Our friends at Beijing Today swing by now and then to introduce art and culture in the city.

It’s hard to imagine that the Tibetan inspired art of Wang Yiguang is the work of a man who grew up on the North China Plain. But Tibet’s vigorous yaks, winding railways and cheerful girls have been the subject of Wang’s creations since he first set foot on the magical plateau in 2002.

Unlike his Tibet-obsessed peers who focus on the scenery of the Tanggula Mountains and highland prairies, Wang expresses his love for the plateau through super-realist images of flying animals and Tibetans living in a dreamy and harmonious environment.

“I believe in animism and have always tried to find an appropriate way to express it through the interaction between humans and nature,” Wang says. “But the way escaped me until I came to Tibet.”

Born in 1962 in Linyi, Shandong province, Wang grew up with two artistic brothers and started to paint in middle school. When the Cultural Revolution ended and education resumed in 1977, Wang sat China’s first college entrance exam and was admitted to a local art school. He was assigned to work as an art teacher in Shandong province in 1980.

“To be honest, the reason I chose art as my major was because I just wanted to stay in the city. But the more I painted, the more I became fascinated with the art,” Wang says. After graduating from the Central Academy of Fine Arts with a master’s degree in oil painting in 1988, Wang became a graphic designer at the China Railway Construction Corporation.

The majority of Wang’s earlier works were realist paintings that displayed the daily life of villagers prior to the 1990s. But slowly, his work began to morph into neo-realism that combined the power of reality and the romance of imagination. The shift became obvious after he participated in the construction of Qinghai-Tibet Railway in 1992.

In the Fragrance of Kelsang Flowers, Wang depicts a local girl opening her arms and flying into the sky over a sea of highland flowers. The view of the yak’s back makes it seem the carefree girl is sharing her happiness with the creature.

The combination of Tibetan girls and yaks appear in many of Wang’s other works such as After Rian, painted in 2004, and Silent Communication, painted in 2014. Wang is obsessed with the poetic comparison between the Tibetan girls and the yaks, creatures with powerful energy and life force.

“The first time I went to the Tibetan Plateau I fainted due to altitude sickness and oxygen deficiency. The only thing I could do during my first couple days was lie on the grass and gasp for air,” Wang says. “But local kids and yaks could play so freely and happily around me. They were like the Flying Apsaras of the Duhuang Frescoes. That physical reaction let me admire the power of life on the Tibetan Plateau.”

Construction workers on the Qinghai-Tibet Railway are also an important theme in Wang’s work. In Full Moon Over Tanggula, painted in 2005, Wang captures the conditions of railway workers at the foot of snowcapped mountains. The glow of sunset and dancing locals offer a warm and cheerful sense.

“The Qinghai-Tibet Railway, construction workers and daily life on the plateau are the ore of my art. Strong artistic language can only come from the combination of the right artistic approach and the ability to capture life’s details,” Wang says.

Check out more paintings over at Wang Yiguang’s gallery.

This post originally appeared in Beijing Today.

Posted just last week to Vimeo (password duihua), The Dialogue is a film by Wang Wo that looks at the Chinese government’s increasingly restrictive policies toward non-governmental contact between minority groups (specifically Tibetan and Uyghur) and Han Chinese. The film centers on an attempt by Chinese intellectuals and human rights lawyers to make contact with the Dalai Lama.

Spanning at least three years, the documentary begins with the successful 2010 Skype meeting between the Dalai Lama and these Han intellectuals. Through interviews with one of the organizers, it goes on to look at the aftermath of that meeting as well as examining the possibility of future conversations between Tibetans, Hans, and Uyghurs.

The film features the likes of Tibetan activist Woeser, recently arrested Uyghur scholar Ilham Tohti, human rights activist Teng Biao, and writer Wang Lixiong (author of Yellow Peril), among others.

Unsurprisingly, The Dialogue ultimately gives a negative portrayal of the Chinese government’s attitude toward minority populations. Many of the people involved in the Dalai Lama Skype meeting were later detained. The conclusion is that the fate of open dialogue is grim, since the government is determined to stop any non-sanctioned communication.

The Dialogue takes on heightened significance in light of the March 1 Kunming train station stabbings. To what extent will future dialogue between Hans and Uyghurs be possible? Or will the fallout from the recent terrorist attack crush the last remaining trust between these increasingly disparate parties?

(H/T @dgatterdam)

Spain, which recognizes universal justice — meaning its court magistrates walk eternally with backs bowed under the burden of universal injustice, the weight of sadness — issued a warrant on Tuesday for the arrest of former Chinese president Jiang Zemin and four others “as part of a probe into alleged genocide in Tibet,” reports AP and Al Jazeera.

