Literary Liberation of the Tibetan Past: The Alternative Voice in Alai’s Red Poppies

by Nimrod Baranovitch

Abstract:

In 2000, the novel Red Poppies, by the Chinese-Tibetan writer Alai, won the Mao Dun Prize, China’s most prestigious literary award. Yet, to date, few have paid serious attention to the sociopolitical implications of the book, and those who have are unanimously critical, suggesting that it repeats the standard

Han Chinese narrative about “Old Tibet.” This article offers a new reading of Alai’s novel, arguing that notwithstanding its many obvious overlaps with the Han Chinese narrative, the novel also contains a subtext with an alternative narrative. Identifying several references to Tibet and its history that

challenge the hegemonic Han Chinese narrative, the author proposes that the main agenda in Red Poppies is to undo the hellish stigma that the Chinese government and the Han majority have attached to “Old Tibet” and the concomitant narrative about the “liberation” of Tibet by the Chinese People’s

Liberation Army. The author also analyzes the reasons for the multiplicity of narratives in the novel and the implications of its publication in China. Keywords China, Tibet, Alai, Red Poppies, historiography

After working on this book for four years, and after looking for a publisher for more than ten years, I was finally able to bring it to publication. A primary concern regarding the book was that it contains too many references to history and historical processes that use the viewpoint and position of the Tibetan people. Yet, after the book was published, it received an unprecedentedly warm reception. To date, more than one million copies of the book have

been printed. I think that the reason for the warm reception is . . . that China’s intellectuals started to pay attention to things other than themselves. They started to pay attention to things other than their own culture, and to be willing to adopt an attitude of understanding and respect for another kind

of culture. In the realm of Chinese literature of ten years ago, both the publication of such a book and the understanding and warm reception that it received after publication were unimaginable. This has to do not only with the problem of thought control by the Communist Party. It also has to do with the issue of the ability of the Chinese people, who are dominated by the Han nationality, to understand and accept cultural diversity. —Alai, interview (2005)1

The novel Red Poppies by the Chinese-Tibetan writer Alai has received an impressive amount of attention since it was first published in China in 1998 (Alai, 1998, 2002).2 However, to date, more than a decade after its publication, few have paid serious attention to the sociopolitical implications of the book, and the few who have are unanimous in their critical view of it. According to these critics, the problem with Red Poppies is that it resembles too closely the denigrating Chinese narratives about “Old Tibet” (jiu Xizang). While some have found the book “disturbing” (e.g., Crossette, 2002; Whipple,

2003), the Tibetan writer and filmmaker Tenzing Sonam, who lives in exile in India, went so far as to suggest that Alai is “a victim of his Chinese upbringing, faithfully spewing out the party line, unable to distinguish the truth from lies.” Sonam adds that Alai’s depiction of “Old Tibet” “could have rolled straight off the presses of the Communist Party’s propaganda machine” (Sonam, 2002). This criticism reminds one of a more general criticism that is

often voiced in relation to Tibetan (or partly Tibetan) writers who live in China and write about Tibet in Chinese. Such writers, as Venturino (2004: 54) notes in relation to the famous half-Tibetan half-Chinese writer Tashi Dawa (Chin: Zhaxi Dawa), are often accused of catering to Han Chinese readers, who are predisposed to look down upon Tibetans. Referring to Alai’s Red Poppies as an example, Schiaffini (2004: 92, 98, n. 39) notes that “many works in Chinese written by Tibetan and

Sino-Tibetan writers often repeat common Han stereotypes about Tibet: the sensual and erotic characteristics of their Tibetan female protagonists, the bravery and sex drive of their Tibetan male protagonists, and the image of a magical, wild, or mystical Tibet.” Schiaffini (2004: 98, n. 40) also suggests that we should consider the possibility that only works that repeat the Han stereotypes about Tibet eventually make it into China’s mainstream culture.

Indeed, it is hard to deny that Red Poppies contains and even celebrates many of the well-known Han Chinese stereotypes and narratives regarding Tibet. Moreover, the fact that in 2000 it won the Mao Dun Prize, China’s most prestigious literary award, and a few years later was adapted into a popular television series that was broadcast nationwide seems to corroborate Schiaffini’s latter point. However, notwithstanding the many obvious overlaps with the standard Han Chinese narratives about Tibet that one can find in Red Poppies, the book does not merely reiterate them. Rather, it engages in a creative and

critical dialogue with these narratives, and though repeating some of them, it also challenges others by presenting a subtext with alternative narratives. That such alternative narratives do exist in Red Poppies was already suggested by the fact that the novel was repeatedly rejected by several Chinese publishers (see Tsering, 2003: 22). These narratives also attracted the attention of several Chinese scholars who analyzed the novel and pointed out some of its nontypical representations and messages. Such references, however, are extremely brief and underdeveloped, presumably because the subject matter is

too sensitive politically (see, e.g., Xu, 1999; Yuan, 2004: 31–43). Another significant indication that the book does more than just repeat the Chinese narratives regarding Tibet is embodied in Alai’s own statement (in the epigraph to this article) that his work was rejected by Chinese publishers because

it contains “too many references to history and historical processes that use the viewpoint and position of the Tibetan people.” In this statement, Alai not only reveals how his book was interpreted by publishers in China but also seems to confirm that this interpretation is consistent with his own view of

the novel. Building on Alai’s statement, the present article offers a new reading of Red Poppies by identifying those alternative references to Tibet and its history that challenge the hegemonic Chinese narratives regarding the region and its people. An analysis of these alternative narratives shows that the

main agenda in the novel is to undo the hellish stigma that the Chinese government and the Han majority have attached to “Old Tibet,” as well as the concomitant narrative about the “liberation” of Tibet by the Chinese Liberation Army, which this stigma helped to construct. Historical narratives that focus on the pre-1949 past and challenge the orthodox, state narratives that were created during the Maoist era are certainly

not new or rare in China. Already in the late 1970s and early 1980s, many Chinese writers and artists had returned to that past and began to depict it in a

totally new light, which often resulted in the complete discrediting of the narratives found in Maoist fiction and historiography. However, where ethnic history and writers and artists of ethnic minority origin are concerned, the project of rewriting the past has assumed a very different form from that of

Han Chinese writers and artists, and has been invested with very different meanings. To begin with, the alternative narratives of minority writers and artists that pertain to the past of their minority groups have usually remained in the margins of mainstream Chinese culture. This marginality reflects the continuing marginal position of China’s ethnic minorities in terms of geography, culture, economics, and politics and has been manifested in the fact that

the dissemination of such narratives has often been confined to peripheral minority areas and to minority languages. But more importantly, the liberal cultural policy of the post–Mao era has tended to be much less liberal in the case of alternative narratives that relate to the past (and present) of ethnic minorities. The limits have been especially narrow in the case of restive minorities such as the Tibetans and the Uyghurs. New, alternative

narratives that pertain to these minorities have always been treated with a great deal of suspicion and have often been suppressed and silenced. This has been so because the histories of these minorities are still considered extremely sensitive politically, and attempts to rewrite them are often linked to separatist tendencies.3 It is against such a background that the publication of Alai’s novel with its alternative, Tibet-oriented historical narrative

constitutes an important development that deserves special attention. In addition to pointing out the alternative narratives in Red Poppies and analyzing their meanings and implications, the article also aims to explain the reasons for the multiplicity of narratives in the novel and to explore the implications of the fact that despite repeated rejections the novel was eventually published in China and received such a warm reception.

