Thousands of Tibetans have traveled for days and hundreds of miles to pitch
their tents on the slopes surrounding the festival grounds in a remote
corner of western Qinghai province, which ethnically is majority Tibetan.
Strings of pink, blue, green and yellow prayer flags flutter in the breeze
as spectators stand in banks five or six deep for a glimpse of the dances.
They unfurl umbrellas to protect themselves from the sun blazing through the
thin air in this corner of the Roof of the World, about 3,800 metres
(12,500ft) above sea level.
The only cloud over the picnickers,riders, dancers and visitors dressed in
their finest is the order to wear furs. Entertainers who ignore it face
being fined their appearance money of 3,000 yuan (£200), a huge sum for a
Tibetan farmer.
The question of whether to wear traditional fur was sparked by the Dalai Lama
last year. He told Tibetans who gathered for a Buddhist festival that he was
ashamed of photographs showing his people dressed in robes decorated with
tiger skins and other animal pelts. Within days people across the Himalayan
region began to set alight mounds of fur-trimmed chubas.
Chinese officials were furious. The display of obedience by ordinary Tibetans
to the Buddhist monk, exiled in India since fleeing amid an abortive
anti-Chinese uprising in 1959, shocked the authorities, denting their
increasing confidence about having established control over the restive
region. …
Festival-goers ordered to wear fur or face fines as China flouts Dalai Lama’s ruling – Times Online
The Chinese must be terrified of HHDL. No wonder they spend so much effort putting him down.
