A massive tourist project is being launched in Lhasa, with an investment of 30 billion yuan ($4.71 billion). This is another move to boost Tibet's tourist industry after the earmarking of over 400 million yuan last month into a tourist town project in Nyingchi Prefecture in southeastern Tibet.
Unsurprisingly, the latest move has been linked by some foreign media outlets with the political intentions of the Chinese government, like wielding economic tools to divert local attentions from politics and assimilate Tibetan culture.
Such criticism, almost made instinctively, makes it doubtful whether the commentators have really been to Tibet themselves. Otherwise, why do they keep voicing a clichéd perspective no matter what changes have taken place in reality?
Ingo Nemwig, a German sinologist and ethnologist who conducted field studies in Tibet, saw why it's ludicrous to assert Tibetans are being assimilated by Han immigrants. Just take a look at the local population structure.
In a prefecture Nemwig visited in 2002, some 20 Han people lived among about 50,000 Tibetans. In fact, Tibetans remain the overwhelming majority in the autonomous region. Latest official statistics show that Tibetans make up 90.48 percent of the local population, while Han only 8.17 percent.
As Nemwig pointed out, the constant hyping of "cultural genocide theory" is actually related to the intentions of a few Tibetan politicians in exile, who try to gain influence in the name of anti-assimilation.
Anyone who's been to Tibet will be amazed by the solid, established system of Tibetan culture. It permeates every details of Tibetan life, diet, medicine, language, entertainment and so on. This is also why Tibetan culture has survived massive social shake-ups in the past millennium. Its vigor should not be underestimated.
Over the past decades, breaking economic isolation and stagnancy has served as a basic prerequisite for cultural growth. Ordinary Tibetans do not want to live in a backwater museum to be exhibited to foreign visitors who can appraise how well their culture is "preserved."
If Han culture is a form of invasion, what about the intrusion of US culture in China, from Disney to hamburgers? Is this also a form of cultural genocide?
Like every other ethnic group, Tibetans are interacting with other economies to infuse new vigor into their own community. Economic growth and cultural prosperity are not in opposition.
No matter Western observers like it or not, the younger generations in Tibet are already making changes to their traditions. They speak Tibetan, and they also browse web pages in Chinese and English. They join family religious ceremonies, and they also visit night clubs.
They drink both buttered tea and Coca-Cola. They wear traditional Tibetan costumes during traditional Tibetan holidays, and they also go out to celebrate other festivals including Valentine's Day and Christmas.
This is a very complex process of cultural interaction, an inevitable way to renew one's own traditions and stay synchronized with the world. It's increasingly impossible that a bulwark can be erected to "protect" the Tibetan culture from external impact.
The tourist industry in Tibet has witnessed rapid growth in recent years. In 2011, Tibet received more than 8.5 million visitors. The latest grand tourist project will further fuel the local economy, and provide more opportunities for direct interaction between locals and visitors.
Only when more people arrive and contact locals by themselves, can they start to reflect upon their own stereotypes and accept the fact that Tibetan society, with Tibetan culture as one facet, is also evolving along a common road that many cultures have already experienced.
