TIBETAN UNIVERSITY DEAN ON SELF-RESPECT, CULTURE, LANGUAGE,

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 CHENGDU 000014

SIPDIS

DEPT FOR EAP/CM
DEPT FOR USAID

E.O. 12958: DECL: 1/15/2020
TAGS: PGOV PHUM ECON SOCI SENV CH
SUBJECT: TIBETAN UNIVERSITY DEAN ON SELF-RESPECT, CULTURE, LANGUAGE,
AND ENVIRONMENTAL CONFLICT

REF: 08 CHENGDU 247 AND PREVIOUS

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CLASSIFIED BY: David E. Brown, Consul General, U.S. Consulate
General Chengdu, Department of State.
REASON: 1.4 (b),(e)

1. (C) Summary: Tibetan youth in China are "demoralized" by the
lack of higher education opportunities in their native language
that limit their participation in modern society, the consequent
lack of standardized scientific and technical vocabulary in the
Tibetan language, and erosion of traditional culture among
ethnic minorities, ethnic Tibetan university dean Badeng Nima
(protect) told Consul General. Nima publishes new Tibetan
scientific textbooks, creates cultural preservation centers
among the ethnic Qiang people of western Sichuan, and does
fieldwork on the state of Tibetan-language education in China.
During his travels in rural Sichuan, he hears ever more frequent
stories of conflict between Tibetans and PRC officials over
development projects that are damaging the environment. End
Summary.




2. (C) Consul General and PolEconOff met January 11 with Badeng
Nima (protect),Dean of The Institute of International Education
at Sichuan Normal University, the first ethnic Tibetan
university dean in China, and with British anthropologist David
Burnett, whom Nima met while a visiting scholar at the Institute
of Education at the University of London in 2001, and who now
works with Nima at Sichuan Normal's Institute of Education.
Nima and Burnett are engaged in a range of activities among the
Tibetan and Qiang peoples of western Sichuan ranging from
linguistic modernization, to cultural preservation. (Comment:
The Qiang are heavily influenced by Tibetan culture; some
Tibetans claim the Qiang are Tibetans, while some Qiang insist
on their separate identity among China's 56 nationalities
(minzu),which are defined according to a variety of political
and ethnological considerations. End Comment.)



China's First Ethnic Tibetan University Dean

--------------




3. (C) Discussing how he came to be China's first ethnic Tibetan
university dean, Nima said he first was asked to be a higher
official in his hometown of Ganzi, in the Ganzi Tibetan
Autonomous Prefecture of Sichuan Province, but declined, saying
he preferred to remain in education. The government wanted him
to become deputy prefecture administrator (fu zhouzhang),and
also offered him the post of advisor to the Sichuan Government.
Nima refused the Ganzi job because he "wouldn't be able to say
anything" as a non-Communist Party member. He accepted the
advisor position, however, because it is not a "real" position
-- while he does not provide any actual advice, at times he can
obtain materials because of the job's title, he said.



Tibetan Language Education Options Slim

--------------




4. (C) Nima shared with us a research paper that he wrote
entitled "Being Tibetan in the People's Republic of China,"
based on field interviews with ethnic Tibetans in Sichuan and
Qinghai Provinces. In the paper, Nima wrote that "what all of
the respondents hold in common is the view that the total
disregard of Tibetan language in the school curriculum means
that students who undertake serious study of the Tibetan
language and culture are fundamentally unemployable after
graduation." Nima explained that schools providing some form of
Tibetan language education in China generally fall into two
categories:



-- boarding schools for children of nomadic families where
instruction is provided in Tibetan (other than a single course
in Chinese language) using a Chinese curriculum and direct
translations of Chinese textbooks; and,



-- day schools where Chinese is the primary language of
instruction but extra courses in Tibetan are added.




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5. (C) Nima reports that schools of the first type are
unattractive to Tibetans because of their heavy use of Chinese
curriculum, but poor nomadic families cannot afford private
education. Schools of the second type, he continued, often
result in Tibetan students lagging behind their Chinese peers
because Chinese is the primary language of instruction and that
many such Tibetan students who are foregoing some Chinese
language courses to study Tibetan already lag behind their
native speaker ethnic Han classmates in reading and writing
Chinese.




6. (C) None of the schools in Tibetan areas "really" belong to
Tibetans, Nima argued. Rather, they all belong to the
government. Nima guessed that only about 10 percent of Tibetan
children in ethnically Tibetan areas outside the Tibetan
Autonomous Region (TAR) use Tibetan as their primary language of
study, though the figure may be as high as 15 percent in the
TAR. Nima noted that in his interviews, 95 percent of parents
said they are teaching their children to speak Tibetan, though
80-90 percent also said they want their children to attend
Chinese schools so they can find jobs.



