WITH MONKS IN SHANGRI-LA

C O N F I D E N T I A L CHENGDU 000197


DEPT FOR EAP/CM, DRL, G

E.O. 12958: DECL: 9/19/2018
TAGS: PHUM PGOV CH
SUBJECT: WITH MONKS IN SHANGRI-LA

CLASSIFIED BY: Tina Onufer, Acting Consul General, State.
REASON: 1.4 (b),(d)


1. (C) Summary: Monks at the Ganden Sumtsen Ling Monastery in
Shangri-la County, Yunnan Province, told ConGenOff August 18
that monks from their monastery studying in the Tibetan
Autonomous Region were all sent back to Yunnan after March 2008.
Despite PRC compulsory education regulations that stipulate
children must be educated in government schools, some novice
monks as young as eight years of age continue to be educated
within the monastery. The Ringa monastery, also in Shangri-la
County, displays an easily hidden picture of the Dalai Lama.
End Summary.

Background: Shangri-la Tourist City and Regional Hub
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2. (C) Shangri-la (formerly Zhongdian) city, located at an
altitude of 3200 feet on the old Tibet tea trade route in
northwestern Yunnan Province, is the largest city in Shangri-la
County, and its airport also serves Deqin County, which borders
on the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR).


3. (C) Shangri-la County has a milder climate than most other
Tibetan areas which, as one Tibetan from Deqin told ConGenOff,
"made us much more subject to the onslaught of the Chinese."
Very few ethnic Tibetans have had formal education in Tibetan,
although many speak it and continue to study informally and many
signs are in Tibetan. A Tibetan shop proprietor told ConGenOff
he is studying Tibetan with 30 others in a study group at his
Baptist church. ConGenOff observed that unlike other Tibetan
areas, family altars in many Shangri-la households include
pictures of PRC leaders. A further sign of assimilation and
creeping syncretism is the belief of many locals that Mao Zedong
is a reincarnation of an old Tibetan warrior spirit, a notion a
Lhasa Tibetan recently told ConGenOff would be inconceivable in
Lhasa. Since the March unrest, Tibetan areas of Yunnan have
been much quieter than other Tibetan areas of China.

A Visit to the Ganden Sumtsen Ling Monastery
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4. (C) The Ganden Sumtsen Ling Monastery on the outskirts of
Shangri-la city has about eight hundred monks divided into eight
sections corresponding to different areas of the Shangri-la
county. People from these different areas visit the monastery
to support "their monks." Considerable construction work is
being done on the monastery, and a hotel is being built behind
it.


5. (C) ConGenOff spoke to several monks who had visited India
for several months and met the Dalai Lama. One monk told
ConGenOff he spent three months at the Drepung monastery in
southern India during 2005.

After March Unrest, Monks Returned Home from Lhasa
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6. (C) The monks at Ganden Sumtsen Ling Monastery said that
local authorities prohibited monks from visiting Lhasa monastery
this year and ordered monks from Yunnan who had been in Lhasa
monasteries for several years to return to Yunnan Province after
the outbreak of the March protests. (Note: In August, the
Deqin Daily, official newspaper of the Communist Party Committee
of Deqin County, reported that the twelve monks who had returned
to Deqin County were being given two weeks of patriotic
education, including lectures by Deqin Party Committee and
United Front Department leaders.)

Visit to the Ringa Monastery
--------------


7. (C) ConGenOff visited Ringa Monastery, a small monastery
approximately a forty-minute drive from Shangri-la. According
to the guide, Ringa Monastery is close to the Dalai Lama. In
the temple at the monastery, atop a religious picture was a
photograph of the Dalai Lama of a size that could be easily
hidden if a sensitive visitor should appear.

ONUFER