Tibetan monks see opportunities, challenges in economic boom
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Losang Takhe clicks his mouse to browse webpages and play online games after a busy day of sutra study and debate.
The 37-year-old monk has a desktop computer and high-speed broadband service in his dorm at the Taer Monastery in northwest China's Qinghai Province. "Many young lamas here are hooked on the Internet. It's a symbol of the modern society."
Almost a decade after Taer Monastery's executive committee bought the first computer in town, the Internet has brought the monks closer to the outside world.
Today, about a quarter of the 785 monks have personal computers, and the committee is creating the monastery's official website in Mandarin, Tibetan and English, hoping to promote Tibetan Buddhism online.
Gyaltsen Wangden, deputy chairman of the committee, said the prevalence of computers and the Internet among the monks was a result of economic growth and rising incomes.
Last year, monks at Taer Monastery reported an average annual income of 9,000 yuan (1,324 U.S. dollars), triple that of local farmers and herders. Most also had additional earnings by chanting sutra at religious services.
With more money in their pockets, many monks have bought TVs, solar energy water heaters and other household appliances. Many young monks use MP3 players to record their masters' interpretations of the Buddhist sutra, with which they revise.
Taer Monastery, perched atop the Lotus Hills in Huangzhong County, 26 kilometers from Qinghai's provincial capital, Xining, and 2,000 km from Lhasa, was built in 1379 in memory of Tzongkaba (1357-1419), founder of the Yellow Sect.
A decade after China moved aggressively to develop the western regions, its monks have seen opportunities -- and challenges in the economic boom.
On the one hand, the "west development plan" has brought flocks of tourists from the inland regions. Taer Monastery received about 800,000 pilgrims and tourists a year, said Gyungnyi, an official with the monastery's executive committee. Many Tibetans go with just one name.
While Taer Monastery, like all Tibetan monasteries, opens to pilgrims for free, its admission fee for tourists has risen from 0.2 yuan in the 1980s to 80 yuan each (11.8 U.S. dollars).
With ticket revenues, alms paid by pilgrims and donations from celebrities and local businesses, the monastery has raised enough to keep itself running and help impoverished Huangzhong County build primary schools, said Gyaltsen Wangden, deputy chief of the executive committee.
"The central government has spent almost 100 million yuan on heritage protection at Taer Monastery in the last five years," he said.
The Qinghai provincial government has also revealed a 370-million-yuan plan to reinforce the monastery, including 86 million to be spent this year, he said.
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