“Hell on Earth”: The Standard Chinese Narrative about “Old Tibet” A major component of the mega-narrative of “liberation” that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has disseminated in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) since 1949 (and even before) has been the blackening of the pre“liberation” past. Denigrating the history of the entire territory that came under the control of the CCP in the late 1940s and early 1950s made the present and future under

the new regime seem brighter, and provided moral and historical justification for the Communist “liberation.” In a few cases, the blackening of the past was done indiscriminately and was carried to an uncompromising extreme, as in the case of “Old Tibet.” Since the 1950s, and especially after the Tibetan

uprising of 1959, “Old Tibet” became synonymous in China with the most brutal kind of oppression and barbarity possible. As such, it was repeatedly depicted as “savage,” “dark,” “cruel,” “ruthless,” and “cannibalistic” and was ultimately stigmatized as “hell on earth” (renjian diyu) (see, e.g., Shanxi

renmin chubanshe, 1959; Minzu chubanshe, 1959; Chang Sen, 1959: 13; Chang Lu, 1959: 10; Minzu chubanshe, 1960; China Reconstructs, 1972).4 Likewise, the Tibetans seem to be the only social group in China who,

for decades, have been referred to again and again as “emancipated serfs” (fanshen nongnu). Such a pejorative label helped construct and perpetuate the hellish image of “Old Tibet,” and at the same time reminded people that the CCP “liberated” the Tibetans (see, e.g., China Reconstructs, 1968: 23–24;

1976b: 6; Baranovitch, 2003a: 63).5 This special treatment of Tibet may be due to several interrelated reasons. One possible reason is the radical cultural differences between the Tibetans and the Han Chinese. Another possible reason is that the takeover of Tibet required an extra dose of justification,

especially after the brutal suppression of the 1959 revolt and the flight of the fourteenth Dalai Lama to India. It is also possible that the radical negation of the Tibetan past was the result of the strong antagonism and sense of threat that the 1959 revolt created among party officials. The hellish image of “Old Tibet” was constructed and disseminated in China and Tibet in various ways. Until the 1980s, the Tibet Museum of Revolution in Lhasa went so

far as to display human skulls, bones, and dried human arms, all of which were said to belong to victims of torture and human sacrifice that were common in Tibet before it was “liberated” by the Communists (Heberer, 2001: 141).6 Another way of constructing a demonic image of “Old Tibet” was through photographs and numerous written accounts that depicted brutal oppression and violence before “liberation” (see, e.g., the photos in the opening pages of Minzu

chubanshe, 1959). However, none of these had the impact of the artistic and literary works that started to be produced after 1959, in what seemed to be a well-orchestrated effort to justify the brutal suppression of the Tibetan revolt and the invasion by Chinese troops of the area hitherto ruled by the

Tibetan government headed by the Dalai Lama. One of the most influential among these artistic works is the classic film Serfs (Nongnu) by the director Li Jun. Released in December 1963, just a few years after the 1959 uprising and its suppression, this film played a founding role in the construction and dissemination of the hellish image of “Old Tibet” and the

concomitant narrative about the “liberation” of Tibet. The film depicts “Old Tibet” as a dark place full of extreme cruelty and violence, a place with “no redeemable features” (Shakya, 1999: xxviii), in which one can either be a ruthless master or an oppressed and helpless slave who is treated worse than an

animal, a place which totally lacks humanness and cries out for liberation.7 In the reform era, the hellish image of “Old Tibet” ceased to monopolize the representation of Tibet and its people in China, and gradually this representation became more diversified and not exclusively politicized. As a new

generation of writers and artists—some of whom were Tibetan, others Han, and still others of mixed origin or other ethnic origin—started to free themselves from the orthodox, revolutionary, state narratives of the Maoist period, the Chinese cultural scene saw the emergence of new representations of this region and its culture. While some of these representations perpetuated the familiar, denigrating view of Tibet, albeit in a new style and form, many others were filled with a strong sense of fascination and attraction. Although in the latter depictions one could still find many of the old stereotypes and themes,

such as wildness, mystery, religion, and sexuality, these themes nevertheless were often presented now in a new light that bestowed on them new, positive meanings. In addition to this body of works, many of which carried a strong flavor of exoticism and fantasy, the postrevolutionary representation of Tibet was also enriched by more realistic works that aimed to document the reality of daily life in Tibet and the tensions that the region and its people experience in their transformation from the old to the new.8 The positive change in the representation of Tibet reached a climax around the mid-1990s when,

n a total reversal of the negative attitude toward Tibet during the Maoist period, the region started to symbolize in China, very much as in the West, a soughtafter spirituality, and ironically was even referred to as “paradise” and used to criticize the Chinese mainstream (Upton, 2002; Baranovitch, 2003a: 98–101). However, notwithstanding this positive change, with a few exceptions, where pre-1950s Tibet is concerned, the old historical narrative about “Old Tibet” and the “liberation” of Tibet still exists today almost unchanged and is often invoked in many contemporary sources and contexts (see, e.g., Beijing

Review, 1993; Suo, 1999).9 A powerful and vivid example of the continuing existence of this view is that when Han Chinese are asked today about the possibility of Tibetan independence, most would still say that the situation in Tibet before “liberation” was “terrible” (kepa), and that Tibetans should be grateful to the Chinese for “liberating” them instead of seeking independence and causing trouble. Such an argument about the “terrible” past is rarely brought up nowadays in conversations about other places and other people in the PRC.

