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   lture.singapore   
   XPost: talk.politics.tibet, talk.religion.buddhism   
   From: peter.terpstra7@gmail.com   
      
   Excerpt   
      
   Vanishing Nomads, Grasslands   
   February 22,2015, 02.49 AM   
      
   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.   
      
   Tibetans highly value live yaks, which produce milk and hair over many years   
   and can transport goods   
   Tibetans highly value live yaks, which produce milk and hair over many years   
   and can transport goods   
      
   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 in   
   ependent-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)   
      
   http://www.thehansindia.com/posts/index/2015-02-22/Vanishing-Nom   
   ds-Grasslands--133034   
      
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