Even in the Republican period, the disparagement persisted. Chiang Kaishek's Western-educated envoy to Lhasa wrote: ‘When you set foot on the Tibetan land, the question that occupies your mind is: is this Shangri-la, the paradise that is full of rosy and dreamy colours and idyllic smells? … It is no different from the surrounding areas, only more barren, more poverty stricken, and drowned in a deadly silence.’5
I started learning Tibetan at Oxford, with the late Tibetologist Michael Aris, and wrote my master's thesis on Britain's role in Tibet when it withdrew from its empire in India. I made my first trip to Tibet in 1991, to see for myself whether it was hell on earth or Shangri-la. I found a land of emptiness and majesty. The guidebooks say Tibet is closer to heaven, and that was how I felt: a harmony between nature, man and faith, which had a strong appeal for me. Was I attracted because I grew up in such a crowded country, where nature was being trampled on by the vast population? Was it because I was living in a spiritual void created by disillusionment with communism? Or was I, like the long string of adventurers and explorers before me, looking for a ‘land of lost content’ that perhaps exists only in the mind? I went back many times, going further and further into the plateau, living with nomads, nuns, and hermits, each trip longer than the previous one. But these were all relatively brief encounters.
Then came my chance — to direct a documentary series about a year in the life of ordinary Tibetans. From July 2006 to June 2007 that is just what I did. I decided to film in Gyantse, 13,000 feet up, Tibet's third largest town, but one with still only 8,000 people. It is also the seat of a county with 60,000 people, big enough for me to find a representative range of characters. It is beautiful and all of a piece, with its ancient fort, well-known monastery, and traditional houses largely intact — a rarity in today's Tibet. Of course, change has come to Gyantse too, along with a growing influx of tourists, migrants, and traders, although they have not, or not yet, altered its character. And Gyantse is a place of history, the scene of Colonel Younghusband's infamous massacres in 1904, when he led an expedition to open up Tibet for the British Empire.
My film crew and I rented a Tibetan house on the edge of town, with an outside toilet and no running water — we had to fetch water in barrels by motor rickshaw, and shower in the public bath. Altogether we were nine, a mixture of Tibetan and Chinese: myself, three cameramen at the start, later reduced to one, two Tibetan researchers, a young Chinese assistant producer, a Chinese production manager, and a Tibetan driver. We also had a Sichuanese cook and a Tibetan housekeeper who came in daily.
For a year we followed a shaman, a village doctor, a junior Party official, a hotel manager, a rickshaw driver, a builder, and two monks through the ups and downs of their lives. Late summer was tense due to the visit of the controversial Panchen Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader second only to the Dalai Lama, but the hotel manager had record profits. Autumn brought anxiety to the villagers anticipating the all-important harvest; new technology also cost the shaman his job as warder-off of hailstones. During the long winter we filmed a wedding in which the bride and the grooms had no say, but we also observed a household where three brothers have shared a wife for twenty years. The monastery was burgled and the rickshaw driver had to leave home to find work. The village doctor found herself sick, on top of her struggles to care for the patients in her ill-equipped clinic, and she herself turned to a lama and a pilgrimage in the hope of a cure. In the spring the builder was trying to get a contractor's certificate, for which he had to pass an exam in Chinese, a language he did not speak. The novice monk, our youngest character, was threatened with expulsion for lack of discipline. We were watching a people bound by tradition, but challenged by rapid change.
But this is not the book of the film. Television is good for action, and often with no action, there is no film. At the start of our project, the shaman's mother died. There could not have been a more important occasion to explore Tibetan beliefs. But we could not film the actual death; it would have been too intrusive. The elaborate rituals for her rebirth were not enough; we had to drop the whole event in the final cut. This is where books come into their own; they are also far better at exploring people's innermost feelings and thoughts, their beliefs and their reflections on the past. And this is particularly vital for portraying Tibet, a society so rich and complex, and so different from any other.
In this book, I have followed the dramas of the characters in the film, but I focus mainly on the Rikzin family: the shaman Tseten and his two brothers, Dondan and Loga; their wife, Yangdron; their father, Mila; and their four children. The shaman is at the very heart of Tibetan life. People come to him with headaches, toothaches, broken hearts and sick animals. They consult him about births and deaths, which hospital to go to for operations, who should marry whom, whether or when to start a business, or to pray for a felled tree. Tseten even had a visit from a distraught man wanting to know his dog's next incarnation.
The Rikzin family's stories took me into the most intimate aspects of village life, and beyond — the strength of the Tibetans' beliefs and the importance of their rituals; the joy they take in life; their battle to be educated, and in their own language; the pitiful standards of health care; the success of the few in the midst of poverty and lack of opportunity; the palpable political tensions; the animosity between Tibetans and Chinese.
As a Chinese I felt honoured to be welcomed into this community, and by the Rikzin family. They have enabled me to describe as a witness the everyday lives of rural Tibet. Ninety per cent of Tibetans live in villages and on the pastoral land — yet the vast literature on Tibet rarely refers to them. It is among them that faith is still nurtured, the culture is maintained, and tradition flourishes. This is the real Tibet.
ONE The Shaman, the Gun and Mao's Red Book
IT IS EARLY MORNING, and the sky is leaden — not at all like the crystal blue Tibetan vault on the postcards. Dark clouds hang over the village of Tangmad and the mountains behind it, the sky lit now and then by a dramatic flash of lightning. We are huddled in the Rikzins' kitchen, watching the rain. It is not heavy, quite gentle in fact, but it is unrelenting. For four days in a row, the family has got up at two or three in the morning, hoping for it to break. But they — and we — have been disappointed every time. Loga, the oldest brother, Dondan, the middle one, Tseten, the youngest, who is also the village shaman, and Yangdron, the wife they share, are not saying very much. They are drinking yak-butter tea and eating tsampa — roasted barley flour — which they mix with the tea. Mila, the brothers' father, is praying in his room.
Yangdron breaks the silence. ‘Do you think the rain will stop this morning? Yesterday, we could not get into the fields. It was so wet. Last year the harvest was already in by now.’
‘It should be all right,’ Tseten says breezily, trying to lighten the atmosphere.
Dondan turns his head to look out of the window. The clouds over the horizon are becoming thicker and thicker. He sighs. ‘It could be worse,’ he says.
The only truly cheerful one is Loga. He has the mental age of a child. He does not understand; with hot butter tea and tsampa, what is there to worry about? It is the start of another day.
I have heard that the village held a festival two weeks ago for the local god Yul Lha. He is one of the most powerful deities. He is supposed to control the mountains, the rivers that flow from them, the land beneath them, the people and animals who live near them — and the weather. It was before we started filming. I ask Tseten to tell me about it.
‘We have a shrine to Yul Lha on the edge of the village. Each family brought a bundle of their best crops, barley, mustard seeds, and peas as offerings. I recited mantras to invoke the presence of Yul Lha, asking him to come and enjoy them. You know, he is responsible for just about everything important — the rain and the harvest, sickness and health, the safety of men and animals.’
‘Will it be a good harvest this year?’ I ask. I noticed