On our second day in Lhasa we visited Barkhor Square and the narrow streets that surround the most holy site for Tibetan Buddhists: Jokhang Temple. Pilgrims come here from all over Tibet, some of them prostrating themselves one body-length at a time, every step of the way. The street that curves around the temple was bustling with Tibetan pilgrims, most of them spinning prayer wheels or fingering rosaries. Men and women and children, all were dressed in their best for this Mecca-like experience.
The walk around the temple is lined with little shops and street sellers, selling Buddhist images and trinkets, prayer flags and prayer beads, knives and thangkas, which are Buddhist paintings. They also sell items for tourists, such as silver earrings, chunky necklaces and bracelets, and T-shirts saying “Yak Yak Yak Yak.” Some of the sellers we talked to were Tibetan and some were Han Chinese.
After lunch, we visited the Sera Monastery, founded in 1419, which still looks like a walled medieval town. It is famous for its colleges, where young monks are trained. As part of their training, they have to debate the fine points of Buddhist doctrine. We saw them practicing this debating, in a stone-covered courtyard. The monks are paired, and one sits on the stones while the other stands and asks him questions. If he answers right, the standing monk slaps his hands together a certain way; if not, the standing monk shakes his finger in front of the other’s face and explains the point. I know that Jewish scholars use debate as a teaching tool. We Christians use in-fighting instead! We could learn from the Buddhists a about using debate as part of seminary teaching.
Finally, we went to Norbulinka, the summer palace of the Dalai Lama. It is a large, walled enclosure, a flat wooded area with lovely walks and several small palaces. One was built by the current Dalai Lama in the 1950s, and has an old radio and a bathroom with a toilet and shower! Possibly the first installed in Tibet. Every September, the Tibetans of Lhasa gather in a square here for a big festival. After touring the buildings, we sat in a lovely patio overlooking a fish pond.
Back home, so many people told me what to expect in Tibet, most of them people who had never been here. I was told it would be cold and snowy; dangerous from riots; potentially fatal from high altitude sickness; and so full of Chinese I wouldn’t see any Tibetans except a few on display. So far, none of these has proven true.
Global warming has shown up in Tibet as glacier melt and higher temperatures, so that it reached 80 degrees each of our three days in Lhasa. The riots of 2008 were serious but have not been repeated – in part because of the heavy military presence in sensitive areas, such as the Barkhor market area. Neither Paul nor I had altitude sickness at all, beyond a light headache and some mild shortness of breath. (Thanks to Diamox for me and HongJingTian for him!)
Clearly, there are a lot of Han Chinese living in the rapidly growing city of Lhasa, running stores and restaurants and hotels and other businesses, as well as military. Still, Tibetans are visible everywhere, many of them well-dressed in traditional clothing, especially as pilgrims who come to worship at the holy places here. We were told that the population of Lhasa drops by about half in the winter, because the tourist industry shuts down and many Han Chinese go back home. That would account for widely varying estimates of the Han population of Lhasa. What I have seen of Tibetans showed that they are free to practice their religion, which is very meaningful to them. Whether they are happy, I can’t say.
The government is building a new house for every Tibetan who wants one, and we saw many new Tibetan-style houses (with their distinctive prayer flags flying from the roofs). We talked to a Tibetan from the exile community in India who was given a visa to come back immediately after the Yushu earthquake because both his parents died in the quake. Our guide is Tibetan, and he is careful not to discuss things that are too politically sensitive, and he asks us for our understanding.
The only times I felt sad were when I saw the Dalai Lama’s bedroom in the Potala Palace and the Norbulinka summer palace. Groups of tourists like me troupe through his bedroom, where he has not been able to sleep since 1959. He is 75. I hope that he and the Chinese government can come to some agreement – perhaps one that surprises us all – during his lifetime, so that he can go home to Tibet and sleep in his own bed and see his people, who still revere him.
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