MB Civic

1. Spirit of Dalai Lama is unbowed by wind of change (Times)
———————————The Times, London
21 July 2005
By Jane Macartney
From medieval seclusion, the holy city of Lhasa has become a bustling part of China’s economic change. But the exiled Buddhist god-king is still revered

AT THE Tangula Wind nightclub, Lhobsang delights the crowd with an ethnic Tibetan rock song. Fans climb on to the stage to drape ceremonial white scarves around his neck. The audience roars with delight.
This is one of the music venues that draw hundreds of newly prosperous young Tibetans each night and are emblematic of the changes that have transformed Lhasa, Tibet’s capital on the Roof of the World, in the two decades since my first visit.
A small city of 30,000 that was a medieval fastness has become an urban sprawl of more than 300,000 where Nike has stores and the internet is faster than in Beijing. The change has come at a price. Civil servants have to give up the right to worship if they want a job. Perhaps for that reason, religion still flourishes.
Once, the unlit earthen road that led to the Jokhang Temple, Tibet’s holiest of holies in Lhasa, was deserted by nightfall. A lone young Khampa tribesman from eastern Tibet with a red tassel braided in his hair and a dagger at his waist would stumble into potholes in the inky darkness.
Today pillars lit in neon bands of red, green, blue and white illuminate the granite-paved street that leads to the temple. Restaurants, karaoke bars, massage parlours and fashion shops line the streets.
The Tibetan mastiffs that would roam the streets in such numbers that people carried sticks to ward off attack were destroyed a few years ago in a cull that angered Buddhists opposed to the taking of any life. Dog ownership now being permitted again, within limits, pilgrims and housewives lead lapdogs as they offer prayers.
Pilgrims throng into Lhasa each day from the remotest corners of the vast secluded land in undiminished numbers. It used to be customary for people to travel for weeks on foot or horseback to fulfil a vow, to cure an illness or just to show their devotion to their Buddhist faith. Pilgrims dressed in patched robes or in hand-sewn skins were once common.
Such poverty is now a rare sight in Lhasa. Many still walk. I saw two nuns prostrating themselves every step of the way from Nagqu to Lhasa in a journey that took five hours by car but would take them two months. More arrive by bus, men wearing fine woollen coats and women dressed in a traditional long robe, with a brightly striped apron if they are married.
Incomes have risen steeply, partly because Beijing has poured aid in. This, and an influx of tens of thousands of ethnic Han Chinese, has created a bustling city. A broad highway busy with taxis, trucks and army convoys has replaced the tree-lined road along which I once cycled from a monastery and which was otherwise deserted but for the red-robed monks marching to demonstrate against Chinese rule.
Buses did not exist. Now people queue at stops.
Much of Lhasa’s old-world charm and ways of life unchanged for centuries have disappeared. Average annual incomes have nearly quadrupled to 570 since 1986. Chinese tourists were virtually unknown in Tibet 20 years ago. In 1987 it had 47,000 visitors; this year the figure is expected to approach 3million. Most will be Chinese, drawn by a romantic vision of a mystical Buddhist culture. With the opening this month of a railway to Lhasa, the total is set to multiply again.
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