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C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 CHENGDU 000042 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL:  3/6/2033 
TAGS: PGOV ECON SOCI CH
SUBJECT: LHASA CONVERSATIONS - WHAT ARE THE PEOPLE THINKING? 
 
CHENGDU 00000042  001.2 OF 003 
 
 
CLASSIFIED BY: James A.  Boughner, Consul General, U.S. 
Consulate General Chengdu, Department of State. 
REASON: 1.4 (d) 
 
¶1.  (C) Summary:  A series of unscripted Consulate encounters in 
Lhasa, including with a Han teacher from Hebei, a Hui Muslim 
vendor of pirated DVDs from Gansu, a longtime resident Han 
barber from Sichuan, a lama recently arrived from Qinghai, 
university students from Chamdo (eastern Tibet), and Buddhist 
monks at the famed Jokhang Temple, helped shed some light on the 
sometimes opaque developments that are transforming the Tibetan 
Plateau.  While perhaps just anecdotal in nature, the 
conversations we had reflect an interesting collection of views 
on education, labor migration, economic development, ethnic 
tensions, and religious restrictions from a diverse cross 
section of the population in a traditional city undergoing rapid 
change.  End summary. 
 
¶2. (SBU) During a recent visit by Consulate and Embassy staff to 
the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), Congenoff broke away from 
part of a formal schedule arranged by the Lhasa Foreign Affairs 
Office (FAO) to walk around the city alone and meet local 
residents informally.  The conversations that ensued during the 
course of the day were conducted in either Chinese or Tibetan. 
 
The Young English Teacher's Story 
--------------------------------------------- ------------ 
¶3. (C) Kara (ethnic Han) is a young English teacher at a private 
middle school and high school in Lhasa.  After graduating from a 
normal university in Hebei Province last year, she went to visit 
her sister who works as a tour guide at the Potala Palace.  Kara 
quickly found a job at a private middle school.  All here 
students are Tibetan, half from Lhasa and half from other areas 
including children of herders.  Students from outside Lhasa 
reside at the school and get extra supervision from the 
teachers.  Tuition at the school is high at RMB 10,000 (USD 
1,400) per year.  The rural families who can afford to send 
children to the school make their money (RMB 50,000 - 70,000 
annual income) by collecting caterpillar fungus "chong cao", a 
high plateau delicacy and ingredient used in expensive medicinal 
tonics sold in China and abroad.  Kara complained that keeping 
her 12-year-old charges in 30-student class sections interested 
is very difficult.   Currently Kara plans to remain in Lhasa for 
three years, but might end up staying "indefinitely." 
 
¶4. (C) According to Kara, Tibetan high school students can get a 
total of 150 points on the university entrance exam due to a 
combination of Tibetan and Chinese language points, while 
Chinese students can only get a maximum of 120 points on the 
Chinese exam portion of the university entrance examination. 
Tibetan students also get a bonus of several hundred additional 
points on the university entrance examination to help them get 
into good universities.  When asked if, like at some U.S. 
private and public universities, scholarship students from 
disadvantaged backgrounds can be given make up course work and 
supported for an additional year or more to become competitive, 
she said that was not done in China.  She said that many of the 
Tibetan students who get into competitive universities are 
"depressed" with the challenges they face since both the Chinese 
and the English they need for school are "foreign" languages to 
them.  One Tibetan student she knows who got into an engineering 
school in Xi'an thanks to extra points given on the university 
entrance examination was not able to handle the work.  Kara said 
such Tibetan students do not get extra support with make up work 
or extra time to catch up in school. 
 
The Barber's Story 
---------------------------- 
¶5. (C) At a barbershop just off the Barkhor, the street that 
surrounds Lhasa's Jokhang Temple (one of Tibetan Buddhism's most 
holy sites), a barber (ethnic Han) with the red cheeks of a high 
plateau dweller talked about his 16 years working in the TAR. 
As finding work in Sichuan Province had proven too difficult, 16 
years ago, on the advice of friends, he looked for work in the 
TAR.  He found it in Ali, a gold and copper mining region in 
western Tibet near the border with India, where he sold tobacco 
and liquor wholesale.  The great majority of the people working 
in the mines in Ali are ethnic Han, although there are a few 
ethnic Tibetans as well.  The barber said he is settled in the 
TAR now -- the last time he was back in Sichuan was two years 
ago for a week.  He does not speak Tibetan.  The barber 
estimated that migrants from Sichuan make up about one-third of 
the permanent 300,000 population of Lhasa with even more 
Sichuanese workers coming in during the summer.  The barber said 
that the Qinghai-Tibet railroad, especially after it is 
"extended to Ali" in 2009 and elsewhere, should make money since 
it will facilitate the extraction of Tibet's vast mineral 
resources. 
 
