Taking The Essence

To a child it looked like the grownups were building sandcastles in the sandbox: Both my maternal and paternal grandfathers used to play this game every morning in their homes: "Om Vajra Bhumi Ah Hung...," sprinkle rice grains here, "Om Vajra Rekhe Ah Hung…," sprinkle rice grains there. Then rub the vessel, rub, rub, rub with your right ell, sprinkle rice grains on the vessel, stack a ring, fill it completely up with rice, stack the next, smaller concentric ring, again filling that up with rice grains, all the while solemnly mumbling important-sounding words until the whole tower culminated in a conical construct that was to be destroyed at the end - just like a sandcastle.

It seemed like the Tibetan version of the Sisyphean task - the same thing over and over without a visible result. But while Sisyphus was condemned to roll the rock up the hill only to see it roll down again shortly before reaching the peak, my grandfathers offered and destroyed Mandalas voluntarily and enthusiastically until the end of their days.

Little did I know that the Mandala offering was an integral part of many people's regular Buddhist practice and that it could contain the entire Buddhist path all the way up to enlightenment in one go. It had a deep meaning.

I was reminded of the Mandral because my aunt asked me to come over a while ago. Whether I could donate my grandfather’s religious belongings to a monastery in Tibet? My Somola had no special affinity for Buddhism but was thoughtful enough to look for a suitable solution for the sacred objects lying around the house collecting dust.

Symbolising the Mandala offerings

Upon taking a closer look, I discovered my Pola's old Mandral. After half my lifetime was spent in Dharma oblivion, I somehow became interested after all and - funny enough - one of the first things I had learned was the Mandral using my hands as Mudra to symbolize the offerings. So when my aunt allowed me to keep my grandfather's Mandala set saying she was happy it remained in the family, I felt elated: Now I could practice with "the real thing" just like the others, that was my first thought. I didn’t anticipate the new significance that was to grow out of the inherited Mandala set.

Initially attracted by the Buddhist message of how the three poisons – ignorance, greed and anger - influence our actions and keep us rotating through Samsara, and how through systematically developing strong ethics, wisdom and compassion we could save us from ourselves, the Mandral gave me a first taste of the backbreaking work the implementation of these ideas into one's life could actually become.

In public, Mandalas are usually offered at the beginning of a Buddhist teaching to the Lama who is going to give it. At home, the Mandral would be offered to your personal Lama under whose guidance you normally practice and whose blessings or inspiration you sought to make progress. In the prayer, all kinds of things were given away as a gift to the Lama in exchange for the teaching or the blessings. You basically offered the whole universe. I was under the impression that the Mandala was a method to make us less attached to things and become more generous, although at the back of my head I had some doubt about the effectiveness because after all, we were offering fantasy things we didn’t own. Even though I had learned that in Buddhism things were never just what they seemed, I was unable to connect that insight to my Mandala situation at the time.

I don't know how my grandfathers went about learning it but I began by trying to draw all the objects that appeared in the prayer: The holy ground, the fence, the king of mountains in the centre and all the other components, arranging everything in the correct sequence. When I was half way through, having a tougher and tougher time to draw elements like "automatically growing fields", I began to suspect that I was trying to reinvent the wheel: Someone somewhere must have made a better drawing already. I can't possibly be the only person on the planet wanting to learn the Mandala offering? Bingo! I found a very helpful illustration.

http://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Thirty-seven_Point_Mandala_Offering

This picture then served as a visual crutch to memorise the prayer. To intensify the exercise, I downloaded it from the internet and recited along in the evenings when walking the dog. After a few weeks, I got it. Next time in Buddhism class, when everyone was offering Mandalas to request the teaching, I had caught up with the others: I knew my offering by heart and inside out.

But now that I had my own Mandrel set, again I needed to learn the ritual or procedure. The mental picture and the words were there but where and when to place the heaps of rice grains, the rings, when does the rubbing come in et cetera?

So I found myself a video in the internet of a Mandala offering to which I practiced simultaneously rewinding as many times as necessary – basically many, many times. Eventually I did master the ritual - only to realize a while later that I still wasn’t there: I had merely got on top of the mechanics that were visible from the outside. The real work hadn’t even begun!

