Via Deadspin, "The Dalai Lama Is A Giant Bandwagoner": Tenzin Gyatso is the 14th Dalai Lama, the latest in a long line of reincarnations of Avalokiteśvara, the bodhisattva embodiment of compassion. He's also an insufferable homer who loves free hats. ...

This could well be a headline from the Onion, but it's from Time: Tibetans Turn to Alternative Protest as Self-Immolations Prove Futile What other forms of protest, one asks? The story begins anecdotally with Norbu Jorden, a young man who tried to kill himself with fire but failed. Now Jorden is expressing his dissent differently. On a Wednesday in late March, he was one of hundreds of young Tibetans kitted ...

On Monday, Free Tibet reported that a 28-year-old woman, Lobsang Thogmey, set herself on fire on March 13 in Aba Prefecture in Sichuan province. It noted: "Her husband, Dolma Kyab, 31, was later given ashes and told she had died and been cremated by the authorities." ...

Tragic, depressing, infuriating. Via AFP: A Tibetan monk doused himself in petrol in a Kathmandu restaurant on Wednesday and set himself on fire, marking the 100th self-immolation bid in a wave of protests against Chinese rule since 2009. Police in the Nepalese capital told AFP that the exile had burned himself in an eatery near Kathmandu's Boudhanath Stupa, one of the world's holiest Buddhist shrines, terr ...

In Foreign Policy's introduction to its latest slideshow of rare photos from Tibet during the Cultural Revolution, the line that jumps out to me is the last one: "This installment of FP’s Once Upon a Time series shows the Land of Snows from a long-forgotten period, when Tibet's enemy wasn't China, but itself." The line, I'm sure, was born out of evidence suggesting Tibetans were not mere victims to the Chin ...

State media is reporting that state media aired a documentary on Tibetan self-immolations on Sunday. Here are the opening paragraphs of Xinhua's story about China Central Television: National broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV) has released a documentary on self-immolation in the country's Tibetan-inhabited areas. ...

Government-run Gannan Daily reported Monday that China's supreme court, top prosecution body, and police jointly issued the legal opinion that those who incite or abet self-immolations should be charged with “intentional murder." In an article that reeks of Chinese media, it states (translation made available yesterday by San Francisco-based Duihua Foundation): So that the recent self-immolation cases that ...

Ed's note: We're excited to republish this first post from the Anthill, recently launched by Alec Ash, whose previous project was the excellent blog Six. Describing itself as a "writer's colony," the Anthill seeks narrative writing from and about China. Interested contributors are encouraged to email Alec (you can also follow @colonytweets or like on Facebook). In this first piece, "A Thangka of Blood," ori ...

You've probably already guessed that the dance is Gangnam Style. Like this one, it features bulls. Via International Tibet Network and Students for a Free Tibet: On the eve of the CCP's 18th Party Congress, Students for a Free Tibet and the International Tibet Network release a parody video titled "Tibetans challenge Xi Jinping - Gangnam Style." A takeoff of Korean star Psy's uber-popular Gangnam Style, the ...

The documentary company Journeyman has just uploaded a 28-minute film called Miss Tibet that offers possibly the realest look at contemporary Tibet you'll find anywhere. Mark Gould's description on Journeyman's website: The Miss Tibet beauty pageant claims to give women a platform to highlight Tibetan issues, drawing attention to the the plight of the its people as well as the brilliance of the lifestyle an ...

Earlier in the day at Henley-on-Thames, a naked man holding a fake Olympic torch ran ahead of the real Olympic torch route, basically in front of the whole town. A streaker in England? How is that possible? According to the London Evening Standard, the man had "Free Tibet" written on his back. He was quickly tackled by police, as you see in the above. There's another video after the jump, from a different a ...

It's after the jump. You've been warned about graphic content. ...