 
CHENGDU 00000042  002.2 OF 003 
 
 
The Hui DVD Vendor's Story 
--------------------------------------------- - 
¶6.  (C)  Emboff spoke with a 22-year-old Hui Muslim pirated DVD 
vendor from Gansu Province has worked six months of year in the 
Tibetan quarter of west Lhasa for the last five years, returning 
in the winter to his 17-year-old wife back home.  After earning 
enough money street-hawking when he first arrived in Lhasa, he 
used his savings to open his own small DVD shop.  The vendor 
complained that the Qinghai-Tibet railroad, even though it makes 
his own trips easier, brings in a lot of other migrants 
including DVD hawkers, especially from neighboring Sichuan.  The 
vendor, who did not graduate from middle school, doesn't like 
living in Tibet.  He noted, "living here makes you grow old fast 
and rural Tibetans are ignorant people," but he sees only meager 
prospects at home in Gansu.  He remarked, "I'll probably end up 
spending the rest of my life here."  According to the vendor, 
the police don't care about pirated DVDs - their overriding 
concern is "separatism." 
 
The Lama's Story 
---------------------------- 
¶7.  (C) In front of the Potala, Congenoff struck up a 
conversation in Tibetan with a lama who invited Congenoff to his 
house to drink tea and talk.  Six months ago, the lama moved 
from the Yushu Autonomous Prefecture in Qinghai Province to 
Lhasa where he bought a two-room apartment a few blocks from the 
Potala Palace.  The apartment currently has no furniture, only 
mats, and toilet and kitchen facilities that are shared with 
other apartments.  The lama, a Qinghai native, moved to Lhasa to 
be near "the holy places," although he commented' "the food is 
better back home in Qinghai."  The lama lives together with his 
73-year-old uncle and the son of his younger brother.  When 
asked if the 12-year-old boy would get better schooling in Lhasa 
than in Qinghai, the lama noted that schools are not 
particularly good in Lhasa. 
 
¶8.  (C) The lama has been to India three times and attended the 
Dalai Lama's annual teachings in Dharamsala, India.  The lama 
said the paperwork for getting a travel permit was 
"troublesome," but he was able to travel back and forth without 
trouble.  The lama said he has acquaintances, but no relatives 
in India.  When Congenoff related how a Qinghai merchant he had 
seen selling CDs of the Dalai Lama's teachings in Xining claimed 
one should carry such CDs inside the lining of a coat rather 
than in a bag so the police do not find it, the lama smiled and 
exclaimed "A clever man!"  When asked if he worked at a job, the 
lama replied, "I read scriptures."  When asked if he found it 
difficult to support himself, he noted, "It is difficult 
sometimes but I get by." 
 
The Tibetan College Students' Story 
--------------------------------------------- ------------ 
¶9. (C) Congenoff met two students (ethnic Tibetans) from 
Northeast China's Jilin University in Changchun, both from the 
Kham region of northeastern TAR, while circumambulating the 
Potala Palace.  They told their story at a local teahouse. 
Both women were from Chamdo in the Kham region of Tibet that 
they proudly stressed has the most devote believers of Tibetan 
Buddhism and "Tibet's best soldiers."  When asked if they meant 
soldiers fighting the Japanese during World War II, they 
replied, no, "Tibetan soldiers fighting the Chinese."  One of 
the students was a sophomore majoring in accounting, while the 
other was a senior in the geology department, majoring in 
natural resources exploration. 
 
¶10.  (C) Both students said they will definitely return to the 
TAR after graduation.  They studied in Tibet through middle 
school and then, with full government financial support, in 
middle and high schools in the Chinese interior, one in the 
Chongqing Municipality and the other in Tianjin.  The two 
students, unlike most Tibetans who speak Chinese, appeared to 
speak it without an accent and with near native speaker 
proficiency.  One of the students said that, while she can read 
Tibetan books, her Tibetan language composition skills are 
terrible.  This is a great "shame," she noted, adding she will 
take night courses in Tibetan at Tibet University when she 
returns to Lhasa after graduation.  Upon leaving the teahouse, 
one student complained: "Those people thought I was Chinese!" 
(Comment:  The two students, despite many years of education in 
the Chinese interior, appear to have retained a strong sense of 
ethnic Tibetan identity.  End comment.)  The students had many 
questions about the U.S., including, "Do Americans eat 
hamburgers every day?"  They also demonstrated an impressive 
knowledge of recent U.S. films and of the lives of famous U.S. 
movie actors and actresses. 
 
Comments 
----------------- 
¶11. (C) Although our government handlers did not appear 
 
CHENGDU 00000042  003.2 OF 003 
 
 
particularly put out by Congenoff going off on his own and 
testing out his Tibetan language skills for part of our recent 
visit to the TAR, the Lhasa FAO generally tries to keep us and 
other official visitors under a tight rein in order to both 
control and monitor our activities.  We have heard one of the 
reasons many tour guides in the TAR are ethnic Han (paragraph 
three above) is because they are considered to be more 
politically reliable and can be counted on not to give 
"inappropriate" commentary to foreign visitors. 
 
¶12. (C) During our trip, after CG, Embassy Poloff, and Tibetan 
LES insisted that our tired-looking FAO guide at the end of a 
long day go home early and did not have to finish a tour she was 
giving us of the Jokhang, we ran into three Tibetan monks 
sitting alone on the roof of the temple.  When asked about a 
recent ceremony at the Jokhang to award Geshes (the highest 
degree awarded by Tibetan monastic institutions), the monks 
unhesitatingly referred to it as a "political farce of no 
importance." 
 
¶13. (U) This report was coordinated with Embassy Beijing. 
BOUGHNER