> By Peter S. Goodman
> Washington Post Foreign Service
> Tuesday, July 4, 2006; D01
> <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/03/AR200...>

> LAYKANDAO VILLAGE, China -- Naydup Gyatse, chief of this settlement on
> the grasslands of the high Tibetan plain, does not know the name of
> China's president. Nor does he want to. On the map, this land is part
> of China's Sichuan province. But to the 300 people who live here, it
> is part of greater Tibet.

> They sleep in stone houses and eat tsampa, the barley porridge that is
> a staple for ethnic Tibetans, washing it down with hand-churned
> yak-butter tea. The trip to anywhere else -- to town for supplies or
> medical care -- is made on foot or on horseback over a dirt path, as
> they wait listlessly for a long-discussed road. On their walls, they
> hang photos of the Dalai Lama, the paramount leader of Tibetan
> Buddhism, whose image is banned in China.

> ------------------------cut cut cut cut cut
> ---------------------------------

> ght, so they sent their army here to destroy us."

> In recent months, Chinese officials have returned -- this time with
> plans to market the monastery as a tourist destination. Once an enemy
> culture to be suppressed in China's eyes, the Tibetan way of life has
> become a valuable commodity.

> "We are orphans," Gyamatse said. "We're the adopted children of China.
> Our holy man is in India, and we don't have a mother or father. We
> feel sad."

> © 2006 The Washington Post Company

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