people-watching in Tibet….

Little Tibetan boy, peeking out at my daughter from behind his mother. Photo by Ariel Tarpey.

People-watching in Lhasa must rank amongst the best in the world.

Newly arrived tourists with their white scarves. Nomads in traditional dress, come in to the city to sell their wool, long hair in a single braid wrapped around the head with a scarf woven into it. Stylish young Chinese girls wearing 6" heels. Boys in black leather and skinny jeans. Women wearing surgical masks made out of sari silks to shield their faces from the sun, to keep their skin white. Young people wearing t-shirts with unlikely English slogans -- do they know what they mean? The young and the edgy, with prayer beads firmly in hand. Small children peeking shyly or staring openly at my white-skinned, purple-haired daughter. Pilgrims prostrating themselves in prayer. Others spinning their prayers to god, prayer wheels kept perpetually in motion. Red-robed monks hailing taxis, checking their cellphones. 

Rickshaw drivers competing with cars and trucks. Cyclists and motorcyclists by the swarm. I watch them to see how many things they can pile on, and how they will balance them.  Whole families on bikes, no helmets on. Kids on parents' laps in cars, or leaning out the windows. Kids everywhere, picked up and carried by parents -- no strollers, no backpacks, no shawls. Pedestrians crossing busy streets at their own risk, guided by rules -- or luck -- that I can't discern.

People playing dice, or washing their hair on the streets. Bartering for goods, or measuring lengths of cloth in street-side tailor shops. Street vendors following us down the street. Beggars and bold children asking for money. Thoughtful Tibetans with their hands full of small bills, doling out compassion, turning the wheel of karma.

Top left photo: an older man spinning prayer wheels on a street in Lhasa.
Top right photo: Linda from Lhasa with my daughter.
Bottom right photo by Ariel Tarpey.
Bottom left photo: a Chinese tourist with my daughter.

Monks inside Jokhang Temple.

For more posts about my time in Tibet, click here, here, here, or here.

where communism meets theocracy….

This little boy was left napping on a blanket in the shade of a tree inside
Sera Monastery in Lhasa, Tibet. Without a word being spoken,
passersby were dropping money on the blanket.

On our first day in China, I ask our Beijing tour guide if China is still a communist country. Only in name, she says.

But I think it’s more than that.

Everybody has a job, she tells us. If you are too young or too old, you are given a simple job. The old ones get the job of pushing the last person onto the bus, for instance. Begging is not tolerated because everybody should be working a legitimate job.

Fast forward several days to our time in Tibet. Begging is common here, occasionally to the point of being a nuisance. Locals of all backgrounds seem to have endless pockets. They readily hand out small bills to beggars and children. They leave money in every nook and cranny in the temples. Nobody coming behind them picks up the bills, though I suspect if they did it would be interpreted as an act of desperation.

I don’t know for sure about Tibetan Buddhism, but in Thailand, for instance, the monks beg for every meal they get. Begging is looked upon as creating an opportunity for others to give, to improve their karma. It’s an opportunity for grace.

At the very least, begging functions in Tibet as a redistribution of wealth. It’s somehow their working out of: “From each according to his means, to each according to his needs.”

20 July 2014