Impressions of Tibet
Author: Jonathan Mundey
In recent years Tibet has been caught in conflicting flows of international media exposure. High profile pop-cultural and civic movements in support of Tibet have by no means stopped a surfeit of stereotypes being levelled at its cultural universe. Sun Shuyun, author, filmmaker, and a participant at Counterpoint’s recent The Inner Lives of Cultures conference is interviewed here on Bloomberg television about the 12 months she spent in a remote Tibetan village resulting in the television series A Year in Tibet, and book of the same name.
Sun Shuyun’s insightful impressions of Tibet cover: the intermingling of tradition and technology; the everyday interdependence of science and faith; liberal attitudes towards private life, polyandry and polygamy; the ongoing battle between government control and community life, and the encroachment of a particular cultural modernity into the monasteries.
Promoting better understanding of a culture that highlights the oft-repeated tensions of resurgent religious and cultural traditions, Sun Shuyun’s work complicates and undermines existing brushstroke, or sensationalist, versions of Tibetan culture. If effective intercultural dialogue is to thrive such nuance is essential.
