Beijing Wide Open

Strange calls, people following and watching us… is this how it feels to live under oppression?

Outside the window, you can see our “tail” in two cars. They have been following us all day, without trying to hide the fact that they were watching us.

There’s been so much hype and excitement about it. I just had to come see the The Olympic Stadium (nicknamed the Bird’s Nest) for myself. It’s enormous and obviously meant to inspire awe and reverence in Chinese and foreigners alike, regardless of the cost (which at this point is estimated at 3.8 billion Yuan – or $500 million US). Of course, the construction is still going on…

The Chinese government’s obsession with audacious mega-projects is nothing new, with each serving different military and economic purposes. (Three Gorges Dam, Tibet Railway). There is a common, psychological theme running through all of these projects including the Bird’s Nest: all of them are meant to communicate China’s technological progress and prowess. However, these project’s architectural scale and engineering sophistication cannot gloss over the absence of the two most basic rights of China’s people: freedom and democracy.Will freedom and democracy ever come to China? Does economic progress automatically lead to an opening up of restrictive, repressive political systems, as so many academics and China apologists claim? In fact, as China’s economy gets more advanced, the tools of repression and fear also seem to become more sophisticated.

Here’s a short video I shot to give you a sense of the construction and space around the site:

As a Tibetan born and raised in exile, I have come to cherish the freedom I enjoy outside of my own homeland. Freedom is addictive, and once you taste it, you’re hooked; you only want more. There was a time when my grandparents lived in a free Tibet and led free lives. Mine is an unfortunate generation of Tibetans, either wandering in foreign lands or living under oppression in our homeland.

As I write this, there are 14 Tibetans sitting on the street in Delhi who are entering their 27th day of Hunger Strike. They hunger for freedom more than they hunger for food. They have vowed to die in the face of oppression rather than resort to violence. My thoughts and prayers are with them.

And even though the feeling of repression hangs over this place like smog, I also feel strongly that change is at hand, not only for Tibet but also for China. The charade has gone on long enough. As I turned back for one last photograph of the Bird Nest, it suddenly looked almost toy-like.

An old Chinese proverb quotes a scholar who said:

When man fights nature
Nature kills man.
The sky turns black
And empires crumble.

Well, the sky here is nearly black.

“And this is the country that claims to develop Tibet for the better?” I said to myself, as I imagined the vast, blue, blue, blue sky of my homeland Tibet.

I forgot to post this video this morning, so apologies for being a bit out of order. Watch below and you’ll see the “beautiful” view of downtown Beijing out of our hotel window. We also came across some interesting fellow foreigners, in town to promote the Olympics.

Paul and I completely forgot to eat today. It was nearly 9pm before we realized we’d only had one bowl of plain rice each! It’s not so easy to eat vegetarian in this town. We ordered spicy beans at lunch and we got spicy beans…with pork. We ordered eggplant tonight at dinner and we got eggplant…with pork (should’ve seen that coming). But in the end it was all redeemed by this lovely, artful carrot swan that graced our plate of mixed vegetables…and only mixed vegetables.

In all seriousness though, the last two days have been so intense we’ve both been running on pure adrenaline. It’s such a strange thing to be here in this place that appears so free and normal on the surface and yet to be so freaked out and paranoid about these seemingly harmless things we’re doing like sightseeing, taking photos and expressing our opinions. We keep slipping up and saying “Tibet” or “Tibetan” in public. When one of us does this, we usually freeze and look around without moving or try to pretend it’s no big deal and keep gabbing on and on with neither of us really listening.

Tonight we thought it was all over when we returned to the train station to get our luggage and saw two policemen standing next to the counter.

“They weren’t here in the morning, right? Why else would they be here now? And look at all these shifty men in plain clothes smoking and staring at us. For sure this is it for us.” So we stopped, collected ourselves and then walked straight up to them together. “Wrong bag check,” said the woman behind the counter when we handed her our tags. She pointed down the platform to the right one.

Those cops weren’t there for us at all. Whew. We felt relieved for a minute but then I thought “they’ll probably be waiting for us when we get back to the hotel.” I hope not…

Paul just read a story in the China Daily today that I have to tell you about. It’s titled “A Stranger in Lhasa? Not if you’re from Sichuan” and it talks about the surprise of a government official from Chengdu, named Hu Jian, who travels to Lhasa and is thrilled to find so many Sichuan people doing business there!

Hu says “When I got into the taxi, the driver, Zhou Hong, greeted me in the Sichuan dialect. Zhou, from Dayi County in Sichuan, told me most taxi drivers in Lhasa come from Sichuan.” He goes on to say that he didn’t expect to find so many Sichuan people in Lhasa but locals in Lhasa are not surprised when the find Sichuan people “running restaurants, peddling vegetables, selling shoes or jewelery and working at construction sites.”

A Tibetan at a local travel agency is quoted as saying “There are so many Sichuan people in Lhasa that the Sichuan dialect is tantamount to Mandarin.” He goes on to say that an increasing number of people from outside Lhasa had arrived in the city since the opening of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway last year.

According to him there are “100,000 Sichuan people doing business in Lhasa, accounting for nearly 80 percent of people from outside the city.”

Need I say more?

This morning we went to Beijing West Railway Station, the departure point for trains to Tibet. This mostly express service started last July. Even though I knew we weren’t going to make the trip to Tibet, just being there at the station was exciting. We had our bags with us and I imagined us just jumping on the train and being whisked away to that beautiful land that I’ve never seen with my own eyes.

The station is massive and teeming with people. I searched the crowds for Tibetan faces and saw only a few that might have been. Nobody obvious, that’s for sure.

