Feb 2007

Losar la tashi deleg! This is the traditional greeting for Tibetan new year. This past Sunday was the first day of the Fire Pig year for Tibetans, and also the first day of the Pig year for Chinese.

For Tibetans, however, this day is not the only day of celebration for the new year. Two weeks before the actual first day of Losar, people begin cleaning their homes and businesses. They clean everything from the outside of their homes to the rugs on the floor. It is also the time to buy new clothing. Many Tibetans only buy new clothes one time of the year, at Losar. As I mentioned before, I also bought a new piece of clothing for the new year, a traditional Tibetan dress, which I did indeed wear for the new year, and pictures will be posted shortly.

So, two weeks before the new year, Tibetans begin preparing. In addition to cleaning, they spend a little more time in devotional activities, visiting temples, making offerings, and of course, circumambulating the Jokhang. Many people come into the city to buy gifts. One of the most popular gifts is sha gampo, or dry meat. It is simply raw yak meat that is dried. A half kilo (a little over a pound) of this meat runs somewhere around $8-$10, quite pricey. Of course, it is possible for people to buy the raw meat and dry it themselves, but many people don't take the time.

As the new year approached, the city began to empty. Many people went back to their home villages to be with their extended families, and perhaps three or four days before the new year, the city streets were nearly free of people.

The 29th day of the 12th month, or in Western terms, February 16th this year, is a holiday for Tibetans. On this day, Tibetans free their homes of evil spirits, ghosts, and bad influences. The evening is when all of the action takes place. I had the good fortune, along with two of my friends here, to spend it with a Tibetan family.

We arrived at their home at perhaps 8:30pm. We were invited to drink butter tea and to eat homemade kapse, a deep fried butter cookie, and which taste the same here as they do when I make them in the States, much to my delight.

After a bit of socializing and watching the special Losar programming, which I will address later, we were each given a ball of tsampa (barley flour). We were told to squeeze it in our hands, blow on it, and touch it to shoulders, stomach, legs, etc. This, they said, would keep us healthy during the next year. Then, we ate guthuk, a particular type of thukpa (noodle soup) made especially for this day. Instead of the normal thukpa which is made with just a clear broth, noodles, and beef, this thukpa includes two kinds of noodles, cheese, a few beans, and sometimes small momos (dumplings) which contain small items which Tibetans use to fortell what the coming year will bring for them or identify a personality trait. For example, if one receives salt in his momo, that means he talks too much. If one received peach, this means that he will have good health in the coming year and drolma (wild ginseng root) means that one will be lucky in the new year. The family I ate with declined this part of the tradition, perhaps because the family was small.

When eating the thukpa, one must remember not to consume the entire portion. You must leave a bit in the bottom of the bowl. This gets poured, in three parts, into a larger bowl which contains all of the negative things from the house, collected in small bundles of twigs. This bowl also contained our tsampa balls from earlier. The thukpa, they told us, was to feed the hungry ghosts.

Once everyone had finished the first bowl and the remainder poured into the large bowl, the father put on a hat, which they called a long life hat, and he took the bowl outside to the intersection near their home, and the entire thing was tossed into a bonfire, which had been started by others doing the same thing. The bonfire is at crossroads to keep the ghosts and evil spirits from finding their way back to the houses.

Then, everyone ate more thukpa, and went outside to set off fireworks. Now, fireworks are nice, and it is not always so convenient in the States to have them restricted on type and time one can use fireworks, but it is my sincere hope that those restrictions stay in place. No one pays one bit of attention to safety with fireworks here. Children are allowed to set off any firework, and there are several fireworks here that one actually holds while things explode out of the end. Admittedly, we have sparklers in the States that we hold while they burn, but we do not allow children to light a string of small fireworks that spark like mad, while the child swings the string in a circle, all the while being covered in sparks. Nor do we allow children to hold a long stick, lit at one end, which, as it burns, shoots flame as a small exploding projectile bursts from the end, with no attention give to aim. I do not have statistics on how many firework-related injuries there are at this time of year, but given the examples of firework shooting I saw, I imagine there are quite a few. Admittedly, however, many of the fireworks were nice.

After this, we all went back inside to drink more tea and watch more of the television programming. It consisted of a combination of traditional Tibetan songs, modern Tibetan songs, and Chinese songs. It appeared that the performances, the applause and the bits by the MC's were all taped separately and then spliced together. The audience and the performance were never shown together. One of the most interesting pieces was, to say the least, strange. It consisted of all Chinese performers, one man in a white military uniform, and maybe twenty male, Chinese ballet dancers, all clad in camouflage military uniform leotards. It was one of the strangest sites I have seen here. It was a very serious performance, but my friends and I could not help but laugh constantly, both at the costumes, and at the fact that they could dance with straight faces while wearing them.

Anyway, the next day, many people stay in their homes, finishing any cleaning that has to be done. Losar starts on the first day of the first month, which this year was the 18th of February. Families stay together, playing games, eating, talking, and enjoying each other's company. For three days, including the first, there are visits made to relatives and friends, lots of eating, and lots of chang.

