LHASA CONVERSATIONS - WHAT ARE THE PEOPLE THINKING?

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 CHENGDU 000042 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 3/6/2033 TAGS: PGOV ECON SOCI CH SUBJECT: LHASA CONVERSATIONS - WHAT ARE THE PEOPLE THINKING? CHENGDU 00000042 001.2 OF 003 CLASSIFIED BY: James A. Boughner, Consul General, U.S. Consulate General Chengdu, Department of State. REASON: 1.4 (d) ¶1. (C) Summary: A series of unscripted Consulate encounters in Lhasa, including with a Han teacher from Hebei, a Hui Muslim vendor of pirated DVDs from Gansu, a longtime resident Han barber from Sichuan, a lama recently arrived from Qinghai, university students from Chamdo (eastern Tibet),and Buddhist monks at the famed Jokhang Temple, helped shed some light on the sometimes opaque developments that are transforming the Tibetan Plateau. While perhaps just anecdotal in nature, the conversations we had reflect an interesting collection of views on education, labor migration, economic development, ethnic tensions, and religious restrictions from a diverse cross section of the population in a traditional city undergoing rapid change. End summary. ¶2. (SBU) During a recent visit by Consulate and Embassy staff to the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR),Congenoff broke away from part of a formal schedule arranged by the Lhasa Foreign Affairs Office (FAO) to walk around the city alone and meet local residents informally. The conversations that ensued during the course of the day were conducted in either Chinese or Tibetan. The Young English Teacher's Story -------------- -------------- ¶3. (C) Kara (ethnic Han) is a young English teacher at a private middle school and high school in Lhasa. After graduating from a normal university in Hebei Province last year, she went to visit her sister who works as a tour guide at the Potala Palace. Kara quickly found a job at a private middle school. All here students are Tibetan, half from Lhasa and half from other areas including children of herders. Students from outside Lhasa reside at the school and get extra supervision from the teachers. Tuition at the school is high at RMB 10,000 (USD 1,400) per year. The rural families who can afford to send children to the school make their money (RMB 50,000 - 70,000 annual income) by collecting caterpillar fungus "chong cao", a high plateau delicacy and ingredient used in expensive medicinal tonics sold in China and abroad. Kara complained that keeping her 12-year-old charges in 30-student class sections interested is very difficult. Currently Kara plans to remain in Lhasa for �A;three years, but might end up staying "indefinitely." ¶4. (C) According to Kara, Tibetan high school students can get a total of 150 points on the university entrance exam due to a combination of Tibetan and Chinese language points, while Chinese students can only get a maximum of 120 points on the Chinese exam portion of the university entrance examination. Tibetan students also get a bonus of several hundred additional points on the university entrance examination to help them get into good universities. When asked if, like at some U.S. private and public universities, scholarship students from disadvantaged backgrounds can be given make up course work and supported for an additional year or more to become competitive, she said that was not done in China. She said that many of the Tibetan students who get into competitive universities are "depressed" with the challenges they face since both the Chinese and the English they need for school are "foreign" languages to them. One Tibetan student she knows who got into an engineering school in Xi'an thanks to extra points given on the university entrance examination was not able to handle the work. Kara said such Tibetan students do not get extra support with make up work or extra time to catch up in school. The Barber's Story -------------- ¶5. (C) At a barbershop just off the Barkhor, the street that surrounds Lhasa's Jokhang Temple (one of Tibetan Buddhism's most holy sites),a barber (ethnic Han) with the red cheeks of a high plateau dweller talked about his 16 years working in the TAR. As finding work in Sichuan Province had proven too difficult, 16 years ago, on the advice of friends, he looked for work in the TAR. He found it in Ali, a gold and copper mining region in western Tibet near the border with India, where he sold tobacco and liquor wholesale. The great majority of the people working in the mines in Ali are ethnic Han, although there are a few ethnic Tibetans as well. The barber said he is settled in the TAR now -- the last time he was back in Sichuan was two years ago for a week. He does not speak Tibetan. The barber estimated that migrants from Sichuan make up about one-third of the permanent 300,000 population of Lhasa with even more Sichuanese workers coming in during the summer. The barber said that the Qinghai-Tibet railroad, especially after it is "extended to Ali" in 2009 and elsewhere, should make money since it will facilitate the extraction of Tibet's vast mineral resources. CHENGDU 00000042 002.2 OF 003 The Hui DVD Vendor's Story -------------- - ¶6. (C) Emboff spoke with a 22-year-old Hui Muslim pirated DVD vendor from Gansu Province has worked six months of year in the Tibetan quarter of west Lhasa for the last five years, returning in the winter to his 17-year-old wife back home. After earning enough