Beggars of Lhasa besiege tourists

Press, 24 September 1987, Page 15

Beggars of Lhasa besiege tourists

From

KEN COATES

in Tibet

Hassling, begging and ripping off — all three are being used to extract money from tourists eager to be enchanted by Lhasa, Tibet, fabled abode of the gods. A shuttle bus runs from the Lhasa Hotel, managed for the Chinese by the Holiday Inn chain, to Barkhor Square, overlooked by the once gold-roofed seventh century Jokhang Temple.

Tibet’s Buddhists prostrate themselves. The Jokhang surpasses in religious significance the famed Potala, former home of the Dalal Lama which dominates Lhasa.

From dawn until after dark, now that the Chinese have allowed Tibetans to practise their religion more openly, pilgrims whirling prayer wheels and fingering their beads shuffle, limp, tramp purposefully or otherwise make their way round the temple. The more circuits made, the greater the merit Tibetan women pedlars wear chunky turquoise necklaces, chains, coral and half an arm of bracelets of bone, worked metal and wood. They have ornate belt purses, medallions, earrings, tinder and snuff boxes, small sharp daggers and brooches. They pounce on foreigners, pulling out a necklace or bracelet and asking, "How much?” Intrigued by the ancient style of jewellery, tourists stop and finger the wares. Once a purchase is made, the women become insistent that more is bought A small, ragged boy grabbed me around the upper leg. He clung tenaciously, looking up with round, liquid brown eyes, pleading, and waving a one-yuan note. What does a “rich” foreigner do? Shake him savagely free, flinging him to the ground in a Scrooge-like gesture, or give? On the roof of the Jokhang, a sly-looking character beckoned. We followed him to behind a pillar where he unwrapped a few flakes of pot He made signs of the delights of same. When we declined to make a bid, he wheedled, “Dalai

Lama picture, Dalai Lama?” It is an oft-repeated request from Tibetans for photographs of their seif-exiled god-king who fled to India in 1959. Tibet is one of the most sought-after tourist destinations in the world. Like a magnet it draws Americans, West Europeans and backpackers from everywhere. The Chinese opened the fortress-like Lhasa Hotel of 500 rooms in 1985. Running it for the international tourist market was beyond their capabilities. Under foreign management, it seems centuries removed from the bazaar and its 10 dentists lined up in the street using treadle-operated drills. A string quartet plays Mozart in the lounge bar and "Star Wars” screens on the in-house TV channel.

Tourists fly in from Peking and Hong Kong via Chengdu, in Sichuan province. Others fly from Europe to Katmandu in Nepal and across into Tibet by road. Harrowing tales are told by travellers making this trip. In an exceptionally heavy monsoon in Nepal this year, 300 people have been killed by floods. Landslides have blocked the road, and it takes at least five days of rough going from Katmandu to Lhasa, including two days walking. “You could fall to your death,” said a French woman who described tramping along mountain tracks to bypass dangerous slips. She said two Americans slipped and fell to their deaths thousands of feet below. An American tourist told us of meeting a New Zealander who was telling anyone who would listen how he lost ail his bags down a precipice. Flights may be cancelled or delayed because of weather, or for military reasons. A border dispute between China and India meant Lhasa Airport was closed every second day during one week, to bring in more troops. The result was chaos, with

delayed tourists fighting for boarding cards for the one flight a day out. Everyone has to adjust to the altitude. The elevation change from Chengdu to Lhasa is 3500 metres, and most people are affected.

We felt as though old age had struck, and we could move only very slowly at first. We felt slightly dizzy, had headaches and felt breathless.

The hotel manager, Chris Schlittler, a Swiss, said fit, active people suffered most, but most people did not get seriously ill. But yes, “about five or six tourists” had died of heart or other problems brought on by altitude sickness. On the advice of the Himalayan Rescue Association, we found the trick was to drink plenty (not beer). This stimulated kidney function, taking away excess fluids in the lungs and brain, hence headaches. In three or four days we became acclimatised. The number of monks in Tibet is strictly controlled by the Religious Affairs Bureau. Allowing Tibetans to practise their ancient religion ties in with China’s desire to impress visitors, and gain funds from tourists keen to “discover” ancient practices. The Tibetan people have bitter memories of the destruction of temples and religious treasures during the chaotic Cultural Revolution.

The business of taking tourists from the Lhasa Hotel to Sera Monastery, only 6km away, is a prime example of the exploitative attitude to visitors.

The 10-minute return bus trip costs 18 yuan ($9). Tourists are dumped at the gates, where monks demand another 3 yuan each. Guests pay up reluctantly, looking around for a guide. There is none.

