Tibetan culture falters under Chinese influx

ZHANG JUN says his two-storey frosted glass and chrome beauty salon near the Tibetan capital’s imposing Potala Palace is the biggest in town.

With his slick black moustache and chunky gold necklace, the ethnic Han Chinese dominates the front desk of Lhasa’s Yiren Beautiful Face and Hair Centre, barking out orders in Chinese to more than 90 employees, all in matching sugar-pink uniforms.

To the outside eye - and to Tibetans - the stream of ethnic Chinese moving to the Roof of the World appears to have swollen into a flood.

Officials say the trend is natural and tersely dismiss suggestions that it is a result of an official strategy to dilute the Tibetan population. Overseas Tibetan activists say the move is tantamount to ethnic and cultural genocide.

Like most of his hair stylists, manicurists, and masseuses, Mr Zhang hails from the neighbouring, and heavily populated, Sichuan province. He set up shop in Lhasa nearly 15 years ago after deciding that any inconvenience caused by the city’s remote location was outweighed by the investment help he got from the government.

He is part of the ethnic Chinese migration, a term officials refuse to use because it does not fit the party line - that the autonomous region is simply another piece of greater China.

"I want to say that the ethnic Chinese migration does not exist. China is a unified economic body, movement around the country has no restrictions, movement is ruled by the nation’s market economy," said Yu Heping, deputy director general of the Tibetan Autonomous Region’s Development and Reform Committee.

"There is no such question of an ethnic Chinese migration."

Officials say nearly 90 per cent of the population of Lhasa are ethnic Tibetans. A walk down the city’s streets - lined with karaoke bars and restaurants serving spicy Sichuan food packed with new-rich Chinese businessmen - tells a different story.

Almost every taxi driver is an ethnic Chinese.

In the shrinking, run-down Tibetan quarter of Lhasa, away from the serried rows of concrete Chinese dormitories and blue-glass bars, a Tibetan woman at the counter of a small corner shop selling snacks to Chinese tourists shakes her head.

"There’s no way that Tibetans are that large a percentage here," she said. "It’s more like 50 per cent."

Slipping through the cracks of the official statistics are Chinese such as Zhang and his brood of workers.

"All of my employees are still officially registered as residents of their hometowns," he said. "I’m not an official resident of Lhasa, either."

Despite the high income he earns from up to 400 customers a day, Zhang’s status in Lhasa is that of lowly migrant worker.

Critics say China’s push to develop the plateau leaves behind the group that should most benefit - the 2.7 million Tibetans.

Inside Mr Zhang’s Yiren salon, voices are raised above the hum of the hair dryers - not a word of Tibetan can be heard.

"We don’t hire Tibetans because, generally speaking, the educated ones prefer to work for the local government," Mr Zhang explained. "And the ones with no education aren’t suitable for working here."

Officials say Tibet needs skilled labour and investment from other regions to help maintain the region’s gross domestic product, which in 2003 stood at 18.4 billion yuan. Thousands upon thousands of ethnic Chinese are taking up the call, opening businesses along Lhasa streets that were grassland less than a decade ago.

A new train line being built to Lhasa will make immigration even easier. Already half the 710-miles of track has been laid, at a cost of $2 billion.

"Once the Tibet line is opened it will be beneficial for Lhasa and the whole Tibet Autonomous Region. It will stimulate the development of Tibet’s economy," Wang Weigao, engineer-in-chief of the bridge project, said.

"It will bring a big change for Tibetans, and the lives of the people of Lhasa and I believe it will bring great development," he said.

But ordinary Tibetans seem unimpressed.

"The central government tells the outside world that it is investing in Tibet and developing Tibet," said 21-year-old construction worker Migma Tsering.

"Is Tibet developed today? You can see for yourself that it is not," he said, gesturing to potholed streets and pilgrims from out of town prostrating themselves in the dusty street as they make their sacred circumambulation of Lhasa.

"China is a relatively backward country itself. Tibet would be better off developing with the aid of another country," he said.

Others are not so sure.

"There has been a huge increase in money and development with government money coming in but the economy is not growing, business is not being created or products produced," said John Powers, a Tibet expert at the Australian National University in Canberra.

"The government money coming in is going to Han Chinese and not to Tibetans," he said.

"The railway will make it cheaper and easier to immigrate," added Mr Powers. "About 3,000 escape Tibet every year and that doesn’t happen if conditions are good. People are willing to live under repression but not economic hardship. They are voting with their feet."

The government has introduced a raft of preferential tax, fiscal and property policies. Mr Zhang said his salon was built with the help of just such policies, and while he gave few details, he did not hesitate to give thanks for the official encouragement. "The government gives us all kinds of special deals, including tax breaks," he said.

And it is equal opportunity for those ready to set up shop.

"Ethnic Chinese, Tibetan and all other minority groups enjoy the same benefits of the preferential policies," said Wu Jilie, the vice-minister of the Tibetan Autonomous Region government.

So why haven’t Tibetans jumped at the chance? "They are better at doing things that involve their traditional culture," Mr Zhang said.

"For example, a salon like this is successful because we can offer the latest in styles and products. Tibetans have no way to get in touch with what is going on outside this area. They don’t have access to new things and new ideas."

Language is another problem. Only educated Tibetans speak Chinese and few Chinese speak Tibetan.

Most Tibetans are herders and nomads, their average per capita income in 2003 estimated by officials at 1,690 yuan, up 11 per cent from a year earlier but barely enough to make them attractive consumers for a Chinese businessman.

As a result, many a Chinese business aims at the ethnic Chinese customer in Tibet.

"A lot of factories have been built around here, and the government has built the roads you see here. This place is really opening up," said a mobile phone salesman from coastal Fujian province. He said that 70 per cent of his customers were Chinese.

"We would never have come here if there were no Chinese because then there would be no market," he said. But even those Tibetans who do set up a business and stick to local handicrafts say they are troubled by the Chinese influx.

On the Barkhor pilgrim circuit around the Jokhang Temple in the heart of Lhasa, stalls and shops are slowly being taken over by Chinese from bordering Qinghai and Xinjiang provinces.

"There are too many Chinese here," complained Lhatzo, a 31-year-old Tibetan with a stall in the Barkhor’s silver market. "Business is getting worse month to month and year to year."

She scowls when she talks about the Chinese landlord who pockets half of her monthly income of 1,500 yuan as rent for a rickety wooden stall and a place in the market.

She says she particularly resents the growing number of Chinese tour guides who trot their groups past her stall in favour of other sellers, their ethnic Chinese friends who will hand over a fat "under-the-table" commission.

"They tell the tourists that my things are all fake," she said, as Tibetans in neighbouring stalls chimed in with disgruntled agreement.