan and Chinese Bloggers Discuss "2012"

Above: Screenshot of a Tibetan blogpost about "2012"

High Peaks Pure Earth has been following Tibetan and Chinese blog reactions to the Hollywood film "2012". Although China-watching blogs such as chinaSMACK have focused on the film's treatment and depiction of China, there has been little translated about the prominent role that Tibet plays in the film.

It seems that Tibetans are also monitoring blog reactions to the film. On November 17, a Tibetan posted an extract of a commentary written about "2012" that had originally appeared in the Guangzhou Daily to the TibetCul Bulletin Boards (commonly known as BBS) :

It is worth mentioning that the film “2012” contains many elements which Chinese audiences are quite familiar with, such as Zhuoming County in Sichuan, a Tibetan monastery or the Himalaya Mountains. Although scenes about the earthquake in May last year add up to less than 20 seconds, the distinct Chinese lines in the film still manage to make the audience’s hearts glow and certainly makes it the most striking part of the movie. The film calls China “the ultimate redeemer”. The characters in the story exceed the margins of life and death, trying to run away from the towering tsunami and it is no other than the Himalayan Mountains which save them like a Noah’s Ark. An American official arrives at the constructed base and can’t help but sigh with deepest emotion: “it is right to leave this matter to the Chinese”.

Although the commentary is praising China's role in the film, the Tibetan who has posted it has used the subject heading: "2012": Tibet Saves The World? The same Tibetan also posted another comment written originally on a Chinese BBS thread with the subject line: Finished watching "2012", China saves the world is perverse fantasy, Tibet deserves the praise. 

The comment reads:

[...] saying that China saves the world is nothing but perverse national media fantasy; of course it might well satisfy some people’s vanity. After the film, I heard a girl next to me saying to her boyfriend “our China is really great, saved the whole world”. In comparison, the wise and calmly affectionate old Lama pours the little Lama some tea and talks to him about Buddhism; he even gives him the vehicle keys and at the end, when the old Lama faces the gigantic waves submerging the Himalayan mountains calmly ringing the final bells, the image of the Tibetan fairyland appears even more perfect (personally, I also feel strongly about Tibet, I quite like it). 

"2012" Film Still

This depiction of Tibet is questioned amongst some Chinese bloggers. On November 19, prominent Chinese blogger Michael Anti sent prominent Tibetan blogger Woeser the following Twitter message:

Woeser @degewa, please watch “2012” and then tell me if the Tibetan they use is actually authentic or not.

The reply from Woeser a little while later was:

I haven’t seen it yet, but I did see the trailer. That most classic scene where the old Lama rings the bell is really not that authentic. Tibetan temples don’t have the custom of striking bells, they play the copper trombone. They strike bells in Notre Dame, they strike bells in Hanshan temple and they also strike bells in Japanese temples but they don’t in Tibetan temples. 

The film's lack of authenticity was also noticed in this exchange between Tibetan bloggers in Tibetan language. On November 15, a Tibetan blogger had written a blogpost urging his friends to see the film and was met with this response the following day:

I waited three months for the film.  After seeing the film yesterday, although the film is good, but when it reached the final stage, (i thought) how is this possible?  How come the director of the film could not find 6 or 7 Tibetan speakers amongst six million Tibetans for the film? Some Chinese were speaking in broken Tibetan and in the background of the film there are some deceitful politics. However, in the film, you can see people wearing lay and religous costumes, and I recognise (that seeing the) the five colours of prayer flags gave fresh breath (to the film).

The most widely-read BBS portal in China, Tianya, has an ongoing heated discussion about "2012", here is a selection of Tibet-related comments by Chinese bloggers:

If you want to be the saviour of the world, just remove Tibet from it.

The question of whether China rescued the world or not is useless. The director simply knows how to survive in the Chinese market. He just added a few scenes showing Chinese people... The fact that he chose the Himalayan Mountains is also easy to explain: when there is a tsunami, would you run towards Tibet or Zhejiang? Don’t overanalyse – this film wasn’t shot by the Chinese propaganda department. Perhaps the only thing the Americans thought about was the box office.

