POLITICAL views on Tibet tend to be as unambiguous as the hard blue
dome of sky that stretches above its mountains. In Western opinion,
the "Tibet question" is settled: Tibet should not be part of China;
before being forcibly annexed, in 1951, it was an independent country.
The Chinese are cruel occupiers who are seeking to destroy the
traditional culture of Tibet. The Dalai Lama, the traditional
spiritual leader of Tibet, who fled to India in 1959, should be
allowed to return and resume his rule over either an independent or at
least a culturally autonomous Tibet. In short, in Western eyes there
is only one answer to the Tibet question: Free Tibet.
For Han -- ethnic Chinese -- who live in Tibet, the one answer is
exactly the same and yet completely different. They serve what the
Chinese call "Liberated Tibet." Mei Zhiyuan is Han, and in 1997 he was
sent by the Chinese government to act as a "Volunteer Aiding Tibet" at
a Tibetan middle school, where he works as a teacher. His roommate,
Ta****, is a Tibetan who as a college student was sent in the opposite
direction, to Sichuan province, where he received his teacher
training. Both men are twenty-four years old. They are good friends
who live near Heroes Road, which is named after the Chinese and
Tibetans who contributed to the "peaceful liberation" of Tibet in the
1950s. This is how Mei Zhiyuan sees Tibet -- as a harmonious region
that benefits from Chinese sup****t. When I asked him why he had
volunteered to work there, he said, "Because all of us know that Tibet
is a less developed place that needs skilled people."
I went to Tibet to explore this second viewpoint, hoping to catch a
glimpse of the Tibet question through Chinese eyes......
For the whole story goto:
http://chineselearningdirect.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11
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