I’ve finally started to feel sorry for the Chinese, especially the younger generation. So many, even though they are being sent for education abroad, where the whole range of historical evidence is available for them to peruse and consider, are remaining ignorant. And now, it seems, aggressively so.
I’ve just read through the piece in today’s New York Times entitled “Chinese Students in U.S. Fight View of Their Home”. Right at the beginning, I burst out in disbelieving laughter. Here’s how the article starts:
“When the time came for the smiling Tibetan monk at the front of the University of Southern California lecture hall to answer questions, the Chinese students who packed the audience for the talk last Tuesday had plenty to lob at their guest:“If Tibet was not part of China, why had the Chinese emperor been the one to give the Dalai Lama his title? How did the tenets of Buddhism jibe with the ‘slavery system’ in Tibet before China’s modernization efforts? What about the Dalai Lama’s connection to Hitler?”
Wow. Now, much of this site is devoted to Mongolian culture and history. I can’t claim to know much about this subject, but one episode is far from obscure. This is the fact that the epithet ‘Dalai Lama’ was first spoken by one Altan Khan. Does that sound like the name of a Chinese emperor? Of course not. It’s Mongolian for “Golden King,” and refers to the ruler of the Tumet and a whole chunk of other Mongol tribes in a 16th c. confederation. He regularly plundered the neighboring Chinese of the Ming Dynasty (a favorite Mongol pastime) until the Chinese emperor Longqing was forced to offer a peace and trading treaty in 1571.
Now, our young Chinese friends might be fooled by two facts. One is that, upon the signing of the treaty, Altan Khan was conferred a title by the Chinese emperor that translates as “Obedient and Righteous King”. This could be construed as Altan Khan accepting the supremacy of the Chinese emperor. But such titles were regularly accepted by neighboring rulers (including in independent Tibet) because they opened the door to extremely profitable trade monopolies with China. The other confusion might arise from the fact that Altan Khan founded Khokh Khot (Mgl: “Blue City,” so-called because of the preponderance of blue-glazed roof tiles) now called Hohhot in Chinese-occupied Inner Mongolia. Because the Chinese administer it now, they think they’ve been there forever.
Honestly, is Wikipedia, and its entries for subjects like Altan Khan, behind the Great Firewall of China?
So, it was Altan Khan who invited the great Tibetan lama Sonam Gyatso to his court. Well, “invited” is pretty generous since it seems he sent raiding parties into Tibet and imprisoned a bunch of monks to ensure his second invitation was accepted (Sonam Gyatso ignored the first). At any rate, the name “Gyatso” means “ocean” in Tibetan, poetically indicating the oceanic nature of the lama’s wisdom and compassion. All of the 14 Dalai Lama’s have “Gyatso” somewhere in their names (the current one is “Tenzin Gyatso”). So, as many now know, “dalai” is the Mongol word for “ocean”. It’s a translation, not a title, and certainly not a title conferred by anyone remotely Chinese. The partnership of Altan Khan and Sonam Gyatso seems to have been the catalyst for really converting most of the Mongol population to Buddhism and setting the tone for the Buddhist culture that would develop in Mongolia until the interruption of the Communist takeover in the 1920’s.
But, if you’re connected to the internet in mainland China, you will never read these words because this blog, and all of the other free expressions on all of the major blogging services are blocked wholesale by the paranoids who populate China’s government.
The other graf that jumped out at me was this:
“Students argue that China has spent billions on Tibet, building schools, roads and other infrastructure. Asked if the Tibetans wanted such development, they looked blankly incredulous. ‘They don’t ask that question,’ said Lionel Jensen, a China scholar at Notre Dame. ‘They’ve accepted the basic premise of aggressive modernization.’”
The hidden phrase is “aggressive modernization of an independent country that did not invite the occupation, and that relentlessly denigrates the indigenous culture.”
Tangentially connected, my friend Sue from Sydney, Australia sent in these photos from the pro-Tibet demonstrations during the Olympic torch’s scamper through Canberra, as well as two illuminating YouTube links that give a visceral sense of what it was like among the pro-China crowd here and here:
Oh, and the Hitler thing is cuz mountaineer Heinrich Harrer, once a Nazi Party member, sought refuge in Tibet after escaping a prison camp in India. This resulted in the famous book Seven Years in Tibet, in which he discusses befriending the young Dalai Lama, teaching him some English, etc. And since our indelible image is of Brad Pitt playing Harrer in the movie of the book, the Chinese are going to have to do a little better than that.
