Jianjun's Blog

According to BBC News, Gordon Brown (I just knew he’s the current prime minister of Great Britain) said he will meet Dalai Lama when the exiled spiritual figure visits Britain.

The report also quoted that the Tory leader David Cameron said: “Does the prime minister agree that our relationship with China is vital… But we must be absolutely clear in telling the Chinese that this is unacceptable.”

“But we must be absolutely clear in telling the Chinese that this is unacceptable”? Mr. Cameron sounded like it was in 1840 when the British Empire attacked China in the Opium War. Maybe these guys never want to see a China that is strong and independent. Just as they can’t like Russia, they can’t like China.

The mobs in Tibet attacked civilians not only Han, but also Uygurs. Foreign tourists in Tibet saw innocent people beaten to death by these same guys wielding long knives, and shops set to fire. Do you call this peaceful protest? CNN footage shows Lamas were among the rioters damaging public facilities. Are they peaceful Buddhists? Ridiculous!

If memory serves me right, history tells me that it was just the then British Empire that had wanted to separate Tibet from China even before the 14th Dalai Lama was born. They invaded India, sent their King into exile. They exported opium to China to poison its people… Now they are “telling the Chinese”.

Tibet has always been part of China. Before it was peacefully liberated (not as the western media say it was invaded) from a cruel feudal system, the serfs had no basic human rights. Even in the 1950s, to celebrate Dalai Lama’s birthday, they used human sacrifice! Lamaism was used as tool to slave the brainwashed people. To learn more about the feudal rules of old Tibet from a literary perspective, I suggest Tibetan author Alai’s novel Red Poppies. Here’s a review by Guang Yue.

Further resources:

A Few More Words Regarding the Tibet Issue（西藏问题再啰嗦几句）blog post by drunkpiano
http://www.my1510.cn/article.php?8ea5a6e56d721111
(in Chinese with pictures from the rioting)

Tibet Violence Deepens, with Violence and Rioting by By Christopher Johnson (the Christian Science Monitor) details how PLA soldiers were beaten without attacking back even though they were equipped with riot gear, how innocent Han and Muslim Hui people were beaten up and police cars were burned. The ‘peaceful’ protest is a lie.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20080315/wl_csm/ostreets

*Update*
A blogger wrote about first-hand Tibet situation. The protests were not peaceful from their observance (March 14th):
http://kadfly.blogspot.com/2008/03/more-from-lhasa.html

This weekend, I have been thinking maybe it’s possible to teach some simple but useful spoken Chinese online, via Podcast or Videocast, right here!

Most of the visitors coming to my blog are from outside China. And a majority of them are from search engines looking for Chinese language/culture related information. I have to say that, to some extent, my blog has disappointed a few of them, as there is really little information here about those things at present stage and I have a ‘bad’ habit of writing everything I like in my blog, without an obvious theme. If it were not the electronic media age, I could have wasted too much paper.

So I guess it’d be a good idea to put some ‘themed’ show on this blog, on a weekly basis or even more frequently later on. I don’t want to teach formal grammar or how to write Chinese characters, although I may cover some of them in the future when the program progresses. I probably will concentrate on everyday conversations, such as ‘Hello.’ ‘How are you?’ ‘How can I get to A street?’, etc.

Teaching Chinese in English is challenging for me as I have to use clear English to explain sometimes very abstract ideas. And translation from Chinese into accurate English is also very important. Another concern is that I have to host it as a solo show. Ah…. Talking all by myself. Could be boring if the program is too long. How about just 5 minutes? If used efficiently, 5 minutes can teach one or two sentences. But anyway, I’ll give it a try. I had been teaching English in high schools for 7 years. I’ll sure put that experience into use.

I will let you know when the first show is ready. If you have any input, please leave a comment or shoot me an E-mail. I appreciate your help.

I’m a little tired today and won’t write too long. So bear with me…

The other day, when I was lunching with my wife, something came to my mind and I spoke out, causing my wife to laugh out aloud. The ‘something’ is just the title of this piece – ’2008, Dalai Lama.’ When spoken in Chinese, 8 (pronounced as BA) would rhyme with Lama, creating a funny effect.

Indeed, 2008 seems to be doomed to associate with so many things, from Beijing to Washington to Hollywood to Taiwan, Xinjiang and Tibet and, of course, also Dalai Lama, who earned his Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, a representative of Buddha, the embodiment of peace.

But who is Dalai Lama? Here are a few historical pictures:

Dalai Lama, installation ceremony in 1939

Wu Zhongxin（吴忠信, Chairman of Mongolian and Tibetan Affaires Committee of China who presided over the installation ceremony）and Dalai Lama, 1939

Dalai Lama and Bainqen Lama (left), 1954 Beijing
Dalai Lama was voted Vice-Chairman of National People’s Congress

Zhou Enlai（周恩来），Mao Zedong（毛泽东），Liu Shaoqi（刘少奇）with Dalai Lama and Painqen Lama, 1955

Chen Yi（陈毅）was welcomed in Tibet in 1956

Further resources:

Articles about Tibet.

http://english.gansudaily.com.cn/system/2007/10/08/010486120.shtml
http://www.rense.com/politics2/better.htm

The True Face of the Dalai Lama
(http://kalovski.blog.com/763351/)

The Dalai Lama Controversy
(http://www.emorywheel.com/detail.php?n=24612)