In order to make the Mandala offering effective, you had to try and understand the deeper meaning: So what did "the ground" represent? What was the meaning of "the fence" and all the other things that appeared in the prayer? And why did we offer objects like the minister, the elephant, the horse, the general, the queen, the treasure vase and so on, when they didn't belong to us?

What looked trivial like building sandcastles turned out as a highly sophisticated method to induce a change to our habitual thinking pattern. All the outer, ritual action was there to trigger an inner, mental transformation. Whether it was the Mandala, the water offering or the prostrations – they were all a means to an end. The end was to get to a higher or broader, more aware or deeper level of mind.

Looking up and down the Internet and in bookshops or talking to friends was a good start but at one point, I realised, nothing can replace the wisdom of a good Lama. There are things that are not available “out there” that you can only hope to catch if you find a qualified Lama and stick around for long enough. In my case, this meant continueing to attend Buddhism courses and offering Mandrels with good intention but without really understanding the deeper meaning for almost three years until I accidentally heard the Lama explain it more as an aside:

"The ground" was your mind and the offerings represented the positive mental attributes you were determined to develop and for which you requested the teacher's inspiration and blessing. The minister, for example, stood for flexibility, the horse for concentration, the general was equanimity, the queen joy and the treasure vase symbolized the power of memory. I guess the destruction at the end is to teach you that you shouldn't get all uptight about reaching these qualities. They are fundamental but if you get hung up you lost before you started.

The Lama also spoke of inner, outer, secrete and ultimate Mandala and depending on the level of understanding, an offered object could have several meanings. The Mandala was one of the many tools the Buddha gave people so they could achieve a mental transformation according to their individual ability and determination. You could custom-build your Mandala: As a beginner you would offer it with a mindset to accumulate wholesome and reduce negative Karma and aim for a good rebirth. As a moderate student you offer it with the intention to develop your mind to the level where you can overcome cyclic existence or rebirth altogether, and as an advanced practitioner you would offer the Mandral with the inner attitude to achieve enlightenment for the sake of all.

Offering a Mandala was something so basic in Tibetan Buddhism yet it could also become very elaborate containing the whole Buddhist path with the bulk of the action happening invisibly for external observers. Tampering with the Mandala set was merely assistive equipment for the work on the inside, that’s what the Lama’s comments made me realise.

The good news out of this long Mandala learning story is that I don't need to learn a whole lot more other techniques such as reciting 100,000 mantras or going on long retreats. With the Mandala, it is possible to achieve more than I could hope to handle. It’s like a one-size-fits-all garment perfect for any need.

But something else happened when I used my grandpa's Mandral gear the first time and noticed that the Tog for crowning the Mandala was missing.

Neither my aunt nor my mom remembered where the Tog could be. The only thing my mom knew was that it was made of noble metal. Maybe it was in the safe at the bank? I was barely able to hold the full Mandala with my two hands it was that heavy already. I wasn't keen on adding more weight with a fancy silver or golden Tog.

Just around that time my cousin, a Buddhist monk in Tibet, came to visit. It was a Herculean task to obtain a tourist visa because the authorities suspected he would seek political asylum in this country. I never had a doubt he would not return. Once when we were in Tibet discussing his Buddhist education, the option to flee to India came up. It is generally accepted that the Buddhist training one received in the Tibetan monasteries in India is superior to the one in the homeland. But my cousin replied: "Aché, I can't leave. What would happen to Tibet if all the good people left? A few decent ones must stay back."

When he noticed that my Mandral was missing the Tog, he made me one out recycled cardboard without further ado. It reminded me more of a Roman Catholic bishop's hat but it did the job at no additional weight.  

Mountain Phoenix' Mandala set 

Altogether my Mandral had now become very personal: It came from my maternal grandfather who grew up in Tibet before the arrival of the Chinese, it was being used by me, who was born in a democratic, occidental setting, and it was crowned by my paternal cousin, a Buddhist monk in Tibet born after the Cultural Revolution. It is said that the Mandala symbolizes the universe and amazingly my Mandral really did contain my little world!

