Tibet


Book Description

Exploring ethnic Tibet independently is a challenge. With the 'land of snows' having some of the wildest and roughest road routes in high Asia, motoring, mountain-biking and trekking options are all given due attention in this new edition. High quality, numerous maps set this guide apart from other guides on Tibet and the trekking section has been expanded to include more on the main treks, including Everest Base Camp, Genden to Samye, Namtso trek and Kailiash region treks. Particular attention has been paid to the Amdo and Kham regions, not usually covered in guidebooks. Political and cultural issues make Tibet a sensitive destination for Westerners, so Michael Buckley's authoritative advice includes guidelines on cultural etiquette, local customs, and travelling with minimum impact on the culture and environment. The chapter on language includes a section covering Tibetan script.




The Museum on the Roof of the World


Book Description

For millions of people around the world, Tibet is a domain of undisturbed tradition, the Dalai Lama a spiritual guide. By contrast, the Tibet Museum opened in Lhasa by the Chinese in 1999 was designed to reclassify Tibetan objects as cultural relics and the Dalai Lama as obsolete. Suggesting that both these views are suspect, Clare E. Harris argues in The Museum on the Roof of the World that for the past one hundred and fifty years, British and Chinese collectors and curators have tried to convert Tibet itself into a museum, an image some Tibetans have begun to contest. This book is a powerful account of the museums created by, for, or on behalf of Tibetans and the nationalist agendas that have played out in them. Harris begins with the British public’s first encounter with Tibetan culture in 1854. She then examines the role of imperial collectors and photographers in representations of the region and visits competing museums of Tibet in India and Lhasa. Drawing on fieldwork in Tibetan communities, she also documents the activities of contemporary Tibetan artists as they try to displace the utopian visions of their country prevalent in the West, as well as the negative assessments of their heritage common in China. Illustrated with many previously unpublished images, this book addresses the pressing question of who has the right to represent Tibet in museums and beyond.




The Rise of Gönpo Namgyel in Kham


Book Description

This book examines the ascendancy of a minor nineteenth-century Tibetan chieftain Gönpo Namgyel who hailed from Eastern Kham, a frontier region situated between the power centers of Central Tibet and Qing China. For most of the nineteenth century, Gönpo Namgyel dominated the politics of Kham and posed a serious challenge to both the Qing and Lhasa regimes. The study explores the dynamics of local and national politics, as well as the tensions over power and authority between the two power centers. Drawing upon both Tibetan and Chinese primary sources, the study sheds new light on the governance and polity of the Kham region, enhancing our understanding of Sino-Tibetan conflicts regarding Kham from the nineteenth century, up to the mid-twentieth century. The book focuses on local events, rather than seeing history as shaped solely by the power centers. The rise of Gönpo Namgyel is situated within the context of the local politics of Kham while taking into consideration its relations with mid-nineteenth century Qing and Central Tibet. It further explores the social-cultural milieu that gave rise to this charismatic and controversial chief. A series of questions emerge concerning traditional historiographical practice, including the historical practices of Chinese and Tibetan scholars as well as approaches to the history of China and Tibet by Western scholars. Probing into history from a local perspective adds a new dimension to the study of nineteenth-century Sino-Tibetan relations. This research reveals that there is no single force determining history, nor are persons in the periphery mere passive observers of national events. The kings, governors, and chieftains in Kham were active in shaping their own regional identity and asserting their own terms in relation to the two power centers, demonstrating that the peripheries are equal partners in central-periphery relations, rather than passive recipients as has commonly been represented in earlier historical narratives.




Sky Train


Book Description

Through a lyrical narrative of her journey to Tibet in 2007, activist Canyon Sam contemplates modern history from the perspective of Tibetan women. Traveling on China's new "Sky Train," she celebrates Tibetan New Year with the Lhasa family whom she'd befriended decades earlier and concludes an oral-history project with women elders. As she uncovers stories of Tibetan women's courage, resourcefulness, and spiritual strength in the face of loss and hardship since the Chinese occupation of Tibet in 1950, and observes the changes wrought by the controversial new rail line in the futuristic "new Lhasa," Sam comes to embrace her own capacity for letting go, for faith, and for acceptance. Her glimpse of Tibet's past through the lens of the women - a visionary educator, a freedom fighter, a gulag survivor, and a child bride - affords her a unique perspective on the state of Tibetan culture today - in Tibet, in exile, and in the widening Tibetan diaspora. Gracefully connecting the women's poignant histories to larger cultural, political, and spiritual themes, the author comes full circle, finding wisdom and wholeness even as she acknowledges Tibet's irreversible changes.




Shadow Tibet


Book Description




Education in Tibet


Book Description

This work provides a comprehensive overview of education provision and policy in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) during the half century since China asserted control over the region. Catriona Bass sets her modern history of education in the TAR against the wider context of the political and educational shifts which have taken place in China since the Communist Party came to power in 1949.




The University of Michigan Bulletin


Book Description

Each number is the catalogue of a specific school or college of the University.




Buddha's Warriors


Book Description

The Chinese Invasion And Occupation Of Tibet Has Been One Of The Great Tragedies. More Than A Million People Have Died As A Result. An Ancient Culture With Its Buildings, Literature, And Artifacts Has Been Largely Destroyed. In Kham, Eastern Tibet, In Particular, Where People Retained The Warrior-Like Qualities Of Old, Groups Of Men Banded Together To Oppose The Chinese By Force&. And I Am Glad That Mikel Dunham Has Been Able To Tell These Brave Men S Story In This Book, Much As They Told It To Him. His Holiness The Dalai Lama, From The Foreword In The Last Sixty Years, Tibet Has Been So Mythologized And Politicized That The Outside World Remains Confused About What Really Happened When Mao Tse-Tung Invaded In 1950. Buddha S Warriors Is The Story Of The Tens Of Thousands Of Tibetans Who Violently Resisted The Bloody Occupation Of Their Country And The Desecration Of All That Was Holy To Them. From The Farthest Reaches Of Tibet Kham, Amdo And Golok The Most Feared Tribes In Asia Mounted Their Warhorses And Rode Together For The First Time In History. By Their Side Were Thousands Of Buddhist Monks Who Renounced Their Vows Of Nonviolence, Grabbed Swords, And In The Name Of Freedom Charged Into Enemy Lines. Tibet S Only Source Of Outside Help Came From A Small Group Of Cia Agents, Who Secretly Trained And Armed The Freedom Fighters. Author Mikel Dunham Spent Seven Years Interviewing The Warriors Who Fought The Chinese, Collecting Stories That Otherwise Would Have Been Lost To History. He Also Befriended The Cia Officers Who Trained The Young Tibetans. These Firsthand Accounts Bring Faces And Deeply Personal Emotions To The Forefront Of The Ongoing Tragedy Of Tibet. Buddha S Warriors Is A Sweeping History Of A Nation And An Ancient Culture Under Siege. The Saga Of The Tibetan Resistance Movement Is One Of Brave Soldiers And Cowardly Traitors, Courage Against Repression, Buddhism Against Atheism, And, Ultimately, Of What Happens To An Isolated Civilization When It Is Thrust Almost Overnight Into The Horrors Of Modern-Day Warfare.




Dying with Confidence


Book Description

Spiritual preparations for the time of death : an evolving meditation on life and death -- Spiritual practices as the time of death nears -- Medical considerations for the Buddhist practitioner -- Buddhist practitioners as caregivers -- Appendices.