“Tibet is now mimetic of itself.”
An overarching thematic element in the novel is about the effects of colonization. One may not immediately think of Tibet as being a “colony." The speaker who makes this assertion about Tibet becoming a copy of itself is Aaron Horowitz, a scholarly anthropologist. Less formally, he is considered an expert on all things having to do with Central Asia. The conversation which brings about this assertion includes how 5,000 Chinese tourists a year visit the Dalai Lama’s home which has been stripped of almost everything related to him. Other details construct an image of modern Tibet that has become almost a weird version of a Disneyfied simulacrum. Horowitz even adds the additional information that the presentation of Tibetan history and culture is presented by actors reciting lines from scripts composed by not just Chinese writers, but Westerners who have never even been to the country. Tibet has literally been turned into a simulation of the fictionalized Shangra-La from the novel Lost Horizon.
“We are asylees. We are refugees. The Chinese government took our land and killed our people, 1.2 million souls. Our documents are flimsy—just laminated scraps of common paper, not embossed leather passports like yours—and considered illegitimate by most nations. Please overlook our present degradation. You should have seen us before the invasion, when our country had kings and gods and an unbroken thread of history from a time before time.”
The phrase “Free Tibet” is a cry against the outrage an oppressive invasion and takeover of a sovereign people and their culture. Unfortunately, in a way the call to raise consciousness about this outrageous act by China also carries certain elements of Disneyfication. As Tenkyi passionately alludes, the descendants of Tibetans who lived in a country that was the real thing rather than a propagandistic simulation cannot simply go to a library or a convenient website to get an accurate report of their cultural history.
“I’ve got an idea. I should do something about my hair…Go get a razor…My hands aren’t steady enough for me to shave my own head.”
It is 1984 in Nepal and the narrative responsibilities have been handed over to Lhamo who is engaged in conversation with her uncle Ashang. He has asked for the razor because his idea is to shave his head. Her initial response is that he must quite clearly be making a joke. Of course, he must be kidding because it is 1984. And since being forced into exile into Nepal from his home in Tibet he has not cut his hair upon making the vow that this act would not be committed until he returned to his homeland. For the next quarter century after making that vow, the lengthening of his braids has been a symbolic mirroring of the passage of time of China’s brutal occupation of Tibet. To Lhamo, then, Ashang’s decision to ask for the razor and the subsequent proof that he is definitely not joking can only be come to be seen as an admission that he will not live long enough to satisfy the conditions of his vow. It is a symbolic act of surrender.