Humanizing “Old Tibet”

The most obvious challenge that Alai presents to the standard Chinese narrative about “Old Tibet” is embodied in his insistence on depicting pre“liberation” Tibet as a place full of humanness. As Alai himself has put it,

In the homeland which I long for in nostalgia or invent on the basis of a certain kind of passion, human beings are the main part. . . .The life of people belonging to a different race is certainly not another kind of human life. The lives of people living in this place or that place actually don’t have any big differences between them. [Alai, 1997:

8]In the Tibetan society that Alai depicts there is certainly a lot of cruelty and oppression and severe social inequality. Besides beatings, the story is full of brutal and violent punishments, which include the severing of tongues, ears, and hands, and frequent public executions by beheading. However, this brutality is only part of a much richer reality in which one can also find love, regret, friendship, and compassion, and in which these human expressions

often cross the rigid boundaries of social class and status. By including such positive elements, Red Poppies suggests that “Old Tibet” was not “hell on earth” and that the Tibetans were not demons. Alai’s challenge to the standard Chinese narrative about “Old Tibet” is already revealed in his choice to

depict life in “Old Tibet” from the point of view of a member of the ruling class, the class that for decades was caricatured in China as monstrous and lacking the slightest sense of humanness. In doing so, Alai empowers the hitherto stigmatized and hated object by turning it into the subject and by providing it with a voice, and no less importantly, with a heart, a shift that inevitably leads to a much more complex story than the one that was told in

China in the past. The class identity of the narrator and the fact that he is a full participant in the unjust social order in which he lives proves secondary at best to his complex and sensitive human character. The narrator impresses the reader first and foremost for his humanness, and as such he refuses to be reduced to the one-dimensional figure of an oppressive master. Given that the narrator in Red Poppies is the son of the local chieftain, we

also get a new look at other members of the hitherto demonized serf-owners, who, like the narrator himself, are rediscovered as human beings. The local chieftain and his (Chinese) wife, although naturally concerned with maintaining their power and controlling others, and sometimes depicted as ruthless and brutal people, are also portrayed as husband and wife and as parents who are able to feel love and express deep sensitivity. In a similar vein, the elder

brother of the narrator, too, emerges as a loving brother despite the fact that he is totally absorbed by his desire to secure his status as the successor of his aging father. After being stabbed in his stomach by an assassin, the elder brother lies dying in bed in the Maichi mansion, rotting away with a stench:

The chieftain held his son’s hand and tried his best to stay a bit longer in the room, but he just couldn’t do it. He hardened his heart and told his son: “You’re not going to live, son. You shouldn’t suffer too much. The sooner you go, the better.” After saying this, tears streamed down the old chieftain’s

face. . . . [M]y elder brother closed his eyes and didn’t respond even though the chieftain called out his name many times. The chieftain left the room in tears. Then, my elder brother opened his eyes once again and said to me . . . “I think about the time when we were young. I loved you so much back then, idiot.” That was true. At that brief moment, the whole past came back to life again. “I loved you too,” I said, and he replied: “I’m so happy.” [Alai, 1998: 316–17]

The expressions of humanness are not limited only to the interaction between the different members of the chieftain’s family. Although in the very beginning of the book the narrator describes the highly stratified class structure in his society in great detail, the reader soon learns that in reality

the boundaries between the different castes are not completely rigid, and that individuals belonging to different castes may develop powerful human relationships that transcend the simplistic dichotomy of oppressors versus oppressed. The book opens with a description of the narrator playing together

with the children of the slaves, and two socially inferior children, a young slave named Sonam Tserang and the son of the executioner Aryi, will later become his closest associates. The three spend much time together, talking, playing, and laughing, and taking care of one another, and as the story

progresses, they become extremely sensitive to one another’s needs. Despite their inferior social status, the narrator describes his two friends in great detail, with sensitivity and affection, paying attention to the most subtle changes in their moods and facial expressions. And most importantly perhaps,

the narrator becomes extremely attached to them emotionally. When the two die toward the end of the story, he feels great pain as if they were his kin. Another relationship that equally subverts the hellish image of “Old Tibet” as a place in which one could find only oppressors and the oppressed is the relationship between the narrator and his maidservant, Dolma, who is five years older than he and to whom he dedicates the third chapter in the book. The two treat one another with great affection, and when the narrator reaches

the age of thirteen, they start to make love to each other. The detailed depictions of the sexual relationship between the young master and his maidservant seem to perpetuate the popular Chinese stereotype about Tibetans being exceptionally sensual (see Schiaffini, 2004: 92, 98, n. 39; Frolic, 1980: 154; Ma, [1987] 2001). Indeed, Red Poppies is filled with eroticism and burning sexuality that seem to have few limits, and these appear in the novel as an

essential feature of Tibetan life. However, in contrast to the common Chinese stereotype of Tibetan sexuality, which is usually represented in a negative light, as excessive, violent, wild, and promiscuous, in Alai’s novel, though sometimes represented in a similar way, it is more often endowed with positive meanings. Although Dolma is a slave servant, a fact that theoretically implies that the narrator can possess her as long as he wishes and force her to have sex with him whenever he desires, the relationship here is clearly consensual. The sexual relations between the two obviously please both of them, and it

is Dolma who in fact plays the dominant role in this relationship. Moreover, when the narrator learns that Dolma has fallen in love with the local silversmith and wants to marry him, he releases her and lets her marry her lover despite his attachment to her. The young master’s surrender of his beloved servant reveals a great respect for her human needs and desires. In addition, the whole event implies that in the Tibetan society that Alai describes love is prized, and even slaves enjoy the basic freedom to love and choose their mates. The celebration of love, passion, and sexuality in the Tibetan world

that Alai describes is what makes this world all the more human. Sexuality is not only accessible to everyone, it also constitutes a realm in which people belonging to different castes can interact with one another on a more equal basis, as human beings rather than as slaves or masters. Indeed, there is a strong sense in Red Poppies that at least in the realm of love and sexuality, Tibetan society is almost egalitarian, as if love and sexuality constitute a

kind of balancing mechanism or liberating practice which allows people to transcend their social class and become more equal, even if only temporarily. It is also in the realm of sexuality that the relative equality between men and women in the Tibetan society that Alai depicts becomes clear. Like men, the Tibetan women in Red Poppies not only engage in sex frequently, but they also exert a high degree of control over their bodies and their sexuality. The

positive representation of Tibetan sexuality in Alai’s novel becomes most conspicuous when contrasted with the sexuality of the Chinese. Toward the end of the story, when more and more Chinese arrive in the land of the chieftains, the narrator suggests with sarcasm that prior to their arrival there was no prostitution and syphilis in the region (Alai, 1998: 364). This

narrative constitutes a total reversal of the standard Chinese narrative about Tibetan sexuality being dirty and promiscuous by suggesting that it is actually the sexuality of the Chinese that is marred by physical disease and immorality, a suggestion implying that the sexuality of the Tibetans was natural and pure before it became contaminated by the Chinese. In his alternative representation of Tibetan sexuality, Alai engages in a dialogue not only

with the hellish image of “Old Tibet” and other denigrating Chinese stereotypes about Tibetans, but also with the diametrically opposed image of Tibet as a spiritual and other-worldly Shangri-la. This spiritual image has dominated the Western popular imagination of Tibet for decades (see, e.g., Bishop, 1989, 1993; Lopez, 1994, 1998; Norbu, 1998; Dodin and Räther, 2001; Schell, 2001) and in recent years, as already noted, has also become increasingly popular in