Now I was fully equipped but offering a Mandala remains a difficult task. The visualised offerings don't take shape fast enough. The pictures in my head often lag behind the recitation which goes on rhythmically. The Lama said with Dharma practice it’s like with weight training: You build your strength step by step. The more you exercise, the easier it becomes.

Meanwhile I also discovered a trick: Sometimes when I imagine my Pola and I are doing the Mandala offering together, sitting in front of the altar side by side, mumbling the words together, doing the visualisations together and dedicating whatever positive vibes come out of the exercise to the benefit of everybody including ourselves, that's when the visualisations are a little less difficult.

I also remember my dad and my grandma and there is a sense of continuation. Through the Mandral I feel close to them and when I add the Tog to crown my Mandala, my brave cousin comes to mind in his monastery in Tibet upholding the teaching and providing guidance to the community. In my eyes, he stands for all the brave Tibetans who decide to remain in Tibet come what may.

Through the Mandala I finally also understood that the central role accorded to Lamas in Tibetan Buddhism is justified. Lamas are not the heroes of Tibetan culture for no good reason. If our Buddha potential was the seed, a qualified Lama could make the seed sprout so we develop strong roots. Their work was unparalleled and indispensable.

For the longest time I used to have an aversion against Buddhism because I held it responsible for the loss of our country. I was unfairly politicizing Buddhism which was never meant as a form of government to start with. Buddhism has always been about the sentient beings and how to improve their situation with complete disregard for worldly concepts like “country” or “government”.

Who would have thought that I become a person that offers Mandalas? Lamas did not figure in my set of acquaintances either. But there is a common Tibetan saying: "As people get older, they remember their roots; as birds get older they stay on the tree" or in Tibetan:

Mi rgas dus rang-yul; bya rgas dus shing ‘go

How many times have I heard the saying and it never struck a chord?

Now it rings true.

It looks like I have been taking many things way too literal. With the circular Mandala I have come full circle too. Things fall into place and I feel good about it. I feel like old wine in new skins. 

Mandala is khyil khor in Tibetan, which means "turning from the middle" or "taking the essence". It boils down to offering all our positive, wholesome potential of the past, the present and the future to our own enlightenment and to the enlightenment of all beings. It's a huge, ambitious task but I decided to try to take the essence just like my grandparents before me, my cousin in Tibet, and loads of other people around the world whom I don’t know.

May everyone find their source of inspiration!

Mountain Phoenix

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A Private Conversation About The Recent Language Protests In Tibet

Students in Chabcha, Qinghai,  2010

My partner came home from his latest trip to Tibet a few days ago. He was aware of the Tsongön language protests although he is stationed in another region. He said the governor of his area summoned all educators and warned them not to get involved and spread information about the recent protest especially via SMS. He called for extreme caution because the language protest had become political and he didn’t want people in his area to become associated with it and get (him?) into trouble.

When I listened to my partner, that governor came across as so negative: Instead of displaying solidarity with the demand to keep Tibetan as medium of instruction in classrooms, which is in the interest of all Tibetan-speaking people all over the highlands, this guy specifically instructs people to restrain themselves and keep quiet. What an irresponsible leader! What a miserable coward! No wonder his area figures among the poorest in terms of Tibetan language proficiency. It’s probably not exaggerated if I say the proficiency level among Tibetan officials there doesn’t rise above the vocab of a 5-year old.

I had to think back.

I worked in a middle school there in the mid-1990s. Tibetan wasn’t considered important enough to figure on the curriculum. On my first day in the classroom I was taken aback by the Chinese name cards in front of the students: The children all looked “rugged-faced” but had these names that wouldn’t suit their faces.

“I didn’t come all the way here to teach Chinese kids”, was my first thought, “they tricked me”, was my second thought.

Later when I became friendly with some of the other teachers they assured me my students were all kosher Tibetan kids. They were just not from the surrounding countryside but town kids. By then I had become suspicious myself. During breaks I would occasionally hear snatches of Tibetan when the children were at play.

