Howdy

Hello,
Today is tuesday, day two of formal classes. This means that we don't have much free time anymore. 2.5 hours of Tibetan in the morning, and then a lecture or two in the afternoon. Lots of reading and projects. Yesterday's discussion was on the concept of Orientalism, or rather the Occident (America, England, France)'s perceptions towards the "East." It is rooted in colonialism and domination by the west over the "East." We looked at views of Tibet in particular, what they are, where they came from, and why people think that way. Then we talked about Donald Lopez's book Prisoners of Shangri-La, where he argues that Tibetans have adopted and played up western perceptions of Tibet and that it has led to ultimately "imprison" or impede the Tibetan independence movement. I disagree with Lopez, and I didn't like his book.

There are many perceptions of Tibet and Tibetans that westerners have. For example that all Tibetans are spiritual, compassionate, nonviolent, Buddhist, vegetarian... The fact is that none of these are true as a rule. Though vegetarianism is a rising movement, most Tibetans eat meat. Tibetans in Tibet before 1949 were definitely not nonviolent...

Anyway, I figured I'd through in a little of our discussion so you know what we're up to!

I got sick yesterday for the first time, that sucked. But I feel good today. I helped my Ama-la make chapatis for dinner. We don't eat until 9 at night, but its ok. They're trying to help me learn Tibetan but its quite hard! We just finished learning the alphabet and its pronunciation and then just today we learned several super and subscripts that change all the pronunciations!
Time for class,
Sam