Monthly Archives: October 2011

Tibet is not China, much as China wishes it were. If Tibet were China, then China would not need to exert so much effort to convince others that it is. Proof of this is visible on every street corner in Lhasa, where police or soldiers stand at motionless attention, watching, surveying, making known by their uniform and very presence that the Chinafication of Tibet, though well-underway, is an artificial implant on the Tibetans which still refuses to take.

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Ah, to be surrounded by color and chaos, by whirring motorcycles dashing hither and yon, by honking and beeping of horns, by jumbles of tottering houses in blue and green, brown and red, by babies with a smudge of red tika on their forehead, by children soaring high on tall rope swings suspended from bamboo struts set up for the week-long celebration of Dashain. To see impossibly green rice paddies and towering jungle-clad cliffs striped with gushing cascades that tumble from unseen glaciers past tall trees and giant ferns and pink flowering bushes, to the rushing river in the deep, shaded gorge below. We’re out of China. We’re in Nepal. No more chopsticks. No more noodle soups. It’s curry time and all is well with the world!

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