Foreword

China is a unified multi-ethnic country. Tibet is an inseparable part of China, and the Tibetan ethnic group is an important member of the big family of the Chinese nation. The Tibetan ethnic group has a long history and a splendid culture. Tibetan culture is a lustrous pearl of Chinese culture as well as a precious part of world culture.

The Tibetans have been living on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau generation after generation. In a tough environment with unique natural conditions, they have demonstrated vitality and tenacity in pursuing a happy life. In their long history, the Tibetans have created a substantial, distinctive and diverse culture of their own through the understanding, adaptation, remaking and development of nature, society and themselves, and through cultural communication, integration and interaction with the people of the Han and other ethnic groups and peoples of southern and western Asia. Tibetan culture encompasses the indigenous spoken and written languages, philosophy, religion, medicine, astronomy and the calendar, music and dance, drama and folk performing arts, architecture, sculpture and painting, and arts and crafts. The Tibetan people have developed their culture by means of interaction and fusion with other cultures, especially that of the Han people. Over the centuries, Tibetan culture has remained a spiritual pillar for the Tibetan ethnic group.

Tibet had long been a society languishing under a system of feudal serfdom under theocratic rule, a society which was even darker than the European society of the Middle Ages, until the mid-20th century. Before 1959 the 14th Dalai Lama, as a leader of Tibetan Buddhism and also head of the Tibetan local government, monopolized both political and religious power. The serf owners, accounting for less than five percent of the total population of old Tibet, possessed all the means of production and cultural and educational resources in Tibet, monopolizing the material and cultural wealth of the region. The serfs and slaves, making up over 95 percent of the total population in old Tibet, suffered destitution, cruel oppression and exploitation, and possessed no means of production or personal freedom, not to mention access to culture and education. The long centuries of theocratic rule and feudal serfdom suffocated the vitality of Tibetan society and led to the decline of Tibetan culture.


[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10]
[11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20]
[21]