Creating a Tibetan Science Vocabulary

--------------




7. (C) Nima hopes to use his university position, which he chose
because it is "safe," to help educate younger generations of
Tibetans. China's minorities need help building up their
self-respect, Burnett interjected, and many young Tibetans are
"demoralized." One solution is to help the younger generation
"link in" to modern society and maintain their social identity
by encouraging use of Tibetan. One of the institute's projects,
therefore, has been the publication of six volumes of Tibetan
textbooks for primary and middle school children that explain
the natural sciences using the Tibetan language.




8. (C) The authors used three methods to create a new Tibetan
science vocabulary in the volumes: 1) use old concepts to convey
new meanings, 2) create new concepts by combining components of
existing ones, and 3) using direct transliteration of English
scientific terms in cases where methods one and two fail. The
project will also help Tibetan children learn English by
allowing them to study the natural sciences through their own
language, Burnett added. Using funds from the Carnegie
Foundation, from a Norwegian benefactor, and UK publishing house
Dorling Kindersley, the institute has provided copies of the
volumes to schools at no charge, but the funds are now depleted.
More funds are needed for a revised edition, Nima continued,
that would include improved translations and include pictures.



Cultural Preservation Among the Qiang

--------------




9. (C) Nima and Burnett are also involved in cultural
preservation activities among the Qiang people of Western
Sichuan, a PRC ethnic minority technically distinct from,
although heavily influenced by the Tibetans, who like the
Tibetans speak a language this is in the Tibeto-Burman language
family. The Qiang were particularly hard hit by the effect of
the 2008 earthquake which was centered in their home area in the
southern part of the Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous
Prefecture. Nima and Burnett's work seeks to "try to make old
Tibetan culture useful for modern society," Nima said, by
attempting to restore or revitalize traditional village
activities like festivals and dancing. They received RMB
500,000 in 2009 (about USD 75,000) from the PRC State Council to
conduct a three-year project, which was also funded by Sichuan
University, China Southwest Minorities University, and Chinese
Electronic Science and Technology University.




10. (C) Nima and the institute are working to set up cultural
centers in villages, he reported, as in many villages there are
perhaps only a handful of elders who are old enough to remember

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traditional dances and other cultural activities such as pottery
making. The goal of the centers is to help the Qiang feel proud
of Qiang and Tibetan culture. As much as 30 percent of
traditional culture may have been lost, Nima guessed. The
institute has funded four such institutes so far, with hopes to
have villagers take ownership of the projects. Chinese
officials and some Tibetans see these centers as useful for
making money from tourism, but Nima sees their main importance
as a means to preserve cultural identity. The cultural centers
fit with the government's policy of building a new socialist
countryside ("shehuizhuyi xin nongcun jianshe"),Nima said,
which provides political cover, he added.



Environmental Practices Causing Conflicts

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11. (C) In the course of their work, Nima and Burnett have
encountered growing frustration on the part of Tibetan villagers
toward government projects the locals deem harmful to the
environment, and report that the frequency of these conflicts is
increasing. Near the first bend of the Yellow River, near
Danba, conflicts are occurring between the government and
Tibetans over proposed plans for hydroelectric dams. Tibetans
are upset that the government sold rights to their grasslands to
national energy companies such as Huaneng.




12. (C) In a 2008 case in Yading, Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous
Prefecture, home of the Yading Nature Reserve, tourists
previously would walk along a stretch of river through a local
village en route to visiting snow-capped mountains, allowing
villagers to sell goods and water and to rent out horses. Local
government officials, seeking higher revenues, sold rights to a
company from Zhejiang Province to erect a gondola up the
mountain, bypassing the village. In another 2008 case, local
officials allowed a Chinese company to start work on a silicon
mine in Daofu, over objections by locals that the mining site
was a holy mountain, Nima said.




13. (C) In both instances, police, retired PLA soldiers, or
thugs were brought in by officials to harass locals, and there
were even some rumors of deaths in these incidents, Nima said.
When news of the incidents reached the international press, the
Chinese government accused local Tibetans of inciting an
independence movement and thus causing further conflicts. These
incidents, according to Nima, were part of the mix of problems
that led to the March 2008 unrest in Tibetan areas (reftels).
(Note: Nima, in his paper referenced earlier, noted that in his
interviews with Tibetans, most felt that a violent confrontation
with China over the future of Tibet was unavoidable. End Note.)
BROWN