Ancient and Modern
The Tibetans and the Chinese
The contrast could not have been more stark. In the little monastery at the base of Mount Everest, thirty monks and nuns start their day with a couple of hours of meditating, chanting and ritual to help them find Enlightenment. Barely 50m away, the tourist village that is called “Everest Base Camp” is filled with queues of Chinese tourists seeking the instant gratification of a selfie at the perfect spot in front of where Everest should have been, even though it was shrouded in clouds when we were there.
This contrast illustrates the difference in mentality between the Chinese and Tibetans. The Chinese seem hell-bent on “progress”. It’s all about the now and the future. And you have to hand it to them that they have achieved astonishing progress. Their infrastructure is incredible: 48,000km of efficient high speed train lines (which continue to grow every year), uninterrupted 5G everywhere even at 300km/h or underground, and I have not witnessed any of the urban poverty that was ubiquitous 40 years ago. Even in the countryside, the village housing that I have seen looks relatively new. (I understand that government grants are available to renew old housing).
Their mania for technology results in a society where EVERYTHING seems to be done through a mobile phone and QR codes. For example, I received a QR code by WeChat for my homestay check-in details in Shanghai, you scan a QR code outside scenic areas to find out and gain access to them, and there are QR codes for restaurant menus and ordering food and drink. And as it has become a cashless society, it’s QR codes that are used by the two payment systems (Alipay and Weixin) to pay for anything and everything. Even a Tibetan beggar outside a temple brandished a QR code at me! These systems keep a “social credit score”. If you have a good score, you get benefits like reserving things without having to pay a deposit. It seems that nobody quite knows how the score is calculated, but some German students I am with have been told that their score is poor because they spend too much money on cigarettes and alcohol! (In such a controlled society, this is surely Big Brother writ large.)
By contrast, the Tibetans revere the past, cherish their traditions, and have a reputation for not throwing things away. So the destruction of so many monasteries, sacred texts and treasures during the Cultural Revolution remains a running sore. And Buddhism remains very central to their society: I have been told that every Tibetan home has a shrine, and the number of families visiting the temples on pilgrimage is impressive.
So there is a fundamental friction between the Tibetans whose traditions dictate that their day to day life should be governed by the Dalai Lama, and the Chinese who appear to accept the one party state. (Admittedly, they aren’t given a choice.)
What cannot be denied is that the Party has invested billions in Tibet. The railway line alone has allegedly reduced the price of imports by 75%, and I understand that ethnic Tibetans benefit from a number of government incentives that the Chinese do not – for example they are not subject to the tax policy that punishes families with more than 2 children, and their grades in the national 18-year old exam do not have to be as high as Han Chinese to access higher education. Given this, it’s hard not to sympathise with the many Chinese who are bewildered by the perceived “ingratitude” of the Tibetans. Especially since the alternative – rule under a Dalai Lama – they would argue is autocratic and arbitrary.
