Calm Spirit/Ying Yu Jade China 2008
Final Comments
Photo of wall carving
Your first trip to China should
be a tour guided trip. Very little English is spoken in China and you
will have a more enjoyable trip taking a guided tour with an English speaker
If you are going to Beijing, and you would like to have a treatment by a traditional Chinese doctor, and/or learn tai chi, contact me and I will put you in touch with Dr. Charles Li who works with "foreigners" out of his old courtyard home office.
About Tibet:
While we were in China, there were riots in Tibet and surrounding regions during the anniversary of the Chinese government taking over Tibet 50 years ago. During the Mao era, "religion was poison", as was much of the other culture in China. The Dalai Lama escaped to India where he has lived. More than a million Tibetans died at the hands of Chinese soldiers or in prisons as China erased all but a handful of monasteries, and these monasteries are only for public relations and tourism purposes. The Chinese government appointed their own Panchen Lama, the son of a high government official, who lives in Beijing, not in Tibet, and has never been accepted by the Tibetan people or monks. Tibet is quite far from Beijing, and it has been challenging for the PRC to control Tibet. In the last decade, the government built a railroad to Tibet and paid Chinese people to relocate to Tibet. The goal is to have more Chinese people than Tibetans in Lhasa. When the Chinese people arrived, they took over the homes and businesses of the Tibetan people. However, the Tibetan people and monks rose in protest in March 2008, foreigners and journalists were banned from the region, and many people were killed during the ongoing genocide of Tibetans. The Chinese government hopes to improve their image by hosting the 2008 Summer Olympics. However, the government has done more to improve the toilet situation in Beijing than to respect the culture and Buddhist religion in Tibet. The Chinese government blames their poor image on the media and especially on the US. They claim that the US has no business pointing a finger at China when the US has committed atrocities and invaded the sovereign country of Iraq for its own dominance purpose. Both countries have their own propaganda machines and it's difficult to know what is true, and what isn't.
When I go to China, I keep a low profile, and respect the culture and goverment.
