James Pennington Photography

Recently two ex-classmates and I took a trip to a fairly remote corner of China’s western province of Gansu. The original destination was Langmuci an ethnically tibetan village where we planned to spend a few wholesome fun-packed days hiking in the surrounding mountains. However the facade of idyllic village life was brutally shattered , as we woke on the first morning to find the shutters down on all the local shops and the streets deserted with the exception of an ever growing amount of Chinese infantry (which eventually amounted to well over 1000 troops), that had arrived to quell a territorial dispute between residents of the town. The dispute had broken out when two groups of locals, each identifying with one of the two provinces whose borders bisected the town, entrenched themselves on opposing hills and now brandished rifles and hand guns. Due to our position, directly between these opposing forces, practicality overcame curiosity and we decided to make a hasty exit.

On one of the last minibuses to leave the conflict stricken town we had the good fortune to meet a local school teacher by the name of Bao Zha (meaning explosion, due to his uncommon curly head of hair.). He shed some light on the conflict explaining that unlike the anti Han riots of 2008 that pit the Tibetan minority against the Han Chinese, this conflict was purely territorial with tibetans on both sides.

The next day in a town that had only seen one foreigner in living memory, someone who had come to give bags to the local school children, we reunited with Bao Zha for a tour of the local primary school in which he taught English. The kids were excited to see a group of foreigners although there may have been a tinge of disappointment that, contrary to past experience, we had no bags. This disappointment was in some way countered by the camera which the kids really liked.

The time spent at the school was enlightening and Bao Zha was able to help elucidate the situation in Tibet. He was fairly moderate in opinion thinking that Tibet was better off with Chinese rule to stop factional infighting, but disliked the cultural dilution (Tibetan was not the main language in the school)  and the ban on religious freedom (he was not allowed to wear Tibetan prayer beads while teaching). The School was part of the Chinese government’s strategy in Tibet that involves large investment fuelling infrastructure and education in the region in the hope to educate and assimilate the local population.

This seems like a far better strategy than that employed in other disputed regions with an oppressed ethnic minority that I visited such as Kashmir and the Palestinian territories where deliberate restriction of the economy and drastic underinvestment in education and infrastructure exacerbates the situation by perpetuating unemployment, under-education and poverty. In Tibet the Chinese government still enforces draconian rules suppressing the culture of the Tibetans and insists on a monopoly of power maintaining this with the expulsion of the Dali Lama and their complete control over education and propaganda. It feels as though the School is a small corner of a Tibetan field that is forever China as prominently displayed by the flag that flies over the playground.