A Montreal photographer's exhibit captures poetry amid Chinese oppression by Philip Preville One morning last October in the southern Tibetan village of Tingri, Montreal photographer Martin Beau-lieu caught a break. Tashi, his group's jeep driver and unofficial guide for their semi-clandestine trek across Tibet, was late picking them up for the day's six-hour drive. That's when a Tibetan man in his twenties came running up to them wearing a mask and, strangely, since he was not a soldier, Chinese military garb. "He came running up to us and wanted to talk," Beaulieu recalls. "We chatted and played games for a while, and when I took out my camera he made the peace sign." To Beaulieu, this man's naïveté led him to make a very daring gesture. "You rarely see a Tibetan in Chinese uniform, and you're not allowed to photograph the military at any time. And people don't like to talk about the Chinese. If anyone had seen us, we would both have been in serious trouble. "I doubt he really understood what was going on, of the repression that is normally associated with that uniform. But through his innocence, he dared to say that there can be peace between China and Tibet, without one side dominating the other." Beaulieu's collection of photographs from Tibet will be on display from April 19 to April 25 at the Quai des Brumes (4481 St-Denis). The exposition is part of Oh Tibet!, a week-long series of events--expositions, film screenings, forums, discussion groups and concerts--taking place in Montreal to raise awareness of the ongoing Chinese occupation of Tibet and to raise funds for the Canadian Tibetan Committee. 
Beaulieu's exhibit, in which his serene and sometimes joyous photographs are accompanied by stories of oppression gathered by Amnesty International, place Tibet's political reality in contrast to the peaceful and even poetic nature of the people themselves. "People in Tibet may be poor in terms of money, but they are rich in spirit. It's what really struck me during my time there."
Jeeps, bribes and cheap hotels It's a well-known fact that travelling in Tibet is difficult at best. As the Dalai Lama criss-crosses the globe trying to free Tibet from Chinese occupation, and as the cause becomes increasingly fashionable, tourism to Tibet is gaining in popularity. In response, the Chinese government is regulating all tourist traffic. For Beaulieu, as for most other travellers, getting in was the easy part--he simply flew from Changdu to Lhasa, Tibet's former capital. The problem is that, once inside Tibet, no foreigner is allowed to tour the countryside without a government-appointed guide. But there are ways to shake your Chinese Big Brother--ways the Chinese seem to know all about, but pretend to ignore. "We went to a company that offers tours outside Lhasa and told them we didn't want a guide," explains Beaulieu. "They gave us a map and told us to trace our trajectory. Then they assigned specific dates to each place we wanted to visit." The group wanted to travel across southern Tibet and into Nepal; the company assigned a one-week schedule to get there. Continues Beaulieu: "Once we agreed, we were assigned a driver. His job was simple: we could do whatever we wanted, but he made us stick to the itinerary." Their driver, nicknamed Tashi, was also in charge of getting them past the numerous Chinese military outposts along the way. "We had strict instructions not to step out of the jeep, no matter how long the wait. He would get out and offer the soldiers cigarettes. And he would really insist--he would not stop until everyone had cigarettes in their hand." It was a symbolic bribe, to make sure every soldier was in on the deal. "Then he would show them our itinerary, to prove we were obeying our agreement. It was tricky, because it was obvious we had no guide. We could have been expelled and Tashi would have been in deep trouble. The itinerary was proof of our good faith." Because they had no guide, they could not stay at any officially recognized hotels either. Instead, Tashi would book them into clandestine rooming houses, and often conditions were horrendous. "We complained about it at first, but we came to realize we didn't have a choice. We had to draw as little attention to ourselves as possible." 
Don't talk to the locals
For Beaulieu, the difficulties and discomfort were a sacrifice he was willing to make. He wanted to capture a part of Tibet that no guide would have allowed him to see. "And even with the additional freedom we had, there were all sorts of constraints," he says. "I didn't dare take photographs of Chinese soldiers, even though they were everywhere. Tashi didn't want his photo taken, either." And, he says, "they kept our itinerary so tight because they don't want us to stay in one place long enough to get to know the people who actually live in Tibet." The way Beaulieu tells it, the tour companies seem to be operating in a centrally controlled underground economy, and the trek was a bizarre, government-regulated game of tag: as long as they kept checking in at the military outposts, they were allowed to stay on the run. But if they stood still for too long, the Chinese authorities would catch up to them. The waiting game And while he could not photograph the Chinese military presence, he felt the oppression most strongly through a photograph he bought. While perusing the photos of the Dalai Lama at the street kiosks around Lhasa's Jokhang temple, one vendor leaned over his table, pulled from his pocket a grainy mugshot of a young boy, and said, "Panchen Lama. Panchen Lama." The sheer intrigue of it all piqued Beaulieu's curiosity; he bought the photo, even though he had no idea who the Panchen Lama was. Some days later, at the Drepung monastery east of Lhasa, he befriended a Tibetan monk who gave him the whole story. The Panchen Lama is a key spiritual figure in Tibetan Buddhism: when the current Dalai Lama dies, it is the Panchen Lama who will recognize and name his successor. The Panchen Lama was abducted in 1995 by the Chinese, who named their own Panchen Lama in his place. Beaulieu believes the Chinese are playing the waiting game, maintaining a constant and visible armed presence in Tibet, but avoiding any Tiananmen Square-type confrontations. "The Dalai Lama is 59 years old, and who knows how long he will live. Meanwhile, the Chinese have given themselves the power to name the Dalai Lama's replacement. They are determined to control Tibet, even if it takes a couple of generations to do it." :
Oh Tibet! runs from April 19 to 25 in venues across the Plateau. The week culminates with the "Sh'Oh Tibet!" concert on Sunday, April 25 at the World Beat Centre (1592 St-Laurent) beginning at 8pm. Tickets: $10. Info: 272-4984. For a complete schedule of events, email maoriking@hotmail.com
|