Gradually I realised that many of those Chinese-sounding names were not properly Chinese after all. For example, there was a boy sitting in the front row with funny glasses. He was a good student.  The name on his card said “QI LU RONG”. I figured out “Qi” was his Xing or Chinese family name. It was customary for townspeople in this part of Tibet to have a Chinese family name parallel to their Tibetan family name, that much I knew. Depending on which culture they were operating in, they would use either their Chinese or Tibetan name. Since school is a public affair, the kid naturally used his Xing.

So far so good - but then what was “Lu Rong” supposed to represent? It turned out that was a clumsy Chinese rendering of the local Tibetan, a malapropism of the Tibetan “Lobsang” which in this region is pronounced something like “Luzon”; and since we are dealing with people who are all illiterate in their mother tongue - and since we can hardly expect the Chinese to know the correct rendering of Tibetan names into Hanzi - the bona fide Tibetan name “Lobsang” became the dreadfully sinicised “Lu Rong” - out of sheer ignorance and incompetence.

During that time, I occasionally visited Anye Rinchen, an old Tibetan who had returned from an Indian settlement in the late 1980-ies. When he was a bit drunk he used to tease the local officials: “When you folks go to a conference up in Lhasa, you have to keep your mouths shut because you don’t know Ükè, only the local Tibetan dialect; and when you go to a conference down in Beijing, you folks also have to keep your mouths shut because you don’t know Putonghua, only your local Chinese dialect.”  There wasn’t anything the officials could say because it was true. Even Anye Rinchen, himself illiterate in any language, clearly saw their limits.

These are stories over ten years old, Anye Rinchen passed away in the meantime and things have gradually been changing.

My partner said: “The same governor who called for restraint with regard to the Amdo language protests has been taking private Tibetan lessons himself to make up for his deficit.“

“His learning curve must be steep,” I exclaimed, “because a year ago I heard him deliver a formal speech at a new-year event in surprisingly decent Tibetan!”

“Some other intellectually more sophisticated officials must have also recognised their lack in substance”, my partner continued, “Many are taking private Tibetan lessons these days. There is a small presence of Tibetan language teachers from outside the region who cater to those needs.”

Yes, and I also remembered at least one official had a child studying at the Tibetan Children’s Village in Dharamsala although the official version was that the kid was studying in Lhasa.

So when the governor summoned everyone to tell them not to get involved in the Tsongön language protests, was this perhaps intentionally phrased ambiguously so his Chinese superiors would not become suspicious? Was this perhaps not to be interpreted as cowardly after all but as skillful?

Mirig dranyam - keyig rangwang - "All nationalities are equal - freedom of language"

I asked: “Since the official allegation is that the language protests are politically motivated, what other method than taking to the streets could the students possibly have used? Do you think there would have been a more skillful way for the students to make themselves heard without getting into trouble?”

He said: “It is not clear to me how the government delivered the message and what it exactly entailed. Did they say they want to stop using Tibetan as the medium of instruction? Did they say they want to stop all Tibetan in classrooms? If the message was too harsh, then students and teachers naturally felt threatened.”

He continued: “I am also not sure about the penetration of spoken Tibetan in Amdo. I can only infer it must be a bilingual set-up in the classrooms because the Amdowas speak great Chinese too. I can’t imagine there are exclusively Tibetan-medium schools since education is government job. Still the Tsongön area is way ahead with regard to penetration of the Tibetan language. They teach all the subjects - including the sciences - in Tibetan. Isn’t that wonderful? They continuously develop and enrich our language adding new vocabulary so anything and everything going on in our world and our minds can be expressed in our mother tongue. The work they have done is so encouraging and so important. They have made significant contributions to the continued relevance of Tibetan culture today.”

And then he said something striking:

“When you see how skillful the Tsongön people have been in getting this far within the system – not only preserving but enriching and expanding Tibetan – and when you think of the experience they must possess in dealing with authoritarian government, it’s a bit baffling that they chose to take to the streets rather than looking for a more subtle method. Because they are aware the official reaction to the protests can cause an enormous setback to the advancement of the Tibetan language for a long time to come.”

