Dinner With Tsering

I sat down to a mostly eaten dinner.

"Help yourself. Most of us have eaten, but I've been too busy to eat much myself." He picked up the plates and placed them all in front of me. I nibbled a bit, but my appetite had yet to return. The food was delicious, but quite spicy.

"Eat more! You are my guest!" I wasn't used to such direct, dry speaking. It was refreshing.

"I've been sick for a week and I still can't eat much. The food is delicious however."

"It's ok, just Chinese food. It's always too spicy."

"So what should I eat instead in this town?"

"Momos and Tsampa." Momos are Tibetan dumplings, often stuffed with yak meat, but I wasn't sure what Tsampa was.

"Tsampa is barley flour, mixed with yak butter and sometimes yak cheese."

"Sounds terrible." I decided Tsering could handle bluntness.

"They are delicious. A good breakfast, you eat tsampa and you don't need to eat again for many hours." I had some the next day, and what he said was true, they are both delicious and filling. "Excuse me a moment." He left for a good five minutes. I suddenly realized that this was my chance to get some important questions about Tibet answered. I didn't expect to meet too many more brutally honest, fluent English speaking Tibetans. He finally returned and I mustered the courage to ask the potentially offensive question.

"Ok, I've had a question bubbling in brain about Tibet for a while now..."

"...Just ask."

"So, I can't help to notice a strong nationalist sentiment in the Tibetan people. Doesn't the idea of nationalism counter many of the inherent beliefs of the Buddhist religion or philosophy, specifically the drive to reach detachment from such tangible ideas such as a nation?"

He stared back at me. "Ok, you are going to have to ask me that question again, only explain your ideas a bit."

I reasked my question in simplified English and Tsering responded with a wonderful answer that very clearly emphasized the Tibetan side of the whole China/Tibet issue.

The Tibetan people have politics and religion married into one ruling group, the lamas. Their leader is the Dalai Lama. The Chinese invaded (liberated) Tibet in 1950, taking away their independence. They also took away the political powers away from their religious leaders. The Dalai Lama fled during the conflict, only to return again in 1959. During this time, there was a failed uprising of the Tibetan people and the Dalai Lama left Tibet forever. The people not only lost their political leader, but their spiritual leader as well. This left the Tibetans with nobody to be their ultimate leader. If the Dalai lama was merely their head of state, his exile would be crushing politically, but having lost their "Moses" as well, it was double blow to the people. SO much of the Tibetan grievances has to do with not being allowed contact with a person they worship and the Tibetans are deeply religious.

The other issue has to do with the Chinese government's way of running things. The Chinese are in the middle of a major sprawl, sprinting to full development with little regard for the environment or culture. They tore down holy buildings and replaced them with ugly gray blocks of flats and polluting coal plants. They damn Tibetan rivers and flood others. Tibetans are peaceful, nature loving people who cling to their pastoral life and devout worship. Buddhism is about reaching peace and transcendence, but the way the Chinese are raping the beautiful landscape of Tibet, migrate in droves, destroy the culture, ban the teaching of Tibetan in schools kills the Tibetan peoples' ability to worship peacefully and achieve transcendence. It is as if Rome was invaded and all the Catholics became unable to rise to heaven at death. Tibetan independence if just a political issue would still be a big deal, but potentially overcomable, but it is also a deep religious issue as well, leaving many Tibetans lost.