“Whether intentionally or unintentionally, some kind of cultural genocide is taking place,” said the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader. He was referring to China’s policy of encouraging the ethnic Han majority to migrate to Tibet, restrictions on Buddhist temples and re-education programs for monks. — via NPR
Just as there was an East Berlin and a West Berlin, visitors to Lhasa will find the Old Town surrounding the Potala Palace and what the locals call “Chinatown” a smooth slick strip of wide boulevards shopping malls, brand name hotels and cheap souvenirs made not by hand but by machine in sweatshops far away from Tibet.
There is a tension between the two cultures that becomes apparent to anyone reaching for their first gasp of thin air in the Autonomous Region. And it worries me that we in the West ignore the Tibet-China problem because Tibet has been stereotyped as a “celebrity cause” with the celebrity devotion ringing a bit hollow at time. I also suspect the Dali Lama has a sort of new-agey patina to those who don’t really get how the politics, culture and religion of the Tibetan people are so intertwined and the Chinese government’s sincere belief that Tibet is part of China and there is no room in China for anything that is not Chinese. This isn’t particularly the fault of the government, but rather a cultural concept that China belongs to the Chinese, specifically the Han Chinese. In the west and especially in the United States with its “melting pot” traditions, don’t really understand why cultures can’t exist side by side elesewhere in the world.