I have a friend who is in Dharamsala, India right now, the location of the Tibetan government in exile. He's gone there to do some spiritual searching, but just mentioned in an email that the current situation is "not exactly conducive to engaging with young monks about the origin of the universe." I suppose that right now, the spiritual wisdom can be found in what is happening in the current turmoil in Tibet.
On Sunday morning, I got a text message from a Canadian friend. "Is CNN blocked, or is it just me?" I tried to log on and couldn't. I assumed Chinese censors were blocking the site. However, later on in the day, I was able to read the news on CNN. Youtube, though, was blocked. Just for fun, I decided to read Xinhuanet, the State news presence on the net, and wasn't surprised by the party line.
It's reminding us foreigners that we're living in an authoritarian dictatorship.
Bjork was here in concert a few weeks ago, and after her last song started yelling, "Tibet, Tibet." Most people, I heard, didn't understand what she was talking about because the word for "Tibet "in Chinese is different. Afterwards, the government condemned her action as illegal, and apparently has its eyes open for similar "stunts" by foreign performers.
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