STILL TIBET

Timecoded Dialogue Li s t

1) [00:08] One evening at dusk, while photographing the Pokhara Lakes in Nepal, I met an elderly Tibetan woman who described to me how she had been forced to escape into exile. She became highly emotional as we spoke and was moved to tears as she told me how she spent the last 20 years far from home without ever seeing her children again. It was there, by the Begnas Lake, I made the promise to this woman to go deep into Tibet and return to tell the world what I would see with my own eyes.

2) [01:00] It was a four-week journey across the Tibetan region situated in the current Chinese province of Sichuan. Theoretically my visa allowed me to travel freely. I moved ahead either by walking or hitch-hiking at an altitude between 3 and 6,000 meters. After 4 days of traveling, I reached the first Tibetan town, Aba.

3) [01:27] Upon arrival, a dozen Chinese agents surrounded me in the street. They took me into a police van and urged me to leave the region by 8 o’clock the following morning. I assured them I would comply with their demands, but asked if I could take a look at the Tibetan Monastery, prior to leaving. The agents said they could not allow this for my own safety, as the monastery was full of dangerous and violent activists.

4) [01:50] After a sleepless night, I left the hotel at 5 in the morning, convincing the police officer guarding the entrance that I was on my way to the bus station and ready to leave. Instead I climbed to the Monastery of Aba, where I found the Tibetans that had been labeled as dangerous and violent activists by the Chinese Agents on the previous day.

5) [03:54] I knew the Chinese authorities would be searching for me. So I decided to slip away from the city, climbing through the bush, determined to set myself out of their reach, until I could learn why my presence in Tibet had provoked such suspicion.

6) [04:08] While walking away, I observed a shocking reality; a town whose population 10 years ago was less than a thousand people, now easily exceeded ten thousand. From the mountains, I could observe how the original Tibetan village has become barely a neighborhood in the shadow of the new Chinese constructions, turning the Tibetans into a small minority in their own home.

7) [05:28] After riding in several vehicles and walking for many hours, I arrived at Guanyin. A Tibetan Sanctuary known for its temple at the top of a mountain. At its base was a gigantic tourist project under construction which presents a dreadful impact on the environment and the charm of the place.

7.2) [06:05] I was determined to reach the temple. I had been climbing stairs for an hour without meeting anyone when all of a sudden a police patrol showed up. There were dozens of questions, writing down my passport information, and of course banning me from visiting the sanctuary. Fortunately, I managed to convince the patrol that I was going to spend the night at a Chinese owned hostel, a mandatory requirement for foreigners who stay in Tibetan areas. In truth I had no intention of spending one second more in a place controlled by the Chinese police. Despite the night already falling, I carried on with my journey.

8) [06:48] At sunrise, I found myself in a town embracing a beautiful traditional neighborhood. I discovered that it had been built with the intention of showing the integrity of both ethnicities, and serve as an attraction for foreigner visitors. It was the second piece of evidence that would later lead me to the irrefutable conclusion that Tibet is to become exploited as a major tourist destination.

9) [08:16] Next stop held a very pleasant surprise. After stepping out of a car that had picked me up, I realized that I was in a square enclosed by two temples. A hundred young Tibetan monks lived here and my visit awakened in them an extreme curiosity.

10) [10:20] They woke me at dawn the next morning and prepared some breakfast that we shared together. Then they invited me for a walk, which turned into a 6-hour climb under a snowfall to the mount next to their temple. My companions were 3 young monks, who became overwhelmed with emotion as they introduced me to the places that held special meaning for them on that mountain; the shelter for their inner search and development.

11) [12:07] Despite the obvious language barrier, we enjoyed the journey together, allowing it to build a unique friendship and finding meaning in the silence, in a pure example that the deepest and most beautiful feelings are often those which do not need to be talked about.

12) [13:05] The following day I woke up early and prepared my backpack as I intended to carry on with the road. Many young monks came to bid farewell, and gave me a bag full of supplies they had prepared especially for me. It was a truly a unique feeling; despite having spent only 3 days at the Monastery, unable to speak with anybody, I had the intense impression of knowing them for many years.

