![]() ![]() More than half a century after the Chinese invasion of Tibet, and 48 years after the Dalai Lama fled into exile in India, China’s Communist rulers are hoping that an economic boom will help them consolidate control over the recalcitrant region. Traditional Tibetans may be as devoutly Buddhist as ever, but modern China worships Mammon. ![]() “Rise abruptly, new area Dragon Spring,” read one advertisement. Young Han Chinese couples browsed leaflets and rickety scale models of proposed high-rise apartment blocks. It opened with speeches, ticker tape and the unveiling of key messages in Chinese, Tibetan and English: “The value of the modern villas are very large in Tibet,” read one. A few hours later, in one of the Tibetan capital’s less lovely suburbs, the Yoghurt Festival Real Estate Show conjured a rather different atmosphere. After the thangka is spread, the faithful give monks and nuns yoghurt as thanks for weeks spent in meditative retreat. ![]() They blew deep, reverberating horns, heralding the moment when some 50 monks and pilgrims would emerge bearing a rolled-up, 35-metre-square thangka – a painting of the Buddha on cloth – and start their slow trek to the hillside where it would be unfurled.īuddhists say the annual Yoghurt Festival dates back to the 11th century. At dawn, four monks in maroon and saffron robes climbed on to the roof of the Dre pung monastery overlooking Lhasa. Smoke from incense burners scented the air as crowds of pilgrims laboured uphill in the dark. ![]()
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