Torch at Mt Qomolangma

OK, no matter what political view you have, I think you should feel happy about this feat:

Torch relay at the highest place on Earth.

Oh, boy!

"The Kite Runner"

Last night I watched the DVD of "The Kite Runner". I am interested in this movie not because of the famous novel it based on, but rather, I had a "bad relationship" with this

Old Town in Kashgar

movie -- the Afghan scenes in the movie were filmed in Xinjiang province in China, in particular, in the Tashkurgan (塔什库尔干) county and the city of Kashgar (喀什). When I traveled in Tashkurgan back in year 2006, the movie was being filmed in the area. Tashkurgan is a very small town, on the borders of both Afghanistan and Tajikistan, as well as Pakistan. Almost all hotels/inns were occupied by the production team. Even worse, they "took over" and blocked all access to the famous "Stone Fortress" outside the town (the kite fighting and kite running scenes at the beginning of the movie were definitely filmed in the Stone Fortress hill and

Golden Tashkurgan

its nearby "Golden Meadow" grassland). The Stone Fortress is the landmark of Tashkurgan, in fact, it is the meaning of the name "Tashkurgan" in Uighur (language). You can imagine how frustrated and angry I could be at the time! :) Indeed, I cursed the movie many times in that day...

Back to the movie. In short, I like it, and like it very much. It is a very moving movie, and beautifully shot. What struck me, after watching the movie, was not the plots or the story, rather, it was the culture, the Muslim culture, and the people. I don't remember since when, we were given, directly or indirectly, some sort of impression that Muslim = bad = inhuman. The government and the media certainly have done a great job of playing the fear factor. I am glad that this movie reminds us once again that there are always good in people, and we are all human alike, just live in different circumstances.

Read some of the good quotes from the novel/movie:
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Kite_Runner

ok, something light this time. :)

read these pictures, make you laugh, and make you sad... :)
http://www.zonaeuropa.com/200804a.brief.htm#019

then watch this video, a really light moment:
http://www.chilloutzone.de/files/08040701.html

Those Olympic torch protestors are f***ing annoying!

屌你老母! If you don't want to go, then don't f***ing go, no one from China welcome you. If you want to boycott, then just do it, no one can stop you from exercising your right!

Yes, i am totally fed up with those sillyheads, especially those people from the West and think they are superior than others because of, what? Civilized? -- they forget how many dirty things their ancestors have done to people on the Earth in the past several hundreds of years, for the benefits of their own selfish interests. In fact, this "tradition" is still happening even today -- just look at what happened in Iraq. More informative and knowledgeable? -- they are too arrogant (or stupid) to realize how biased their medias are. Full of humanity? -- yes, that is true, but please also shed your humanity to those poor and pitiful people living in places where governed by your allies. Last time I check, there are still millions of Palestinian were displaced 30+ years and denied to go back to their home and build THEIR OWN COUNTRY. Also, more than 100 thousands of Nepali speaking Bhutanese were still denied their right to go back their home, which they were forced to leave since 1980, under the campaign of "one nation, one people", conducted by the Naglop people, an ethnic group (of 65% population) in Bhutan which is closely related to Tibetan.

That is!


p.s. Last night I received a fund raising email from Hillary. This is what I wrote her back:

Dear Hillary Clinton,

Today I finally decide to stop supporting your campaign any more. I have been deeply upset by some stupid acts your aides and you had done in the recent months, but what hammers the final nail to the coffin is your decision to support the idea of boycotting the open ceremony of Beijing Olympics. That is, I can't take it any more. Although I have many disagreement with Chinese government and many policies they take, include some of their Tibet policies. However, any boycott to the Olympic Games is an insult to Chinese people, not the government. Recently, I have been deeply annoyed by those western sillyheads whose only existence in this planet is to disrupt and destroy the Olympic Games in Beijing. It is an offense to me, and it is completely out of touch of the reality. I am very disappointed by your judgment on this matter, and start to question how good your 3o+ year experiences are. I simply can't continue my support to you. Therefore, start from today, I am not going to contribute any single dollar into your campaign. In addition, I will work my best to persuade my friends to do the same. (by the way, can I ask for a full refund for all my previous contributions?)

Talk about Tibet (1)

Hello there!

It has been over a year since my last update of my blog. A job change and some family issues took all my time and I hardly found any spare time to do something I like (taking pictures), let alone writing my travel-log for my trip to Ngari Tibet. I did post hundreds of photos from my trip, including many of the holy Mt Gang Rinpoche, on my photo website, fototi.com. You may want to take a look of that photo-log if you are interested in the place.

The reason why I restart my blog tonight was the recent events in Tibet. After reading many news of the riots and follow up developments, I have something to say.



I don't want to touch the highly emotional question of "is Tibet a country". There are endless debates on this topic. Depends on which side you choose, you can honestly believe the other side is lying. A famous Chinese novelist, Wang Lixiong, nailed it perfectly in one of his famous book, Yellow Peril:

Today, information on Tibet is duopolized by two different political propaganda machines. One machine is located in Beijing, and the other in Dharamsala. Since Tibet is to a large extent still under a state of blockade, other individuals or organizations find it very difficult to obtain independent information (especially at the macroscopic level). Like it or not, people who are concerned about Tibet are getting most of their information from these two propaganda machines.

The bad thing is that the information from these two sources is almost surely conflicting with and even completely opposite to each other. Faced with this absurd situation, the solution is to choose your position first and decide which side you want to stand with, and then you treat the information from that side as true and everything from the other side as false.

