China Cultural Chronicles November 1, 2012
- Why do Tibetans self-immolate?
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begs the question: Why does China murder unarmed Tibetans?
FP News – Wed, Oct 24, 2012
Beijing blamed exiled Tibetan Buddhist leader the Dalai Lama on Wednesday for inciting a spate of self-immolations in China's Tibetan-inhabited regions.
Nearly 60 ethnic Tibetans, many of them monks and nuns, have set themselves on fire in China since February 2009 to protest against Beijing's rule in Tibet, with three such incidents occurring in recent days, rights groups say.
"To our knowledge most of the self-immolation cases in the Tibetan-inhabited regions are related to the instigation of the Dalai clique," China's foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei told reporters.
"In order to realise their separatist goals, the Dalai clique has incited some people to self-immolate. This is despicable and should be condemned."
Hong did not offer any evidence that the Dalai Lama or the exiled Tibetan government based in the Indian town of Dharamshala were inciting the self-immolations.
Many Tibetans in China accuse the government of repressing their religious freedom and eroding their culture, as the country's majority Han Chinese ethnic group increasingly moves into historically Tibetan areas.
Last year, Beijing accused the Dalai Lama, who fled Tibet for India in 1959, of instigating the burnings as a form of "terrorism in disguise".
The 1989 Nobel Peace Prize winner countered by calling China's rule of Tibet "a kind of cultural genocide" that was driving Tibetans to acts of desperation.
He has not condemned the suicides of the last few years, preferring to remain "neutral" in his words, but he recently paid tribute to the courage of the protesters.
China has long accused the Dalai Lama -- Tibet's most revered spiritual leader -- of seeking an independent Tibet, accusations he has repeatedly denied.
On Tuesday, a Tibetan farmer in his 50s named as Dorje Rinchen died after setting himself on fire near the Labrang monastery in northwest China's Gansu province, the US-based International Campaign for Tibet said in a statement.
The self-immolation follows two others on Monday and Saturday, the group said. - Murder of a Tibetan Buddhist
- Traditional Chinese festival food
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Dumplings are a special kind of holiday food, and also a common home-cooked dish. On Chinese New Year's Eve, the whole family sits in a circle, kneading the dough, mixing the filling, rolling the wrap, wrapping, pinching, and boil the dumplings, all the while having a good time.Having dumplings for the New Year is a tradition in many families of the north.
The festive atmosphere of the Chinese New Year will last for a half month, until the 15th day of the first lunar month when it is the Lantern Festival, another important holiday of the Chinese. On the night of the Lantern Festival will be the first full moon of the year. Festive decor and bright lights adorn the major streets and narrow alleyways. The people while guessing fun riddles placed inside beautiful lanterns, enjoy yuanxiao (glutinous stuffed rice balls in soup), the southerners call them tangyuan.A New Year's painting Celebrating the Lantern Festival portrays the festive scenes of igniting firecrackers and making yuanxiao ( stuffed glutinous rice-balls) among Chinese people.
- Mysterious places around world
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E-mail Xinhua, October 31, 2012
- Doorknockers, Thian Hock Keng Temple, Singapore
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Thian Hock Keng (the 'Temple of Heavenly Happiness') is one of Singapore's oldest Chinese temples and stands in Telok Ayer Street, one of the most attractive historic quarters of Chinatown.
The present temple was built between 1839-42 and consists of a largely covered courtyard incorporating the main shrine to Mazu, the Taoist goddess of the Sea, whilst at the rear is a smaller shrine to the Buddhist Goddess of Compassion, Kwan Yin, shown in multi-armed form.
The decoration throughout the temple is very fine, particularl the richly gilded and painted roof structure at the entrance, with carved figurative brackets supporting the ceiling.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thian_Hock_Keng - Cambodia receives 2.57 mln foreign tourists in 9 months
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下载安装Flash播放器Cambodia attracted some 2.57 million international visitors in the first nine months of this year, a 24 percent rise compared with the same period last year, a report of the Ministry of Tourism showed Wednesday.
The report said that during the January-September period this year, about 1.48 million foreign visitors had visited the world heritage Angkor Wat Temple in Siem Reap province, up 27 percent compared with the same period last year, whilst the world heritage Preah Vihear temple attracted 13,140 foreigners, up 77 percent.
Vietnam still topped the chart among the top 10 arrivals to Cambodia with 579,890 tourists, up 25 percent, followed by South Korea with 306,550, up 24 percent, and Chinese visitors at third with 234,440, up 32 percent.
Laos and Thai visitors to the country stood at No. 4 and 5, respectively. During the period, some 177,140 Laotians and 137,430 Thais had visited Cambodia, up 90 percent and 70 percent, respectively.
It said that roughly 47 percent of the visitors arrived in the country by air, 50 percent by land and the rest by water ways.
The report also predicted that the country could receive 3.3 million foreign tourists in the whole year of 2012.
Tourism is one of the major four pillars supporting the economy. Last year, the sector attracted 2.88 million foreign tourists, generating the total revenue of 1.91 billion U.S. dollars.
Meanwhile, the report said that during the first nine months of this year, some 585,800 Cambodians had visited abroad, up 15 percent compared with the same period last year.
- Busy market street in Rongpo Gyakhar, Tibet 2012
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Like to see the pictures as LARGE as your screen? Just click on this Slideshow : www.flickr.com/photos/reurinkjan/sets/72157630983897338/s...