The Chinese parts in the movie were quite cleverly portrayed. It not only pleased the ideological tainted Chinese officialdom, gaining permission to be shown uncensored, it also catered to the Western audiences’ love of Tibetan characteristics.  

WTF! What's the difference between China and Tibet?

"Tibet Does Not Exist, Tibet Does Exist" by Woeser

A few hours ago, along with three friends, I saw the film, Dreaming Lhasa. Directed by Tenzing Sonam and Ritu Sarin, it was released in 2005. Tenzing Sonam is the descendant of a member of the Tibetan Resistance Group known as “Four Rivers Six Ranges” (Chushi Gangdruk), who heroically went into exile in 1959. He was born in Darjeeling, and has been to Tibet. Ritu Sarin is his wife, and she is an Indian. The film vividly conveys the heart-felt suffering and pain experienced by exile Tibetans for the past 48 years, and it enables its audience to feel this suffering intimately. It’s because of what happened yesterday, that things are happening today and will happen tomorrow… I myself don’t know what will happen tomorrow. But Dhondup (one of the characters in the film), who spent four years in prison in Lhasa, gazed at the floating clouds over the sky of Dharamsala, and said: “No matter what Lhasa is like and no matter whether there are Chinese there or not, I am determined to go back to Lhasa.” When I heard this, tears streamed down my face. Among the three friends who watched the movie with me, D is Tibetan. Like Tenzing Sonam, she was also born in a foreign land. During the film, she translated the few lines of English dialogue for me in a low voice. L and G are a loving Chinese couple, both of whom received their Ph.D. from Beijing University. I know them well, and I like to watch films with them. Maybe what L said at the end of the film was right; that we all had very complex responses. I fully understood his words, and it was only because I had the same feelings, that all sorts of emotions welled up in my heart. After all, given that from 1950 up to the present, the nation and the country, and individuals like you and me, have been involved in so many entanglements, undergone so many losses, and experienced so much pain, how would it be possible for us not to have complex emotions or find it difficult to express our feelings? Later, after D and I returned to our apartments, we continued to chat about the movie via the net. Just like the Tibetans who had gathered in Dharamsala in the film, D comes from Britain, and I am from Lhasa. But our watching the film together had a more unique significance, because from a small corner of Beijing, we were trying to get to know American Tibetans in Dharamsala, Indian Tibetans and Lhasa Tibetans, all of whom are Tibetans in a state of exile. Though D hardly speaks much Chinese, she can already write many Chinese characters. I really admire her for learning Chinese in just a year. She told me that the translation of the title of the movie was not very accurate. She said, “In English, it means that Lhasa is a dream. It’s very important to understand this distinction.” When I asked her the reason for this, she typed the following Chinese characters and sent them to me: “Everybody has their version of Lhasa. In particular, although most Tibetans in exile have not been to Lhasa, they have always talked about Lhasa from when they were little. But how can they know what kind of a place Lhasa is? So, it is just like a dream…though this movie is about Tibet, Tibet does not appear in it even once. There is no Tibet!” Tibet does not exist! But everybody knows that Tibet does exist. It is precisely because we feel that Tibet does not exist or that it does exist that we have become kindred spirits. We still have our dream. I wanted to say a few words about the movie on my blog, so I googled it. First, I searched for “Dreaming Lhasa” on google, and I was able to find the poster. Karma, who grew up in America, looks beautiful and fashionable, but in her eyes there is also the pain and suffering associated with exile life. Dhondup, who has fled from Lhasa to Dharamsala to fulfil a promise, wears a poor quality suit throughout the movie, and in the poster, he is hidden in the snow mountains and peaks. And in the silver talisman (Gawu), to which many people will prostrate upon seeing it, His Holiness’s thin and lean face is carved in the hearts of those Tibetans who were not able to escape and had to live in Tibet. Then, when I googled “Dreaming Lhasa” in Chinese, there were a few entries, most of which were advertisements for a trip called, “Dreaming Lhasa”, sponsored by travel agencies all over China. 19 November 2007 Translated from Chinese View the original here