What a day for the project - hopefully. My whole day was meetings with people to discuss the project and who I might be able to interview. Dharamsala is a small community and it's all about networking. Lobsang Dechen at Dorma Ling got me a meeting with the secretary of the Tibetan Woman's Association tomorrow, and also got me in the door at the Tibetan Library, where the director gave me some advice about finding interviewees who speak English and sent me to the government's Department of Information and International Relations, where I also have a meeting tomorrow. He also said to speak to the Prime Minister, and I was like, "Seriously, I can make an appointment with the Tibetan PM [in exile]?"
Lhakdor: "Yes, yes, of course."
Me: "I couldn't get an appointment with the President of the United States.
Lhakdor: "We are a smaller government. You can get an appointment with him."
This is the Tibetan Parliament Building. So, yeah, they're small.
It takes some shmoozing and name-dropping at each office to show that I'm not totally lost in what I'm doing (I'm just mostly lost and yes I am winging it) and that I know a lot about Tibetan history for a Westerner so maybe this is something feasible. So, two appointments lined up tomorrow, at least one which could feasibly go somewhere, and then another when the Prime Minister gets back from America.
I also visited Norbulingka, which is a weird sort of mix of institute/museum/temple/guest house/nature preserve. I've been there before, but this time I spent a lot of time talking to the thangka painters, who are as far as thangka painters go pretty much the top level. They do official paintings for the government or the Dalai Lama himself. Again, once they figured out that I knew what I was talking about because I really have been taking classes, they could answer very specific questions about technique and I probably shouldn't mention this, but they gave me some free painting supplies that would cost more money in America than I want to post about but are acquired in bulk in India.
Another thing that was a surprise at Norbulingka was that there was no one around and I very obviously wandered into the Dalai Lama's private audience rooms for when he's visiting . monastery there. And I'm not going to say I sat down on the throne. That would be wrong. It would be wrong to admit it. Plus it's more of a couch anyway.
The Dalai Lama's throne is higher than other thrones. This is a big deal in Tibetan Buddhism.
Today I ate momos, the Tibetan staple for Westerners, which are basically wontons. It's dough. They put something in it, wrap it up, and fry it. Serve warm, maybe in soup. Not very complicated. The same as dumplings and wontons and kreplach, depending on what you put in it. The real Tibetan staple is dried tsampa (cooked barley grains) dunked in salty butter tea and scooped back out with your finger, but it rarely appears on menus because it's apparently terrible. It's also hard to get dri butter (a dri is a female yak) in India.
Tibetan vegetarian momos with soy sauce. Meh.
Most of my purchasing beyond taxis and food seems to be done unless I travel, which is for the best. I bought almost all of the backer rewards for my Kickstarter project to get that out of the way. I'm volunteering at the Lha Social Work organization. I haven't had time to start a job at the Tibet Post because I've been so busy with meetings, but I have been teaching at English conversation classes that are at a good time of the day, right before dinner and sundown, when it gets cold. The class is swamped despite all the volunteers; Tibetans really, really want to learn English. Some of them just came over a few years ago and some of them have lived in India all of their lives, but English is the gateway to financial success, so everyone wants to know it. For many Tibetans it's also a common language, because Tibetans raised in actual Tibet sometimes only know Chinese when they go into exile and can't speak Tibetan.
And with that I am exhausted, and need to go to bed as soon as I can sort the various notes I took today.
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