China (Upton, 2002; Baranovitch, 2003a: 99–101). Though usually perceived as positive, that image has often resulted nonetheless in the representation of Tibetans as castrated and effeminate monks, who lack a sense of body and ordinary human needs, and most important perhaps, virility, the ability to

struggle, and physical power. I would suggest that with his celebration of Tibetan sexuality, Alai reacts against this image as much as he reacts against the hellish image of “Old Tibet.” This celebration, especially when combined with the celebration of masculine protagonists who excel as warriors, could be

interpreted as an expression of the longing for vitality and power on the part of many Tibetans, who for many decades have been forced to live either in exile or at the margins of a sociopolitical, cultural, and economic order that has been totally dominated by others.10 Alai insists on injecting humanness even into the most brutal and harsh scenes in his story, thereby shedding a new light even on the most extreme cases of the violence he depicts. In one

scene, for example, he describes how the chieftain decides almost capriciously to execute a prisoner who has spent over twenty years in jail for complaining repeatedly about being transferred to a less spacious cell. This scene reveals the ruthlessness of the chieftain and the cheapness of human life in Tibetan society. At the same time, however, Alai immediately subverts the very same impression that he himself creates by suggesting that the chieftain is actually not indifferent at all to killing:

We’re not afraid of killing people, but after we killed someone, there was always that strange feeling in our hearts that we couldn’t understand. It’s not true to say that the chieftain liked killing people. It’s just that sometimes he had to. The common people had to do things they didn’t like, and he did too. If you don’t believe me, just think, why would the chieftain retain a family of expert executioners if he really

liked killing people himself? If you still don’t believe me, you should come to our home and eat a meal with us right after an order has been given to the executioner. Then you’ll see that we drink more water and eat less than usual. The meat, in particular, will hardly be touched. Everyone will eat just a slice or two as a symbolic gesture. [Alai, 1998: 100, my italics]

This paragraph suggests that what looks like cruelty is not necessarily cruelty for cruelty’s sake or a lack of humanness, but rather a part of a premodern world that has its own premodern ways, logic, and rules, rules that elsewhere in the story Alai describes as “not at all complicated or difficult to

understand” (Alai, 1998: 151). This message is beautifully conveyed when a monk from Lhasa who shows great disrespect for the chieftain is about to be executed. This part is one of the harshest in the story, and yet typically for Red Poppies, it is also one of its most moving. The monk calls the chieftain a “savage” (yeman), attacks him for not being loyal to Lhasa, and suggests that barbaric chiefs like him have no right to exist in the world (Alai, 1998:

136). The chieftain places the monk in prison and intends to execute him, a reaction that does not seem totally unreasonable if one considers the gravity of the offence. However, we soon discover that the chieftain actually likes the dissident monk perhaps because of his idealistic commitment, courage, and

straightforwardness, or perhaps because he came from Lhasa. He repeatedly looks for an excuse to release him, saying to his son (the narrator) several times that if the local Living Buddha had requested the monk’s release, he would have let him go. Later he tells the narrator that he will order the

release of the monk if he (the narrator) requests it. The narrator does not ask for the monk’s release but asks his father instead to send the monk some books in prison, assuming that the monk likes reading. Following this humane gesture, the narrator visits the monk in prison and engages in lively discussion with him. On the day of the execution, minutes before it is carried out, the chieftain approaches the monk and tells him that he does not want

to kill him. Then the narrator’s elder brother announces that the monk’s sentence has been mitigated and instead of being executed he will have his tongue cut off. Following this sequence of events, Alai constructs one of the most surrealistic scenes in the whole story, in which once again he highlights the

humanness of his protagonists even when they are involved in an extremely brutal and violent act. The angry monk warns the young executioner: “You’d better keep your hands away from my mouth, because I can’t guarantee that I won’t feel like biting them,” to which young Aryi, the executioner, responds: “It’s meaningless to hate me.” The monk then sighs and replies: “You are right. I shouldn’t have

so much hatred in my heart” (Alai, 1998: 150). Following this dialogue, Alai depicts in graphic detail how the tongue is cut off, but he also depicts how immediately after the event, Aryi sprinkles medicine in the monk’s mouth to stop the bleeding, an act that softens the sense of brutality. This sense is

further softened when we learn, a few pages later, that during the following days Aryi went daily to tend the monk’s wound. Although Red Poppies contains several such violent scenes, the narrator also comments a number of times in the story that verdicts are usually executed as quickly and smoothly as possible to minimize the suffering of those sentenced to death or other physical punishments.

Benign Rulership and the Power of the People in “Old Tibet” Red Poppies confirms that “Old Tibet” was not a democracy. However, it also suggests that it was not necessarily the harshly oppressive world that the standard Chinese narrative depicts, in which ruthless and tyrannical rulers who possessed

absolute power tortured and exploited helpless people without mercy and totally ignored their well-being. Although Alai depicts severe social stratification, in which there are serfs and slaves who are sometimes treated by their masters with brutality, he nevertheless depicts a functioning society, with its own logic, morality, and cohesive force that is based on clear and widely shared customs and values. In this system, the people have to have masters and have to be absolutely loyal to them, but the masters can remain masters only as long as they care for the welfare of the people. The first important reference to the existence of these concepts and their implementation in the Tibetan world that Alai depicts involves Chieftain Maichi himself, who up to that point appears as an extremely tyrannical ruler who cares only for himself and his family. When neighboring chieftains come to his territory

to ask for poppy seeds and in return offer to join forces with him to form a powerful coalition against other chieftains, Chieftain Maichi refuses and replies: “I only want to enrich myself and [my] ordinary people. I have no intention of becoming a hegemon” (Alai, 1998: 117, my italics). Another place in which Alai seems to suggest that “Old Tibet” was not as oppressive as the Chinese narrative contends it was is during the great famine that strikes the

land of the chieftains after all of them, except for Chieftain Maichi, sow opium in their entire fields and are left without grain. Since Chieftain Maichi was the only one who did sow grain that year, a mob of hungry serfs arrives in his land from the territory of a neighboring chieftain, hoping to find some food. The serfs come to the fort that Chieftain Maichi’s son, the narrator, has built on the border of the two territories, knowing that

there is plenty of food inside, and simply walk around it in silence. Although according to the local custom the narrator is not supposed to provide food for the serfs of another chieftain, he eventually surrenders to the heartrending sight of the hungry crowd and feeds them. His action is prompted in part

by mercy and in part because he feels threatened by them, but he asks them to return to their master after they finish eating. The serfs leave, but later a group of their delegates returns to the narrator