Ah ah! A Controversial Topic at last! That's my cup of tea. Thanks Konchog!
Just joking, just joking.
I was aware of the thruth of your first paragraph for years, after meeting countless Chinese students in several countries. And professors. All the same.
I think that this kind of rhetoric is not worth the trouble. It reminds me of the negationists who, despite several restrictive laws on free speech in several European countries, keep denying the Holocaust, the harshness of the German occupation etc. (Read the French news today about J-M Le Pen.)
So, basically, these negationists use a complex nitpicking guerilla in order to deflect attention from the obvious facts, documents and first-hand witness accounts.
Our American friends have their creationists, who use the same tactics.
It is of utmost importance not to enter in a discussion with these people. (I do not want to diminish the importance of this post, though:-)
One danger (which lama Konchog avoided) is to end up exchanging analogies, which are the parody of reason. Like, say, Britain should be French, since it belonged to the Duche de Normandie, which in turn became "French." (They are all French to me, you know. I consider the Britons our closest cousins. Don't tell them, though:-)
Korea, which used to pay a tribute to China for a long time. It is Chinese, then.
I even read in the French newspaper a Chinese asking whether the French would accept to discuss independence of Corsica.
...
In the meantime, the topic at hand is not discussed and monks are jailed for life after being accused of arson.
Well, well.
The attitude of France in the recent events is disgusting, by the way. In the end, it all comes down to this: MONEY.
Funnily enough, the Chinese jingoism is boosted by the economic development in their country, without noticing that this development is the result of massive foreign investments.
I don't think the international press got the point of what happened here, in Seoul, with the olympic torch, so let me set the record straight. The uniqueness of this relay was that there were more Chinese students than opponents to China in the streets, and that there was not enough police. As a result, the Chinese students have beaten foreigners and Koreans... in Korea. I hope that these events will help the Koreans understand what is the nature of Chinese nationalism and grant a visa to the Dalai-lama (which was refused three times since 2002).
Posted by: Christian | April 29, 2008 at 09:31 AM
"Aggressively ignorant", I like that hehehe, spot on. I've known a number of Chinese students in my university and their ability to parrot out the garbage their gov't feeds them never ceased to amaze me.
From them I learned that all foreigners who were successful in invading & ruling China automatically became Chinese. Never mind if they knew or approved of that fact themselves hehehe. Thus, today, the term "Chinese" apparently includes Mongols, Manchus, TIbetans, Uigurs, etc. Good thing the British didn't stay on following their 1860 capture of Beijing, otherwise they'd now be your ordinary, run-of-the-mill Chinamen hehehe.
Tibet is slowly being transformed into a second Nei Monggol. This is a tragedy. Its relative remoteness and inaccessibility appear no longer capable of keeping the billion Chinese away. Now, armed with the new railway, the aggressors are really at it and I suspect the window of opportunitiy is rather short - a decade or two at most.
Would further economic growth bring about greater openness and liberty in China? Would discontent and riots reach such proportions so as to force China to back off? International pressure? Any hope left at all?
For once the deed is done, it will be exceedingly difficult to reverse it. Just take a look at Nei Monggol.
Posted by: Bolor | April 30, 2008 at 04:56 AM
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7370903.stm
Some Free Tibet flags were found to be made in China! The Chinese police found this out, but some flags have already been shipped.
Very interesting indeed!
Posted by: Tom Robertson | April 30, 2008 at 02:12 PM
I also appreciate the phrase "aggressive ignorance" and intend to use it myself if I may. Those hypernationalist slogans and faulty analogies are meant to be thrown at you (and not returned or answered) just like that water bottle that was thrown at the Tibetan teacher. Non-returnable bottles so to speak!
Hypernationalism is the nicer term, but I believe what is really meant by this is fascism. Many people are afraid to use this word because it sounds too much like a polemic all by itself, a bad word you would throw at someone just because you're angry. Still, one recent author has the fascist transformation of Chinese society taking place during the rule of Deng Xiaoping. I think it's worth reading:
http://tinyurl.com/create.php?url=http://www.feer.com/essays/2008/may/beijing-embraces-classical-fascism
In tinyurl:
http://tinyurl.com/447wkd
Posted by: Dava | May 07, 2008 at 10:34 AM