This formula is not adopted by everybody, and yet there is no alternate way to make assessments based upon data. The western world is suspicious and disgusted with the propaganda machines of communist countries, so the western world and its media tend to believe in the Dalai Lama. Meanwhile, the "patriotic" (nationalistic) Chinese, even though they may object to the Chinese government on other issues, stand with the Communist Party on the Tibet issue.

If you have any level of understanding about Tibet, you will realize that the determination of truth from lies is not that easy. Both Beijing and Dharamsala have elements of truth in what each say, but they also tell many lies. Even if the Dalai Lama is respected by everybody, his propaganda machine still issues propaganda for political purposes that are as removed from the truth as the Beijing propaganda.

Whereas ordinary lies are deliberate attempts to deceive people, some of the lies about Tibet are often sincere. As far as Communist China is concerned, they honestly believe that they have cause to boast about their rule in Tibet and the many resources and money that they have invested there, and so they are aggrieved and angered when they are accused of oppressing Tibet. As for the accusations from the Dalai Lama side, no matter how removed from the facts they might be, the basic sincerity should not be in doubt.

(text copied from blog EastSouthWestNorth)

You can check out Wikipedia to read some interesting fa

Many people wonder if Tibet can keep their culture and heritage safe and alive under the governing of an atheist party

cts about Tibet. I am not knowledgeable enough to say if those are on Wikipedia are truths or just plain fairy tales. However, I think the following two facts should be indisputable:

1. Tibet used to be an independent country. At least during Tang dynasty (600-900 A.D.), there were many wars between China and Tibet. That eventually led to the famous marriage between the Tibetan King Songtsen Gampo and Princess Wencheng from China. The marriage was the result of a cease fire agreement between two countries. The Ramoche monastery in Lhasa, where the rumored latest protest broke out on Saturday, 3/29, was built for Wencheng Princess.

2. Tibet surrendered their sovereign to Mongols during 13th century, and became part of the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368 A.D) in China (Mongols conquerred china and found the Yuan Dynasty). This fact makes the foundation of China's claim that "Tibet is part of China for over 700 years". However, on the other hand, many Tibetan consider their submission was to Mongols, not (Han) Chinese. So after the collapse of Yuan Dynasty (1368 A.D.), Tibet should be considered a "free" country again. It is a fact though, China still maintained their control, more or less, over Tibet after the Yuan Dynasty. There weren't any official documents that stated Tibet separated from China after 14th century.

Therefore, contrast to the view of many Westerners, I cannot agree with the claim of "China invaded Tibet in 1950".

I have spent many hours in Internet recently, reading some online forums on this issue. These are my impressions after my "research":

1. Almost all Western people think China's occupation of Tibet is evil, so it is a terrible action and a deep human right violation for Chinese government to crackdown the peaceful protests and unrest. It is very interesting to see almost all medias from the West always use the word "peaceful" to describe the protests, although some/many of them also said "turned deadly/violent". Few of them uses word "riots", or "mobs".

2. Western medias also present quotes/claims from the Tibetan government-in-exile in a way that are trustful, reliable. On the other hand, traces of negative can be sensed easily from the texts they put forth for the quotes from the chinese side. In other words, readers are very easy to came to a conclusion -- "China lies".

3. On the other hand, many Chinese sincerely believe that the faults are on the Tibetan side. It is easy to find many videos/pictures from TV, newspapers and internet that clearly show many Tibetan mobs brutally attacked and killed ethnic Han and Hui Chinese, burned down stores owned by non-Tibetan people, etc.

4. Many Chinese were shocked to see the "biased" coverages of these events from the western medias. They all thought that the western media are unjustly, biased, and intentionally inject the so-called "Yellow Peril" conspiracy into their reports.

5. Many Chinese are upset by Tibetan. They don't understand why there were such protests, and why there are so many (or so little) Tibetan are so bitter against Han Chinese. They think a) it was the CCP who broke the serfdom class system in Tibet back to 1950, and liberated many Tibetan serfs from their masters. Without help from Han Chinese, Tibetan may still live in a brutal feudalism society today; b) China has poured countless money in developing Tibet's economy since the Tibet was "liberated". Many Tibetan have seen great changes of their living in the recent years. Therefore, they should be happy, they should not complain any more.

6. A lot of Chinese believe Dalai Lama clique was behind the riots, a claim which has been repeatedly denied by Dalai and the Tibetan government-in-exile many times. The Tibetan side claimed the protests in Tibet were spontaneous and unorganized, directed at Chinese rule in the region. And they (include Dalai himself) even spread some conspiracy theories that China planted their agents into Tibetan protesters and staged the violence, in the purpose of destroying the worldwide perception of a peaceful demonstration for independence. (about the link: see the picture of PLAs holding lama's robes. It is also worth pointing out that they used quotes from the infamous "Epoch Times", a FLG newspaper which has zero credibility)

7. Most people from the West have very favorite impressions on Tibetan, and in particular, Dalai Lama. They are sympathy to Tibetan. However, although many Chinese are not against Tibetan, they do not have favorite impression on Dalai.

8. Dalai Lama keeps up his PR machine and urges for opening talk with China almost every day. He publicly

Where the path leads to?

said he is all for Beijing Olympic, and he does not seek independence for Tibet. His only goal is a meaningful self-rule of Tibet, not the "rubber-stamp like autonomy" status quo. On the other hand, China repeatedly called Dalai Lama is a "separatist" and they would not open talk to Dalai only until he abandons his claim for "Tibet independence". -- let many outsiders wonder is this a perfect example of a Cantonese idiom -- "Chicken and Duck Talk".



9. Dalai Lama is a master in PR game. China, in contrast, totally screws itself up.

In the coming days I will give my thought on these matters.