Living Room Tourist: Lhasa

The story and setting of The Chiru of High Tibet may make readers want more information about Tibet. Who wouldn't want to travel to such a beautiful and mysterious land? But real travel to Tibet is expensive and arduous. Still, there's the possibility of "living room" travel, traveling by immersing ourselves in the pictures of and writing about a place. Of course there are many places to go for pictures and writing about Tibet. Here are a couple of my favorites:
Galen Rowell and the Dalai Lama worked together on a wonderful book called My Tibet (University of California Press, 1995). The photographs are by Galen Rowell, who was one of the trekkers in The Chiru of High Tibet. The text is by the Dalai Lama.

George B. Schaller made many trips to Tibet to study the animals who live there. George Schaller is also a wonderful photographer and his book Tibet's Hidden Wilderness (Harry Abrams, 1997), which focuses on the animals and the people of the Chang Tang plateau will whet any reader's appetite for more Tibet.



As the anniversary of my May/June trip to Tibet a few years ago gets closer I have the urge to revisit some of the places I feel as if I only glanced at. I would certainly spend more time at the Jokhang Temple in Lhasa, where I took these photos. It is the most sacred temple in Tibet. The goal of every Tibetan Buddhist is to go to Lhasa and go around the Jokhang. Some walk. Some prostrate themselves all the way around, that is, spread their bodies out flat along the ground, then scoot forward toward their hands, stand up and then spread flat again, a slow and painful way to travel, but a way that religious pilgrims believe expresses their devotion to Buddha.

The temple, though much changed over the centuries, has been on this same spot since the 7th century. King Songtsen Gampo built it to be a place for an image of Buddha brought to him by one of his queens.

Current visitors enter an open courtyard (pictured at the top of this entry). If we turn right and go under the balcony, we'll see a table filled with yak butter lamps (also above). We'd enter the temple itself off this courtyard. And we'd be able to stroll past many chapels of statuary and paintings of Buddhas other important figures in Tibetan Buddhism.

At some point we'd be ready for tea. Here's a recipe for tea that is similar to Tibetan yak butter tea:
(serves 1)
1 cup boiling water
1 tea bag (black tea)
steep tea bag in water for several minutes, then put tea in a blender or heavy jar with 1 tsp. butter and a couple of shakes of salt. Blend or shake for about half a minute. Pour into a cup or glass. Drink and think of far off mountains.

Bringing Tibet to the classroom, bringing the classroom to Tibet

Good news for The Chiru of High Tibet!

The National Science Teachers Association--Children's Book Council's Outstanding Science Committee has named the book to the "Outstanding Science Trade Books for Students K-12" List for 2011.

I hope that teachers who work with students of all ages will want to use this book.. I plan, over time, to share books in several curriculum content areas that relate to The Chiru of High Tibet--endangered species, the environment, cultural studies.

I'm starting today with some books and stories that are set in Tibet or, as in the case of the George Schaller biography and Rick Ridgeway's book, are directly connected to The Chiru of High Tibet.


Picture Books

Berger, Barbara Helen. All the Way to Lhasa. Philomel, 2002. A telling of a Tibetan tale by the author of the wonderful Grandfather Twilight.

Gerstein, Mordecai. Mountains of Tibet. HarperCollins, 1989. Story of a Tibetan wood-cutter who loves to fly kites and is given a chance to live his life again.

Sis, Peter. Tibet Through the Red Box Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1998. I loved this book before I even knew about the chiru. It's part autobiography, part folk tale, part journal. And of course includes Sis's wonderful art.

Soros, Barbara. Tenzin's Deer. (illustrated by Danuta Mayer) Barefoot Books, 2005. Tenzin discovers a wounded deer in the mountains and nurses it back to health.

Turner, Pamela S. A Life in the Wild: George Schaller's Struggle to Save the Last Great Beasts.
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2008.

Chapter Books

Dalai Lama (author) and Galen Rowell (photographer). My Tibet. University of California Press, 1995. The trek following the chiru told in The Chiru of High Tibet was not Galen Rowell's first trip to Tibet. In the 1990s he had taken stunning photographs of Tibet for this book. This is a wonderful book that can be enjoyed by anyone who wants to see more of Tibet and/or hear the voice of the Dalai Lama.

Rick Ridgeway. The Big Open. Rick Ridgeway's own telling of the trek following the chiru, along with a history of the trade in chiru skins and extensive details of the efforts by Tibetans and others to put an end to this trade. Rick Ridgeway is a wonderful writer and this is a good, accessible read for middle schoolers or older.

Tenberken, Sabriye. My Path Leads to Tibet. Arcade, 2004. Very accessible and gripping story of a young blind woman from Germany who decides to go to Tibet and establish a school for the blind children of Tibet. In Tibet blindness is sometimes considered a curse from the spirits. So blind children were often treated poorly, not allowed to leave home, forced to do the most menial work. This book takes readers to Tibet to watch as Tenberken works toward her goal and reminds us that one person can make a difference.

Books, plus barley crackers, hot tea with a bit of butter and a shake of salt take us almost to Tibet. Good travels!