It is a case of joining hardy Tibetan pilgrims and walking up narrow alleys. Five small dogs

were sitting, monk-like, guarding the steps of a temple. Tibetans believe they are former monks reincarnated as dogs. They looked reasonably well fed. Pilgrims in sheepskin cloaks shuffled clockwise around gloomy temples once thronged with 5000 monks. Now there are about 100. Brass dishes of burning yak butter carried by the faithful gave off an overpowering sicklysweet smell. Some twirled prayer wheels, or carried muslin scarves to throw on to a Buddha image, in a festoon of obeisance. Women dug spoons into jars of butter which they added to the molten liquid burning in great brass bowls or stone vessels in front of gods represented by strange carved, cast and painted faces. Some were fierce, others benevolent, cruel, supercilious, demanding, beneficent or aloof. Everywhere outside the temples of the monastery, children were begging. Women with babies in their arms or strapped to their backs held palms uppermost.

Two ragged boys, sitting crosslegged on flagstones, asked for three yuan for a posed photograph of themselves. They whooped with delight when a podgy German youth with an expensive camera handed over the money ($1.50) and zoomed in. One monk asked for five yuan for allowing himself and the high altar to be photographed. On the rooftop, novices only 10 to 12 years old sat facing a wall, reciting prayers from Tibetan scriptures. A young monk in a maroon robe called out, “Tibet, Tibet," and beckoned. I followed him through a low door into ruins. He disappeared then appeared at a window waving leaves of Tibetan mantras. Most un-monklike, I thought, but then everyone is on the make from the tourists and Tibet is a poverty-stricken region. But what can one do with Tibetan holy scripts? As I walked away, the monk shouted after me in what sounded like very un-monk-like language. East of Sera is a skyburial

site. Corpses are laid out in a open area and are skinned and dissected. Bones are crushed and mixed with tsampa (yak butter tea, salted). Dozens of buzzards, hawks and ravens are waiting on the mountainside above. When all is ready, they swoop on the remains and quickly dispose of them.

Macabre perhaps, but there is logic in this means of “burial” in a harsh country where fuel is scarce for a funeral pyre, and where the earth is often too rocky and hard for gravedigging. At first, tourists were welcomed, but noisy crowds began to annoy mourners. Attempts were made to control picturetaking at what was after all a solemn and very private moment. After angry scenes, when burial parties chased tourists with rocks and knives, and even reportedly brandished bones from newly dissected corpses, the site was closed in September, 1985.

Some people we spoke to said they tried to take a look, but

having read of the fury of relatives, they rode off on their hired bicycles when an official shook his fist at them. Sky burials continue, with photographers, perhaps in the early morning. We did not fancy trying to witness such a scene before breakfast. But we did find the remains of two of the first cars in Lhasa — 1927 vintage Austin Sevens, presented to the thirteenth Dalai Llama and carried over the Himalayas in pieces. They were stored after he died until the present Dalai Lama hired a Tibetan trained as a driver in India to get them into going order. Now they are wrecks in the grounds of the Norbulinka, or summer palace of the Dalai Lama. In its luxurious apartments, including a bathroom with porcelain from England, an Englishspeaking Tibetan who said he spent 20 years in a labour camp, showed us a mural. He pointed out a painting of Drepung, once the largest monastery in the world. A white

stone city on a mountainside, it had 10,000 lamas and 20,000 serfs who toiled for it Drepung < was a key force in the theocracy headed by the Dalai Lama and run by clerics and rich landowners.

Today, towering, rocky slopes surround an almost deserted monastery, a sizeable part of which has been destroyed. Medieval courtyards with dark monks’ cells oft tiered galleries can be entered through stout wooden doors. One or two were occupied, and on one gallery a woman appeared. A highlight was the monks’ kitchen, a gloomy cavern below street level in which great fires burned beneath steaming cauldrons. Tibetans we spoke to expressed no love for the Chinese who have poured much money into development in Tibet But although there are factories, hydro- electric plants and army installations, there is a great shortage of schools for Tibetans. China is keen to make the

most of the Tibetan tourist boom, but few visitors come in winter. Lhasa Hotel manager Schlittler plans to promote Lhasa as a winter destination. Guidebooks say Tibetan winters are fiercely cold, with Lhasa temperatures plummeting to a searing minus 23 deg C minimum. But Schlittler counters that there is "glorious sunshine every day,” and no snow. Besides, it is more interesting with nomads camping all over town since it is too cold for herding on the vast upland regions, he says. The Swiss personifies the big business approach to tourism. He has signed the lease of an upstairs suite of rooms with a terrace overlooking Barkhor Square. Soon tourists, footsore and weary after being hassled and ripped off, will drink their chilled Cokes and eat ice cream (at inflated tourist prices) under sun umbrellas listing to music. The beggars will watch from below, no doubt hoping for some crumbs when these strange people with hair on their bodies come down. ' ■