Consume: Tibet, Tibet by Patrick French

As part of my consume goal I am including this review of an awesome book I just finished. I have a lot of updates coming, including my mid-semester retreat to Amristar! 

Tibet, Tibet: A Personal History of a Lost Land by Patrick French

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This has been by far the most informational book I have read about Tibet. I’ve spent months preparing for my field study here in Mcleod Ganj, home of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government in exile, but this source has given me the most accurate portrayal of what actual happened and what the situation is currently in Tibet. French is an entertaining writer, with a nice blend of travel writing and history, and has clearly done his homework in putting this together. I’d recommend it to anyone who is genuinely interested in Tibet looking for some answers.

Reading this right after the autobiography of the Dalai Lama was an interesting experience. The two are strikingly different. In His Holiness’ autobiography he ends on a very optimistic note that he and his people will one day return. My Tibetan host sister is also very hopeful that this will happen one day. French, however, spends the entire book building up his ethos and gets to the end and concludes that “the Dalai Lama has lost the battle, and had probably missed the slender chances offered to him by China” (299).

In other words, Tibet is toast.

That really hurt. I've come to know the people here, and after hearing their personal accounts of the struggles they have faced from the atrocities of the Chinese government knowing that this is the likely trajectory is difficult.  Since French has spent so much time gaining the readers confidence, this frank remark left me really depressed. I walk around McLeod seeing all kinds of faded “Free Tibet” sticks and sweaters for tourists (which French brings up several times as actually harmful to those not living in exile), but the only reform French seems to think is possible is to get Tibetans educated and in high positions so they can be part of reformation.

French is certainly not out to demolish the hope of Tibet or anything like that. He has an undeniable attachment for the place, but he is not afraid to just state the facts—like the “old Tibet… will never be recovered” (299). Rather than setting Tibet up as an ideal, he argues that we need to start embracing the reality so that we can know how to best go forward, since what we have done so far has clearly not been very effective. The specific example he gives is with the widely accepted statistic of 1.2 million Tibetans killed under the rule of China (189). He does not doubt that many people suffered or want to challenge that, but after doing a lot of research he found that not only were the sources for these numbers incredibly unrealistic, but even if you include all of those the number only adds to 1.1 million. His point is that if we want to make real change, we need to start seeing the facts. That is the only way to help Tibet.

Even after lots of preparation and being on this field study for two months, interacting with hundreds of Tibetans living in exile, the lessons I learned in this book were still hidden from me. I feel like this is something I should have read long before I entered the field. So far it has been the best source I have yet found to help clarify the complex Tibetan situation. Even if you are not all that familiar with Tibet, it is a great read. I highly recommend it.

View all my reviews