Monday, March 14, 2011

Can you judge a country by a book? Or vice versa?

So the old adage to never judge a book by its cover served new meaning when referring to travel within China. A country that has one of the world's most deeply-rooted histories and also some of the most well-known traditions can be very easily be typecast by the western world. My original impression of China, before traveling throughout the country, was of billions of people on top of each other, strict law enforcement and tremendous organization. Some pretty extreme typecasts.

Being the avid enthusiast of His Holiness The Dalai Lama, I was very interested in trying to get a sense of both sides of the story in reference to The Dalai Lama and his relationship with the Chinese government. So before starting my month long journey to China (and with wishful thinking Tibet), I began reading "Freedom in Exile" by His Holiness. Although hearing the rumors of the Chinese police kidnapping and arresting people who read The Dalai Lama's books, I wanted to actually see if that was true. So I took the risk, with the book in hand, as I stepped off the plane in Guangzhou. I made sure that the front of the book, which has a photograph of His Holiness, on it was to my side.



In fact I did not actually want to get arrested by the Chinese government because of my choice of reading, so I decided that each time I read on the bus or train that I would turn the cover of the book over the to the back as the picture would clearly indicate what I was reading, as the English words may not be as apparent to some Chinese people. Throughout my first week traveling through the giant country, I began to make my own assessment of the culture, people, and customs of China, and interestingly enough this corresponded with His Holiness' observations of the country. So the deeper I got into the country, the deeper I got into "Freedom in Exile" and the parallel of the two stories and their contrasts made both the book and the country so much more fascinating. It is like reading the journals of the early Native Americans as you walked through colonial Massachusetts. Both sides exposed.

Finally the two stories came to head just six days into the trip. My girlfriend and I sat at our hostel in Shanghai exhausted from our day of touring the city --and walking literally 12 miles that day to find a place to eat. As she began to fall asleep, I started watching the national CCTV stations that were on our television. Suddenly a program came on which was shot like a Discovery Channel documentary spliced with a Michael Moore propagandized film. It had testimonials with black backgrounds and free-frame photographs of places within the technically named Tibet Autonomous Region. I started to pay a little more attention as I was surprised to see images of Tibet on a Chinese station. As the show progressed, I began to piece together all that I knew from the past, learned from the present reading, and tied them all against my will to my original prejudgment of China: this entire show was a propaganda scheme to show all of the Chinese nation to hate Tibet. There were testimonials with Tibetan children saying clearly scripted lines like, "Without our motherland of China's support, I would have been killed by my own Tibetan people or I would have died on the streets without proper education." They showed photographs of large roadways and railways coming into the country and extravagant water and light shows dancing in front of the Potala Palace in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa, something that from an outsiders perspective looked incredibly contrasting, unauthentic and synthetic.

The show continued to anger me as more images of the Chinese people were shown "helping" the Tibetan people. There "beneficial" shopping plazas and malls being were considered the modern revolution for the Tibetan people when in reality the Chinese people have moved to Tibet and sold products to profit themselves and run out smaller, family run businesses. Stories of more infrastructure and economic stability made China look like the savior of the ancient culture of Tibet, but lacked the discussion of the complete deforestation of the northern Tibetan region, the killing of incident citizens asking for personal rights or freedoms away from China, and the destruction of the sacred Tibetan Buddhist values and traditions. The more I watched of the program, the more disgusted I was. The program had the style of a proper documentary film but with complete disregard for truth or genuineness.

By the time that the program slowly reached its pinnacle of propaganda --which was personal interviews with people telling false stories of The Dalai Lama personally killing fellow Tibetans and raping the women of Lhasa in his private palace. The stories were like venom with such blasphemy toward a Nobel Peace Prize winning and a dignified, respected, and beloved Tibetan savior.

I asked myself, why was this television program on? Was this type of programming on daily? Was it simply one channel's program being aired? Suddenly, as if a nightmare became a visual creation in front of my eyes, I tried to change the channel, and the program was being played on almost every other channel at a different duration point. I than realized, the day was March 10th, 2009. It marked the 50th anniversary of the Tibetan uprising and the escape of His Holiness the Dalai Lama from Tibet to India.

I was gutted by what I was watching, so much so that my anger and rage woke up my girlfriend as I needed to vent. I tried to explain to her what I just saw and realized, like a child ratting out an older sibling to a parent. I couldn't think straight and I was practically in tears trying to make reference to how significant and sickening it all was to my then half-awake audience. Was I overreacting? From judging a book by its cover, you'd probably say yes because of my quite bias review of the program. Do I feel like I overreacted at the time? Absolutely not. I wish I had more of a reaction (but I don't think I physically could have without doing harm onto myself or others). I wish I could have made a stance while in the country of China of my disapproval of not just the Tibetan incident, but the manner at which they strategically coordinated such a momentous date for those involved and well-knowing of it with slanderous "factual" reports. I wanted to do something about it aside from my silent protest of continuing to read His Holiness' book while in the country and learning more about the "real" China but the frightening part of that thought, is there was no way that I could stand up to the Communist ways, not as one person, one foreigner, or one voice. I knew it would only be harmful to myself. It was if I was thrown into a Twilight Zone episode by how brainwashed and apathetic the country seemed all while seeing the generations of Chinese people, 50 years later, already believing and teaching that that was how Tibet was "reclaimed by it's motherland of China". I was not present 50 years prior in Tibet, but to hear for the first time such vulgar and extreme accusations toward The Dalai Lama and Tibetan people allowed my voice of reason and logic realize that one side of this story is completely fabricated and the other is true. The extent of differences between stories concludes that one retelling of the story has got to be completely fictional.

Just as I did not allow for anyone to technically judge (or punish me) because of the book I was reading based on it's cover, I have tried to not judge the Chinese people or country for the surface value of what that tv program showed me or the way it made me react. I came out a month later from traveling in China with a great appreciation and love for the country, but now having dug deeper into the country and deeper into the disguised book "Freedom in Exile" to finishing it, I feel that getting to know both entities allows for me to now place judgment, whether it be good or bad. Fortunately, I reached this point without ever having to fold back the one page in my Passport that contains my Chinese visa whenever going through customs.

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