money street-hawking when he first arrived in Lhasa, he used his savings to open his own small DVD shop. The vendor complained that the Qinghai-Tibet railroad, even though it makes his own trips easier, brings in a lot of other migrants including DVD hawkers, especially from neighboring Sichuan. The vendor, who did not graduate from middle school, doesn't like living in Tibet. He noted, "living here makes you grow old fast and rural Tibetans are ignorant people," but he sees only meager prospects at home in Gansu. He remarked, "I'll probably end up spending the rest of my life here." According to the vendor, the police don't care about pirated DVDs - their overriding concern is "separatism." The Lama's Story -------------- ¶7. (C) In front of the Potala, Congenoff struck up a conversation in Tibetan with a lama who invited Congenoff to his house to drink tea and talk. Six months ago, the lama moved from the Yushu Autonomous Prefecture in Qinghai Province to Lhasa where he bought a two-room apartment a few blocks from the Potala Palace. The apartment currently has no furniture, only mats, and toilet and kitchen facilities that are shared with other apartments. The lama, a Qinghai native, moved to Lhasa to be near "the holy places," although he commented' "the food is better back home in Qinghai." The lama lives together with his 73-year-old uncle and the son of his younger brother. When asked if the 12-year-old boy would get better schooling in Lhasa than in Qinghai, the lama noted that schools are not particularly good in Lhasa. ¶8. (C) The lama has been to India three times and attended the Dalai Lama's annual teachings in Dharamsala, India. The lama said the paperwork for getting a travel permit was "troublesome," but he was able to travel back and forth without trouble. The lama said he has acquaintances, but no relatives in India. When Congenoff related how a Qinghai merchant he had seen selling CDs of the Dalai Lama's teachings in Xining claimed one should carry such CDs inside the lining of a coat rather than in a bag so the police do not find it, the lama smiled and exclaimed "A clever man!" When asked if he worked at a job, the lama replied, "I read scriptures." When asked if he found it difficult to support himself, he noted, "It is difficult sometimes but I get by." The Tibetan College Students' Story -------------- -------------- ¶9. (C) Congenoff met two students (ethnic Tibetans) from Northeast China's Jilin University in Changchun, both from the Kham region of northeastern TAR, while circumambulating the Potala Palace. They told their story at a local teahouse. Both women were from Chamdo in the Kham region of Tibet that they proudly stressed has the most devote believers of Tibetan Buddhism and "Tibet's best soldiers." When asked if they meant soldiers fighting the Japanese during World War II, they replied, no, "Tibetan soldiers fighting the Chinese." One of the students was a sophomore majoring in accounting, while the other was a senior in the geology department, majoring in natural resources exploration. ¶10. (C) Both students said they will definitely return to the TAR after graduation. They studied in Tibet through middle school and then, with full government financial support, in middle and high schools in the Chinese interior, one in the Chongqing Municipality and the other in Tianjin. The two students, unlike most Tibetans who speak Chinese, appeared to speak it without an accent and with near native speaker proficiency. One of the students said that, while she can read Tibetan books, her Tibetan language composition skills are terrible. This is a great "shame," she noted, adding she will take night courses in Tibetan at Tibet University when she returns to Lhasa after graduation. Upon leaving the teahouse, one student complained: "Those people thought I was Chinese!" (Comment: The two students, despite many years of education in the Chinese interior, appear to have retained a strong sense of ethnic Tibetan identity. End comment.) The students had many questions about the U.S., including, "Do Americans eat hamburgers every day?" They also demonstrated an impressive knowledge of recent U.S. films and of the lives of famous U.S. movie actors and actresses. Comments -------------- ¶11. (C) Although our government handlers did not appear CHENGDU 00000042 003.2 OF 003 particularly put out by Congenoff going off on his own and testing out his Tibetan language skills for part of our recent visit to the TAR, the Lhasa FAO generally tries to keep us and other official visitors under a tight rein in order to both control and monitor our activities. We have heard one of the reasons many tour guides in the TAR are ethnic Han (paragraph three above) is because they are considered to be more politically reliable and can be counted on not to give "inappropriate" commentary to foreign visitors. ¶12. (C) During our trip, after CG, Embassy Poloff, and Tibetan LES insisted that our tired-looking FAO guide at the end of a long day go home early and did not have to finish a tour she was giving us of the Jokhang, we ran into three Tibetan monks sitting alone on the roof of the temple. When asked about a recent ceremony at the Jokhang to award Geshes (the highest degree awarded by Tibetan monastic institutions),the monks unhesitatingly referred to it as a "political farce of no importance." ¶13. (U) This report was coordinated with Embassy Beijing. BOUGHNER