It’s true. They are risking a lot. We are already hearing of principals, deputies, being fired or transferred and even students being interrogated. And we are learning about more protests. But then should they just have restrained themselves just like this governor suggested?

I said: “It must have been an emotional short circuit. There is no other rational explanation. After all, this piece of news comes just as one more arbitrary policy aimed at pressing the irritatingly non-conform Tibetan identity into the Chinese mainstream. Maybe it was the last straw that broke the camel’s back. Maybe people were just fed up and couldn’t help but to air their anger without thinking about the long-term consequences.”

My partner asked: “Do you really think they have a plan to wipe out Tibetan because it makes us so different?”

I reflected for a moment: “I think it’s not about us and what makes us special. It’s about them and what makes life easier for them. The motivation to press us into the Chinese mainstream is so administering becomes easier for them. It’s all about what is easier and practical for them. They want to lump everyone together so it’s easier for them to manage “the masses”.

My partner reminded me: “But don’t forget, officially they embrace bilingualism. Maybe in practice, it risks to foster separate identities that they want to prevent. So their position on bilingualism in practice becomes ambiguous.”

I said: “Practicing bilingualism correctly also means having to acknowledge people’s diversity, which is contrary to their ill-conceived idea of man. All their policies are rooted in their linear, flat and mistaken idea of man that material well-being is all that people need to be happy. That’s very communist but at the same time it is also very feudal.  It’s not like they have problem only with Tibetan, but it goes on to Cantonese and Uighur as we know. “

“I also believe they don’t do a grand analysis of how the Tibetan language – secular or religious – fosters a separate identity,” my partner said slowly, “it’s shallow mind most of the time, I think you’re right. You know they have this word xitonghua, which means to systematize, norm or standardize everything like a commodity. That’s the expression they also use in raising sports figures, athletes. I met one at the airport who said in the West, they focus on the individual’s strength and develop these, whereas in China, they have one single approach for all athletes – “xitonghua”. Since there are so many athletes, chances are out of a hundred, one makes it to the top with this type of grooming.”

“Right, and who cares about the other ninety-nine who failed and whom they’ve messed up in the process? They have more than enough candidates, so who cares about the fall-off?” I replied.

The implications are very clear: There is little space for individuality as far as the government’s dealing with the average Chinese citizen is concerned because that means complicating their work as administrators and organisors. And on this basis we can deduct that there is no space for groups of people either who stick out like the Tibetans or Uighurs or Cantonese speakers because that also means complicating their grand scheme. It’s as linear as that. People face a government in whose mindset they are just a number to be “xitonghua-ed”.

The conversation was helpful because I began to recognize a pattern.

“But now that we’ve figured them out, isn’t it up to us to find ways to work around that pattern,” I asked, “because the way things are at the moment, we do not have power to break it or even challenge it?”

My partner was firm: “We have to challenge them when we believe things go wrong but we have to make sure our actions remain not only peaceful and within the constitution, but at the same time very careful and well thought out. Since their default disposition vis-à-vis the Tibetans is nervousness they are prone to overreact and we have to bear the consequences.”

Then he asked me the crunch question: “Do you think it’s worth making the effort to teach our kids? Do you think they will ever speak Tibetan and use it when they’re grown up?”

We all wonder all along whether it’s worth keeping up the Tibetan identity.

I spontaneously replied: “We have to keep on teaching them and making every effort. It’s the right thing to do. We don’t need to speculate too much about its eventual outcome. We have to do what’s right without getting obsessed.”

I added: “What our children do with their heritage is no longer in our hands and we shouldn’t be too concerned about that either. Also, as people who have faith in the Dharma, we must try to look at this as a practical exercise in the law of cause and condition that says if you create the conditions, you will get matching results. We may not live to see what comes out of this exercise but we can be confident we exhausted all methods that are in our power.”

