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China issues demolition order on world’s largest religious town in Tibet

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Re: China issues demolition order on world’s largest religious town in Tibet

#191

Post by spaced_out »

huahaiy wrote: post #164

Allow me to share some of my perspectives. I grow up in Seda County in the late 70 and early 80s, and am intimately familiar with culture there. Tibetan Buddhism is not what people in the west think what it is. It is actually quite repressive and brutal. After 1950s, many regular Tibetans were glad to worship the new religion of Chairman Mao instead. Yes, it was true. Chairman Mao was worshiped as one of major Gods a…

>As a child, I heard all kinds of horrific stories Tibetan monks and their rebellious army inflicted on the Chinese soldiers and civilians alike. For that reason, many Han Chinese families kept firearms at home in that area, a rare thing in China.

I'm guessing they didn't tell you about the horrific treatment many Tibetans suffered in the years after the PRC invasion. During the Cultural Revolution, the conservative estimates put the number of extra-judicial executions in Tibet at around 22,000.

Plus, over 6,000 monasteries, the vast majority that have ever existed, were ransacked during that time, which was only a few decades ago. It's rather one-sided to call the Tibetan religious leaders "brutal", and not acknowledge that they have been the recipients of far more brutality in the last few decades.

Re: China issues demolition order on world’s largest religious town in Tibet

#192

Post by dang »

discardorama wrote: post #188

Chinese are bullies. And bullies pee in their pants when faced with real resistance. That's the best way to describe it.

You can't post comments like this to HN. Thoughtful critique is fine, but putting things provocatively and offensively on purpose is not fine, and doing that to slur an entire people (whether or not their government did a bad thing) is a bannable offense. Please don't do it again.

We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11929011 and marked it off-topic.

Re: China issues demolition order on world’s largest religious town in Tibet

#193

Post by tomohawk »

andy_ppp wrote: post #128

I do not understand the cowardice and fear the Chinese government seem to have of a small buddhist settlement in the middle of nowhere high up in the mountains of Tibet... It looks like they feel the opposite of a superpower and that a few buddhist monks might threaten them so much they have to destroy them. It's very easy to forget how free we are by comparison to those persecuted in occupied territories.

It's just the totalitarian statist mindset. The State is the most important thing, and it is important to statists that they be able to impose whatever it is they want to impose, and that any individual liberty be quashed. They turn everything around such that someone just trying to live their life is somehow opposed to the state's authority unless they're in line with what the statists want.

Re: China issues demolition order on world’s largest religious town in Tibet

#194

Post by dang »

discardorama wrote: post #186
toyg wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You think the west learnt from someone else? "The west" learnt diddly squat, but even if we assume "we" did -- the most significant turn-point of Western history in the last 150 years was the Holocaust. Are we saying any ethnic conflict on the planet will have to go through a holocaust before anyone "learns"? > Thats why India has Gandhi ... and still discriminates and kills Muslims on a massive scale, even after p…

> ... and still discriminates and kills Muslims on a massive scale, even after partition. As an Indian, I'm shocked to hear this. Did you ever live in India? "Massive scale", my ass. At least India didn't wipe out its population in a "Cultural Revolution"... Do you want to talk about Falun Gong? The harvesting of organs from FG prisoners?

You've been posting uncivil and/or unsubstantive comments to Hacker News. Please (re)-read the site guidelines and stop doing that. Commenters here need to post civilly and substantively, or not at all, regardless of how provocative another comment may be.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html

Re: China issues demolition order on world’s largest religious town in Tibet

#195

Post by Udik »

rrggrr wrote: post #176
coenhyde wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of what you said is just not true. Israel takes a lot of West Bank water. And while the illegal jewish settlements might not be a sovereign claim by Israel. Israel isn't doing anything to stop them.

Yes, and Nevada and California make the same complaint of Colorado. Cities and states inland of the US Great Lakes make the same complaint. Water rights are disputed globally, and that doesn't make Palestine the equivalent of Tibet. In Gaza (and Sinai), Israel gave up its settlements. In the West Bank there is one disputed formal settlement, and several nutcase Israeli squatter camps under dispute. The reality is tha…

> Nevada and California make the same complaint of Colorado

I hope this is supposed to be a joke. There is the small difference that citizens of Nevada, California and Colorado elect their representatives in the Congress and other institutions where the decisions on how to share the resources are made.

