Lhasa: Streets with MemoriesThere are many Lhasas. One is a grid of uniform boulevards lined with plush hotels, all-night bars, and blue-glass-fronted offices. Another is a warren of alleyways that surround a seventh-century temple built to pin down a supine demoness. A web of Stalinist, rectangular blocks houses the new nomenklatura. Crumbling mansions, once home to noble ministers, famous lovers, nationalist spies, and covert revolutionaries, now serve as shopping malls and faux-antique hotels. Each embodiment of the city partakes of the others' memories, whispered across time and along the city streets. In this imaginative new work, Robert Barnett offers a powerful and lyrical exploration of a city long idealized, disregarded, or misunderstood by outsiders. Looking to its streets and stone, Robert Barnett presents a searching and unforgettable portrait of Lhasa, its history, and its illegibility. His book not only offers itself as a manual for thinking about contemporary Tibet but also questions our ways of thinking about foreign places. Barnett juxtaposes contemporary accounts of Tibet, architectural observations, and descriptions by foreign observers to describe Lhasa and its current status as both an ancient city and a modern Chinese provincial capital. His narrative reveals how historical layering, popular memory, symbolism, and mythology constitute the story of a city. Besides the ancient Buddhist temples and former picnic gardens of the Tibetan capital, Lhasa describes the urban sprawl, the harsh rectangular structures, and the geometric blue-glass tower blocks that speak of the anxieties of successive regimes intent upon improving on the past. In Barnett's excavation of the city's past, the buildings and the city streets, interwoven with his own recollections of unrest and resistance, recount the story of Tibet's complex transition from tradition to modernity and its painful history of foreign encounters and political experiment. |
Contents
Barnett_LHASA_Ch1pdf | 4 |
Barnett_LHASA_Ch2pdf | 26 |
Barnett_LHASA_Ch3pdf | 40 |
Barnett_LHASA_Ch4pdf | 60 |
Barnett_LHASA_Ch5pdf | 70 |
Barnett_LHASA_Ch7pdf | 96 |
Barnett_LHASA_Ch8pdf | 112 |
Barnett_LHASA_Ch9pdf | 122 |
Barnett_LHASA_Notespdf | 129 |
Barnett_LHASA_Glossarypdf | 173 |
207 | |
Barnett_LHASA_Seriespdf | 221 |
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Common terms and phrases
allowed appeared architecture arrived authorities Barkor became become Beijing British Buddhist buildings built called capital central century changed China Chinese claim Communist construction culture Dalai Lama demoness described discussed earlier early eastern emperor English exile forces foreign four given Hill houses important India Jokhang king knew known land later leader least Lhasa lived London look major means minister monasteries monks mountain moved never official once Page Palace Party Phuntsog political position Potala Press princess probably produced published Qinghai refer reforms region religious remained residents road seemed seen side square story streets style temple term texts Tibet Tibetan tion town traditional translation turned United University visitors Wencheng Western writings wrote York