Stolen Treasures

To the right is Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, a.k.a, the Panchen Lama. He was abducted by the Chinese in 1995. At that time, was said to be the world's youngest political prisoner. Hopefully, people can learn as much as they can about the Panchen Lama, and speak out about the injustices to our Senators and public representatives. Find out more about Gedhun and support the appeal for his release here.

We went to the Asian Art Museum today in its new permanent place near City Hall. We saw an exhibit that ends tomorrow called "Tibet: Treasures from the Roof of the World" a.k.a. The Art That China Stole. The show ends tomorrow, September 11th. If you go, stop to chat with the Tibetans protesting in front of the museum. Some hold signs that read, "China Stole My Culture."

We stopped to chat with a young man for nearly a half an hour. He was ethnically Chinese, yet impassioned about speaking out against the human rights violations of Tibetans. He encouraged us to see the show, but asked us to note how the descriptions for each artifact leave out the fact that these treasures are ALL the stolen property of the Dalai Lama. Yet, and no suprise--there was not any mention of this fact throughout the exhibit. I thought one of the purposes of museums was to show unbiased history in the form of art?? Then I saw that among the numerous fiscal sponsors, two were Bank of America and Wells Fargo. Go figure.

We learned later that the Asian Art Museum, in response to the Tibetan protests agreed to have a small Tibetan film festival. It would include (or has included) uncensored films that show the Tibetan side of the story.

We walked through the show with fascination and sadness. It made me think of the flippancy expressed by some of my Chinese friends in Beijing when i questioned them about their neighbors. On Korea-- after i expressed a love for Korean style chajang myun--"Oh you know that's OUR original dish...but we like their air conditioners, you know, they are not our enemies--we invaded them..." On Taiwan--"Yeah, they seem to be doing OK on their own."

With the upcoming Olympics in 2008, let's hope that the issues of human rights violations will not be swept away with the fast disappearing hutongs.