Special Report: Focus on Tibet
By Yi Ling, Bai Xu & Yan Yuanyuan
LHASA, March 10 (Xinhua) -- Norbu Lingka, in western
Lhasa, was the last residence for the 14th Dalai Lama before he started his life
in exile following a failed armed rebellion in 1959.
Traces of the turmoil have faded over the past five
decades in the fast-changing Tibet and can hardly be spotted in the tranquility
of early spring in the garden park.
In the spring of 1939, a farmer's son Lhamo Thondup,
who was less than four years old, but was already acknowledged as the new
incarnation of the 13th Dalai Lama by a search party, left his hometown at a
remote village of the northwestern Qinghai Province, in a large party that
included his family members, for Lhasa.
The journey took three months. After a whole-day
ceremony in which Lhamo Thondup was conferred the new Dalai Lama, the little boy
was brought to the Norbu Lingka -- his first home in Lhasa.
Norbu Lingka means "treasure park" in Tibetan. The
place, with evergreen forests and energetic blossom of flowers, is indeed a
natural wonder in such a high-attitude plateau city as Lhasa.
It witnessed many unforgettable happy moments in the
growth of the 14th Dalai Lama from a child to a young man. So that, of his two
regular residences in Lhasa, the Potala Palace and the Norbu Lingka, the 14th
Dalai Lama showed an obvious favor to the latter in his autobiography published
in 1990, saying "the Norbu Lingka was much the more pleasant of the two places."
"It was surrounded by gardens and consisted of
several smallish buildings which were light and airy inside. By contrast the
Potala, which I could see towering magnificently above the city in the distance,
was dark, cold and gloomy inside," he recalled in the book Freedom In Exile.
But more importantly, it is the Norbu Lingka, flourishing
with natural pleasures, saw off "the last temporal liberty" of the 14th
Dalai Lama that he was ever to know, because he "enjoyed a whole year free
from any responsibility" there before he was formally enthroned at the Potala
Palace in the winter of 1949.
After that, as his predecessors had, the 14th Dalai
Lama moved to live in the Norbu Lingka every March and moved back to the Potala
Place at the end of every September.
However, those who are allowed to enter the inner
courtyard of Norbu lingka, which was surrounded by a conspicuous yellow wall,
were mainly high officials of the then-Tibetan government, members of noble
families and senior lamas.
PARK OF
PEOPLE
The administrators of Norbu Lingka now call people
the owners of the "treasure park." The residents now in the park are more than
70 work staffs of the administration, including more than 20 monks taking care
of the palaces for the Dalai Lamas.
The palaces are no longer a taboo for ordinary
people, while the gardens are a favorite picnic spot at weekends or important
Tibetan festivals, particularly the Shot on or "Yogurt Festival," when families
camp in the grounds and traditional Tibetan opera performances are staged.
The park used to be on the old course of Lhasa River.
It has finally evolved into a garden palace covering an area of more than46
hectares since the government of Qing Dynasty (1636-1912) built the first
building for the seventh Dalai Lama in the 1740s.
Ma Yigang, head of the Norbu Lingka administration,
said visitors, mainly pilgrims, are allowed to visit almost all the buildings,
including the Takten Migyur Potrang, meaning Eternal Palace in Tibetan.
"For the Tibetans, the Norbu Lingka is as holy a
place as the Potala Palace, so we have received a lot of devotees every year,
especially since the Qinghai-Tibet railway opened to traffic three years ago,"
said Ma.
According to Liu Rongquan, an official with the
administration, the annual number of tourists to Norbu Lingka had increased by
an average of 18 percent since 2006. The number exceeded 500,000 in 2007, but
dived to a historic low in 2008 to less than 5,000 because of the riot in March.
"However, no matter how many tourists come here, the
Takten Migyur Potrang, or the New Summer Palace, for the 14th Dalai Lama is
always one of the most popular places in Norbu lingka," said Liu.
The two-story New Summer Palace, which the Chinese
central government built for the 14th Dalai Lama in 1956, is by no means an
eye-catching building in the park, though its traditional Tibetan-styled
appearance, featured with carved beams, painted pillars and upturned eaves is no
different from its counterparts.
The inside of the palace, however, is another story.
Electric lamps and butter lamps together enlighten
the rooms. Ancient roll paintings of Buddha are hung at the same room where a
framed kitten embroidery, a gift from the British, was hung above the entrance.
Traditional Tibetan cushions and a set of
western-styled gray sofa are both featured in the bedroom of the 14th Dalai
Lama, while the wooden frame of his bed holds a spring-mattress.
The bathroom is even more an eye-opener to most of
the visitors as a white western bathtub, a toilet and a washing tank
unexpectedly greet the eyes of visitors.
"Like other palaces, everything here in the New
Summer Palace is almost the same as what they were 50 years ago," said Liu.
The modern facilities are still a big surprise to
most of the Tibetan visitors like Karma Chozin, a new graduate from the
Northwest University for Nationalities in the neighboring Gansu Province, who is
looking for a job in Lhasa.
"Even now, the toilet is rare to most Tibetans. I
didn't expect he (the 14th Dalai Lama) started to use it more than 50 years
ago," said Chozin.
It is the second trip for the 22-year-old to Norbu
Lingka. Her last childhood trip conjures memories of "many trees and the
excitement of seeing live peacock for the first time at a small zoo in the
park."
The young woman said her father came to Lhasa to see
her from the hometown in the Shannan Prefecture, so they decided to revisit the
Norbu Lingka.
