I have a bad headache and couldn’t sleep for the past few nights. High altitude sickness is nothing new for people taken from low areas and are suddenly dropped by a plane on a mountain plateau, but the worst thing is that all the drug stores are closed! Early morning I had to walk a long way to a local hospital to find altitude sickness medicine. Breathing is so difficult, that I felt like I was going to die when I finally walked up to my third-floor room in this no-elevator hotel. Fortunately the medicine works right away.

Last night was the deadline for the criminals to turn themselves in. It was a quiet night for me, but a German girl I met in a café said she had heard 3 gunshots. She also said she had heard around 200-300 people were arrested.

The checkpoints are not as lenient as yesterday—I was stopped in the morning when I tried to go down Beijing East Road. Soldiers wouldn’t even let local residents in unless they had proofs to show they lived or worked within the blocked areas.

Things became less tense in the afternoon. I managed to go down the street after showing the soldiers my ID—I can’t remember a single day in my life that I have to take out my ID so many times as there were checkpoints everywhere.

Small alleys leading to Jokhang Monastery and Barkhor Streets were still blocked by soldiers with more thorough searches—anyone who tried to go in had to hold a temporary residential card in addition to their national ID cards, and all had to be searched by the soldiers. I didn’t have a temporary residential card on me of course, but the female police searcher there was obviously too busy and didn’t pay much attention to me—so I just snuck in.

The city was even more dead on the other side of the checkpoints. To my surprise I didn’t see the community as badly ruined as on Beijing Donglu. I only saw 2 residential buildings burned down. What was really creepy here is that it absolutely looked like a ghost town—all shops closed, almost nobody on the streets.  Just an eerie silence.

A few Tibetans were hanging outside, sitting on doorsteps, chatting, and doing nothing. In front of a police station a bunch of locals were waiting for their temporary resident cards to be issued. They all looked at me because I was the only tourist looking person there.

A young Tibetan lady approached me and asked me what I was doing there. I told her I was just hanging out. “No it’s too dangerous here”, she waved her hand at me, “You don’t want to stay here too long.”

“Are you scared?” I asked her. “Yes of course I’m scared!  It is too chaotic these days.” She smiled at me, pointed the way out and walked away quickly.

I kept walking past all the closed souvenir shops, galleries and restaurants and couldn’t imagine how much bustle there was only a few days ago in such a tourist center. Now the  only people I see are a few soldiers on the rooftop of one building alertly watching downward. Then suddenly three men appeared—two soldiers on the side with one young Tibetan man in the middle. He was not handcuffed or tied up but I could tell he had been arrested.

I saw more soldiers as I walked down Barkhor Street. At one intersection I saw four armored vehicles and at least ten army trucks full of soldiers. The square in front of the Lokhang Monastery was sealed and I had to find my way out—hours of walk at these altitudes is as exhausting as climbing a mountain and a slight headache hit me again.

I almost ran into a bit trouble when I tried to walk out of the area when the soldier at the checkpoint couldn’t figure out how I got there in the first place. Fortunately he saw my ID and told me he’s from the same province—an “Old home town” rapport ensued and he let me go with a warning not to come back again.

Outside the Lokhank Monastery and Barkhor Street areas that were blocked off, life seemed to be gradually returning to normal. Some trash had been cleared up and a few shops were open again. It was already hard to tell that this is a town that just went through so much damage and rioting if it wasn’t for the patrolling soldiers and closed shops. Every Tibetan smiled at me when I smiled at them. Every Tibetan girl I saw was very beautiful, even though most of them wore face masks (to avoid sunburn?)

Back in the hotel, two trucks drove past by my window with a loud speaker blaring an announcement to the citizens: “Let’s unite closely and denounce Dalai Lama’s attempt to split Tibet from China!”

一年以前，有一天我整理钱包，也不知道为啥心血来潮，把身份证啊银行卡啊全部拿出来放抽屉里。
结果第二天钱包就被偷了。
几天以前，我翻手机看，突然就想起来把通讯录上的号码备了个份。
结果第二天就把手机给丢了。
我以后是不敢给自己买人身保险啥的了……

之前说了“第一次想跟CPC站一头”，只是就这次事件而言。毫不代表我支持CPC的西脏政策。

臧人滥杀无辜，手段残忍，当然要镇压，这点我坚决支持。

CPC在西葬没少干缺德事（当然在别的地方也是），几十年来日积月累，积怨终于一点点爆发。

汉人应该扪心自问，他们为什么那么恨我们？

这个问题，对于绝大多数只掌握少得可怜的从CPC那里得来的被歪曲被过滤被遮掩的关于西臧信息的中国人，根本没有发言权。嚷嚷个屁，瞎起哄。

对于一个以藏传佛教为主要信仰的民族，连活坲转世都要经过CPC批准，人家怎能不恨你？

去年我们在新疆采访了一个当地的维族姑娘，一个穆斯林，小学教师，每天到学校要唱8荣8耻，每周要政治学习，要写心得，一个月才800块的工资，写的不好就扣工资，入党的才有可能升职。

人家维族人怎能不恨你？

西臧一个道理。

西方媒体的文章很多我看了，虽然我也烦他们动不动communist China怎样怎样，但是基本来说我觉得还是努力做到客观和尊重事实的。英文要学好，否则你看CPC给你喂的那些狗屎新闻，还不如不看。外媒普遍亲臧，一方面你CPC干过的事确实恶心，一方面你总是出什么事就死死捂上，翻来覆去就是那么几句话，反而给人以传播谣言的空间和机会，搬起石头砸自己的脚，还一把鼻涕一把泪。