In addition to Jiang, the Chinese politicians wanted by Spain are former Prime Minister Li Peng; former security and police chief Qiao Shi; Chen Kuiyan, a former Communist Party official in Tibet; and Pen Pelyun, an ex-family planning minister. None has been formally charged.

Former Chinese President Hu Jintao is also under investigation, although Spain has not said it seeks his arrest.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Hong Lei, presumably rolled his eyes when told this news and switched into automaton mode to deliver a statement at a Wednesday briefing in Beijing. Something about “severe damage” needing to be repaired, harm to China-Spain relations, blah blah blah.

“China’s position on Tibet-related issues is consistent and clear, and the West understands it,” he said, as reported by AP / Al Jazeera.

Reuters clarifies that this means the “suspects” would be arrrested “when they travel to Spain or other countries which recognize orders signed by Spain.”

If the report is true, Hong said China expresses “strong dissatisfaction and resolute opposition” to the Tibetan support groups in Spain for “repeatedly manipulating the issue.”

Then Hong beeped and whirred, dropped his chin to his chest, and had to be manually rebooted.

By “genocide,” we can only assume the Spanish court means “cultural genocide,” a phrase that the Dalai Lama has used to describe the ongoing “Sinicization” of Tibet. This is unclear though, as are the arrest warrants. No Chinese leader will stand trial (duh), and we’re guessing Jiang Zemin isn’t currently cursing his inability to visit Spain. In other words, there’s no story here. Sorry.

But this post isn’t a complete waste. Have you ever Google Image-searched “Jiang Zemin”? Prepare to be delighted.

(H/T Alicia)

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.

Heh.

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 out in traditional robes and singing boisterously at a school in Dharamsala. The event was part of a weekly peaceful protest called Lhakar — “White Wednesday” in Tibetan — which takes place in the city where the Dalai Lama set up his exiled administration in 1959. “I wanted to do something to be a part of our freedom struggle, and [self-immolation] was the only way I knew,” says Jorden. “When I came back to school and was introduced to Lhakar, I realized this was a better way.”

There have been 112 self-immolation deaths since 2009, according to Time.

We’re not sure whether song protest sessions will lead to greater understanding, harmony, but we do know this: China is not yielding on the issue of Tibetan sovereignty, and there will always be Tibetans who remain equally uncompromising. What we have here is the very epitome of an impasse. Let’s not throw any more dead bodies at it.

Tibetans Turn to Alternative Protest as Self-Immolations Prove Futile (Time, h/t Derrick S.)

Dolma Kyab was ordered by authorities to say his wife had set herself alight due to family problems. He refused and was detained by Public Security Bureau personnel. He is currently still in detention. The couple has an eight-year-old daughter.

The story was picked up by the New York Times.

Today, authorities have issued their side of the story. According to Global Times:

Officials in the ethnically-Tibetan prefecture of Aba, Sichuan Province told the Global Times Tuesday that the charred remains of a woman discovered on March 12 in Aba’s Ruoergai county was the result of a homicide, dismissing earlier media reports of self-immolation.

The husband is indeed in custody, but not for refusing to heed the PSB’s advice.

Local police said 28-year-old Guangqiu Ome (name transcribed from Chinese report) was strangled to death by her husband, who later burned her body on the morning of March 12. The husband, 32-year old Drolma Gya, is now in police custody.

Both the NY Times and Global Times mention a separate incident: 27-year-old Lobsang Thogmey set himself on fire on Saturday, becoming the 108th Tibetan to self-immolate.

The question remains, however: have we seen No. 109?

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, terrifying tourists who were having breakfast.

Yup, that’s 100, according to the Tibetan government, which is keeping track.

The gruesome burnings, most of which have occurred in Tibetan-inhabited areas of China, are seen as a sign of desperation in the community over perceived religious persecution in Chinese-ruled Tibet.

Speaking to AFP ahead of the milestone of 100 cases, Tibetan exile prime minister Lobsang Sangay blamed Chinese authorities and called for the international community to take note.

“Because there is no freedom of speech or outlet for any form of protest, unfortunately Tibetans have chosen self-immolations,” he said in an interview in Dharamshala.

“To the international community I say ‘stand up for Tibetans’. The Chinese government has completely militarised the Tibetan area,” he added.

He should probably also address Tibetans, perhaps ask them to stop setting themselves on fire.

The Dalai Lama’s office in New Delhi confirmed the 100th immolation attempt involved a monk. Representative Tempa Tsering called it “very unfortunate” and repeated appeals from the spiritual leader for Tibetans to end the protests.

“We feel very said that this has happened. The Tibetan leadership has been urging people to refrain from such drastic steps for long,” Tsering said.

Suicide contradicts Buddhist teachings that all life is sacred, and Tibetan leaders have struggled to balance anger over Chinese rule with calls for protesters not to use such desperate measures.