They kneeled down in front of me. These people had killed the headmen and all the leaders of the stockaded villages who were still loyal to Chieftain Lha Shopa. They brought me their heads and placed them in front of my feet. I asked them: “Why are you doing this?” They replied that Chieftain Lha Shopa had

lost his loving heart, and that he had also lost the shrewdness needed to judge a situation and the magnanimity that the Lha Shopa chieftains used to have in the past. That was the reason why his subjects deserted him. Chieftain Maichi would now rule a larger territory and more people. This was the command of Heaven, and also the will of the people. [Alai, 1998: 236, my italics]

This episode is important because it suggests that the principle according to which chieftains are responsible for the welfare of their serfs is not the idiosyncratic notion of Chieftain Maichi, but rather a universal principle in the land of the Tibetan chieftains. Moreover, the statements of the serfs suggest that the chieftains were usually committed to that principle and that Chieftain Lha Shopa was the exception and represented a deviation from the

norm. The behavior of the serfs also suggests that when the chieftains were not willing or able to care for the welfare of their subjects, the latter were able and perhaps even expected to take control of their destiny and desert their master to look for a new master who could care for them. The idea that the

loyalty of the serfs was conditional and depended on the performance of their chieftain, and more importantly, that they could actually desert their master and choose a better one instead, stands in sharp contrast to the Chinese narrative about “Old Tibet” in which the people are depicted as totally oppressed

and powerless. The challenge to the Chinese narrative becomes all the more powerful because the delegates of the serfs use the Chinese term tianming, which could mean “destiny” (which is how Goldblatt and Lin translate it), but also the famous Chinese concept of the “Mandate of Heaven,” and the term zhongwang

suogui, which means “the expectations of the people” or “public expectations and trust.” These terms are often used in China to highlight the moral nature of the sociopolitical system in both traditional and modern China, and in using them, the text seems to imply that the sociopolitical

system in the Tibetan-inhabited territories was not that different from the Chinese one or at least not as barbaric and despotic as it is depicted in contemporary Chinese sources. At the end of this strange revolt, in which the serfs of the neighboring chieftain desert their master and submit themselves

to the authority of the narrator, the latter makes an important comment: “The fact that they had deserted their master didn’t mean that they did not want a master. Such an idea would never have crossed their minds” (Alai, 1998: 237). The second part of this comment combined with the part that follows in the

book, in which the narrator describes cynically how the new serfs treat him like a god, may be interpreted as a kind of criticism that Alai makes of the dependent mentality of the serfs. Nonetheless, the important point here is that despite their revolt, the serfs still want a master, which implies that

their rebellious action did not mean that they were discontented with the system, but rather with one particular master who did not conform to that system. This is an important comment, because, as I will stress later on, it implies that the serfs in “Old Tibet” did not necessarily feel oppressed, did not necessarily hate their masters, and did not necessarily aspire to “liberation.” The power of the people in “Old Tibet” is illustrated with even more force

after the monk whose tongue was cut off begins suddenly to talk again (Alai, 1998: 273–82). Everyone attributes this miracle to the narrator, who is known to be somewhat abnormal. Then, after the local Living Buddha declares that wherever the narrator goes the gods will send a miracle, the narrator is grabbed by hundreds of excited serfs and slaves who carry him on their shoulders to the fields in an act indicating that they accept him or even crown him as their

new master in place of his father. The crowd is depicted as an extremely powerful whirlwind and as floodwaters crashing through a broken levee, the force of which is beyond control, even that of their master, Chieftain Maichi. The latter stands on the side and watches the powerful and sudden eruption of his subjects not only with embarrassment but also fear. Ultimately, he remains in power simply because of the inability of his “idiot” son, the narrator, to

assume control over this human whirlwind and to position himself as the new master. This episode shows the limits of the power of the strongest chieftain and suggests that the people could not only desert their master but could also dismiss a master and crown a new one instead. Celebrating Tibetan Uniqueness, Subjectivity, and Pride In highlighting expressions of humanness in Tibetan society before the Chinese takeover, and suggesting that the Tibetan chieftains, like rulers in many other

societies around the world, were expected to care for the well-being of their subjects, Red Poppies implies that “Old Tibet” was a normal place. Yet, the

challenge that Alai presents in his novel to the standard Chinese narrative about “Old Tibet” goes beyond the message that the Tibetans were ordinary people and not as demonic as this narrative has it. Another important part of the challenge is the celebration of the uniqueness of Tibetan culture, a

celebration imbued with proud subjectivity and a love for the world in which the narrator lives, even when he criticizes it and describes it with much cynicism. This celebration challenges the traditional Chinese stereotypes of Tibetans as primitive barbarians who lack any sense of culture (Frolic, 1980: 152–54; Heberer, 2001; Ma, [1987] 2001; Baranovitch, 2003a: 60–65).11 Although the world that Alai depicts in Red Poppies is extremely violent, it is also

dominated by lofty values and ideals, such as a powerful code of honor, courage, loyalty, and a natural sense of justice, which become all the more impressive given the violent context within which they exist. The lofty values of loyalty, courage, and honor are illustrated, for example, when a man sent by a rival chieftain to steal poppy seeds from the Maichi family is caught and brought to the Maichi estate to be executed. It soon turns out, however,

that the man is not an ordinary thief, but rather a brave warrior who feels it a great honor to die in the service of his master. His courage and loyalty are so impressive that they evoke great respect even from the elder son of Chieftain Maichi, whose poppy seeds the man intended to steal. The first young master instructs his men to execute the warrior-thief, but before the execution takes place he expresses admiration for the thief’s courage to his face and

allows him to make a final request. Then, immediately after the execution, he fulfills the request of the man he had just instructed to be killed with the utmost sincerity and strictness, as a gallant gesture of respect for him:

The man burst into loud laughter: “Do you think that I hoped to return alive from this mission?” The first young master replied: “Since you’re a real man, tell me what you want and I’ll grant it to you.” “Take my head to my master,” the man said, “to let him know that his servant was loyal to the end. I want

to close my eyes only when I am in front of him.” “What a real man,” my brother said. “If you were my servant, I would have thought very highly of you.” That man’s last request from my elder brother was to send back his head as quickly as possible. He said he didn’t want to meet his master after his eyes had already lost their luster. “If this happens, it would be a disgrace for a warrior.” The first young master ordered his men to prepare a fast horse. . .

