LHASA CONVERSATIONS - WHAT ARE THE PEOPLE THINKING?

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SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 3/6/2033
TAGS: PGOV ECON SOCI CH
SUBJECT: LHASA CONVERSATIONS - WHAT ARE THE PEOPLE THINKING?

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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
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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
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.


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The Hui DVD Vendor's Story
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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
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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

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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