Artists and Tibet
I used to care about Tibet. I’ve traveled to Yunnan province and found that my facial features were most similar to theirs. Their way of life seemed superior than any offerings of the modern world. It seemed degrading that Tibetans become part of the tourism industry. The only way of preserving what they had was by inviting us to their house and serving us yak and yak butter tea. They asked us to join in on the Tibetan drinking party, a ritual of operatic singing and out singing th other. And I wanted so badly to return to my more primitive and Manchurian ways. Forget that the other one fourth of me is Chinese and the other half is Taiwanese. Just abandon all the thousands of years of domestication and return to the tribal affairs of being a descent of Mongolia. But how could I? How could I take a side when I’m the filthiest thing in this world today, a Chinese American. I live in a world power that bombs other countries and I feel that I also belong to its successor.
The recent uprising against the Chinese are stupid on both parties. Colonization and excavating lands are not only harmful to native people but it’s damaging to the precious land known as Sangra Lai. However, with the Chinese moving in, the Tibetan diet and lifestyle have greatly improved with the introduction of Chinese culture. The subject is grey without a simple right and wrong. It’s best to take the misanthropic view and find the common denominator that they’re both members of the human race. And we all know that the human race disappoints.
But what is most despicable is the rest of the world trying to put pressure on an issue they have no idea about. Colonization was the classic invention of Europe, so it’s hypocritical to point the finger. And what’s worse is the idea of freedom and who deserves it. We believe that if we live in a democratic process that we are free. Americans, the EU, amazonian tribal men, we’re slaves to systems whether we want to believe it or not. That’s the price of society. Freedom is not something we earned, rather, it’s an infectious idea. Something we’re all immune to.
But why do artists or people that have a slightly liberal outlook have to choose the automatic side? Is it due to Tibet’s exoticism? Is it because freedom and independence are so important to the rhetoric that we fight blindly? How is this any different than the excuse of Iraq…fighting for people’s democracy? Stop it! Just fight for your own independence, live your own life, because most of you don’t in the first place.
As my uncle protested in Tiannamen Square with other college students. Bloodshed didn’t change China, it was the free market.
Leave a Reply