Jamyang Norbu's blog
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” …
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 …
Continue reading “Sipping The Nectar of the Eastern Himalayas”
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 …
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 …
We were having dinner at the very cosy Little Tibet Restaurant at Jackson Heights last month. Someone insisted I try a Shabhalay from a plate he had ordered. It’s not my favorite food. The shabhalays I had eaten before had largely been products of institution kitchens (chi-thab): too oily, the dough wrap too leathery, stuffing …
Sweet Tea House artists in 1985. Gonkar Gyatso is fourth from left. Emerging from the aftershocks, debris and trauma of the Cultural Revolution a loose-knit group of young Lhasa artists in the early and mid-eighties decided to come together to better utilize their individual creativity and to promote their own works. They joking called themselves …
In my post “Lhasa: Eternal City 2”, I mentioned how the destruction of the Drago Kaling Stupas, the Gateway to Lhasa, had inspired the first “protest” song in the Tibetan freedom movement. I requested readers to help me locate the original song sung by Dadon la. Two readers, Tenzin la (in exile) and another person …
In some of his public talks, His Holiness makes a joking observation of how Tibetans are so sharp (drungu) that they took the best of all religions from India, the warmest of clothes from Mongolia, and the most delicious of foods from China. It is a good joke, and the validity of the observation, at …
Remembering John Lennon at Dharamshala . I remember the exact night, thirty years ago, when I heard John Lennon had been murdered. I was in the hall of the kashag (the Tibetan cabinet) building in Dharamshala, at a benefit dance for the literary magazine Lotus Fields (Pemathang). Raju, the lead guitarist of The Subterranean Vajra …
From their first encounter with the modern world Tibetans appear to have taken to such inventions as photography with relative insouciance – considering Tibet’s reputation as a “forbidden land”. We hear of a Tibetan using a camera, and even compiling a photography manual, around 1881-82. The cine-camera, of course, came a bit later.
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