Tibet Notebook

Lhasa

I experience an electrifying culture shock upon arrival in Lhasa. Not because it is so different to what I’m used to in London, but because it is so similar. Having been raised on a diet of Tintin in Tibet and other tall tales of a snowcapped mountainous land inhabited by a mystical people, I was expecting a paranormal experience, monks in snowboots, maybe even a yeti or two. So imagine my surprise when I notice that the Tibetan man driving me from Lhasa airport to my hotel is wearing a Playboy jacket. Which he might have bought at the Playboy shop that I later see in central Lhasa, near the Nike shop, the Tibet Steak House, and a casino in which young Tibetan men in leather jackets, hair spiked skywards, try their luck at the slot machines.

Far from being possessed of a super- human serenity, the capital of Tibet bumps and grinds to the same sounds heard in cities around the world: the honking of car horns, the screeching of motorbike tyres, the loud flirtations of young men and women.