Word: potala
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Grazing Camels. The basic tactic of China's border policy is the massive settlement of its Han people among the native inhabitants. In Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, the 120,000 Chinese cadres are much in evidence, and the exiled Dalai Lama's Potala Palace is no more than a well-tended cultural relic. Urumchi, the capital of the Sinkiang Uighur autonomous region, has grown from 80,000 people in 1949 to 800,000 today, of whom 60% are Han, only 40% the traditional nomadic peoples-Uighurs, Kazakhs, Kirghiz and Mongols...
Over Lhasa, the golden roof of the Potala Palace sparkled in the thin air. Once the living heart of Tibetan Buddhism, spiritual and temporal seat of the Dalai Lama, Potala is now a cultural relic. It remains an architectural wonder. Designed as fortress, labyrinth and spiritual sanctuary, Potala rises 13 stories high and stretches 460 yards along the dominating hillside. Across the front of the palace, in giant white letters on a black background, was a solemn epitaph: ETERNAL GLORY TO CHAIRMAN MAO TSE-TUNG, GREAT LEADER AND GREAT TEACHER...
...Potala, he said, it is used "to teach class education, Tibetan culture and language." Visitors are shown the Dalai Lama's brocade-lined private quarters at the very top of the palace. The long corridors, which were once dimly illuminated by lamps that burned yak butter, now have electric lights. But the palace's past is still evoked by a pantheon of Buddhist deities in prayer halls, and by the rows of sutras (books of Buddhist scripture) piled on wooden shelves...
...portion of the exhibit was "Socialist New Tibet," where "the emancipated serfs have organized to develop production." It is a hall filled with all kinds of grains, fruits and vegetables, furs and agricultural machinery, along with various exhortations for communal economic development. In a filled-in swamp below the Potala, the Chinese have built an administrative complex and guesthouse...