BEIJING - Early in the 18th century, Emperor Yongzheng ordered the Yonghegong
Palace in Beijing to be converted into a Lama temple. The transformation of his
former residence was designed to show the great importance Chinese rulers
attached to the Dalai Lama and Tibetan religious society. Long after the
emperor's death in 1735, Tibetans in Beijing enjoyed a prestigious status.
Tibetans in Beijing are worshiped no more. Today, they are an anonymous and
small group compared with other ethnic minorities in China's capital city.
Security measures for the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympic Games and last year's
60th birthday celebrations for the People's Republic of China kept Tibetans
away. It was not until last autumn that their numbers began to rise again.
Dongdo is a Tibetan peddler one can find almost every afternoon at the entrance
of the Dongsishitiao subway station, not far from the Yonghegong Lama Temple.
He and his wife sell all kinds of traditional garments, side-by-side with two
other Tibetan families. Dongdo and his wife live together with eight people in
a tiny apartment in downtown Beijing.
Hailing from the northwest part of Sichuan province that is inhabited mostly by
Tibetans, the couple lost their homes in the earthquake in May 2008 that killed
more than 70,000 people. They didn't have money to rebuild or survive so left
their hometowns, choosing Beijing to restart their lives.
Just before the Olympics, Beijing authorities sent them back to Sichuan. Dongdo
says that they didn't obtain permission to resettle in the capital until last
November, after the 60th National Day parade on October 1.
Statistics about the Tibetan population in Beijing are difficult to obtain. The
last data available on the website of the Ethnic and Religious Affairs
Commission of the Beijing Municipal Government only reported 585,000 ethnic
minority individuals in Beijing city in 2000.
The Ethnic and Religious Affairs Committee says it doesn't have specific
figures on Tibetans living in Beijing province. Cai Fang, director of the
Institute of Populations and Labor Economics at the Chinese Academy of Social
Sciences (CASS), also says he has no information about the migration of Tibetan
workers inside China. Cai and two other prominent CASS professors last year
wrote a report for the United Nations Development Program on migration among
China's rural population.
A recent study of Professor Lu Ding, published by the National University of
Singapore, determined that between 2000 and 2005, the migration ratio of the
Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) decreased by less than a 0.5%. This means that
emigration from the region is slightly above immigration.
Andrew Fischer, senior lecturer in population and social policy at the Erasmus
University Rotterdam, said: "Because of the economic boom in places like Lhasa
[the capital of the TAR], net migration out of Tibet might not be increasing,
relative to total migration, although in terms of absolute numbers I am sure
there is probably some increase."
According to Dongdo and his friends, there are about 2,000 Tibetan peddlers in
Beijing. This can't be the total number because experts like Fischer consider
that most of the Tibetans who settle in the eastern cities of China are highly
educated: "Most Tibetans only migrate to local towns and cities inside Tibet.
The ones who migrate to elsewhere in China usually have high school or
university education and hence Chinese fluency. There is also a regular number
of Tibetans students who are sent to study in east China for high school,
somewhere around 5,000 and 10,000 students per year."
The Beijing Tibet Middle School is an example of this "elite migration". Top
students from the TAR - those who obtained the best marks in primary school -
are sent to 26 Tibetans institutions across China. This school and another
educational center for Tibetans - the only two of their kind in Beijing - are
the first choice for the brightest Tibetan kids: 30 students apply for every
vacancy.
Beijing Tibet Middle School has 810 pupils and 130 teachers. Just three members
of the academic staff are Tibetans. Membership of the Communist Youth League of
China is compulsory and students must wear a pin of the Chinese Communist Party
during lecture hours. Most of these youngsters express their wish to work for
the government. Luo Biao, vice headmaster of the school, said the majority of
these undergraduates would become public servants.
Luo concedes he is not sure that the presence in Beijing of highly educated
Tibetans helps increase understanding between the two cultures. "We help our
students to interact with the local society in three different ways: we arrange
cultural visits for them and sports competitions with other schools, and from
time to time there are Han families that invite them to have lunch and take
them out to enjoy leisure activities."
Violent and political clashes in Tibet could explain why most Han people avoid
interaction with the Tibetan community. But Fischer is convinced that "not
anyone would be scared of Tibetan migration in places like Beijing or Shanghai"
because in these cities Tibetans are a clear minority, in comparison with
places such as Chengdu, Lanzhou and Xining.
There are differences indeed. Near the Jianguomen subway station is a group of
about 15 Tibetans proud of their identity - one carries a picture of the Dalai
Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, on his cell phone. The man, who says
he is from Lhasa, sells tiger paws that have been cut into small pieces. His
customers are Han Chinese who believe the tiger has medicinal qualities.
Dechen Pemba, a Tibetan writer currently living in London, was in Beijing
studying Chinese from 2006 to 2008. She recounts that during the Olympics,
nearly all Tibetan migrants were forced to leave the capital, herself included.
"Some Tibetan friends of mine even lost their jobs as a direct result of
discriminations against Tibetans after the protests in Lhasa [the riots that
exploded in the Tibetan capital in March 2008] ... Without jobs, and with
anti-Tibetan sentiments rising high, they had no choice but to leave town."
Tibetans in Beijing live in fear and under surveillance, according to Pemba.
But the number of Tibetan migrants in the city is growing, according to Mipham
Jamyang, a Tibetan who leads the Lotus Center, a non-profit school founded two
months ago with the aim to teach migrant workers useful skills, such as the use
of computers or learning English. Jamyang says that Tibetans stay in Beijing
between two to five years then return to their hometowns to invest their
savings.
Jamyang takes issue with any idea that Beijing citizens dislike Tibetans and he
is sure that Tibetans are treated fairly by the law and enjoy the same rights
as other migrant groups. The Lotus Center opened with the authorization of the
Beijing government and Jamyang will request official funds to sustain a school
conceived to meet the growing needs of Tibetans flowing into the capital.
Cristian Segura is a European journalist based in Beijing.
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