A Part of China, but Apart From It

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A Part of China, but Apart From It
A journey through ethnic Tibetan towns and villages in western Sichuan reveals that even as incomes have risen and modernity has filtered in, communities operate separately from China, and their with yearnings for self-rule are largely intact.

A day's walk from the road, along the raging whitewater of the Gamuni River, the village of Laykandao lies in isolation. In some ways, this is a good thing, its inhabitants say. A quarter-century ago, China dispatched Communist Party cadres here to organize villagers into agricultural collectives -- an experiment long since abandoned, with each family now in control of its own plot. Whereas most Chinese are restricted to having a single child, ethnic Tibetan villagers may have up to the three. No one has come to collect taxes in more than a decade.

"Nowadays, there's fewer Chinese people coming here, and so we have fewer problems," said Gyatse, the village chief. "But we also have more wishes."

At the top of the list: a road. In summer, Litang is a full day's hike plus a two-day jeep ride away; three days by horseback. In winter, villagers are pinned in by snow.

"Every year, we hear the road will be built," the village leader said with a sigh.

Wangchuk Chompay, 25, has never left the environs of the village. He follows his herd of 30 yaks to the high country for grazing in summer months, sleeping in a yak-wool tent. He returns to the valley floor in winter, huddling in a mud-walled tent and burning yak dung for warmth. If he had more money, he would buy himself a parka to replace the light windbreaker he wears, its back embossed with Romanized Chinese spelling out "New Century." He cannot read it, having spent only a few months in school.

"Study hard, move upward day by day," proclaim crude Chinese characters written in chalk over the wooden doorframe of the one-room schoolhouse, where 36 children ages 7 to 16 squeeze into rows of wooden benches. The lone teacher speaks little Mandarin Chinese, the national dialect -- not that this matters to most families.

"I don't want my grandchildren to learn Chinese," said Aka, 63, fingering Tibetan prayer beads with leathery fingers as she squatted by the fire in her house. "That's a language without connection to us."

Her son, Tsea Do, 30, was eager to see his three children educated. "Otherwise, they may as well be cattle," he said. But he hoped his children would go to school in India, where the Dalai Lama lives and where they could learn English.

His family coaxes barley and potatoes from these high-altitude soils. Caterpillar fungus has given them spending power beyond imagining, more than tripling their annual income over the past decade to about $625 per year. "Now we can buy rice," he said. A solar-powered fluorescent light hung overhead in their home. They have in mind a television.

"Who doesn't want a television?" Do said. "Then I can get information from other countries." But Chinese news would be of no interest. "This is Tibet, not China."

The Naygo monastery is another day's walk up the river. Its carved wooden beams hang over a narrow valley, where water crashes hundreds of feet from melting glaciers above. For more than 1,000 years, Tibetan families have sent boys as young as 6 to become initiates here, hoping this would bring luck. These days, fewer families are making that choice, directing their boys toward other pursuits, as the ranks of the monastery have slipped to about 250 from 400 in 1947.

"There used to be no opportunities in this area, and people were very poor," said one monk, Tsering Jimba, 66. "Nowadays, families have many choices. They can send children to school, run a business."

One thing remains constant: enmity toward the Chinese. Older people remember the Chinese troops that came and razed the monastery in the 1950s, killing monks, demolishing statuary and shutting down the place for 26 years until it reopened in 1984.

"The Chinese, they don't like Tibetans," said Gyamatse, a 42-year-old monk who like some Tibetans goes by only one name. "They know we revere the Dalai Lama, and they were afraid we would wake up and be ready for a fight, so they sent their army here to destroy us."

In recent months, Chinese officials have returned -- this time with plans to market the monastery as a tourist destination. Once an enemy culture to be suppressed in China's eyes, the Tibetan way of life has become a valuable commodity.

"We are orphans," Gyamatse said. "We're the adopted children of China. Our holy man is in India, and we don't have a mother or father. We feel sad."