CenLamar | Est. 2006

  • Part Four: What Does It Mean To “Save Tibet”?

    While we wait for Daniel to collect and organize his thoughts on the role of non-profits in present-day Tibet, allow me to add some context. First, an update from our embedded contributor Michael, who is currently on the ground in Dharamsala, India: The CCP (Chinese Communist Party) propaganda in China that she (my girlfriend) sees on TV claims that the Beijing Government has been inviting the Dalai Lama for talks to end the protests, but he has been refusing. This is obviously a lie, considering that the Dalai Lama has been working to send delegations to China for years. There…

  • Part Three: What Does It Mean To “Save Tibet”?

    Yesterday, I led my first post on the critical inquiry of what it means to “Save Tibet” with a photograph of the high school class I instructed last year. They were in their second year of the advanced English program, recruited from their middle schools by a few young Tibetan adults because of abilities in Math, Chinese, Tibetan, or English. English is a critical component to most government examinations for the civil service, teaching, or going to an associates college or university. My students knew they were at a disadvantage in testing due to language and experience, but most minorities…

  • Part Two: What Does It Mean To “Save Tibet”?

    I lived in Western Sichuan Province (think Szechwan hot cuisine—all dry chili and spicy peppercorn; nothing compared to the cayennes, tabascos, jalapeños and other peppers of Louisiana). It borders the “Tibetan Autonomous Region” to the east, and the western portion of the province is designated the “Ganzi Autonomous Prefecture,” which roughly encompasses an old Tibetan area called Kham. It is one of a number of large ethnically and culturally Tibetan prefectures that border and limit the size of the TAR, artificial lines drawn by the Chinese government, to some end. I was on the eastern edge of Ganzi Prefecture, the…