One world, different perspectives

On the flight from Vietnam I picked up a Vietnam Airlines magazine and carried it with me thinking I'd keep it and bring it home. But since I pay by the kilo vs. the quantity of bags I carry I decided to leave it in my hotel room in Tingri so as not to add additional weight. Lapa, our guide, came to me and told me I had left something in my room. I explained that I didn't want it any more. Excitedly he said, "I go check on it." Later while we were driving in the car he pulled that magazine out and started looking at it and reading the English that he could out of it. He was so excited about it and looked at every page slowly, studying what he saw. The driver saw it and was interested so when we stopped for a "nature toilet" (as our guide calls it when we go to the bathroom outside along the road) the two of them were holding the magazine devouring its contents, touching the pictures, discussing what was in the pictures. The when we got to another town a girl came running out to the car apparently to look at the magazine they had told her about. She excitedly thumbed through it and it seemed that she asked if she could have it but of course, they didn't give it up. The Chinese government severely limits the information in and out of Tibet. It is best for the government to keep it that way so that the Tibetans don't see the sympathy they receive from other nations regarding the Chinese rule of their country. 'Free Tibet' is not something known inside of Tibet by the general public and the government wants to keep it that way.

Three times I've cried: when I saw the magnitude of faith the prostrator had, when I saw Everest for the first time, and when I saw the driver and our guide excitedly looking through a magazine I had casually tossed. I have seen no reading material here - - nothing that reveals a world other than the Tibetan world. That's not saying it's not around it's just saying it's not readily in sight. And by the enthusiasm with which these guys looked at the magazine I'd say it probably doesn't exist. I wish I had brought other magazines like that with me; National Geographic would have been good. Next time...