This post is a continuation of China and Tibet – Introduction Part 1.

I’ll try not to make this one as long as the last – I just want to give a brief outline of my initial experiences in the PRC and then I’d like to get into my current thoughts on the Tibet situation – the protests and the Chinese reaction to the events of the past couple of weeks.

It’s strange to think back to the time that Peter and I left Beijing and headed south into Guangxi Province. We spent a few leisurely weeks in Yangshuo and surrounding area. We ended up in Kunming (Yunnan Province) exactly five years ago this week. I remember that because it was the week the war in Iraq broke out. Our hotel had better TV than we had had in Beijing, namely BBC International. We were glued to the war coverage and commentary all day and night. It was the first international television we had seen in six months. These were eventful times – SARS was also on the verge of busting out and we felt as though the world might disintegrate in a matter of months.

So it was with a great sense of drama that we set off through Shangri-La to the Tibetan region of Kham. On the bus to Zhongdian I read ‘My Land and My People,’ by the Dalai Lama and learned that Kham was an area where some of the harshest treatment of Tibetans by the PLA occured almost 50 years prior. The Khampas (Tibetans from the Kham region) were devout Buddhists, but they could not endure the invasion of their territory and fought back against the breach. The Dalai Lama, though he counselled peaceful resistance to his people, could not help but admire the Khampa people for their bravery and warrior-like response to the arrival of the Chinese Communists in the mid-1950s.

My experience of travelling to this region is difficult to describe chronologically, so instead I’d like to share three significant observations that I made during this time. Though I have visited other Tibetan areas since then, these observations have helped to form some of the opinions about the current situation that I hold to this day.

1. The Khampas were majestic. After being in Mainland China for six months, I couldn’t help but be impressed by the sheer physical presence of Tibet’s most famous warrior people. The men were tall and strong and so fantastically dressed. They were like cowboys from a really cool planet. Regal and sci-fi at the same time. I had to agree with the Dalai Lama – in hand-to-hand combat with Chinese soldiers, the odds would’ve been with Kham.

2. On a barren mountain road on our way to Litang, we were passed by several army trucks and other vehicles. We were riding in an exceptionally derelict bus, and we didn’t think too much of the trucks passing our overloaded freighter that seemed to break down every half hour. When we left Litang to get to Kangding (on the China-Tibet highway), we encountered more than 150 army trucks loaded with arms and military personnel on their way to the Tibet border. It was an ominous feeling. We couldn’t help but wonder why all of these supplies and soldiers were needed in such a sparsely populated area.

3. On the same journey from Litang to Kangding, we had the good fortune of finding a jeep and Tibetan driver who had obviously been out late the night before. He revelled in the danger of the voyage and sang loudly with the tapes he brought along for the trip. When we reached a high mountain pass, he gave us prayer tickets to chuck out the windows in honour of our safe passage. People had certainly died building these roads and even more had probably perished just driving them at godforsaken speeds. We tried not to encourage our mad charioteer and kept our shrieks to a minimum. That said, at some point in our journey we came to a particular valley and a mysterious serenity came over our driver. He stopped suddenly, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, and got out of the jeep. He rushed to the side of the road where a spring gushed cold water out of a spout and he proceeded to cup the water in his hands to drink and splash all over his head. People in the nearest house waved from their balcony and he waved wildly back. When he got into the jeep, he said, “That is my mother! This is my home!”

We continued driving and he smiled for an hour.