I don’t know what made me say all that. Life would be a lot easier if we just stopped the Tibetan overtones and became thorough Westerners or Chinese, I’m sure you agree. But when my partner looked at me with what I thought was a warm and loving expression on his face, I knew I had instinctively said the right thing.

It boils down to our demand to respect our individuality versus their habit of lumping everybody together like a commodity and pushing through uniform policies that are easiest for them. It’s a matter of perseverance and individual choice for all Tibetans, whether we live in Tibet or outside. Tibetan spoken at home in the family is where it starts. Even in Tibet with official pressure in the schools, this is completely in our hands and is the absolute minimum we all can do.

Maybe my partner and I are too simple-minded. Maybe we are under-analysing the situation but that’s what we believe. We also believe the accuracy of our analysis doesn’t matter so much as long as we carry on.

Kelsang Tenzin Kamè 30

I came across a really cool alphabet rap from Tibet the other day. The name of the song is “kamè 30” by a performer called Kelsang Tenzin left in the picture.

Never heard about the guy before, but the song is powerful because it contains an ardent appeal to more self-responsibility in holding high our beautiful Tibetan language. 

The chorus says:

Children of the Land of Snows 

We Tibetans have a saying:

“No matter how many languages you know

If you forget your father’s tongue, then shame on you!  

There's a link to the video at the bottom. It’s easy to get distracted by the video because it’s so hip. Just pay attention to the message. It tells us what we need to hear: We can be multi-lingual, widely-travelled, professionally successful, socially respected, politically influential, rich, famous - we can possess all outward signs of success, but if we neglect our mother tongue in the pursuit or fail to pass it on to our children, our achievements are incomplete - because we lost touch with our roots.

There is absolutely nothing to add to that.

Mountain Phoenix

Kelsang Tenzin's "Alphabet Rap"

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A Comment to “Two songs about Tibetan unity” on High Peaks Pure Earth

I appreciate High Peaks Pure Earth because it brings significant developments in Tibet and China to our attention. Recently, it discussed songs about Tibetan unity: “Mentally return” and “Song of unity” to which I would like to add some comment.

When I heard the song “Mentally return” for the first time about two years ago, the few fragments I believed I understood were enough to knock me off my feet. What an immortal declaration of love to our homeland, the gracious land of snows! A hunt for the music and the lyrics began which only ended in the Barkhor last summer, when I finally managed to buy a VCD of the 2007 Rebkong open-air concert which featured “Mentally return”.

In case the VCD is still on sale, people should make sure they buy plenty of copies. The disk quality is so poor that after watching it a second time, it would just stop every other second and not move for the longest time.

Did you also marvel at the large audience? I do hope people showed up out of free will and attendance wasn’t orchestrated. I rejoiced inside over so many “rugged-faced” folks of all ages participating peacefully in what was not only a visibly big entertainment event, but also a gigantic exercise in reaffirming collective identity. Moreover, the whole concert was moderated exclusively in Tibetan. That was encouraging when we recall that even cultural events often have bilingual moderation at best.

After the 2008 unrests, I wonder how long it will take before such large gatherings will be allowed again. We hear the organizers of the pompous, bi- or tri-annual Kangba Yishu Jie (“Khampa Arts Festival”) were looking all over the place for a “safe” location to stage this year’s event, but low profile. As a last resort, they settled for the rebaptised “Shangri-la” Tibetan Prefecture of Dechen in Yunnan. I have always wondered whether the Tibetans really find it entertaining to look at people in plump jewellery and machos in stone-age felt outfits parading through the streets with archaic daggers hanging from their belts. Or is this a top-down ordered marketing event aimed primarily at tourists? Let’s see how it goes. The festival is still going on as I am writing.

But to come back to “Mentally return”, I see it standing in the tradition of inward-looking, identity-strengthening songs that are also lyrically discerning like Tso Ngonpo by Dadon or more recent songs by Kunga. If we think about it, even songs from the old Tibetan era are the symbolic, poetic type. For instance the 6th Dalai Lama’s TrungTrung Karmo or Makyé Amé. They are equally about something which is important to the composer's heart, but which can’t be openly expressed because it would cause trouble.