Tibetan monk’s burning marks 100th immolation bid (AFP)

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 Chinese destruction of their country. This is true in one sense: Tibetans participated in the Cultural Revolution. They participated, and continue to participate, in the very institutional bases of the revolution: the school systems, the police force, the government offices, and so forth. Melvyn Goldstein, in On the Cultural Revolution in Tibet (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2009; chapter one is available here), quotes a Tibetan who says:

[I]n August 1966 the Red Guards were everywhere in the whole country, and Lhasa didn’t want to be left behind. Therefore we formed our own Red Guard organizations…. Most of the students in my school were Tibetans. It was a concern that the Tibetan students might get into trouble, for they didn’t know the right [ideological] direction. Therefore, the Party Branch at the Lhasa Middle School decided to select a few young teachers to join the Red Guards, working as leaders. I remember I used to lead students to “destroy the four olds.”

But rather than making the distinction between an enemy within and one without, I think it’s more useful to consider the period from a ground-level, Tibetan perspective. Writer Tsering Woeser (the FP photos are from her father) offers a glimpse.

The Chinese title of her book is Killing and Plunder (杀劫). The pronunciation of this title, sha jie, is a homophone with the Tibetan word for revolution (གསར་བརྗེ་), pronounced sar jé. She adds that the Tibetan word for culture (རིག་གནས་), pronounced rik né, is somewhat homophonous with the Chinese word for humanity (人类), pronounced ren lei. (See this Danwei article.) So what was the Great Cultural Revolution in Tibet? It was the Great Killing and Plundering of Humanity. It was a tragedy – an orgy of violence and pain – just as it was in the rest of China, but particularly painful due to Tibet’s exceptionally strong connection with its culture and history.

The most moving and powerful images in Foreign Policy’s slideshow depict the mistreatment of monks and nuns, who were and are the most revered members of Tibetan Buddhist society. The tragedy of the Cultural Revolution in Tibet was not just in the bouleversement of long-held values and destruction of relics, but the trauma of religious conversion: when the Buddha and the Dharma were replaced by a peculiar new god and scripture in Mao and his Little Red Book.

William is a Tibetologist on course to receive his doctorate in Tibetan and Chinese religions at the University of Virginia. He can be reached at wam6n@virginia.edu.

When Tibet Loved China (Foreign Policy; photos by Tsering Dorjee, published in his daughter Tsering Woeser’s book Forbidden Memory: Tibet During the Cultural Revolution)

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.

The documentary debuted at 9:27 p.m. on Sunday on CCTV-4, an international channel mainly targeting overseas viewers in Chinese language.

Can we stop here and note that if you’re reporting, in the second paragraph, on the broadcast time of an already-aired show out to the minute, you really have nothing to say?

It also aired on CCTV’s English channel, Spanish channel, French channel, Arabic channel and Russian channel on Monday.

The documentary, titled “Facts About Self-Immolation in Tibetan Areas of Ngapa (Aba),” discloses the truth about self-immolations that have occurred in Aba, a Tibetan and Qiang autonomous prefecture in southwest China’s Sichuan Province.

We haven’t seen Facts About Self-Immolation in Tibetan Areas of Ngapa (Aba) online — you can watch all of CCTV-4′s shows on its website, but the program listed on Sunday (at 9:30 pm, not 9:27) is a cooking show called A Delicious Dish A Day.

UPDATE, 5:01 pm: As commenter Björn Djurberg points out, Xinhua’s official Twitter account, @XHNews, has linked to the full 32-minute documentary on what appears to be Xinhua’s official YouTube page, China View (@XHNews often links to videos from there). The documentary is embedded above. End update

It’s possible that the “documentary” is only a three-minute clip that ran from 9:27 pm to 9:30 pm. The 9 pm show on CCTV-4′s listing is the 9 o’clock nightly news, and only the first 20 minutes of it are available for viewing.

Below is a December 13 CCTV news report about Chinese courts ruling that inciting self-immolation is intentional homicide:

(H/T Alicia, RFH)

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 have occurred in Tibetan areas may be handled in accordance with the law and in order to ensure social stability, the Supreme People’s Court, Supreme People’s Procuratorate, and Ministry of Public Security of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) have, based on relevant laws and regulations, jointly issued an “Opinion on Handling Self-Immolation Cases in Tibetan Areas in Accordance with the Law.”

I’m not sure why a small paper in Gansu province was given this scoop — Gannan Daily is getting credited by SCMP, Washington Post, Global Times, etc. — and as a result I’m not sure whether to take it seriously. Certainly no lawman would slap murder charges on someone who survives a self-immolation attempt… right?

But the announcement might also be the government’s latest, almost desperate attempt — in the absence of the Dalai Lama doing anything — to stop people from setting themselves on fire. More than 90 Tibetans have self-immolated since 2009, a number that’s simply mind-boggling.