A very sweet young Chinese man in the ticket line in front of us asked me if I was Chinese. When I said no, he told me we can’t buy tickets there; he showed me a small red pass book and explained only people with this book can purchase tickets there. But we decided to stay in the line to talk to an agent anyway.

What we learned at the counter is that there are trains to Lhasa leaving daily at 9:30pm but they’re all booked up until Monday. And even then, we would have to get a visa to go there. Strangely, she told me that since I was Canadian, I would have to go to the Canadian embassy to get the forms. We later saw an English message scrolling on a massive electronic signboard that said foreigners wanting to go to Tibet Autonomous Region had to seek permission from any number of Chinese government offices.

Watch the video below to hear my account of this:

It’s clear that Tibet is a restricted area for foreigners. For a supposed “inalienable” part of China it sure gets special treatment. The hoops foreigners have to jump through to gain access to Tibet mean the authorities can strictly control all who enter…except of course, Chinese who go in droves.

According to Chinese media reports the railway to Tibet took 1.5 million passengers into Tibet and over “650,000 tons of goods in or out of Tibet” just last year. While we can’t rely on Chinese government numbers - especially on issues they are sensitive about - two important questions arise:

First, how many of these “passengers” were tourists, and how many were Chinese settlers paying for a one-way steerage seat to seek their fortunes in Tibet? A Tibetan interviewed recently on Radio Free Asia said that many were staying and making the already terrible socio-economic situation for Tibetans even worse with prices in and around Lhasa doubling and increasing competition for scarce jobs. (Read excerpt of this interview)

Second, what was taken out of Tibet? The Chinese government announced recently that it has “discovered” 16 significant mineral deposits all along the rail line. Really, with the help of Canadian and other foreign mining companies the Chinese have been quietly prospecting along the route for a long time and now, as we said would happen, resources and profits will be leaving Tibet with little or no benefit to Tibetans. Instead, Tibetans will be left with scarred and polluted lands. (Read more on mining in Tibet)

There is no doubt that China is colonizing Tibet by encouraging this influx of Chinese settlers and exploiting Tibet’s natural resources. Both are supported by the railway to Tibet, which begins in the station I was in today.

What is left to say? It has to stop.

Some reflections at the end of our first day here in Beijing. Lots of emotion and adrenaline mixed with a good dose of exhaustion and paranoia.

Thank you for all the supportive comments and well-wishes. I wish I could respond to each you, but I have to be careful about how and when I access this blog.

More to come, so stay tuned and spread the word…

I can’t believe I’m here. It’s surreal and overwhelming. The heat. The throngs of people everywhere. But somehow I feel calm. I’m not sure why… I just do. Every so often I get a fluttering in my stomach - like this morning when I bumped into a police officer just as I was getting off the plane - but otherwise, I’m fine. “Phil” met me at the airport. He’s a good friend and was a welcome sight. Unlike me, he’s been here before and so has been taking the lead with navigating this massive city.

We filmed this video in the taxi on our way into the city. Can you notice my goof? I clearly have a lot to learn about being in a place - for the first time in my life - where you are not allowed to talk about Tibet. But I am thankful that most of the taxi drivers here do not understand English.

Our first stop was Tiananmen Square. It’s hard not to be overwhelmed by this place. There are so many layers of history and politics and conflict here. Trying to get at the history and meaning of this place is like peeling an onion. I’m a bit surprised it hasn’t simply been renamed “Mao Square.”

Dominating the south end of the square is the mausoleum holding the embalmed corpse of Mao Zedong. And of course to the north, that famous image of Mao hangs on “the Tiananmen” (Gate of Heavenly Peace) from which this square derives its name.

I definitely was not filled with heavenly peace when I saw Mao watching over the square. Looking at his face, all I see is the man who subjected my people to untold suffering. It wasn’t hard not to smile when we took these photos.

Aside from Mao, the other thing you can’t miss in Tiananmen and in Beijing at large is the Olympics hype. There are billboards shouting about “One World One Dream” and stores selling all the usual commemorative items.

Here I am with the Olympic mascots including the cartoon Tibetan antelope they call “Ying Ying” (we know her as “Yingsel the Rangzen Antelope” - check it out: www.yingsel2008.com).

The plans to summit Mt. Everest with the Olympic torch, the choice of a Tibetan antelope as an official mascot, and the littering of Olympics advertising with images of smiling Tibetans clearly show that the Chinese government hopes  to use the Beijing Olympics to legitimize its rule in Tibet.

We took the below photo in front of the 2008 Olympics countdown clock on the eastern flank of Tiananmen Square. In Dharamsala, our friends have installed their own 2008 Olympics countdown clock. It’s not automatic like the one here, with LED numbers. Instead, every single night, one of them has to change it by hand, so it will be correct the next morning. This ritual reminds them daily how much time is left to prepare for one of the most important opportunities ever handed to the Tibetan freedom struggle.

The Chinese government hopes the glow of the Olympics will blind the international community to the brutality of its occupation of Tibet. They hope the world will accept China as a leader among nations and see it as a country that is free and open. They hope the world will forget about 6 million Tibetans who continue to suffer under Chinese rule. We cannot let this happen. We must speak out and fight back. We must challenge them at every turn… and that’s why I’m here.

Let’s see how open this place really is.

it’s the air in Beijing… that I have to breathe… and that the Olympics athletes will have to suck into their lungs as they run, jump, bike, and do other activities that usually require clean, fresh air. Yikes!

See more photos and get the full story from The Atlantic

Students for a Free Tibet Press Conference on Yingsel, the Rangzen Antelope.

If you’d like to follow the continuing story of Yingsel, check out her blog at http://yingsel2008.org