What a Semi-Naked Woman Posing
by a Lake Says About China’s Relationship With
Tibet
Yang Siqi Time
The sacred waters of Yamdrok Lake in Tibet shine a
brilliant blue green that attracts pilgrims and tourists alike. But
earlier this week the focus shifted from the turquoise waters to a
semi-naked woman who was photographed by the lakeshore. Images of
the scantily clad model were posted — and reposted — on Chinese
social media earlier this week, catalyzing debate about whether the
nude photo shoot constituted a cultural sin, akin to, say, images
of undress in the heart of the Vatican. The lake is believed by
locals to be a kind of female Buddhist guardian, and its waters are
used to sanctify souls.
By April 14,
the People’s
Daily, the mouthpiece of the Chinese
Communist Party, tweeted in English that the photographer “got 10
days’ detention for taking photos of unclad female tourist at
sacred Tibetan lake.” The website of Xinhua, China’s official news
service, carried a similar report, with an article noting that the
model was being accused of “conduct that did not respect Tibetan
culture.”
But details about the model and the detention are
murky: a journalist from theLegal Evening
News, based in Beijing, reported that a
local Public Security Bureau official denied on Thursday morning
that any such punishment had been meted out to the photographer or
anyone else involved. According to his social-media accounts, the
photographer is a professional cameraman nicknamed Yu Feixiong who
lives in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital. On his Weibo account, he said
that he took the photos because the model wanted “to have some
memory of this sacred land” while she was at an age that she
considered her optimum (“The girl told me it’s her best age when
she travels to Tibet … [Her] youth is leaving.”)
Calls to his cell-phone number trigger a recording
that says “unable to connect.” Can Can, a professional model and
Yu’s high school classmate, tells TIME: “I can’t contact him,
either. He is always a kind and normal person. Before he moved to
Tibet, he was based in Hangzhou. He’s atheist. It’s hard to say
whether he’s right or wrong this time. I seldom see him taking
other naked photos.”
On Thursday afternoon, an official at the local
public security bureau from Nagarze county, where Yamdrok Lake is
located, told TIME: “We do not know anything.”
One of the first people to repost the images of the
unknown model was Jiang Qiang, a tour-guide operator from the
southwestern Chinese city of Chengdu who leads trips to Tibet.
Jiang, who is from China’s ethnic Han majority, says he has led
tours to Yamdrok Lake many times before. “I was shocked when I saw
the pictures,” he tells TIME. “Before every trip, I tell my clients
to respect Tibetan culture. No spitting, no littering.” He adds
that he never bothered to remind tourists to keep their clothes on
“because it’s common knowledge.” Jiang thinks the photographer
deserves some kind of reprimand. “Without punishment, some people
don’t know right from wrong,” he says. “I am Han, but I think
everybody should respect Tibetan culture.”
Late on April 11, Jiang’s post was reposted by a
woman whose social-media account name is Youchum Dolkar, a Tibetan
name. (Many of her previous posts are in Tibetan.) It was from her
post that the controversial photos went viral in China. “Such an
awesome photographer and an awesome model — it shows there is no
bottom line for culture and morality,” she wrote in a critical note
accompanying her repost of the offending images. In a brief online
chat with TIME, she wrote: “I just want to protect culture. I just
wish more people could respect Tibetan culture.”
Even if foreigners are periodically prohibited from
visiting Tibet, local tourists have flocked to the high plateau.
Last year, around 20 million tourists traveled to Tibet to breathe
in the fresh air and explore Tibetan Buddhism, according to the
local tourism-development committee. The vast majority of these
travelers are ethnic Han. Yet some Tibetans complain that these
visitors know little about the cultural and political tensions that
have riven the roof of the world.
Since 2009, more than 135 Tibetans
have burned
themselves in fiery protests against the
Chinese Communist Party, whose soldiers marched into Tibet in 1950.
Many of the self-immolators used their dying words to call for the
return of the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual
leader whom Beijing considers a
dangerous “splittist.” (The Dalai Lama has repeatedly asserted
publicly that he is calling for meaningful autonomy, not
independence, for Tibet.)
Tibetan monks are routinely forced to attend
communist indoctrination classes and denounce the Dalai Lama. Ever
since deadly race riots in 2008, Lhasa has cowered under a heavy
security presence. While Han tourists
can freely tour some of Tibetan
Buddhism’s holiest sites, local pilgrims
are often subjected to stringent security checks.
The impact of local tourism on China’s most remote
reaches has provoked controversy before. After hordes of Chinese
tourists clambered up — and damaged — glaciers in the northwestern
region of Xinjiang, provincial officials banned glacier tourism
earlier this year. A previous plan to deploy tour boats on Yamdrok
Lake was scuppered after local protests. Meanwhile,
perceived bad behavior by Chinese
tourists overseas has prompted the
occasional ban. One temple in Thailand, for instance, barred
mainland Chinese tour groups outright, even though these tourists
are a boon to the national economy. There’s little chance Yamdrok
would be subject to such a prohibition. Official tourism revenue
for Lhasa, some 200 km from Yamdrok, has tripled over the past five
years, to $2.42 billion last year.