Tibet Culture

Tibetan’s area, such a deeply religious people that a basic knowledge of Buddhism is essential in understanding their world. Buddhism permeates most facets of Tibetan daily life and shapes aspirations in ways that are often quite alien to the western frame of mind. The ideas of accumulating merit, of sending sons to be monks, of undertaking pilgrimages, and of devotion to the sanctity and power of natural places are all elements of the unique fusion between Buddhism and the older shamanistic Bon faith.

For travelers, the easy smile of most Tibetans is infectious and it is rare for major cultural differences to get in the way of communication. Tibetans are among the loveliest people in Asia and very easy to get along with: open, joyful, sincere, tolerant and good-humouredly. This combination is all the more remarkable in view of the anger and long-harbored resentment that must lie under the surface in Tibet.

Traditionally there have been at lest three distinct segments of Tibetan society: the drokpa the rongpa (farmers of the Tibetan valleys) and the sangha (community of monks and nuns). Each lead very different lives but share a deep faith in Buddhism.

These communities have also shared a remarkable resistance to change. Until the early 20th century Tibet was a land in which virtually the only use for the wheel was a device for an activating mantras. Tibet has changed more in the past 50 years than in the previous 500, although many traditional social structures have endured Chinese attempts at iconoclasm.

Farming communities usually comprise a cluster of homes surrounded by agricultural lands that were once owned by the nearest large monastery and protected by a dzong (fort). The farming itself is carried out with the assistance of a dzo, a breed of cattle where bulls have been crossbred with yaks. Some wealthier farmers own a small ‘walking tractor’ (a very simple tractor engine that can pull a plough or a trailer). Harvested grain is carried by donkeys to a threshing ground where it is trampled by cattle or threshed with poles. The out by the breeze, Animal husbandry is still extremely important in Tibet, and there are around 21 million head of livestock in the country.

Until recently such communities where effectively self-sufficient in their needs and, although theirs was a hard life, it could not be described as abject poverty. Village families pulled together in times of need. Plots of land were usually graded in terms of quality and then distributed so that the land of any one family included both better and poorer quality land. This is changing rapidly as many regions become more economically developed.

Imports such as tea, porcelain, copper and iron from china were traditionally compensated by exports of wool and skins. Trading was usually carried out in combination with pilgrimage or by nomads. Most villages now have at least once entrepreneur who has set up a shop and begun to ship in Chinese good from the nearest urban centre.

Individual households normally have a shrine in home or in a small building in the family compound. There might also be several religious texts held in a place of honor, which are reserved for occasions when a monk or holy man visits the village. Ceremonies for blessing yaks and others livestock to ensure a productive year are still held. One of the highlights of the year for rural Tibetans is visiting nearby monasteries at festival times or making a pilgrimage to a holy site. As traditional life reasserts itself after 50 years of communist dogma and the disastrous Cultural Revolution, many of these traditions are slowly making a comeback. A burgeoning economy is starting to fuel a growth in traditional crafts, at least in Lhasa, though this is partially for the tourism market.

Pilgrimage is practiced throughout the world, although as a devotional exercise it has been raised to a level of particular importance it Tibet. This may be because of the nomadic element in Tibetan society; it may also be that in a mountainous country with no roads and no wheeled vehicles, walking long distances became a fact of life, and by visiting sacred places en route pilgrims could combine walking with accumulating merit. To most Tibetans their natural landscape is imbued with a series of sacred visions and holy ‘power places’ mountains can be perceived as mandala images, rock assume spiritual dimensions, and the earth is imbued with healing powers.

The motivations for pilgrimage are many, but for ordinary Tibetan it amounts to a means of accumulating sonam (merit) or tashi (good fortune). The lay practitioner might go on pilgrimage in the hope of winning a better rebirth, to cure an illness, and spite of bad luck or as thanks for an answered prayer.