On the first day of Losar, I went out with Ingri, from Norway. We walked around the Barkhor, and were invited to someone's home. Once there, we were given butter tea, chang (which was quite nice), sha gampo (dried yak) and kapse. Then, we chatted, ate and drank for almost three hours before we could politely leave.

On the second day of Losar (this sounds almost like a song...) I went out with two friends, all of us in chubas, to take pictures in front of the Jokhang and Potala. We attracted quite a lot of attention. I was wearing a traditional Lhasa chuba, while Doris was wearing an Amdo chuba. Random people were only too happy to take pictures with us or of us.

Losar is a big holiday here. It lasts until the full moon of the first month, so fifteen days. During this time, nothing is open. And, this year, Chinese new year fell on the same day, so Chinese and Tibetan shops were all closed. There was almost nothing open, including restaurants. There was very little produce and meat available. It was a bit tough for a few days. We wandered around looking for places to eat or hang out, but with very few options.

A week after the start of Losar, I visited the English Corner, a group of Tibetans and some Chinese who like to practice their English with foreigners. The Saturday I went, was the Losar party. There is a new Lhasa Drama Club and they had prepared a short, funny play for the party, and I was asked to tape it. There was also a lot of singing, from various places around Tibet, and general merry-making. Tibetans do like to celebrate things together, many times in a non-alcoholic, and very amiable atmosphere.

I will be happy to celebrate Losar here again in the future, perhaps with more Tibetans next time.

As I have written before, I have been tutoring English for two people. Well, Tashi, my favorite of the two, has returned home. It is Tibetan New Year this week, and it is time for family. My other student has been taxing my patience and I decided to take a two-week vacation from tutoring. This works well because, as I mentioned, it is holiday time, and I have been teaching since Christmas.

I am not really a teacher, and the experience has proved to be a learning one on both sides. However, I feel that I am failing her as a teacher. She never listens, nor does there seem to be much improvement in her English skills in the month I have been tutoring her. We have been doing work on commas and periods, and then working in her textbook, which she ignored for the better part of the break, and now has a massive amount of work to do in a few short weeks. It seems strange to me that someone can study a subject for three years, yet have no real idea about it. When I ask her to write sentences, for example, she does not know the correct placement of nouns and verbs. Her speaking skills are atrocious and she said she is top in her class. Most of the time when she speaks to me, I have to ask her to repeat several times, not because of pronunciation, but because she does not make any sense. It is an almost random collection of words. When I correct her speaking, she never listens well enough to remember the corrections the next time she says the same things. And reading is a complete disaster. She is working in a book that uses short articles with comprehension questions after. I will have her read aloud, so I can correct her pronunciation, but when it comes time to answer the questions, she has no idea about the content of the article. She will answer four out of five questions incorrectly, usually more than once. I have her look up words she does not understand, which has been a fight, every time, and then we discuss the meaning. She says she understands, but then will continue to answer incorrectly.

All right, enough venting. I have a good time with her older sister. She taught me to make thukpa, and last week, on my last day of tutoring, I learned to make momos, similar to Chinese dumplings. The filling is easy, but the shape still confounds me a bit, and I will need to do a great deal of practice before I would consider making them for anyone other than myself.

A few days earlier, I went shoe shopping with my student and her sister. I wanted to buy close-toed dress shoes to wear with my chuba. However, it became clear after visiting every major shoe shop in Lhasa that my feet are too large for dress shoes here. In China, they use both European sizing and their own sizing. In European sizing, I wear a 40, but would probably do better in a 41 since my feet are rather wide. This is impossible here. The highest size for ladies' dress shoes is a 39. In one shop, the sales lady pulled out almost two dozen pairs of shoes, all of which were 39, telling me that because it was afternoon, my feet were larger than in the morning, and so if I wore these too-small shoes in the morning, they would fit. I almost laughed in her face. I could not believe she would try so hard to sell me shoes that did not fit. I think though, that some ladies here do buy shoes that are too small and do wear them. I, however, am not about to do that. So, consequently, I will be wearing my black sandals with a pair of socks, and hope that the chuba is long enough to cover the shoes.

This week, I had an experience that few foreigners have. I was invited by a friend to attend a gold offering at the Jokhang temple. My friend is a foreigner, but a practitioner of Buddhism and the offering was made for the death anniversary of her lama's mother. We walked to the Jokhang, since the weather was quite nice, and on the way, she needed to stop at a small monastery. It was located on a back alley, of which there are many in Lhasa. The lama at this monastery, which I am sure I could not find alone, is well known for divination, and he has been quite busy since it is new year time. I stayed in the back while Patricia gave him what she had brought, then he asked about me, and she told him I was American, and he gave me some special, blessed incense.

We then made our way to the Jokhang. A monk who is a friend of a friend, led us inside, and since there was a gold offering to be done, and we were with a monk, we did not have to wait or pay for entrance. Once inside, we went to the section across from the Jowo chapel. When a gold offering is made, gold dust is added to water, and is then painted onto a statue. The least expensive is the face at 300 yuan (~$40), followed by the body, which runs something over 1000 yuan (>$130), and finally, one can buy new clothes for a statue at more than 3000 yuan (~$400). This gold offering was just for the face. The painter, a monk, paints the gold onto the face, while the devotee circumambulates the statue and offers a kata. Then, a blessed kata is returned to the devotee, in addition to other kinds of blessed items, such as barley.

