Lost Horizon: Visiting the New Shangri-la
Young apprentice monks in Nixia, a mountain village in a Tibetan area of China's Yunnan province.
(Rob Schmitz, a reporter and producer for Minnesota Public Radio, traveled to China to report on Tibetan culture as part of his fellowship. Here he describes an encounter with Chinese authorities.)
I thought I was in big trouble. After spending a few days Dakpa, I was confident I had found a good fixer. He was trustworthy, well connected, and he seemed to understand that my lack of journalist credentials meant we had to avoid attracting government attention.
But then came the call.
"The governor knows you've been interviewing Tibetans in town," Dakpa told me over the phone early one morning, "I think he is angry."
My mind began to race. Was Dakpa turning me in? I quickly thought of where I would hide my videotapes. Would the police check my dirty socks? Or should I try to hire a truck and hightail it out of town?
"Why is he angry?" I asked nervously.
"Because you haven't interviewed him yet," Dakpa replied.
The episode was one of many that challenged my expectations about reporting this documentary.
I had come to examine how the Chinese government's plan to develop this remote town as a tourist destination was affecting its native Tibetan population. Many reporters had written about the newly renamed town of Shangri-la as a kitschy ethnic theme park that was turning Tibetan culture into a commodity, and I came expecting the same. But after a couple of weeks, I discovered a more intriguing story underneath the surface. A handful of Tibetans were capitalizing on Beijing's call to flaunt Tibetan culture by jumpstarting a real, grassroots-style cultural revival.
Ever since the government had begun talking about changing the town's name to Shangri-la, Dakpa had used the new open political atmosphere to help local monks establish Tibetan-language schools in their home villages. Up to now, most Tibetan children in the rural areas surrounding Shangri-la were taught only in Chinese, causing many to lose their native language.
Part of my story follows Dakpa and his friend Tashi, a Buddhist monk who has established a school in a mountain village to introduce young Tibetans to their language, religion and culture.