The legal opinion, which repeats the phrase “in accordance with the law” like a mantra, clearly states that “anyone who organizes, plots, incites, coerces, entices, abets, or assists others to commit self-immolations shall be held criminally liable for intentional homicide in accordance with the Criminal Law.” Furthermore — and this one’s the shocker — “anyone who actively commits self-immolation in which the circumstances are serious and that causes major harm or serious danger to society shall be held criminally liable in accordance with the law.”

Another excerpt:

The Opinion points out that the recent self-immolations that have occurred in Tibetan areas are cases of significant evil that result from collusion between hostile forces inside and outside our borders whose attempts to use premeditated, organized plots to incite splittism, undermine ethnic unity, and seriously disrupt social order. [The cases] have seriously affected the present overall situation of ethnic unity and social stability in Tibetan areas. Those who carry out self-immolations in these cases are unlike the ordinary world-weary person who commits suicide. Their common motivation is to split the nation and they endanger public safety and social order, classifying their self-immolations as illegal criminal acts. Organizing, plotting, inciting, coercing, enticing, abetting, or assisting others to carry out self-immolations is, at its essence, a serious criminal act that intentionally deprives another of his or her life.

The copy then devolves into a beautiful comedy of propaganda, featuring the cliches “public security,” “harmonious and beautiful society” and — my favorite — “splittist sabotage.” (Okay, that last one is more poetry than cliche — good on you, government writer.)

Look: this is a tricky, complex issue, and no one should ever try to explain setting oneself on fire as someone’s fault. But whatever your feelings on this matter, I think we can agree that the government — if indeed this story is true — has again made one hell of a terrible public relations blunder. Self-immolation is not murder. It’s a tragic, incomprehensible, radical act made against harsh political, social, and economic realities. Perhaps, if China’s lawmakers could turn off the mechanical parrot in their brain constantly squawking “in accordance with the law, in accordance with the law,” they could examine the issue with proper respect for those who have died and those whose lives remain at stake.

(Image via Cultural Anthropology)

In this first piece, “A Thangka of Blood,” originally published November 11, Alec Ash sends a dispatch from Tibet that is devoid of politicization or sentimentality, one of the best that I’ve encountered. “In particular I dislike the term self-immolation, which is widely used,” he writes. “’70 self-immolations’ does nothing to inspire the fitting emotional response, and as such is no better than Orwell’s vilified euphemisms. Call it what it is – killing yourself with fire.”

A thangka of blood

Alec Ash is a writer and freelance journalist currently living in Beijing. He is the founder of the Anthill.

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 video features China’s heir apparent as a dimwit — a big-headed oaf whose only response to Tibetans’ growing resistance is to arrest, beat and torture protestors. But Xi — like the four generations of undemocratic CCP heads before him — cannot stop Tibetans who are moving beyond fear and challenging the very foundations of Chinese rule in Tibet. Ultimately, the joke is on Xi Jinping, the soon to be leader of the unfree world and a remnant of authoritarian rulers of the past. Xi: Resolve the Tibet crisis now or Tibet will soon become your biggest headache.

Still better than Ai Weiwei’s rendition.

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 and culture.

For Director Lobsang Wangyal, the event is not just a beauty pageant, but a political act, “celebrating our identity, our culture and our proud tradition”, whilst “implicitly asserting” Tibet as a nation and Tibetans as a people. But does the pageant really empower its women, or simply exploit them further?

The pageant director, photojournalist and self-described “small-town impresario” Lobsang Wangyal, is a charismatic character whom the filmmakers call the “Tibetan Hugh Hefner.” He is, on his own scale, equally controversia. At the end, he’s accused of fixing the results of the 2011 pageant (he does, after all, have 75 percent of the vote). Give this a watch — the first three and last three minutes, if nothing else — and then share your opinions below. Youku video for those in China after the jump.

(H/T Alicia)

Yesterday 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 angle, in high definition. Both are borderline NSFW, but the HD one probably slightly more so.

Youku censors have blocked the video. I wonder: for the nudity, or that other thing?

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

Kate Saunders’s above tweet is here.

Video of monk setting himself on fire is here.

Time’s (AP) write-up of the incident is here:

The Washington-based International Campaign for Tibet says the 45-second video it released Tuesday shows the self-immolation of Losang Jamyang in January in the west China town of Aba.

The footage shows a crowd gathering around a man who suddenly explodes into flames and leaps around. Riot police close in, and an officer uses a pushcart to knock the man down. Other police seem to kick the man after he falls and then blast him with fire extinguishers.

Thirty-two people have set themselves on fire in Tibetan areas over the past year to draw attention to China’s restrictions on Buddhism and call for the return from exile of their leader, the Dalai Lama.