. The executioner knew that the first young master was a hero who appreciated other heroes, and that he didn’t want to add to the man’s suffering. The hand went up and the sword came down in a sharp, swift motion, and the head rolled to the ground. . . . Before I could see all the details clearly, the head was wrapped with a red cloth, put on horseback, and dispatched away as fast as the wind. [Alai, 1998: 120–21, my italics]

Notwithstanding the idealized samurai-style militant and heroic ethos and codes, which conform to Alai’s view of the land of chieftains as a world of constant war, in that same world the value of peace was not totally absent. The softer side of Tibetan culture is pointedly revealed in a ban on hunting

during the spring season: “In this season,” the narrator explains, “all the beasts conceive and nurse their cubs. So during this period, taking one life actually means taking two or even more lives. That’s why hunting is strictly forbidden during this period” (Alai, 1998: 126). The narrator does not go into

great detail in explaining the exact reason for this taboo. However, we may speculate that it may reflect either the influence of Buddhist values of mercy and compassion, an interpretation supported by the emphasis on the word “life” (xingming and shengming) in the narrator’s explanation, or alternatively an expression of sensitivity toward maintaining an environmental and ecological balance. In either case, the ban on hunting contrasts sharply with the

militant ethos that Alai celebrates in his novel and as such it helps present Tibetan society and culture as rich and multifaceted. The ban on hunting during springtime is also important because it shows that in Tibetan society there were important rules that stood above the masters, and that, contrary to the Chinese narrative, the power of the latter was far from absolute. The narrator forgets the rule, perhaps because he is an idiot, and orders a hunting

party in the midst of spring. When he is reminded by one of his slaves about the ban on hunting, he is embarrassed and shocked, thinking to himself, “Oh God. . . . I had forgotten this important rule” (Alai, 1998: 126), but then insists on going hunting, not to be seen as worse than an idiot by his subjects. However, when the hunting begins, the narrator’s slaves and serfs shoot but deliberately miss the target to avoid violating the rule, a behavior

that means that the rule is more important for them than their master’s will and command. Moreover, eventually the narrator too abides by the rule, albeit partially, and ends the party in a hurry, after shooting only two roebucks just to save face. He then orders the meat of the roebucks to be fed to the dogs, another clear sign on his part that the hunting party was against local custom and therefore illegitimate. The notion that some rules, albeit in the

form of customs rather than formal laws, stand even above the chieftains is also reflected in the blood revenge that unfolds from the very beginning of the story to its very end. After Chieftain

Maichi arranges the killing of one of his male subjects just to seize his beautiful wife, he becomes a target for blood revenge by the two sons of his

victim. Even though he has been their master, the sons’ actions are justified because the chieftain abused his power and killed the man for an unjust reason. The fact that the killing is illegitimate is also evident in the way the chieftain tries to cover up the whole act. This case suggests that despite

the highly hierarchical social order in the land of the chieftains, there was nevertheless a notion of natural and universal justice, and that even those at the very top of the social ladder were still expected to abide by the rules and could be punished, even by their own subjects, for violating them. The

story of the blood revenge poses another powerful challenge to the Chinese narrative about “Old Tibet,” a narrative in which it is often stated that the masters “could kill and torture the serfs at will” (e.g., Chang Sen, 1959: 13).12 The celebration of Tibetan cultural values is reinforced in Red Poppies by a strong sense of Tibetan subjectivity and of pride in being Tibetan. This subjectivity and pride are revealed, for instance, in a dialogue between

Chieftain Maichi and his elder son, who argue whether or not a certain rival chieftain will come to the Maichi estate to ask for poppy seeds. The father predicts that the chieftain “won’t come because he has a sense of dignity,” and then, to emphasize his point, he states, “If he’d visit his enemy for such a small matter, he would not be considered a Tibetan. Even the chieftains who hate us would look down on him” (Alai, 1998: 117). The contrast between Red

Poppies and the typical Chinese representations of Tibet reveals itself not only in the changing position of the Tibetans but also in the changing position of the Chinese. Indeed, the celebration of proud Tibetan subjectivity in Alai’s novel cannot be separated from the celebration throughout the novel of Chinese otherness, a rare celebration in the context of contemporary Chinese literature. The Chinese are represented as others on various levels. On one

level they are treated collectively as a kind of force, and on another level they are treated as individual human beings. In either case, although they appear as much more advanced technologically and more powerful militarily, in sharp contrast to the Chinese narratives about Tibet, they do not appear at any time in the novel as culturally or morally superior in any way, and certainly not as those who bring civilization to the Tibetans. Instead, not unlike

the way Western imperialism has been presented in China since the nineteenth century, they bring opium, weapons, prostitution, and syphilis, all of which start the cultural and physical decline of the Tibetan world that Alai describes. When treated as individuals, the Chinese are usually presented as very different and strange people, whereas the Tibetans represent normality. The

following excerpt illustrates a typical othering of the Chinese. It appears in the story after the narrator sees his Chinese mother, along with other Chinese, eating a mouse, something that both disgusts and scares him:

I ran out the door. I had once been told that the Han were very scary people, but I never believed that. Father told me not to believe such lies. He asked me: “Is your mother scary?” and then answered himself: “She is not. It’s just that she has a little bit of her people’s temperament. That’s all.” My elder brother’s opinion was that everyone had a little bit of their own shortcomings. Later, when my elder sister returned from England, she also addressed the

question and said: “I don’t know if they are scary or not, but I don’t like them.” I told her they eat mice, and she said that they also eat snakes and many other strange things. [Alai, 1998: 77]