These days, some artists pick old songs and modify them, but still stick to the symbolic, indirect style: There is a popular Amdo remix of the Dalai Lama’s Trungtrung Karmo. It’s sung in the form of a dialogue between a person and a migratory bird. Obviously, the only reason for the dialogue is the underlying circumstance that the person is separated from its kin by a third party and can’t interact freely. Still the remake is not a sad song at all, but a cheerful one. In this language of symbolism and vagueness this could – or could not – mean: Even though you suppress us, we will not allow you to spoil our mood. Check it out:

I heard Sherten’s “Song of unity” for the first time on High Peaks Pure Earth. It’s a soft and pretty song. The words on the other hand, are unmistakably direct. Certainly it is brave to be so direct, but is it also wise, I wonder. That road is confrontation and could lead directly to trouble and prison. Is our cause served by that? I am not sure.

The words are bold, yet the meaning is not clear. What is meant when the Tibetans of three historical provinces are asked to “unite”? Work to become one administrative unit but still under China? Work to become separate from China? “Unite” meaning do what?

Moreover, the phrase “unite” (dogtsa jigdril) is an over-used panacea applied to all our political problems. Often it is also interpreted to mean “Don’t talk back, just do as you're told”. I felt uneasy when I heard Sherten call “unite, unite” throughout the song.

I know it’s a traditional music style. But I find excessive goat-like singing with “baa baa” over every vowel at the end of a line un-cool. Just makes the sound very folksy and “Country-music”. That’s just my individual taste though, ignore it. Sherten is undisputedly a rising star and currently dominates the charts also in our corner of the highlands, with every place playing his music. Everybody here, boy and girl alike, loves his music without ifs and buts.

Still I fully agree with High Peak Pure Earth’s assessment that “Mentally return” is the more powerful of the two songs. The only thing is the English rendering of the title. It sounds odd. I would have translated it more freely as “Many happy returns” or something to that effect.

Do you have good sites to recommend? I sometimes go to "Tibet Music Net" and “China Tibetans Music & Entertainment Portal” which friends recommended. You'll find the latest songs from the music scene in Tibet there. Not that I understand much, I just randomly click around for a taste.

It looks like music has become a flexible channel to emphasise collective identity. That’s good news. What I find even more impressive is that many composers and performers don't compromise and pay equal attention to artistically good songs.

In 2007, another album with subtle “Tibetan power” songs was published in Lhasa. The title is Lhämè kyi tsesog – “the stainless life” and features 16 songs performed by less-well and better known artists including Zimi 9pa, Kunga, Yadong, Jamyang Kyi, and also Sherten.

Check out track no. 5 Sem ü kyi dunpa which I would freely translate as "Prayer from the bottom of my heart". It's performed by singer Norsang in the picture below. Lyrics are by Tenzin Chodak and the tune by Lhakpa. The singing style is reminiscent of Sherten but the accent is closer to high Tibetan, so a translation may not be necessary:

I'm still struggling to get the audio on the blog. Once it's there, listen close: You'll love the ending line where he says rang rig rang-gi kyongla sho. In these rough times, may we find the strength to save ourselves.

Ema!
Mountain Phoenix

It’s The Spirit, Stupid!

Had I only visited this town on the edges of the Tibetan plateau and not lived there for almost two years, I would remember Pang Didi (“fat little brother”) as one of the most sinicised biological Tibetans I had ever come across.

He was working as a chauffeur for a hotel and, although he knew I was from abroad, always spoke to me in Chinese with the utmost presumption. The few times he switched the language, probably because my reactions always came in Tibetan, it would be so heavily peppered with Chinese, you would call that “Chinetan” or “Tibnese”.

Although it’s such a cliché, it wouldn’t have surprised me if Pang Didi ate dog meat. Some local Tibetans apparently found nothing wrong with that.

There was generally no air of Tibetanness around him, except perhaps his height and facial features. If he had a Tibetan name at all, he did not use it. Historically, most town folks here have had a Chinese surname.

