Matt Schiavenza From the Dragon to the Apple- A Sinophile Goes to New York

Thoughts on T!bet

- The same people who agitate for "Free T!bet" in the West- oblivious to the Dalai Lama's renunciation of any claim to independence- wouldn't last for longer than a week if they actually, you know, had to live there.

-T!bet is beautiful. The people are nice, and simple, and devout, and charmingly rugged. They're also desperately poor, uneducated, and highly superstitious. Living conditions are harsh and life on the world's rooftop isn't easy- to say the least.

- For some reason, a lot of self-professed atheists romanticize Lamaist Buddhism, yet rage against religious extremism anywhere else. As an atheist myself, I do have more sympathy for Eastern religions than for Abrahamic ones, but Tibetan Buddhism adheres to the divinity of a man, who, when T!bet once governed itself, ruled in an absolute fashion and did virtually nothing to improve the material welfare of his people.

- China regarded itself as a victim of Western imperialism, a perfectly legitimate claim given Chinese history between 1840 and 1950. Yet somehow the notion that China's actions in T!bet were essentially imperialistic is completely taboo in this country. What's good for the goose, evidently, isn't good for the gander.

- There's really no reason for anyone to raise a stink about T!bet because Han migration to the TAR will eventually render the question of T!betan sovereignty moot.