13) [14:03] I walked in the direction carved by my exaltation of that moment. I was dazzled by the unspoiled beauty of the peaks of the World. It felt to me you are only completely set free when you know not where you are going, and you don’t mind at all.

14) [15:25] (+7) After a few hours, a car with 3 Chinese citizens picked me up. A while later, 2 of them got out at a beautifully-looking village. When I tried to exit the car they told me there was nothing to see, and refusing to let me go, the car began speeding up. I was now alone with the driver who observed me in the rear-view mirror, asking questions and playing music in English, to please me I assumed. I made clear to him that I was going to disembark at the next village, and once we arrived there and I asked him to stop, he said “No”, claiming there were Temples and Monks, and therefore it was very dangerous. I insisted, but he blocked the doors.

15) [16:29] After jumping out the window, the driver tried to follow me, but I left the road and began walking by the river. The driver turned around and sped away. A local man, who had witnessed the scene, was looking at me and smiling as if nothing had happened. He signalled inviting me to eat. It was an offer I could not refuse.

16) [20:38] Each and every person I met along the way in Tibet kept asking me about the Dalai Lama, their eyes filled with hope and emotion. It struck a deep chord in me, imagining the vast number of human beings whose dream could be fulfilled just by allowing one person to return home…even if only for a day…

17) [21:14] In Litang, I came upon a very special way believers have of paying their devotion. They even use it to travel on pilgrimage for dozens of miles towards holy spots in the mountains.

18) [22:56] I also witnessed the millenary ritual of the sky burial, where a flock of vultures devours the corpse of a Tibetan. In this traditional funeral method, by transmutation, the human in its last trip rejoins nature in its most basic form.

18.2) [23:54] In Tibetan Buddhism, for those who have led a respectable life, death is not the end, but the beginning of something greater. Thus, the relatives of the deceased celebrate their loved one’s procession to a better life. Nevertheless, due to the brutality of the ritual, they prefer to honor him from a distance.

19) [24:26] Surrounded by hungry vultures that have a wingspan of nearly 3-meters, the figure of the man responsible for chopping and shredding the human corpse seemed especially startling. When asking the locals, they clarified that he was a highly respected figure within the community, and is never in need of anything. However, given the grim nature of his work, nobody was willing to become friends with him for fear of being labeled morbid. Definitely an occupation that requires a colossal amount of personality.

20) [25:22] I met a crew of musicians and travelled with them for 7 hours in their truck, crossing part of the Tibetan plateau. In the most remote part of that road, we again encountered a Chinese agent, who held the musicians and confiscated the traditional tools that were part of their performance. It was already the fifth time that this had happened. The agent also took note of my passport, asked dozens of questions, and tried to force me to leave the Tibetan Region immediately. Once again, I managed to evade intimidation, and my journey through Tibet continued.

21) [27:34] It had been an exhausting day where I travelled with the musicians, was halted by the police, later on bitten by a rabid dog and finally hounded by an undercover police car on several occasions. I had a growing need to be on my own, to let the path take me where it will, getting lost, and allowing its uncovered secrets to raise my mood and spirit. And so it was… The next day, after having walked for 3 hours, two native-looking men picked me up. They drove me all day long over dirt and rocky roads, crossing mountains, and barely meeting another soul along the way. Something told me the adventure ahead would be striking.

22) [28:47] I had the good fortune of arriving at a remote monastery tucked between mountains just as they were celebrating a mesmerizing annual ritual. The monks spend four days singing prayers, and offering traditional music and dances to the devotees. Hundreds of believers come the ritual, rewarding the monks with donations and supplies, enabling them to survive in their permanent and unique spiritual retreat.

I was fascinated by the balance of the Tibetan society, where the monks hold the responsibility of ongoing personal development. They serve as mentors for the rest of the community who trust the monks to advise and guide them whenever they have an important decision to make. They tend to consider their monks to be more cautious and knowledgeable, and through donations, ensure the persistence of their humble way of life and the harvesting of their wisdom.