While Israel just takes what it wants by force, and the West Bank Palestinians have no say in it.

Re: China issues demolition order on world’s largest religious town in Tibet

#197

Post by sova »

nadezhda18 wrote: post #131
kweks wrote: post #29

I was there literally three days ago. The place is nothing short of breathtaking. Nestled at 4200km, it was a three day motorbike ride from Chengdu. Even at its foothills, you have no concept of the scale of the town hiding in the hills. This will truly be a tragic loss - the town is much more than the 'slum' it is represented as - it's arguably the most important Buddhist learning institution in the world.. Photos f…

thanks for the pictures,t they are amazing! So is the place... I hope China will revert its decision, it would be incredibly sad to loose this :(((

agreed!!

Re: China issues demolition order on world’s largest religious town in Tibet

#198

Post by kafkaesq »

huahaiy wrote: post #164

Allow me to share some of my perspectives. I grow up in Seda County in the late 70 and early 80s, and am intimately familiar with culture there. Tibetan Buddhism is not what people in the west think what it is. It is actually quite repressive and brutal. After 1950s, many regular Tibetans were glad to worship the new religion of Chairman Mao instead. Yes, it was true. Chairman Mao was worshiped as one of major Gods a…

I had a Tibetan drinking buddy once also, not too long - someone who until shortly before was at the (lower rungs) of the 'theocracy' you're talking about - and have heard stories that are probably similar to what you've heard.

However, none of this seems to bring any "perspective" to what seems to be in store for the community and Larung Gar. It's really, really hard not to see this program as anything other than blatant cultural genocide - and a huge step backward for both China, and human civilization generally.

Re: China issues demolition order on world’s largest religious town in Tibet

#199

Post by Pyxl101 »

kweks wrote: post #29

I was there literally three days ago. The place is nothing short of breathtaking. Nestled at 4200km, it was a three day motorbike ride from Chengdu. Even at its foothills, you have no concept of the scale of the town hiding in the hills. This will truly be a tragic loss - the town is much more than the 'slum' it is represented as - it's arguably the most important Buddhist learning institution in the world.. Photos f…

How are solid and liquid wastes dealt with in this town? What does it smell like to walk around the area?

Edit: found an answer further down the thread:

> The hygienic conditions are very poor - people doing their business squatting on the streets, no toilets, rubbish everywhere. I am surprised that was not an argument being made by the government for the demolition.

Re: China issues demolition order on world’s largest religious town in Tibet

#200

Post by huahaiy »

spaced_out wrote: post #191
huahaiy wrote: post #164

Allow me to share some of my perspectives. I grow up in Seda County in the late 70 and early 80s, and am intimately familiar with culture there. Tibetan Buddhism is not what people in the west think what it is. It is actually quite repressive and brutal. After 1950s, many regular Tibetans were glad to worship the new religion of Chairman Mao instead. Yes, it was true. Chairman Mao was worshiped as one of major Gods a…

>As a child, I heard all kinds of horrific stories Tibetan monks and their rebellious army inflicted on the Chinese soldiers and civilians alike. For that reason, many Han Chinese families kept firearms at home in that area, a rare thing in China. I'm guessing they didn't tell you about the horrific treatment many Tibetans suffered in the years after the PRC invasion. During the Cultural Revolution, the conservative…

Of course we were told how those rebellions were subdued in the end, because the evidence was in plain sight. There was a ruin on the mountain across the river where we lived. I was told that it used to be a monastery. Some rebellious monks held up there for a long time and the army wasn't able to take it after suffered heavy losses, so they used heavy artillery to bombard it to the ground. When we played in the hills, it's not uncommon to pick up spent shells, etc.

As to cultural revolution, there's nothing special in Tibet. Fired up populace did all the damages. At that time, Tibetan common people were equally zealous about Chairman Mao, if not more so.

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