The Chinese mother of the narrator, who in the paragraph above is clearly represented as one of the others, is a very interesting and important character in the story. Some critics (e.g., Yue, 2005) consider her to be evidence of the multiethnic and multicultural landscape that supposedly existed in the land

of the chieftains long before the 1950s. This interpretation is not unreasonable. Yet, it is also possible to interpret the literary role of the Chinese mother as a means Alai uses to highlight Tibetan subjectivity and to construct an image of a powerful and self-contained Tibetan culture, which challenges the Chinese narrative about the superior and assimilating power of Chinese culture. This Chinese narrative traditionally included the assumption not only

that the non-Chinese living in proximity to China were uncivilized “barbarians,” but also that they were eager to adopt Chinese culture and had been strongly influenced by Chinese culture from early times, though paradoxically such influence never altered their inferior position as “barbarians” unless

they became totally assimilated. The narrative about the “liberation” of “Old Tibet” perpetuated the myth, because it implied that the Chinese liberators were culturally and morally superior, and because it claimed that the locals welcomed the Chinese “civilizing project” (Harrell, 1995). A much earlier

example of how this civilizing narrative was applied to Tibet is the famous story of Princess Wencheng (Wencheng Gongzhu), which is particularly relevant here because, as in Red Poppies, it, too, involved a single Chinese woman who married a Tibetan ruler and came to live among the Tibetans. Wencheng Gongzhu

was a Chinese princess who, in the seventh century, was sent from Chang’an to Lhasa to marry the Tibetan King Songtsen Gampo. According to the Chinese narrative (as manifested in early and contemporary sources), she radically transformed Tibet by introducing the

advanced Chinese culture of the Tang dynasty into that barbarian land (see, e.g., Bushell, 1880: 443–46; Huang, 1947; Wan, 1960; Dai et al., 1988: 17; Wang and Nimajianzan, 2000: 7–9).13 It is against the famous story of Princess Wencheng, as told by the Chinese, that the challenge in Red Poppies becomes even clearer. Instead of exerting great influence over the uncivilized locals, as the Chinese sources claim Wencheng Gongzhu did, Chieftain Maichi’s Chinese wife actually becomes assimilated herself and undergoes almost total Tibetanization. Not only is she unable to transmit her language to her own son (the narrator), who considers himself totally Tibetan, but she herself almost forgets Chinese because there is no one around who can speak Chinese with her and because the land of the Tibetan chieftains maintains little contact with Chinese-inhabited areas. The Tibetanization of the Chinese mother is so thorough

that she even changes physically. At the very end of the story, just before she commits suicide so the People’s Liberation Army soldiers cannot take her prisoner, she talks to her son and tells him how proud she is to have become the wife of a chieftain and to have become a Tibetan: “She sighed and said: ‘Of all the people who are going to die today, my life had been the most valuable.’ She then said she used to be a Han, but had become a Tibetan. Indeed,

when she smelled her own body, it smelled like a Tibetan from head to toe” (Alai, 1998: 398). Thus, instead of representing the multiethnic and multicultural nature of the land of Tibetan chieftains, the Chinese mother of the narrator actually helps bolster the message that more than a millennium after Wencheng Gongzhu arrived in Tibet, and in a place much closer to China than Lhasa, there still existed a self-contained and self-assured Tibetan

world. This proud Tibetan world lived its own life, had little contact with China, was little influenced by China, and could easily assimilate the few

Chinese individuals who happened to arrive in it. After depicting how his mother had become a Tibetan, the narrator continues: “Of course, what made her feel most satisfied was that she had risen from the lower classes to become a person of social standing. She asked me to bend over a little, brought her

mouth closer to my ear, and said: ‘From a lowly woman, I became the wife of a chieftain. I became a decent woman’” (Alai, 1998: 398). Then, in her last words before her death, the Chinese mother, whose parents were murdered by Nationalist soldiers when she was a child, reveals to her son for the first time

that before marrying his father she had been a prostitute. Thus, in a tragic irony and another powerful reversal of the standard Chinese narrative about Tibet, on the very eve of the Chinese “liberation” of the Tibetans, the Chinese mother implies that it is she who was actually liberated by the Tibetans, who helped her escape from prostitution and misery and provided her with a decent life.

Problematizing Chinese Domination and Sovereignty over Tibet

The orthodox Chinese narrative about Tibet is not limited to depicting “Old Tibet” as “hell on earth” and the Tibetans as “backward” and in many instances as uncivilized “barbarians.” Other important ingredients of this narrative are the claim that Tibet has been part of China since antiquity, and a

territorial definition of Tibet that excludes large parts of ethnic Tibet.14 Similar to the complex relationship between Red Poppies and the standard Chinese narrative about “Old Tibet,” while important parts of the book seem to lend support to the Chinese claims regarding the political status of Tibet,

the book simultaneously subverts most of these claims. Alai makes clear in the very beginning of his novel that his story is about Tibetans, and yet at the same time his narrator explicitly states, “My father was a chieftain ruling tens of thousands of people, whose title was conferred on him by the [[[Wikipedia:Chinese|Chinese]]] emperor” (Alai, 1998: 4, my italics). This statement, which the narrator repeats in different variations again and again throughout the story, seems to

confirm the Chinese claim that the Tibetans were part of China long before the 1950s. Later, Alai also seems to confirm the Chinese territorial definition of Tibet, when he suggests that Tibet was actually far away from the place in which his story is set, despite the fact that according to his novel this place is populated exclusively by Tibetans. In treating the land of the chieftains as separate from Tibet, Alai poses a serious challenge to the Tibetan

definition of Tibet. This definition claims that Tibet includes all the regions that are predominantly populated by Tibetans, including the regions referred to by the Tibetans as Kham and Amdo, which have been incorporated, in part in the case of the former and entirely in the case of the latter, into

Chinese provinces (Qinghai, Sichuan, Gansu, and Yunnan).15 Alai offers another support to the standard Chinese narrative about the political status of Tibet by suggesting that historically the Tibetans lived in divided tribal communities and lacked any sense of Tibetan national identity, not to mention a

state. This point is suggested throughout the story in the endless feuds between the different chieftains and the weak ties and even competition that some of them have with Lhasa. The same point is made explicitly by the narrator toward the end of the story, during a conversation he has with the Chinese commissioner Huang about the prospects of the emergence of a strong China and its implications for the Tibetan chieftains: I asked him why a powerful state can’t have chieftains. He said he had never considered the Maichi’s young master an idiot, but when it comes

to matters like this, even the brightest person on this piece of land was just a fool. This was so because not one single chieftain really wanted to know what a state was or what a nation was. I thought a little and realized that he was probably right, because I had spent time with so many chieftains and never heard them discussing such questions. [Alai, 1998: 351, my italics]

In addition, the novel also seems to confirm the standard Chinese narrative about the close relations of “blood and flesh” that existed throughout history between the Tibetan and Chinese peoples. After all, the story is told by a mixedblood narrator, who is half-Tibetan, half-Chinese, and is devoted in large part to the description of the mixed marriage between the Tibetan chieftain and his Chinese wife. However, notwithstanding these obvious overlaps between