After the offering was complete, the monk who was guiding us, took us to the roof. There, we had an experience very few, and probably almost no foreigners have had. We shared this experience with three Tibetans.

On the roof of the Jokhang, there is a series of locked doors which are usually covered by drapes, and so are nearly invisible. Inside these doors are the apartments of the Dalai Lama, where he stayed during the Monlam Chenmo, or Great Prayer Festival, a week long celebration, which is no longer permitted in Tibet. These rooms have been preserved quite well, and because of the sacredness of the space, we were required to cover our shoes before entering.

Inside the first hallway was a case containing statues of Chenresig, or Avalokitesvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, of whom the Dalai Lama is believed to be an incarnation. This opened up into a large gathering hall, with a throne for the Dalai Lama, statues of various deities and Sakyamuni in the background. Surrounding two sides of the room were thangkas (religious paintings) of the 21 Taras, a goddess who is known as the Saviouress. Each version of Tara had her own thangka, something which is not so common to see. The next room was a small sitting room, and this was followed by the room in which the Dalai Lama could watch the rituals and dances of the Monlam Chenmo. There was a window with a view directly over the central courtyard. This room contained more statues and two couches.

Down another hall was the private chamber of the Dalai Lama, including a private room for sitting and praying, and his sleeping room. The Tibetans who were with us were quite moved at being in these rooms, and I can understand why. Even in the Potala Palace, one cannot visit the sleeping chambers of the Dalai Lamas.

Overall, the furnishing were quite plain, but the entire set of apartments was carpeted and the statues inside were quite beautiful and seemed of a little better quality than some inside the temple.

Tibet is full of hidden places. Tourists see only the bare surface of what exists here. Even after so much destruction during the Cultural Revolution, there are secrets upon secrets here, many of which are just waiting to be discovered.

I recently had the opportunity to explore some things considered polite and impolite to Tibetans. Some things are common sense; responding to greetings, eating the food the host provides, respecting religious traditions. These are similar to our own traditions in the West. However, we also consider things like holding doors for others, covering our mouths when we cough, and not relieving ourselves on the sidewalk to be polite as well. Here, those things do not matter.

What does matter here is accepting invitations, even if you know you will not be able to make the date, eating more food than one person should safely eat, and not refusing to dance if asked.

I was out one evening with a Western friend and my English student, Tashi. We had spent the early part of the evening in a nangma, enjoying some modern Tibetan rock/pop music. About 1:30am, Stephanie decided she wanted to go dancing, so we went to the newest, and second, disco in Lhasa, Tang Club. We found a table, ordered a couple of beers and Stephanie proceeded to dance. Less than ten minutes into our stay, a rather drunk Tibetan man came over to our table, with a couple of beers he ordered for us, and started talking with Tashi, after the traditional drink together. Although he was drunk, he continued to drink over the next two hours, and by 4:00am, he was thoroughly plastered. He insisted on dancing with Stephanie, but when he asked me, I politely, or so I thought, declined. It was late, I was tired, and was quite ready to go home. However, he kept asking me, and then Tashi told me I was being impolite to this man by refusing to dance.

In the States, it is the woman's choice to dance or not, if the man asks. In fact, many people consider it impolite for someone to keep asking once they have been refused. Here, I ended up dancing with the man, because it is rude to decline the invitation. Instead of simply dancing and then sitting after one song, he left the dance floor after passing me to someone else, who passed me to a third person. That is certainly rude by Western standards. Woman are not typically passed among strangers on the dance floor, when the inviting party has left the floor.

Around 4:30am, we left the club and Tashi insisted that this man join us for an early morning meal at a restaurant down the street. After being quite belligerent with the waitress, this crazy man ordered a bottle of baijiu, chinese rice liquor, which usually runs about 52% alcohol. He wanted to split the small bottle between three of us, since Tashi does not drink. However, I declined, so that left Stephanie to drink with this man. He emptied the small bottle into two classes, and Stephanie, in a brilliant move, was able to talk with him long enough for her to empty two thirds of hers onto the floor. I was watching for this and did not even see her do it. Then, she insisted they shapda, or empty their glasses in a single go. This man was still so drunk, he didn't care.

Finally, we were able to leave the restaurant. We all got into a cab, expecting to drop him home, then go home ourselves. It was after 5:00am, and we were tired. However, this man had other ideas. He told the cab driver to take us to another bar. While we protested, saying he should go home, and that we wanted to go home, the man would hear of nothing else but that we join him in another beer. Tashi said we would stay for five minutes, but of course that turned into 45 minutes. I finally refused to drink anymore, and eventually we were able to leave, although our drunk "friend" remained at the bar, drinking. It was about 6:30am by the time we got home. This evening proved an inexpensive, but taxing lesson in Tibetan politeness.