Speaker Meeting

We enjoyed an extremely interesting and colourful talk on Tibet last night
by Malcolm Darroch of Wollaton Park Rotary Club.
Originally a kingdom, then a Republic, Tibet was completely independent,
ruled by the Dali Lama (their Spiritual Leader) 1912 until 1951, when the
Chinese claimed Tibet as belonging to them.
The Chinese influence is seen everywhere, from military installations to
large housing developments built specifically for Chinese people.
Malcolm surmised that this is a deliberate attempt to ‘dilute’ the ethnicity
of the Tibetan people.

The slides we saw showed Tibet to be an extremely colourful place, with
magnificent Temples(Johkang), Monasteries (Sera and Ganden)and
Palace(Potala) made from wood, exquisitely carved and decorated. The
spiritual nature of the people was very clear with all of the prayer wheels
and flags, as well as the pilgrims crawling for 100’s of miles on their
hands and knees.
The Brahmaputra Hotel Lhasa that Malcolm stayed in was more like a museum,
containing hundreds of Tibetan antiques, the best in the country, but little
English spoken.
The Yak proved to be a most useful animal, providing transport, milk,
butter, cheese, fur, meat, fuel for the fires amongst many other things.
Buddhism is the other system that is a major influencer in Tibet as well as
being a religion, it covers education, law, community life and a code of
behaviour for these wonderful people.
I was left with a feeling that Tibet is hauntingly beautiful, with a very
simple way of life, but one wonders, under the threat of the Chinese
influence, how long it can survive in its present  form                                                                                                                                                          David Valentine