Tibet Through Chinese Eyes.

Take Home: Tibet Through Chinese Eyes.

Tibet was an independent country until 1951, when it was annexed and became a part of China. The popular western opinion is that Tibet shouldn’t be a part of China. In that article “Tibet through Chinese Eyes”, Hessler presents and a different view of the Tibet issue. The most common opinion is against China and China’s harsh policies against the people of Tibet. Hessler shares with us the opinions of the younger Han Chinese who work in Tibet to make it a better place.

Han, ethnic Chinese, who live in Tibet have their own opinions. Mei Zhiyuan, one of the Han, sees Tibet as a “harmonious region that benefits from Chinese support”. Mei’s reason from volunteering in Tibet was mainly because everyone knows Tibet isn’t very developed and needs skilled people. Unfortunately the Dali Lama targeted the Han as a threat to Tibetan culture, so the Han migration is seen as a something that will destroy the Tibetan culture. Their motivation is to better Tibet; the problem is that Tibetans don’t see the Han in this light. So the question arises what are the Han doing?

Jianku means difficult, the goal is for skilled Chinese to go to regions to places that are jianku. These are the places in China that need help. Many Han have the option to go to places in China around the border where there are many minorities but seeing as how Tibet needs more help they go there because the want to help build the count and better it. According to Shi Mingzhi, a 24 year old physics teacher, most volunteers in his district are Party members and if you are a so a party member you should be willing to go to a jianku place to work. He says that most of them have patriotic reasons from coming there, which may be the biggest reason. The other reason was because of the good opportunity and there is a better salary on the borders of China than the interior. Most volunteers had very idealistic reasons to work in Tibet the sense of adventure, desire to see...