Riots in Xiahe and Chengdu: A Report from the Field, Part I
Police force presence in Tianfu Square
The most recent news coming out of China, besides the Olympics, is the situation with Tibetan protests. Of the three major Chinese cities where protests were held, Lhasa, Xiahe, and Chengdu, I have been to the latter two.
Being in China, it is a little difficult to find out what is going on around the world. I get the majority of my news updates from logging onto Yahoo!. Wikipedia was unblocked for the first time in China last week, while YouTube was unblocked anew. YouTube had been blocked for a little over a week to prevent Chinese citizens from accessing and uploading videos of the protests, and those videos still remain inaccessible. After hearing about the protests in Xiahe and the lockdown of the city, my mind began to remember what I had seen while there. I heard reports of police blocking off the main street in the once peaceful city.
Last August, while traveling along the Silk Road, we made a stop for two days at the small village of Xiahe in Gansu province. Xiahe is located along a river in the mountains and is located several thousand kilometers above sea level, so some people might experience altitude sickness while visiting. The population of the city is divided between three groups: the overwhelming majority of Tibetans, the Muslims, and the Han Chinese. The majority of the city is Tibetan and contains one monastery and one nunnery. There is one main street with two hotels, a restaurant or two, and stores selling different types of Tibetan garments. While there, I stayed in the same hotel that was later filled with armed police and I can picture the government trucks driving along the twisting roads through the mountains to reach this remote village.
While I was there, we were able to tour both the town's monastery and its nunnery. Labrang Monastery is much larger than the nunnery, and is 299 years old. The monastery was composed of a main prayer hall, which we were not allowed to enter; a few schools where monks could learn about Tibetan medicine, higher and lower tantra, and philosophy; and homes for the 500 monks who live there. The nunnery was nowhere near as luxurious as the monastery, but such is the case in Tibetan society. Women have always played a subordinate role to both the monks and men, in general.
After visiting the monastery, a few of us went to a monk's home, where we asked him questions about life. Previously on the trip we had seen numerous Buddhist grottos that had been defaced or destroyed by Muslims, so I asked him how he felt about these occurrences. The monk’s translator responded, “Muslims are troublemakers. Wherever they go they create problems… Buddhists are supposed to show respect for all people and animals, but Muslims don’t.” This answer was not what I had expected to hear from a Monk, but it did show that there was some animosity between the two religious groups. If there was animosity from the monks, there could also be animosity amongst others.
Besides hanging out with the monks, we were also able to talk with some lay Tibetans. We sang and danced around a giant bonfire, sharing our culture with one another and indulged in some Tibetan food, of which the main ingredient is Yak.
I’m not quite sure why this town would want to protest. They are located high in the mountains, around four hours from the capital, Lanzhou, and their lives seemed to carry on the same way day after day, so what was there to accomplish from the riots? The majority of the town are Tibetan people, which seemed to peacefully coexist with the Han Chinese and Muslim populations. Rioting in this small town would appear to hurt more than help. Is staging protests in a town where all you have to hurt is your economy, neighbors, and your personal well-being really worth it.
