Free Tibet!

Hello out there! I realize its been a long time since I last wrote... So its been two weeks of independent study, and we have three more to go. Its a totally different pace from the rest of the semester where every second was planned for us. For all of ISP time we're completely on our own doing research. Of course, there are 15 other students who came to Dharamsala with me, but we're all doing our own things. Its a nice change of pace to be able to schedule myself and really enjoy this experience. Needless to say that we've been watching a lot of movies and I'm halfway through season 3 of Scrubs :)

Anyway, my project is on activism and the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. Lhadon and Tendor from SFT HQ in New York were here for a while but they're gone now. Its been a lot harder than I thought to do this project. I'm looking at basically profiling the Olympics, why they are historically political, why it is so important for Tibet, and then ultimately trying to figure out what needs to be done to make it a catalyst for Tibetan independence. I don't know how great its going to turn out, but I'm working on it..

I really like this portion of the program, its really cool to do two months of intense academics and then have 5 weeks to just experience the culture and live in this part of the world. Its also nice that I still have a month and a half left in India!

Happy thanksgiving!
Sam

I'm back in India!

Hey friends,
So I am sitting in Majnu Ta Kila, the Tibetan refugee settlement in Delhi, India. We arrived from Kathmandu yesterday afternoon and we're heading to Dharamsala by overnight sleeper bus tonight. It's been quite a journey, these past few weeks...

Tibet is a crazy, hard, scary, beautiful, repressive, incredible, complicated place. The entire issue of Tibet is more complicated than I ever imagined. What is development? Is development good or bad? Is Tibetan culture better preserved in Tibet or in exile? What is culture? What is Tibetan culture? Everyone agrees that Tibetan is better preserved in Tibet than exile. There is almost no english in Lhasa, and all signs by law have to have Tibetan on them in addition to Chinese. The Chinese is always bigger, however.

When we first arrived in Lhasa many of us commented that it didn't really seem as bad as Tibetan exiles would have you believe. I eventually saw how wrong we were... What we came to realize after spending time in Tibet was that what we were seeing was the surface, the superficial Tibetan culture that is being preserved. The repression exists just as strongly today as it did ten years ago. Only now it is more subtle, an underlying tension that keeps everyone on edge. Tibetans are allowed to wear traditional clothing, eat Tibetan food, and practice a very limited form of Tibetan Buddhism. But even such simple things as circumambulating important sites--while allowed in general--is restricted on important dates. Just before we arrived ten monks at Drepung monastery were arrested for attempting to celebrate HHDL's recieving of the congressional gold medal by whitewashing his former residence. They were beatan, and the monastery was surrounded by the People's Liberation Army. Our group was not allowed to go there. Because of the gold medal a Chinese flag had been posted on top of the Potala palace, usually there is only one on the square in front. More Tibetans had been arrested before we arrived for chanting slogans at a karaoke bar.

Tibet is a hard place. Tibetans and Chinese don't interact, Lhasa is an incredibly segregated city. There is almost no intermarriage. There are police everywhere. Where there aren't uniformed police, there are undercover. Sometimes they are spottable by the way they act, or that they have earpieces. It was very difficult to be in Lhasa by the end, I was very sad.

Sam

Tomorrow I'm off!

Tashi Delek friends!
So tomorrow we leave for TIBET! Yup, 7am. We're flying to Lhasa we're we'll be spending 6 days exploring and learning. Then we do about 8 nights of camping in several areas whos names escape me. They are very important and interesting sites in Tibet. Mostly religious sites. We'll be doing lots of day hiking and a 3-4 day trek towards the end... with yaks! Holy moly.

So what does going to Tibet mean? Well for one it means that I will not be writing on this blog or checking my email. Thats because China reads EVERYTHING, no joke. If I opened my blog in Tibet they would see that I have been to Dharamsala and saw His Holiness and then I could get in trouble. Same goes for my email. So in the mean time I just won't check it while in Tibet. But you should still write to me, I promise I'll write back when I come back to Nepal in a few weeks!

I also know I promised pictures, but unfortunately the internet is too slow to upload them, so that too will have to wait. In the mean time check out wikipedia here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boudnanath_Stupa and read about the stupa (It also has pictures). Its a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The guesthouse we've been staying at is right next to the stupa.

So tomorrow we're off, I'll catch you on the other side...

Holy Moly in I'm in Nepal!

Hey all,
Sorry for the lack of posting over the past week. We are in Kathmandu, Nepal!!! We are staying right next to the Boudha Stupa, which is one of the most famous and important sites for Buddhists in the world. It is the famous one with the "Buddha eyes" on it. Unfortunately I don't have my camera with me at the internet cafe so I can't upload pics.... and the connection is slow anyway.

So we have been in Nepal for the past week. Our primary activities have been recieving teachings from a Khenpo from one of the bigger monasteries near Boudha Stupa (there are 41 just right here!). He is teaching about Chapter 6 of Shantideva's Way of the Bodisattva. This chapter has to do with patience, why its important, and how to develop it. In Mahayana Buddhism, a Bodisattva is the ultimate realization, and it is what Buddhists are striving for. A bodisattva is someone has attained enlightenment but who chooses to delay ultimate nirvana and stay in cyclic existence for the benefit of all sentient beings. The ultimate purpose of Buddhism is liberation from samsara, cyclic existence, which is the cycle of birth and rebirth. So a Bodisattva is often considered even higher than a Buddha because they remain on Earth to help everyone. His Holiness the Dalai Lama is believed to be an incarnation of Avalokitesvara, the Bodisattva of Compassion.

So that is what we've been doing, also exploring and continuing with language class. This evening is our last teaching and we are going to have an audience with the abbot of this monastery as well as five others in Nepal, Bhutan, and Tibet. So he's a big deal!