23) [36:17] Along my journey, it was distressing to witness the existence of a severe environmental problem in regards to garbage management, to an extent I had never encountered before. In this case, both ethnicities, Han and Tibetan, share responsibility for the tons of garbage flooding the landscape. The problem is that there is a complete lack of environmental awareness. There’s no conception of what respect towards nature is. And now since the consumer culture has arrived, bringing along cans, wrappers and other waste, there is just about no infrastructure to dispose of and manage that garbage. Added to this, one of the growing attractions to Tibet is its abundance of mineral resources, which is bringing along exploitation on a massive scale.

Both factors place the environmental situation of Tibet into an extremely complicated situation.

24) [37:0417] Next stop was Dege /Dege/, one of the three ancient centers of Tibetan Buddhism along with Lhasa and Xiahe, and one of the essential pilgrimage destinations finding its heart in the Temple of Parkhang.

25) [39:39] Here I had the rare opportunity to witness the elaboration process of a Mandala. A group of monks work for many days to create a magnificent piece of art, having as goals to increase their awareness and concentration and become more receptive to the beauty of the Universe. The moment their creation is finished, they destroy it with their own hands, confident in the knowledge that all the beauty in this World lies only in our minds, and depends entirely on our perspective.

26) [40:56] At Last I reached the border of the Autonomous Region of Tibet, and theoretically there was no road left to follow, but I felt driven to continue. I progressed along small paths that not even the locals could tell me where they led, and I didn’t feel the need to know either.

27) [42:16] For many days I immersed myself in unspoiled lands, sleeping in monasteries and houses of locals. I met unique and exceptional people and I was constantly amazed to discover how each of the Tibetans I encountered were so unique and expressive. Even though we could not talk to each others, I felt like we always said so much. I could not explain why, but communication felt more honest than I had ever experienced. My exploration moved into a higher gear when a young Tibetan invited me to drive with him on his motorbike towards a place that, given his enthusiasm, sounded extraordinary… and indeed-it-was.

28) [43:00] The Monastery of Katok was founded in the 12th Century after a Lama had predicted that there would be a big temple called Ka, built on a mountain with the shape of a lion. One of the Lama’s disciples found the letter KA in a rock on mount Yulri, and as the Lama had prophesized a Monastery was built which later became one of the main lineages and schools of ancient Tibetan Buddhism. At its peak, the Monastery was home to over a thousand monks who were educated in Sutra, Tantra, Medicine, Astrology and Poetry, and had become the major academic reference of its time.

29) [47:16] I journeyed on through unnamed paths, always meeting tremendously generous people that opened their doors and made me feel like one of the family. With each I had the privilege of discovering remarkable ways of living, forged through centuries isolated from the civilized world as we know it.

30) [48:27] I arrived at a small and remote charming Tibetan village. It had already been a week since the last time I met a Han settlor, but here was a small community with 5 people that were easy to identify. At the entrance of their house, two puppies had suffered the punishment they had considered proper enough.

During the last 4 weeks, I had learned first-hand the absolute respect Tibetans have for animal life. I felt shocked and disturbed to witness that 5 individuals, living in the core of a society different from their own, could act in a way they knew would so badly hurt the rest of the community around them.

A few hours later, a police patrol showed up. They held me for 7 hours in the middle of a path till a young English-speaking girl arrived to let me know they were going to transport me to Baiyu, and later send me back to inland China. It was the end of my journey. I had been stopped by Chinese authorities all-in-all on 9 different occasions.

31) [49:46] The perception of Tibet as a mystical and fascinating place is formed equally by culture, religion and its unique natural setting. Having each of these components seriously threatened pushes the Tibetan idiosyncrasy closer and closer to extinction, forcing Tibet to plead for help from the international community in order to stop its disintegration in time.

Despite all these factors and the incessant pressure from the development of modern civilization encroaching upon this extraordinary culture, there is still hope that both sides will leave behind historical pride and resentment. That they will engage in a dialogue, and yield, in order to achieve an understanding that would end the oppression and violence that stain the peaks of the world with sorrow and resentment. There still could be retained a culture based on human growth and the harvesting of wisdom. Peace is a dream worth fighting for and it is not yet too late. In spite of all, Tibet is still Tibet.