In my eyes, Pang Didi seemed the epitome of a Tibetan “made in China”: No trace of Buddhist values in his behaviour, no awareness of Tibetan culture, no idea of Tibetan history.

Only later, I made an observation which got me thinking.

We happened to hang out with the same crowd in the “Black-Neck Crane”, a favourite Karaoke bar at the time. In came a group of tourists from Shanghai. They started singing English songs taking over the whole place. Suddenly Pang Didi said to me: “C’mon sis, pick an English song, let’s show these Chinese chickens that we Tibetans are much better at singing English songs!”

It may sound like an insignificant statement, but to me, that was the moment when I was able to catch a glimpse of his Tibetan identity. I only saw it because I had been around long enough. I don’t think he would have said that to me if we had just known each other.

That moment I realised, it’s not the language, not the religion, nor anything else that is superficially visible; it’s the spirit, stupid!

I found unexpected traces of this spirit in others too who, by expat-Tibetan standards, would be considered Chinese.

Once I went to the monastery with Teacher Wang. His father, a soldier from somewhere in China proper, had been left behind wounded, when the army marched through this town on their Long March.

Nick-named xiao gongchan (“little communist”) by the town’s people, his dad married a local Tibetan woman and settled here. Teacher Wang grew up with the local Tibetan kids and, as the head of a research institute, became one of the few learned people in this area. He also had a very kosher Tibetan name printed on the reverse of his business card.

Teacher Wang probably had more than one identity but to me he was a Tibetan. He knew our customs and habits, and whether he considered himself a Buddhist or not, seemed to respect our Lamas. Unlike some of the pure-bred local Tibetans, I never saw him smoke in their presence.

He spoke the local Tibetan well, and also understood high Tibetan spoken in the central areas. Some said he had a staccato accent and strange intonation, which when I think of it, is true. But I learned later that it was common for Tibetans from areas with strong Chinese influence to have an accent. They never really grow up with Tibetan as their mother tongue, only acquire it later, which then is noticeable in their adult speech.

In my eyes, Teacher Wang deserved respect for this effort. We all know too well what it takes.

Then we stood before the monastery gate, where visitors had to buy tickets. I told him I find it inappropriate to have to buy tickets to enter the monastery. He smiled and said, that the Tibetans only charge the Chinese, but not the others.

“For all the pressure there is from the top and the sides, the monks are very clever when it comes to circumventing instructions they disapprove of.”

According to Teacher Wang, this is what the monks say to Chinese visitors:

”Dear friends, it would be impious to ask the Tibetans to buy entry tickets because they come here to worship, it would be very inappropriate, we are sure you understand this: as for the Westerners, they have already spent so much money to come all the way to Tibet, would it not be impertinent if we asked them for even more money to visit our monastery? But you, the Han, have not come from so far like the Westerners, and you have not come to worship either like the Tibetans, so therefore, please understand that you should buy a ticket.”

He told that with a huge grin that said “that’s how we pay them back!”

I’ve learned from my encounters with people like Teacher Wang and Pang Didi that externally noticeable assimilation isn’t a reliable indicator for felt identity. Even a name isn’t.

But actually I should have known.

There are plenty of us living abroad in freedom, but still don’t bother to learn proper Tibetan, still don’t study our history. I have never thought of us as less Tibetan because of that.

A prominent example is the late Taktser Rinpoche’s family. When he passed away a few months ago, none of the sons, or the wife, Kunyang-la, seemed to feel confident enough to deliver the public statement in Tibetan. Instead, they spoke in English which was awkward because it felt like the main target of the message were the Americans.

For if members of Yabshey, Tibet’s top family, cannot speak Tibetan coherently enough, a Pang Didi in some remote border town surrounded and permeated by Chinese influence, hardly could.

Yet he and many others have maintained some sort of a Tibetan identity on a deeper level. Imagine how people in the central areas feel about it!

Our cause is not lost. Our hope is not lost.

Between those ugly concrete blocks, among those Chinese-speaking Tibetans in grey suits, the spirit is alive. When the time is right, it will work wonders.

Mountain Phoenix




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