SHANGHAI, April 18 (Xinhua) -- An eight-month bicycle
ride from France to Cambodia has given 74-year-old Paul Dubrule a chance to see
a different Tibet from what he had learnt in France.
"I spent three months riding through Tibet during
that trip. This experience completely changed my perspective about the region,"
Dubrule, chairman and founder of the leading multinational hotel group Accor
Group, told Xinhua here on Friday.
"Compared with those talking about Tibet in the
French media but never setting foot in the region, I think I have more things to
tell," he said.
In 2002, Dubrule, then 68, made a 15,000-kilometer
journey by bicycle from his home at Fontainebleau to Siem Reap, Cambodia, during
which he rode from Ngari in west Tibet to Qamdo in its east.
"Before arriving in Tibet, I thought local people
were under repression of the central government as many other Westerners
(thought)," he said.
But, during the tour, he saw schools, hospitals,
power plants, airports, and especially highways.
"I saw many roads under construction," he said.
"Along my way, I met many local people. Their life was not as good as in France
but I found they were benefiting from the economic development."
Dubrule had read books about Tibet since the 1990s
and many of them portrayed the Dalai Lama as a "saint" and "victim". But he
later learnt in Tibet that under the Dalai Lama's rule there was no medical
service in an area between Ngari and Lhasa. The former is about 1,000 km away
from the latter.
"In Tibet, I found that people would like to have the
region modernized rather than maintaining old lifestyles simply for tourists,"
he said.
He did not agree with the Dalai Lama who said
economic development in Tibet was causing a disappearance of traditional
culture. "If a culture can not move forwards with economic and social
development, it will end up in the museum instead of blessing its people."
"Should anyone refuse development, schools and
hospitals in the name of protecting culture and religion?"
In his 50,000-word travel book, "Le Test du
Cocotier", he wrote about what he saw in Tibet and was criticized by some back
home for his stance to support present policies in the autonomous region.
"I am not surprised. Because many French had not been
to Tibet, most of the information they got about the region was biased or
confused. The real Tibetan history is unknown to many," he said. "I believe that
they will change once they have the access to more positive information and
exchanges with Tibet."
His travel book was published in Chinese in 2005. On
the book's cover, Dubrule, on his bike, passed several Tibetans worshipping
local mountain spirits.
"Although I have never met the Dalai Lama, I would
like to tell him that a country should protect the religious belief of its
people but religions should not be a tool for people to turn against their
country," he said.
The launching ceremony of a five-year Tibet Autonomous Region key cultural relics protection project and the Tashilumpo Monastery protection project is held at the Tashilumpo Monastery in Xigaze of southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region on April 18, 2008. The region's overall protection project covers 22 key cultural relics at a planned cost of 570 million yuan (81 million U.S. dollars), nearly 200 million yuan (28 million dollars) more than the previous five-year protection project. (Xinhua Photo) Photo Gallery>>>
XIGAZE, Tibet, April 18 (Xinhua) -- China on Friday launched a 570 million yuan (81.43 million U.S. dollars) project to preserve 22 historical and cultural relics in the southwestern Tibet Autonomous Region.
The project, China's largest protection move in the region, will last until 2010. It included 15 monasteries under state-level protection and seven historical sites proving the rule over Tibet by central governments through history, said Yudawa, the Tibet Autonomous Regional Cultural Heritage Bureau director. Full story
LHASA, April 18 (Xinhua)
-- Tibet will continue to open to the world, an official of the southwest China
autonomous region promised on Friday.
"Tibet will maintain the opening-up policy as usual.
Organizations and individuals from all over the world are always welcome to
invest and carry out cooperation here if they have goodwill and sincerity," Ju
Jianhua, director with the region's foreign affairs office, told a symposium. Full story
