Every year on March 10, Tibetan and human rights groups in Taiwan organize a march through the streets of Taipei to commemorate the Tibetan uprising against violence on March 10, 1959. Photo by Yang Zilei
May 23rd this year marks the 70th anniversary of the “peaceful liberation of Tibet” as the Chinese government calls it. However, in the view of many Tibetans, the arrival of the Chinese government in Tibet 70 years ago was not liberation, but rather brought about oppression and cultural crisis. At the same time, despite the long period of suppression, Tibetan culture is still alive and well in the world. Listen to our reporter Wang Yun’s series on a seventy-year retrospective of Tibetan culture. The next episode is broadcast today: Tibetan culture shines.
Differences between Chinese and Tibetan values
German weekly magazine Der Spiegel has cited Wikileaks as saying that Xi Jinping was fascinated by Buddhism when he was working at the local level and that his family members were also devout Buddhists. There are also rumors that many of the Communist Party’s leaders at all levels believe in Buddhism. But such a leadership still does not provide a free space for Tibetan Buddhism.
Gongga Zhaxi’s understanding of this is that “it is mainly because they do not understand in their hearts the importance of Tibetan culture.” There are also leaders who identify with Buddhism in their hearts, but their being within the Communist system prevents them from defending Tibetan Buddhism.
According to Zhu Rui, an important reason why Han Chinese find it difficult to understand the importance of Tibetan culture is because of the difference in values, “Values are almost completely opposed between China and Tibet because we value material things and Tibetans value spiritual things. People who have money and wealth may not be taken seriously by Tibetans; but some great achievers (in religion) are respected even if they live in the mountains and forests and lead a very simple life.”
For his part, Teng Biao blamed the Chinese government’s policy toward Tibetan culture on the CCP’s own crisis, “On the surface, the CCP is very powerful, but in fact it faces its own crisis in many aspects, including political crisis, social crisis and economic crisis, and ideological crisis, etc., all of which make the CCP feel that it has a crisis in power.” He stressed that the crisis of legitimacy in power has driven the CCP leadership to suppress all civil forces.
At the same time, the languages and cultures of ethnic minorities are seen by the Chinese government as being closely related to national unity, “because these places have unique languages, religions and cultures, and if they identify themselves with these identities, in the logic of the CCP, it creates separatism, separatism.”
After more than sixty years in exile, the Dalai Lama, who is eighty-five years old, is still a leader that Tibetans look up to in their hearts. (Photo / Yang Zilei)
A Culture of Freedom and Goodness
While the Chinese government has continued to suppress Tibetan culture for many years, Tibetan culture has made a splash in the world.
Tibetan Buddhism had a profound influence on the post-World War II American literary movement, the Beat Generation. Jack Kerouac, a leading figure in this movement, embodied Tibetan Buddhism in his works On the Road and The Dharma Wanderer. Another representative, Irwin Allen Ginsberg, converted to Tibetan Buddhism in the 1970s and took the Dharma name “The Lion of Dharma”.
Jury, who now lives in Canada, says that the idea of “freedom” in Tibetan Buddhism inspired these pioneering writers, “like Tantric Buddhism, which is a very fine and profound analysis of the human spirit, until it unearths the wisdom of life, which is to remove all the masks and let the spirit show its original one. light, is that spirituality can soar and flourish even more.”
Tibetan Buddhism entered the United States and other Western countries as early as the early twentieth century. With the exile of a large number of lamas to Western countries in 1959 and many Tibetan scholars teaching in American universities, Tibetan Buddhism, with Buddhist doctrine, Buddhist philosophy and Buddhist science as its three main components, gradually entered American society.
At least eight universities in the United States, including Columbia University, the University of Virginia, and the University of California at Berkeley, now have Tibetan centers or offer courses in Tibetan or Tibetan Buddhism. Around the world, international Tibetan centers have been established in landmark cities such as London, Paris, Tokyo, Rome, and Seattle, employing monastic and lay intellectuals to participate in the study of Tibetan studies.
According to Gonga Zhazi, it is the idea of “goodness” in Tibetan Buddhism that attracts different people around the world, “The main emphasis in Tibetan Buddhism is the basic idea that you should not harm others, even if you cannot benefit them.”
Tibetans in exile selling Buddhist Dharma tools in Taiwan (Photo/ Yang Zilei)
Overseas Tibetan community strives for advancement
At the same time, Tibetan communities in exile overseas are taking a variety of steps to preserve and promote Tibetan culture.
The Gangchen Kishon Tibetan Language Model School in Dharamsala, India’s central Tibetan administration, has been undergoing educational reforms since 2004, further emphasizing the importance of the Tibetan language in the education of young people.
“We are trying to set up the Tibetan language as the first language, and all the curriculum including mathematics, science and chemistry, and natural science knowledge are taught in Tibetan, and only in the fourth grade do we start English classes,” said Kelsang Gyatsen, who has worked in Dharamsala for a long time.
After being freed from the clutches of the authoritarian regime, Tibetan language teaching has finally returned to its most important place within its own people.
On the other hand, the Tibetan community is also actively renewing their means of fighting Chinese cultural oppression.
Following the Tibetan-wide protests in 2008, the Chinese government reinforced its military presence in Tibetan areas, which greatly limited Tibetan resistance. Led by the overseas Tibetan organization Free Tibetan Students Movement, a non-violent resistance movement called Lhakar Movement (White Wednesday) has emerged in the Tibetan community at home and abroad. On this day, Tibetans wear their traditional dress, eat only Tibetan food and speak only Tibetan as a sign of their cultural identity. The color white symbolizes “good luck” in Tibetan.
“Wednesday is a very important day for Tibetans because the Dalai Lama was born on this day, so we celebrate it as a special day. Since 2009, the movement has been expanding, showing the determination of Tibetans in Tibetan areas and beyond,” said Lobsang Tseten, campaign leader of the Free Tibet Student Movement.
The nonviolent movement is attracting worldwide attention, with people joining in the United States, India and several European countries. The Tibetan culture itself is a culture of non-violence, a culture of compassion, and these compassion and non-violence do not come naturally; the key is to change your own heart,” Gonga Zhaxi emphasized.
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