There are certain writers one must go back to, every once in a while, whenever one’s moral compass requires reorienting. Orwell and Lu Xun are excellent for this, but André Gide is no less effective when one has been hit by a case of the intellectual blahs. One of France’s greatest writers and the 1947 …
The Subliminal Clarity of Blurry Cellphone Videos
Anne Applebaum, the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and scholar (Gulag, A History), writing on the 2008 uprising in Tibet, concluded: “Watching a blurry cell phone video of tear gas rolling over the streets of Lhasa yesterday, I couldn’t help but wonder when – maybe not in this decade …Tibet and its monks will have their …
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The Wandering Goddess
This article first appeared in Lungta No 15, The Singing Mask, Echoes of Tibetan Opera. I must thank the guest editor, Isabelle Henrion-Dourcy, and editor (and leading Tibetan scholar) Tashi Tsering for their invaluable help and guidance. The Wandering Goddess Reviving and Sustaining the Spirit of Ache Lhamo in Exile JN as the “village idiot” …
The Lhasa Ripper
A PRELIMINARY INVESTIGATION INTO THE “DARK UNDERBELLY” OF SOCIAL LIFE IN THE HOLY CITY This is a preliminary and largely impressionistic overview of a neglected strata of old Lhasa society, and lays no claim to serious scholarship. The spelling of the names of the various groups and fraternities mentioned in this article have been difficult …
March Madness
. On March 10th this year does CTA plan to honor the sacrifice of the Tibetan people in 1959 or celebrate the savage crushing of the Uprising by the PLA? The Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) just announced a live webcast of its official function for the 56th National Uprising Day at Dharamshala. Shockingly their publicity …
Early International Awareness of the Tibetan National Flag
(A week or so after Phayul published Freedom Wind Freedom Song, on May 20th 2004, I received additional information from friends and supporters regarding the National Flag which I included in a follow-up piece. I have now added more recent material and am posting this new version of that article.) TGIE official, Tendar-la, (1958 – …
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Sipping The Nectar of the Eastern Himalayas
Lachenpa (or Lachungpa) couple of northern Sikkim enjoying their evening Pahi drink. Photo Dr. Alice S. Kandell (between 1965 & 1971) The Anabasis of Xenophon – not to be confused with Anabasis Alexandri, the biography of Alexander the Great – is the story of the epic retreat of a Greek (mercenary) general, Xenophon, and his …
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Freedom Wind, Freedom Song
General Derge-sé and his 500 troops of the Ta-dang regiment at Markham on the eve of the Chinese invasion. Note national flags at left. Photo: Karen Boatman collection. On this auspicious occasion of Tibet’s Independence Day I offer my readers an essay on the Tibetan flag and anthem I wrote some years before I had …
Biting Into a Juicy Momo Mystery
After I posted my piece on Shabalay last November I thought I was done with writing on food culture for a while. But the manager of Little Tibet Restaurant sent me this urgent email: Tashi Delek Jamyang la,We have a momo crawl coming up soon in Jackson Heights where local businesses compete for a trophy …
Resurrecting a Lost Homeland
A review of the film:BRINGING TIBET HOME (2014)Directed by Tenzin Tseten Choglay,Produced by Tenzing Rigdol and Tenzin Tseten Choglay Tenzing Rigdol laying out his “Soil Installation” at TCV on Oct 25, 2011 For a shoe-string budget film, Bringing Tibet Home is surprisingly rich and multi-layered. The basic story concerns a “site-specific” art installation of a …