Kathmandu is an interesting place, it is very very dirty and polluted. Its big, incredibly historic, and has a huge western population. It is the beginning of trekking season right now as well so lots of people are here for that. Theres a gear store on every corner selling fake stuff.

In other news, we're leaving for Tibet on thursday!

In Nepal there continues to be civil unrest. The Maoists are trying to call a special sesion of parliament to abolish the monarchy, but the date keeps getting moved back. A few days ago there was a huge rally in the center of town. We're supposed to stay away from such things because of the recent bombings, we're also not allowed to take public transportation, so we take taxis.

Gotta run, more later...
love Sam

Final day in Dharamsala, for now!

Hey friends,
So today is our last day in Dharamsala, in fact, we leave tonight at 5:00pm to take taxis to the train station (3 hours away) then an overnight train to Dheli that arrives at 5:00am. Yesterday we took our language finals, both oral and written. I did pretty well. I know so much more Tibetan than I did a month a half ago, in fact 100% more Tibetan! Its pretty exciting. Tibetan is a very difficult language but you have to start somewhere. Last night we had our big final party to honor all the homestay families and to also celebrate the 20th anniversary of the SIT Tibetan Studies program. It was a lot of fun, we all dressed in semi-traditional clothing and danced! I didn't take any pictures but my friend has a bunch and I'll get some from him.

Today is a weird/good day. We've been hanging out and trying to relax for the first time after a month of crazy busy-ness. It's really sad to leave our homestays where we're just starting to get really comfortable with them. Its also sad to leave Dharamsala. Though I know I will be back for ISP, which I'm excited about.

So this past wednesday I was invited to a really important and interesting discussion between 5 British MPs and SFT/other Tibetan youth that support independence over autonomy. It was really cool and an awesome opportunity for Tibetan youth to convey their frustration with the state of the dialogue and also express the urgency of finding a solution that grants independence to Tibet. The need for independence is so great and so important and time is running out.

The biggest problem facing Tibet is population transfer from China. Period. Chinese now outnumber Tibetans in Tibet. This is a problem that is disastrous for Tibet. Tibetans are becoming marginalized in their own country. Recently the Chinese government forced 100,000 Tibetan nomads to move into cities because they claimed that the nomads were polluting the source of several major rivers that originate in Tibet but flow down into China. This is an absurd assertion because it is China that is clearcutting oldgrowth forests, strip mining the hills, and dumping nuclear waste on the Tibetan plateau!!! The nomads have been living in Tibet for thousands of years without any of the environmental problems facing China today from their policies in Tibet. Tibet must have independence. If you think it is still not going on today, right now China has 6 Tibetan teenagers (14 years old) in prison that they arrested 2 weeks ago for allegedly writing pro-Tibet slogans on the side of a building. Reports are that all of the boys have been tortured and severely beaten while in custody. If you think China does not rule by force, think again.

Now we head to Nepal...
Love, Sam

HH the DL and others

Hey all!
So yesterday we saw a teaching by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. It was very interesting. We had radios with an english translation, but it was very difficult to understand what he was talking about. Also the teachings were requested by a large group of Koreans, so the Dalai Lama would talk for 20 minutes and then a woman would translate in Korean over the loudspeaker for almost half an hour, concurrently with the english translation. So it was kind of difficult to figure out what was going on. It was cool, worth experiencing, but I didn't go back for the afternoon teachings and probably won't go to any more this week.. Unfortunately an audience is most likely not going to happen, though we will be hearing from Geshe Lhakdor, the previous translator of His Holiness.

Carrom board is fun! Its a square board with 4 holes in the corners. In the middle you start with 9 black pieces, 9 white pieces, and an orange one. All the pieces are kind of like checkers, but a little heavier. Then you have a striker which is bigger and heavier than the others. You play by flicking the striker at the other pieces. It can be played by 2 or 4 people, and each person or team of 2 is white or black, and you try to get all of your 9 pieces and then the orange one in to the holes before the other team. Its very tricky but really fun. The board we played on was home made out of plywood. Around the edge is a lip so the striker can be bounced off in order to hit the other pieces.

Hmm Tibetan food... There isn't much food in Dharamsala that is originally ethnically Tibetan. The only ones are Tibetan butter tea (what it sounds like, melted butter and milk with some tea and salt.) and tsampa. Tsampa is barley flour. Its high in fiber and protein, and they eat it by pouring some in a bowl and then pouring tea on it a little at a time. You eat with your hands. Its pretty good if you add some sugar. Other Tibetan foods are momos, which are basically dumplings. They are usually steamed, though can be fried. And are stuffed with veggies, potatoes, or meat. We also eat tingmo, which is steamed bread twisted in a knot. At my house we eat a lot of rice and veggies and dal. Another thing we eat a ton of at my house is pale (pronounced pa-LAY), which is flat bread. My amala makes a bunch of dough in the morning and then we cook it all day. You rip off a chunk and flatten it on both sides into a circle, then put it on a hot pan for a short time, and it gets warm and tasty. And last but not least that everyone drinks a ridiculous amount of is tea. Most Tibetans here only drink butter tea in the morning. But everyone drinks milk tea all the time, like almost 10 cups a day. Its just black tea with milk and sugar in it. I drink plain black tea generally, because I don't want to eat that much milk, but I do sometimes. Even that I have 10 times a day. Mmmmmmmm

We are in our last days in Dharamsala, I wish I could say it was winding down, but we have a ton of work to do... interviewing people for a paper, writing postcards in tibetan, and our finals coming up too.

woohoo!
SAM

ps, I slept on the roof of my house last night. Its 10:20 am here right now, and 12:50 am on the east coast.