冤有头债有主，可怜那些莫名其妙充当了替罪羊的在西臧的汉民们，愿你们在天之灵安息。

爱国青年还是先了解一下真实的西臧再发言吧，什么都不知道瞎嚷嚷只会让你自己显得跟CPC一样愚蠢。

关于西葬，我推荐我深深尊敬的学者王力xiong的“天葬”。这本书在大陆被禁（again，CPC根本不给你知道真实情况的机会，所以不管你什么立场，从一开始就是残疾的无力的），海外有繁体版。幸好，我有简体的电子版。看看人家是怎么单枪匹马深入地区做研究的。想看的人留个email，我给你。王立xiong也写过关于新疆的东西，同样精彩。我手上没有，但是我相信，在信息发达技术先进的今天，如果你有足够的求知欲，你可以找得到。姑娘们化妆之前要先打粉底，同志们发言之前最好也先给自己充实一下。

When I arrived in Lhasa, the site of recent pro_tests against Chinese rulｅ, I asked a taxi driver to take me to the House of Shambala, a hotel in the center of town.

"The House of Shambala? No way, I’m not going there," said the Tibetan taxi driver, his wrinkled, tanned face looking nervous.

"It’s really chaotic in Lhasa now," another taxi driver said as he approached us. "Two hundred and I’ll take you to Lhasa, but not to the House of Shambala. That area is all blocked now."

The second driver wasn’t exaggerating – we soon discovered that the city was in lock-down mode.

We had already been checked twice by Chinese police at roadblocks on our way into Lhasa from the airport. They checked our IDs and even took a look inside the trunk of our car. On the way, we also saw at least 10 army vehicles coming out of Lhasa with soldiers sitting in the back.

And the east side of the city, where all the tourist attractions are – the renown Potala Palace, the Jokhang Temple, and the shopping sanctum, Barkhor Street – was blocked from access. 

Silent streets
We walked down a road north of our hotel until we hit a traffic intersection, where at least 100 soldiers were stationed, holding shields and wearing helmets. Some of the soldiers had either guns or batons in their hands.  A few armored vehicles were stopped at the street corner as well.

Just as we were about to cross the street, mayhem erupted. Half of the soldiers started running toward a nearby residential area, shouting loudly, while other soldiers told the pedestrians to leave.

We found a nearby hotel that had a rooftop deck and climbed up with a few curious members of the hotel staff to see what was going on. 

The soldiers walked out of the residential area with three men who had their hands tied behind their backs. I assumed they were Tibetan monks, because they were wearing red robes. The men were taken to the intersection and forced to kneel down. We had to leave before seeing what became of the arrested men.   Smashed windows, looted shops

But as we walked down the road, I was totally shocked.  It smelled like a battlefield.

We saw smashed windows, looted shops, and buildings that were totally burned down – some of which were still smoking. There was trash all over the street. Armed soldiers were everywhere and taking photographs was absolutely forbidden.

Most of the burned or smashed stores were clothes shops, restaurants, beauty salons, hotels, or bank ATMs run by ethnic Han Chinese, although I did hear a few Tibetan shops were damaged, too. The Tibet bureau of China’s state-run Xinhua news agency was burned very badly. And all the residential alleys running along the main road were still blocked. 

A soldier harshly shooed me away when I stopped to watch some soldiers on a rooftop throw rocks off a building. By afternoon, more people came out into the street. They were mostly Han Chinese, though I did see a big crowd of Tibetans in front of an elementary school – they were mostly Tibetan parents waiting for their kids to come out of school. There were dozens of armed soldiers outside the school as well. Fearful residents

"One of my friends just walked on the streets by himself the other day when a Tibetan guy put a big knife [at his throat], asking him, ‘Are you Han or Tibetan?’ He said he was Tibetan and was let go. He definitely would have been hacked to death if he had said he was Han," said the waitress, as she shook her head and sighed.

 Surprisingly, despite the fear that the waitress expressed, by Tuesday morning, life seemed to be getting back to normal. There were more people walking on the streets and buses and taxi cars were beginning to run.  

One of the waitresses at the hotel didn’t like seeing us walk around the city. She hadn’t been outside the hotel for a few days out of fear of becoming the target of attack.  On Monday morning we tried to stroll along the main road in Lhasa – Beijing Dong Lu – which had been totally blocked the day before. To my surprise, we were able to walk down it freely. But every car that drove by was forced to stop and was checked by soldiers stationed at roadblocks. As we walked around the parts of the city that were accessible on Sunday, the streets were absolutely dead. Most of the shops were closed with steel shutters.  We saw very few pedestrians on the streets. A soldier gestured to me an absolute "no" when I tried to take a picture of the Potala Palace.

We walked down a road north of our hotel until we hit a traffic intersection, where at least 100 soldiers were stationed, holding shields and wearing helmets. Some of the soldiers had either guns or batons in their hands.  A few armored vehicles were stopped at the street corner as well.

Just as we were about to cross the street, mayhem erupted. Half of the soldiers started running toward a nearby residential area, shouting loudly, while other soldiers told the pedestrians to leave.

We found a nearby hotel that had a rooftop deck and climbed up with a few curious members of the hotel staff to see what was going on. 

The soldiers walked out of the residential area with three men who had their hands tied behind their backs. I assumed they were Tibetan monks, because they were wearing red robes. The men were taken to the intersection and forced to kneel down. We had to leave before seeing what became of the arrested men.