Vanishing Nomads, Grasslands

excerpt

Back in a Litang restaurant, I discover yak burgers on the menu, presented fast-food style with French fries. Tough and chewy, but high in protein.The diet of Chinese consumers has become more meat-centric over the last few decades as they have greater income to buy meat products. China’s meat consumption (particularly of beef) has risen from being unnoticeable to being among the largest in the world. Dried yak jerky is sold in packets in places like Litang and Zhongdian. There are also traditional Chinese medicine variations: yak penis is consumed in soup, supposedly to boost male potency.

I find something very strange in the markets of Litang: Chinese butchers selling yak meat to Tibetans and Chinese customers. These are urban Tibetans, possibly former nomads. Tibetans will not butcher yaks themselves. Attempts to get Tibetan nomads to provide meat for Chinese consumers have largely failed because of the Tibetan concept of nor, which translates roughly as wealth on the hoof. Tibetans highly value live yaks, which produce milk and hair over many years and can transport goods.

Killing a yak is considered bad karma. Other yak products have a small market within China. Yak cheese is produced by nomads but mostly for barter. Tibetan cheese-making technology is very basic. When Swiss technology is applied to yak milk to make cheese, the results are far better: excellent, nutty-flavored yak cheese is made this way in Bhutan, and in parts of Nepal. Chinese consumers buy little in the way of dairy products like milk or cheese, but yogurt is finding its way onto the menu. The yogurt is more likely to be imported from places like Australia or New Zealand, although yak yogurt is sold in some western provinces.

At the end of this trip in Nepal, I found out why the Litang Horse Racing festival had been canceled. I went into an Internet café in Kathmandu and Googled “Litang festival problems.” Up came a video about a nomad called Rungye Adak. In August 2007, Rungye Adak took the microphone onstage at Litang and addressed the crowd. He talked about problems created by Chinese officials, causing nomads to fight over land and water rights.

Chief among these problems is the Chinese policy of fencing traditional herding land. Adak also called for the release of the missing Panchen Lama, and for the return of the Dalai -Lama. He was arrested as he left the stage. For his short speech, the 57-year—old nomad was sentenced to eight years in jail for “provocation to subvert state power.”Three friends of Adak, who tried to pass along photos and information to foreign media, were given sentences of ten years, nine years, and three years for “endangering national security."The severity of those sentences reveals just how ruthless Chinese authorities are in suppressing any news. China’s way of dealing with criticism is to silence the critics.

In 2008, a protest that started in Lhasa-initiated by monks from Sera and Drepung monasteries—spread across the entire plateau, involving Tibetans from all walks of life—urban dwellers, farmers, and nomads. It was the biggest mass protest by Tibetans since the 1959 uprising after the Dalai Lama fled Tibet. A vicious crackdown ensued in the wake of the 2008 protests, with over a thousand Tibetans believed killed and many more missing or imprisoned. After the events of 2008, it appears the attitude of Chinese officials toward nomads hardened.

They view the nomads as having too much freedom and being too independent-living on remote grasslands, far from the arm of the law. Since then, nomad settlement has shifted into high gear. Settlements are easily accessed by police and military vehicles so that former nomads can be closely watched. There is definitely a political I agenda in the drive to settle the nomads. The real intent of this resettlement policy is to wipe out nomad culture and its strong connections to traditional Tibetan values.

(From: Meltdown in Tibet, by Michael Buckley, Publisher:Pan Macmillan, Rs. 499)