Thursday, August 03, 2006

We landed on the roof!

On the roof of the world i meant..

Just got to Lhasa today...
Via the official way and after having properly paid for my invisible permit to the Chinese government..
Sorry but the more i'm here and the more i feel sick about this tibetan mess... i don't mind the Chinese in China! But all over Sichuan and Tibet, when i see them parading in expensive cars like they own the place it gives me the creeps..
The whole world knows about this and.. or does it? I realize i didn't know much about it myself before reading some ("The mountains of Buddha" by Xavier de Moro) and getting here...
So as a quick reminder, in 1950 China entered Tibet and decided it was theirs.. in the process they tortured and killed thousands of monks, destroyed temples and monasteries and settled massively..
The Dalai Lama being an extremely influent figure, they tried everything from buying him to killing him and he's now a refugee in India.. He's been calling for help to the world community for years but everyone is more interested in keeping China's huge market (possibly including tibet!) than helping non-consumer contemplating monks..
Since then chinese school children are tought that Tibet is a province of China and when you ask chinese people what they think about the Tibet situation, they go "what situation? Tibet is just another province!".. the scary thing is that they apparently really have no clue... really makes you think about what you were yourself taught in school as the "true" history of your country! There's always an official way to look at things..

I know; one half of you will tell me that this is also a very simplified version of the story, while the other half will argue that there's much worse going on in the world... both are probably true but being here i'm obviously more sensitive to it, and it's just been itching for a while...


anyway.. here are some pics from the sky.. just to change the mood!



and the imposing Potala palace.. first thing you see when you get here!


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