Gere on the China-Tibet Train

Travel Blog  •  Michael Yessis  •  07.15.06 | 10:11 AM ET

Richard Gere, the actor and chairman of the International Campaign for Tibet, has an op-ed piece in today’s New York Times about the new train from Beijing to Lhasa, Tibet and its consequences. “[It] is a staggering engineering achievement and a testimony to the developing greatness of China,” Gere writes. “But it is also the most serious threat by the Chinese yet to the survival of Tibet’s unique religious, cultural and linguistic identity. In the words of a well-known Tibetan religious teacher who died after many years in a Chinese prison, the railway heralds ‘a time of emergency and darkness’ for Tibet.”

Tags: Train Travel, Asia, China, Tibet, News and Briefs


3 Comments for Gere on the China-Tibet Train

Tim 07.17.06 | 11:29 PM ET

A bit of a plug—there is also a good story on the ramifications (a nice word for it actually) in the current issue of Perceptive Travel, written by Tibet guidebook author and essayist Michael Buckley:

http://www.perceptivetravel.com/issues/0706/buckley.html

Jim Benning 07.18.06 | 11:54 AM ET

Thanks for the note, Tim. Just checked it out. Nice piece. Love the art!

Marilyn 07.19.06 | 6:31 AM ET

This article in the Mail & Guardian tells how Tibet is already struggling to cope with the thousands of pilgrims and tourists wanting to visit the Portala Palace, the 300-year-old wooden icon of Tibetan Buddhism: http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=277771&area;=/insight/insight__escape/

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