John Birchak’s eyes well with tears as he speaks about his first days in Tibet — three days in the sacred city of Lhasa, often spent watching Buddhist devotees walk wellworn paths around and around and around monasteries on Barkhor Street.
“During those three days it was absolutely bliss to be in the old Barkhor,” Birchak says. “There are all these street vendors out in front of the buildings, and every morning and every evening there was this beautiful stream of people doing their daily kora, their daily walk, saying their prayers. You just had to step into this stream…” he pauses as the tears form, then he asks forgiveness.
“It’s just that a lot of this doesn’t exist anymore,” he says.
This is why Birchak traveled to Tibet in 2010 — to document a vanishing way of life. The photographs Birchak took in Tibet — monks and nuns, nomadic herdsmen, college students — each tell a story about Tibetan culture as it is today, hovering, many believe, on the very brink of existence in the face of more than 60 years of Chinese occupation. More than two dozen of Birchak’s photographs from his time in Tibet are currently on display at Naropa University’s Paramita Campus until Dec. 11. On Dec. 5, Birchak will speak about his time in Tibet and the threats to Tibetan culture.
Before Birchak will speak about his travels in Tibet, he prefaces the conversation by saying he in no way wants to make a statement about the Chinese people. His only desire, he says, is to relate what he saw and heard during his time there.
But his experience aligns with that of countless other first-hand observations.
The systematic dismantling of Tibet began in 1950 when the newly established Communist regime in China invaded the Buddhist state. By 1959, the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s political and spiritual leader, fled the country and has since been in exile in northern India.
Just south-west of China, Tibet has much to offer, from its strategic border with India to its abundance of natural resources — gold, silver, copper, zinc, molybdenum, uranium, lithium and, perhaps most importantly, water. The Chinese government maintains that Tibet has been an integral part of China for around 800 years. However, Tibet acted as an independent state for more than two millennia, and at the time of Chinese occupation had its own national flag, currency, stamps, passports and army. The Tibetan government signed international treaties, and maintained diplomatic relations with neighboring countries.
And yet China came and staked its claim on the region. Tibet has been divided, its parts renamed and incorporated into Chinese provinces. Today when China refers to Tibet, it only names the so-called Tibet Autonomous Region, which is actually governed by China.
When Birchak and fellow photographer Philip Borges decided to travel to Tibet, Birchak says they spent a year trying to find a guide that could take them into the far western plateau where nomadic herders have grazed livestock for generations.
“It took a long time to find someone because China controls the guides,” Birchak explains. “You have to have an official Chinese tourism license. We wanted to find a guide that was Buddhist, that had direct ties to nomads — family ties — and who was a bona fide guide, could speak Tibetan, Mandarin and English. For months and months and months we were just finding Chinese guides. We just wanted to find someone who was living that culture of Tibetan Buddhism in Tibet.”
And finally they found Lumbum Shaman. Lumbum has been a guide since he was about 15 years old, according to Birchak, and taught himself English over the years while taking Westerners on treks through Tibet.
Birchak says Lumbum’s earnest personality and genuine concern allowed locals to open up about their personal lives without getting into politically sensitive subjects. As the travelers moved farther west where the villages grow smaller and smaller until there are none — only yak hair tents and livestock — it was Lumbum who helped Birchak learn the personal stories behind the vanishing nomadic way of life.
“We were careful of what we photographed. Every person we met, we never brought up anything political. As we got into more remote areas, the nomads and monks were comfortable with Lumbum and they would offer information, but we didn’t probe for it,” Birchak says. “One of the things that told us they truly trusted us, they would open up their clothes and show us a button of the Dalai Lama. In the western regions, that will get you arrested.”
Speaking through Lumbum, Birchak and Burges were able to learn about the Chinese boarding schools that nomadic children are required to attend. One night the Westerners camped outside a small village where one of these boarding schools is located. Children were visiting with their grandparents, singing traditional Tibetan folk songs. But when the adults stopped singing, Birchak says they were shocked by what they heard.
“The children were singing in Chinese, Chinese military songs [to the tune of the Tibetan folk song],” Birchak says. “The adults asked, ‘What are you singing?’ and the children said, ‘That’s what they teach us in school.’ That was one of their first insights into what the children are being taught.”
The nomads also spoke about the grazing restrictions the Chinese have implemented. Despite the centuries-old nomadic practice of moving herds each season in order to better preserve the land, the Chinese government has forced nomads to keep their herds in fenced-in areas year after year. The Chinese claim their restrictions are intended to protect the land — much of which is succumbing to desertification — from overgrazing.
“[The nomads were] telling us the land area that’s fenced is too small to graze enough animals to live,” Birchak says. “They won’t be able to make enough yak butter and milk and wool. They are good stewards of the land… they know how to protect it. They aren’t going to overgraze it and kill it off.”
Indeed, many scientists (including Chinese researchers, such as Lei Dongjun) have concluded that climate change, not nomadic practices, is the root cause for desertification on the Tibetan Plateau.
The Western photographers learned of nomads working on Chinese road crews for half the pay a Chinese worker makes for the same job, and they saw “relocation centers,” what Birchak calls a “grid of cookie cutter houses … tiny, like studio apartments” where nomads are forced to stay during the winter months.
“The nomads don’t know how to deal with this emotionally,” he says. “Now these nomads are having drug problems, drinking problems, prostitution, family disputes — it’s happening so rapidly.”
Birchak says he hopes his photography will help more people see and appreciate the traditional Tibetan way of life. He calls Edward Curtis, the photographer famed for his shots of Native Americans, his inspiration.
“I felt like Edward Curtis going up there,” Birchak says. “I was at that same edge, that same transitional period. They have living knowledge, many are living in traditional means, they knew the old folk songs, they spoke the language. That’s when I was there.”
Birchak pauses, tears in his eyes.
“They are now being influenced by all these other things that are not their culture. In one generation, the Chinese will transform all of the Tibetan children into Chinese citizens.”
ON THE BILL: Tibet: A Vanishing Culture. Photography by John Birchak. On display until Dec. 11, Naropa University Paramita Campus, 3285 30th St., Boulder, 303-444-0202. Final reception and discussion, noon-4 p.m. Dec. 5. John will speak from 2-3 p.m.