Although the early kings of Tibet were buried with complex funerary rites, ordinary Tibetans have not traditionally been buried. The bodies of the very poor were usually dumped in a river when they died and the bodies of the very holy were cremated and their ashes enshrined in a chorten (or their bodies dried in salt). But in a land where soil is at a premium and wood for cremation is scarcer still, most bodies were, and still are, disposed of by sky burial.

After death, the body is kept for 24 hours in sitting position while a lama recites prayers from the Tibetan book of the dead to help the soul on its journey through the 49 levels of Bardo, the state between death and rebirth. Three days after death, the body is blessed and early-morning prayers and offerings are made to the monastery. The body is folded up (the spine is broken and the body itself is folded into a surprisingly small package) and carried on the back of a close friend to the durtro (burial site). Here, special body-breakers known as rogyaps cut off the deceased’s hair, chop up the body and pound the bones together with tsampa (roasted-barley flour) for vultures to eat.

There is little overt sadness at a sky burial; the soul is considered to have already departed and the burial itself is considered to be more disposals, or rather a final act of compassion to the birds. Sky burial is, however, very much a time to reflect on the impermanence of life. Death is seen as a powerful agent of transformation and spiritual progress. Tibetans are encouraged to witness the disposal of the body and to confront death openly and without fear. This is one reason that Tantric ritual objects such as trumpets and bowls are often made from human bone.

Many Tibetans in Lhasa now wear modern clothes imported from China but traditional dress is still the norm in the countryside. The Tibetan national dress is a chuba (long-sleeved sheepskin cloak), tied around the waist with a sash and worn off the shoulder with great bravado by nomads and Khampas (people from Kham). Chubas from eastern Tibet in particular have super long sleeves, which are tied around the waist. And inner pouch is often used to store money belts, amulets, lunch and even small livestock. Most women wear a long dress, topped with a colorful striped apron known as a pangden. Traditional Tibetan boots have turned-up toes, so as to kill fewer bugs when walking (or so it is said).

Women generally set great store in jeweler, and their personal wealth and dowry are often invested in it. Coral is particularly valued (as Tibet is so far from the sea), as are amber, turquoise and silver. The Tibetan zee, a unique elongated agate stone with black and white markings, is highly prized for its protective qualities and can fetch tens of thousands of US dollars. Earrings are common in both men and women and they are normally tied on with a piece of cord. You can see all these goodies for sale around the Barkhor in Lhasa.

Tibetan women, especially those from Amdo (northeastern Tibet and Qinghai), wear their hair in 108 braids, and auspicious number in Buddhism. Khampa men plait their hair with red or black tassels and wind the lot around their head. Most pilgrims carry a gau (amulet), with perhaps a picture of the owner’s personal deity or the Dalai Lama inside.

The greatest threat to Tibetan cultural life comes from development and Chinese migration, as government subsidies and huge infrastructure projects change the face and ethnic make-up of cities across the breadth of Tibet.

Investment from Beijing has brought with it a surge in Han immigrants hungry for jobs or just filled with idealism about life on the roof of the world. Although to figures are available, it is obvious that many Chinese people, attracted by preferential loans and tax rates, a less strictly enforced one-child policy, stipends for a hardship posting and easy business opportunities, are setting up shop in urban centers all over Tibet. An education system that exclusively uses the (Mandarin) Chinese language at higher levels reinforces the fact that only Signified Tibetans are able to actively participate in Tibet’s economic advances.

Religious freedoms have increased in recent years, though any form of political dissent is quickly crushed. Monks and nuns, who are often the focus of protests and Tibetan and Tibetan aspirations for independence, are regarded with suspicion by the authorities. Nuns, in particular, considering their small numbers, have been very politically active and accounted for 55 of the 126 independence protests in the mid-1990s. Regulations make it impossible for nuns, once arrested and imprisoned, to return to their nunneries.