"After all, the 14th Dalai Lama is still alive and I
am very curious of what's his residence like." she said "I'm glad to see both
the house and the things inside are well protected and my father has said the
murals and the cloth paintings are almost the same as what we saw more than 10
years ago."
The administrators are also satisfied with their
work. More than 60,000 pieces of cultural relics and all buildings have suffered
no "man-induced damages," said Ma.
"We have given equal attention to the protect all the
palaces here, and the New Summer Palace is no exception," he said.
A seven-year preservation project on the Norbu
Lingka, which is estimated to cost more than 80 million yuan (11.69 million U.S.
dollars), is expected to be completed in September this year.
All the wooden buildings have been replaced with
antisepsis materials and the mildew-eroded murals have been also repaired,
according to Ma.
¡¡¡¡WATCHMAN OF NEW SUMMER PALACE
Jigme Geleg, one of eight workers who take care of
the New Summer Palace, is proud of his job.
The 28-year-old Tibetan speaks fluent Mandarin and
English and often volunteers to work was a guide for the tourists to "share his
understanding of Tibetan culture and history of the region."
"I will say the Norbu Lingka is the essence of our
Tibetan culture and I hope people will still have chance to see these treasures
to understand our culture even after many many years," said Jigme.
The young man has worked in the park for nearly 10
years since graduating from high school. He started to work in the New Summer
Palace six years ago.
Jigme works from 9:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. every day
sweeping the floor, lighting up the butter lamps, cleaning the lamp holders and
changing the "sacred water" presented in front of the Dalai Lama's thrones.
The pilgrims often bring offerings with them to visit
the Norbu Lingka. For the palace keepers like Jigme, the butter to refill the
lamp and the length of white silk called "hada" are both welcome, but the barley
can really be a headache.
"We have to often ask the visitors not to scatter the
barley around in the palace. It's a common practice for the pilgrims to show
their respect to the Buddha, but it attracts mice, which is no good to protect
the wooden buildings," he said.
A south-facing sutra hall on the second floor of the
New Summer Palace is the key area for Jigme to watch. There are 301 of murals
here telling the Tibetan history -- from its founding by the Holy Monkey to the
10th Panchen Lama and 14th Dalai Lama's interviews with Chairman Mao Zedong in
Beijing in 1954.
Pilgrims are often seen prostrating or putting their
heads on the foot of statues or the walls with murals, chanting the sacred words
"Om Mani Padme Hum."
"The paintings are more than an art. They makes up of
a brief story of Tibetan history," said Jigme.
¡¡¡¡A GATE TO REMEMBER
According to Ma Yigang, the 14th Dalai Lama spent his
last days before the exile not in the his own palace, but in the Kalsang
Potrang, the oldest palace within the Norbu Lingka built by the seventh Dalai
Lama in 1751.
The palace is some 200 meters away from the New
Summer Palace. It also happened to be place where the 14th Dalai Lama spent his
first night in the Norbu Lingka.
Fifty yeas ago, the upper ruling class in Tibet
staged an armed rebellion to preserve serfdom and theocracy and the Norbu Lingka
was the location of the rebellion headquarters.
Some 100 meters away from of the main entrance of the
Kalsang Potrang, there is an inconspicuous gray wooden door on the bounding wall
of the Norbu Lingka.
At a few minutes before 10 o'clock on the night of
March 10, 1959, the 14th Dalai Lama, disguised as a common soldier, left the
Norbu Lingka through the door and started his life in exile. The gate is now
numbered by the park administration as Gate 8.
Dalai Lama's utter distortion of Tibet
history
BEIJING, March 10 (Xinhua) -- On March 10, 1959, the
Dalai Lama and his supporters started an armed rebellion in a desperate attempt
to preserve Tibet's feudal serfdom and split the region from China.
On Tuesday, exactly 50 years later, the Dalai Lama
claimed that Tibetans have been living in "hell on earth," as if the Tibet under
the former feudal serfdom ruled by him were a heaven. Full story
Commentary: What a hell of Dalai
Lama's crisis management?
BEIJING, March 10 (Xinhua) -- Enjoying celebrity
like a Hollywood star, the Dalai Lama can by no means be too patient for only
one day to the negligence of world media which are occupied by economic concerns
since the global financial crisis.
His time to shine comes in March, an eventful month
in Tibetan history. The aura around him captured limelight again when on Tuesday
he, with his supernatural power as a divine monk, turned a happy land into "hell
on earth." Full story
Commentary: For whom is Tibet a "hell
on earth"?
LHASA, March 10 (Xinhua) -- Tuesday is a special
date for Tibetans. For the 2.8 million residents in the southwest China
autonomous region, it marks 50 years since feudal serfdom was abolished; but for
the 14th Dalai Lama and his "government-in-exile," it marks five decades of
futile attempts at independence.
Fifty years after he fled China and having failed
time and again to foment widespread unrest in Tibet and other Tibetan
communities in western China, the Dalai Lama is apparently at his wit's end. Full story
Playing with outside forces,
"religious figure" stakes heavy on de facto secession
BEIJING, March 9 (Xinhua) -- As the anniversary of
his exile approaches, more evidence has surfaced that the Dalai Lama and his
followers have pursued a long road of splitting up the homeland despite
allegations of the "nonviolent" middle way.
Explicitly acknowledging his "middle way" of nonviolence a
failure, the 73-year-old Tibetan Buddhist warned the Chinese government of
possible future confrontations in the Himalayan region. Full story
