My secret alternate identity

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So.... apparently I'm Tibetan. Not exactly surprising considering how close China is to Tibet that I look "Tibetan," but it's pretty funny. Everyone here seems to be surprised I speak with an American accent, and when I tell them I'm from the US they go, "No, but where are you *really* from?" and when I simply say I'm from Taiwan they go, "Ok, but is that where you live now?" There's just no winning. Another amusing result of my new assumed identity is that everyone approaches me when we're in the store or in restaurants and mostly ignores Zara, while all the beggars immediately go to her for money and assume I'm just too hard-hearted (or maybe she looks more compassionate) to give! Oh well.

So, been here for a couple of days and I simply love it here. The weather is nice and cool and you feel completely comfortable in pants and a short-sleeved shirt (or one of my new salwar kameezes that I bought in DehraDun! =) I think I explained them before but just in case not, they're kind of like long short sleeved shirts that hang down to anywhere between above your knees to down around your calves, that you wear loose pants under, and a longish scarf around your shoulders, with the loop in front and the ends hanging on your back. Mostly the younger women wear them here, it seems like the saris are - for the most part, definitely not as a rule - reserved for the older and married women). Plus I just love Tibetan food. Never had it before, but it's actually really similar (again not surprising) to Chinese food. "Momos" are basically Chinese dumplings (and they also cook them steamed, fried, or half-steamed half-fried like we do), and Tham-aopidhf whatever it is is basically flat noodles with various veggies or meat in it. Yum yum. And I still can't get over how cheap food is here. Yesterday breakfast for both Zara and I came out to 95 rupees ($2.11) and we both got "pancakes" (really crepes, or British pancakes), mine with mangos, papaya, and bananas in it, and drinks, and lunch usually comes out to around 150 rupees as long as we don't go somewhere really fancy. Honestly, I know I said this before, but going back to the States is going to be painful on the bank account... Somehow, though our money still seems to go surprisingly fast... I guess it's not food, must all be outings and presents for people...

So we went to see the monastery of the Dalai Lama the other day, which was surprisingly small. I rather expected it to be like a larger and more elaborate complex similar to the other monasteries I've gone to with my family, but it's actually a lot smaller than I expected. Of course, the Dalai Lama's actual residence is separate and we weren't allowed to go up there, so maybe that's more like what I'd envisioned. There was also a small museum in there telling the story of the Tibetan people, and though I've heard some of it before, especially from the monks who came to Brandeis awhile back, it still struck me how sad and really how **recent** their plight is. It was before I was born, of course, but the Dalai Lama was only driven out of his country in the 1950s, and Tibetans are still fleeing the persecution in China, risking their lives to cross the borders into India and Nepal. Did you know that there are only 6 million Tibetans left in the entire world??? There are 1 million people in NYC alone and only 6 million Tibetans left on this globe of over 6 billion people! Amazing considering Tibet is 2/3 the size of India. That and their persecution under the Chinese government and the destruction of so many of their temples and sacred texts under the "Cultural Revolution" just turned my stomach and reminded me of all the horribleness of Mao's reign of terror in China itself. (Side note: If any of you haven't read _Wild Swans_ by Jung Chang I highly recommend it. It's the true story of 3 generations of women in a family in China before, during, and after the Cultural Revolution, and spans the times from the author's great-grandmother, who was a warlord's concubine, to her own story, growing up during the tail end of the Red Guards and trying to get an education when that was viewed as being horrible and bourgeois. Anyway, sorry, that was a rather long tangent... Back to the Tibetans.) It wasn't a very big museum, but it got the point across. I wish the movie that documents their story and is shown regularly was working that day, but still it was pretty moving display anyway. After visiting the museum I've been looking around for shops here that are run by the refugees or that donates money to them, and there's at least one shop I think I've been back to about 3 times now in the past 3 days called Stitches for Tibet, that gives all it's profits to the new Tibetan women refugees.

I was also reminded (pretty much the second I stepped into the monastery) that China still has the Panchen Lama, the successor to the Dalai Lama kidnapped in China. They claim they're holding him in "protective custody" and he's basically been missing for the past 11 years. Honestly I have to wonder if he's still alive...

Sorry, this seems to be a very political blog, but partly being from Taiwan (though no one else in my family seems particularly upset or maybe we just don't talk about it?), partly having studied and written a thesis on the Tiananmen Square massacre, and partly from just studying/reading about the Cultural Revolution, I'm just constantly outraged by the actions of China's government and so so angst-ed (I know that's not a verb but it should be) about the whole history and situation that just seems to repeat itself over and over again. GRRRrrrrrrr >(

Ok ok.

Anyway... on another note. Tonight Zara and I are going to a Tibetan traditional music (and dance?) performance tonight at one of the local schools, so that should be pretty interesting. There are many more tourists here than I really expected, so I wonder if it's put on every Sunday for that reason? In any case, I hope it's fun. =) This is our last night in Dhamsala. Tomorrow morning at 6 AM we're leaving to go back to DehraDun, which should take us 2 days. I'm rather sad to be leaving. I really really like it here in Dhamsala. It's so peaceful in the misty mountains, the vendors don't tend to hassle you nearly as much, I like the monks that wander the streets and eat with you, and we're having a good time just being settled for once, rather than packing up and leaving every day. Of course, I don't know what else we'd do if we stayed here. I'm pretty much out of money. =P

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Photos

The Dalai Lama's monestary and residence
Not what I expected!