And yet for all the new roads, karaoke joints, brothels, Chinese TV, internet bars and mobile phones that have swept across Tibet, traditional and religious life remain at the core of most Tibetans’ identities. Pepsi and Budweiser may new rival Buddhist deities as the most popular icons in Tibet, but the quintessence of Tibet remains remarkable intact.

China’s epic drive to develop its western hinterland has had a considerable impact on Tibet, and its economy is booming. Growth over the last six years has averaged an impressive 12%; trade is growing at 50% and GDP Hit $3.7 billion in 2006. New businesses and hotels are popping up everywhere, spurred on by investment from China’s eastern provinces.

Not all Chinese are here to earn money, though. Wealthy urban Chinese tourists are flocking to Tibet in droves to spend it, and tourism is an increasingly important source of revenue. Tibet currently receives three million tourists in a year, a rate growing by an amazing 40% annually. This influx brings in USD 300 million each year. More than 93% of tourists to Tibet are Chinese. Over 30,000 tourists arrived at Lhasa airport during the may 1 national holiday.

The 2006 opening of the train line between Tibet and Qinghi province has had a huge effect on both tourism and economic growth, cutting transport costs by USD 23 million in the first year alone. The train also transported over 1.5 million additional people to Tibet during the same period.

The Tibetan plateau has rich deposits of gold, zinc, chromium, silver, boron, uranium and other metals. The plateau is home to most of China’s huge copper reserves. A single mine in northern Tibet is said to hold over half the world’s total deposits of lithium. Chinese scientists announced the discovery of five billion tones of oil and gas in the Changtang region in 2001. Reports indicate mining now accounts for one-third of Tibet’s industrial output. Mining has long been traditionally inimical to Tibetans, who believe it disturbs the sacred essence of the soil. Many fear that the train will speed up mining. The Chinese name of Tibet, Xizand – the western treasure house now has a ring of prophetic irony.

There is an increasing economic and social divide in Tibet. Per capita disposable income currently stands at over USD 1000 in the towns and only USD 260 in the countryside.

Many Tibetans maintain that Chinese immigrants are the real winners in the race to get rich in Tibet, while China protests that it is simply developing and integrating one of its most backward provinces, at a large financial loss.

Modern political boundaries and history have led to the fracture of the Tibetan nation. Large areas of historical and ethnic Tibet are now incorporated into the Chinese provinces of Qinghai and Gansu (traditionally known as Amdo), and Sichuan and Yunnan (traditionally known as Kham). More Tibetans new life outside the Tibetan autonomous region (TAR) than inside it. Over 120,000 Tibetans live in exile abroad, mostly in India, and over 3000 make the dangerous illegal crossing over the high mountain passes via Nepal every year.

Population control is a cornerstone of Chinese government policy, but the regulations are generally less strictly enforced in Tibet. ‘Minority nationalities’ such as the Tibetans are allowed two children before they lose certain stipends and housing allowances. Ironically, the most effective form of birth control in modern Tibet still seems to join a monastery.

Although local mythology has the Tibetan people descended from the union of a monkey and ogress, the Tibetan people probably descended from nomadic tribes who migrated from the north and settled to sedentary cultivation of Tibet’s river valley. About a quarter of Tibetans are still nomadic. There are considerable variations between regional groups of Tibetans. The most recognizable are the Khampas of eastern Tibet, who are generally larger and a bit rougher and ready than other Tibetans and who wear red or black tassels in their long hair. Women form Amdo is especially conspicuous because of their elaborate braided hairstyles and jewellery.

There are pockets of other minority groups, such as the Lhopa (Lhoba) and Monpa in the southeast of Tibet, but these make up less than 1% of the total population and only very remote pockets remain. A more visible ethnic group is the Hui Muslims. Tibet’s original Muslim inhabitants were largely traders or butchers (a profession that most Buddhists abhor), although the majority of recent migrants are traders and restaurant owners from southern Gansu Sichuan, the Sherpas of Nepal and the Ladakhis of India.