Repgong county, in central Amdo and just south of the Ma chu རྨ་ཆུ་ ( Yellow River) in the hart of Amdo, contains a large proportion of the Tibetan population. Farmers and nomads are spread through the verdant valleys and plains, and there are many monasteries dotted around the region. Its principal monastery predates Labrang and Kumbum by several centuries, and the county itself possesses 36 smaller monasteries, mostly of the Gelukpa school, although there are also important Nyingmapa and Bon hermitages here.
The main river of Repkong is the Guchu, which flows north to converge with the Ma chu རྨ་ཆུ་ ( Yellow River) below Lamo Dechen.
The capital, Rongpo Gyakhar, is both the administrative centre for Repkong county and for the entire South Ma chu རྨ་ཆུ་ ( Yellow River) Prefecture.
Area:3.353 sq km.
www.footprinttravelguides.com/c/2848/tibet/&Action=pr... - Busy market street in Rongpo Gyakhar, Tibet 2012
reurinkjan has added a photo to the pool:
Like to see the pictures as LARGE as your screen? Just click on this Slideshow : www.flickr.com/photos/reurinkjan/sets/72157630983897338/s...
Repgong county, in central Amdo and just south of the Ma chu རྨ་ཆུ་ ( Yellow River) in the hart of Amdo, contains a large proportion of the Tibetan population. Farmers and nomads are spread through the verdant valleys and plains, and there are many monasteries dotted around the region. Its principal monastery predates Labrang and Kumbum by several centuries, and the county itself possesses 36 smaller monasteries, mostly of the Gelukpa school, although there are also important Nyingmapa and Bon hermitages here.
The main river of Repkong is the Guchu, which flows north to converge with the Ma chu རྨ་ཆུ་ ( Yellow River) below Lamo Dechen.
The capital, Rongpo Gyakhar, is both the administrative centre for Repkong county and for the entire South Ma chu རྨ་ཆུ་ ( Yellow River) Prefecture.
Area:3.353 sq km.
www.footprinttravelguides.com/c/2848/tibet/&Action=pr... - Quiet fairyland hidden in downtown Shanghai
Fuxing Island lies in the Yangpu district in Shanghai, at the east shore line of the Huangpu River at the northern edge of Pudong developing belt. Fuxing Island is unknown to the outside world although it lies inside the downtown Shanghai. It's perhaps a destination only for serious history buffs, since the sole attraction here is the villa where Cheng Kai Shek spent his last night in Shanghai before fleeing to Taiwan in 1949. Though the rest of the island bears the marks of heavy industry, the Fuxing Island park itself is actually rather nice; shaded by ancient camphor trees and delightfully well-kept.
- China gets taste for 'couch surfing' travel
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下载安装Flash播放器University student He Yao recently got back to Beijing from a 16-day stay in the Republic of Korea (ROK) for which she didn't spend a cent on lodging.
With no relatives or friends there, the 23-year-old girl managed it thanks to couch surfing, the worldwide concept of offering travelers a couch or a bed to sleep on for free.
The people who offer free accommodation are called "hosts," while their guests are "couch surfers" under this system, which is becoming increasingly popular in China.
The novel concept, which directly hooks travelers up with local people, was invented by American technology and Internet consultant Casey Fenton in 1999. Before a trip to Iceland, he emailed students at the University of Reykjavik, asking if any were willing to offer him a free place to stay.
To his surprise, he received many offers of hospitality and stayed in the country for free.
After getting back to the United States, Fenton decided to promote this experience. Four years later, in 2004, he and several partners founded Couchsurfing, a social travel network to facilitate "couchsurfing" members with like-minded hosts.
The method of travel started to gather enthusiasts throughout the world not long after Couchsurfing was established. According to statistics released by the network, there are about five million couch surfers in more than 96,000 cities around the world.
It was from this network that Beijing-based He successfully found four hosts to accommodate her in the ROK in September. During her trip, she stayed at the homes of a police officer, a university student, a math teacher and a civil servant. Three of them offered her a separate room, while the college student shared a bed with her.
"This was a fantastic trip filled with luck and courage!" He says. The hosts treated her to local delicacies, night clubs and nighttime views.
Although she did have safety concerns on this, her first experience of couchsurfing, He says they were dispelled by the network's detailed verification and references, as wells as a vouching system.
Couchsurfing was introduced to China a few years ago, and the network reveals that China now ranks 10th in terms of the population of couch surfers. The top three countries by this measure are the United States, Germany and France.
On popular microblogging site Sina Weibo, more than 1,000 bloggers label themselves "Couch surfing host," with a user named "Couch surfer's trip website" attracting more than 13,000 followers alone.
Couch surfers in China are also known as "Tang Seng," after the eminent Buddhist monk who carried out a west-bound pilgrimage to procure Buddhist sutras during the Tang Dynasty (618-907).
As monks often call the people who accommodate them "Shizhu" in China, the hosts of couch surfers are also nicknamed this way.
Chen Hui, a host in Xiamen, a coastal city in east China's Fujian Province, explains she accommodates couch surfers because she believes this is a way to communicate with people from different places and backgrounds.
Chen works at home, and she enjoys talking with the couch surfers who stay at her home.
"A girl from Hong Kong who I received this summer has become a good friend of mine," Chen says.
Lack of courtesy has been a problem challenging the spread of couch surfing in China. For this reasons, Chen prefers to have contact with a prospective guest before she offers a lodging place.
"I turn down applications from those who immediately come out and say they just need somewhere to sleep," she explains.
A couch surfer herself, Chen has found people in big cities like Hangzhou, capital of eastern Zhejiang Province, are more willing to offer a free place, but it is not easy to find a host in smaller cities, where people tend to be more reserved.
"I traveled to Shaoxing, also in the province, this summer, but I failed to get a free place," she recalls.
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