Red Poppies and the standard Chinese narrative about the political status of Tibet, most of these overlaps are simultaneously subverted in the book by alternative, Tibet-oriented narratives. To begin with, although suggesting that the Tibetan chieftains got their title from the Chinese emperor, Alai

nonetheless also reminds the reader that even as late as the mid-twentieth century, China looked very different from what it is today in terms of territory and sovereignty, and in terms of the sense of identity of the ethnic populations who currently hold Chinese citizenship. Most significantly, although

implying that China was the overlord of the Tibetan chieftains, Red Poppies simultaneously implies that this overlord status did not apply to Tibet. The latter, whose center is in Lhasa, appears in the novel as a totally separate and independent political entity that competes with China for power in the world of the Tibetan chieftains, a world, which according to the novel, exists in a grayish border area between Tibet and China:

There is a saying: “The Han emperor is under the morning sun, and the Dalai Lama is under the afternoon sun.” We were located under the noon sun, and then slightly to the east. This location had a decisive meaning for us. It determined that we would have more contact with the Han emperor of the east than with our own religious leader, the Dalai Lama. Geographical factors determined our political relations. [Alai, 1998: 18–19, my italics]

The point about Tibet being a separate political entity is brought home with even more force later in the story when the monk who arrives in Chieftain Maichi’s territory from Lhasa attacks the chieftain by saying that “The world did not need any chieftains . . . [that] all the places that have black-haired

Tibetans should just surrender and pledge allegiance to one center—Great Lhasa—[and that] there shouldn’t be such savage local chiefs who pledge allegiance to the east” (Alai, 1998: 136). The challenge to the Chinese narrative, however, is not confined only to presenting “Tibet” as a separate and independent

entity that competes with China for power. It also applies to the land of the chieftains. Although Red Poppies states that the Tibetan chieftains used to get their titles from the Chinese emperor and even visited Beijing to meet personally with the emperor, it describes their territories as a contested land

whose relationship with China was ambiguous and where Chinese control was nominal at best. Prior to the arrival of the Nationalist and the Communist armies, there are very few Chinese and very few traces of Chinese influence in the region, and the chieftains exist quite independently from China. The

only exception to this independent existence emerged when some chieftains began to eye the territories of other chieftains. Then and only then would the Chinese appear in the form of a powerful army whose only purpose was to make sure that no chieftain achieved too much power, clearly because then he or she would be able to challenge the Chinese regime. Thus, the narrator comments, “We were located near Han territory, and this location made life very hard for us when the regime of the Han people was powerful. This was also the main reason the Maichi chieftains could never become powerful” (Alai, 1998: 243). It

is against such a background that just as he notes at the very beginning of the book that his father received his title from the Chinese emperor, the narrator simultaneously problematizes Chinese authority and sovereignty over the land of the Tibetan chieftains by saying, “All along since childhood, I could never understand why the Han territory was not only the source of our much needed silk, tea, and salt, but also the source of our chieftain clans’

power” (Alai, 1998: 4). This seemingly naïve comment questions the logic and legitimacy of Chinese authority and sovereignty and it keeps reverberating throughout the entire story. Indeed, throughout the novel, China is presented as another place, and with the conspicuous exception of the narrator’s uncle, who travels back and forth to China and even donates an airplane to the Nationalists to help them in their war against the Japanese, the Tibetan chieftains

do not feel Chinese in any way and do not consider their land to be a part of China. Instead, they refer to China as the “land of the Han” (Hanren difang) (and a few times as “China” [Zhongguo]), and ironically, they even call the emperor who confers their titles, the “emperor of the Han” (Hanzu huangdi or Hanren huangdi), which implies that he may confer titles on chieftains, but this still does not make him the emperor of the Tibetans. In sharp contrast to the official Chinese narrative, of which another important ingredient is the representation of non-Han peoples as wishing to be part

of China and the Chinese nation (e.g., Zang, 1998: 40), the Tibetan chieftains in Red Poppies not only lack any sense of belonging to China but sometimes actively assert their independence vis-à-vis China when the Chinese try to intervene too much in their lives. An example of such a challenge is Chieftain

Wangpo’s declaration that he is stronger than China. Chieftain Wangpo not only speaks defiantly but also acts defiantly. When the Chinese commissioner arrives in the land of the chieftains and sends Chieftain Wangpo a message in which he asks to meet with him, the chieftain refuses even to reply to the message of the commissioner, to whom he refers as “the son of a bitch Han official” (Alai, 1998: 29), and sends him a pair of handsome boots, which

“clearly meant that he should beat it” (Alai, 1998: 29). Wangpo is the only chieftain who challenges the Chinese so blatantly, but he is certainly not the only one who tries to have as little contact as possible with them. In fact, Chieftain Maichi is the only Tibetan chieftain who maintains a good relationship with China, a relationship that causes all the other chieftains to regard him as a traitor. The attitude of the other chieftains toward

Chieftain Maichi indicates that despite the endless feuds between the Tibetan chieftains, and contrary to the narrator’s comment about the lack of sense of national identity among them, they actually share a strong sense of common identity and draw a clear boundary between themselves and the Chinese, whom they clearly consider as others. Moreover, even Chieftain Maichi does not see himself as part of China or consider his land as belonging to China, despite his

relatively close relationship with the Chinese. This relationship is more of a pragmatic political alliance, which, as the narrator explains, the chieftain has made in order to survive because of the geographical proximity between his territory and the land of the Han. The narrator and his father seem to affirm Chinese authority, but in practice they accept it only in symbolic or ceremonial form and only if it does not infringe upon Chieftain Maichi’s

actual power. Chieftain Maichi’s interpretation of the relationship between himself and his Chinese overlords manifests itself already at the very beginning of the book in the tense relationship he has with the Chinese commissioner Huang. The chieftain wants to maintain good relations with the Chinese Nationalist government because it provides him with poppies, advanced weapons, and military training, all of which, he believes, will make him rich and

will help him maintain his superior military power vis-à-vis other Tibetan chieftains. But at the same time, he feels quite annoyed when the Chinese guest behaves as if he were the master of his land. The Chinese commissioner is not in a hurry to leave the Maichi territory, which makes the Tibetan chieftain nervous. Resentful, he asks his Chinese wife for advice on how to get rid of the man: “You certainly know what your Han skull would be thinking. Tell me

what on earth is going on in that Han man’s head. . . . That man is still hanging around. What the devil does he want from us?” (Alai, 1998: 36). The tension between the two reaches a climax when the chieftain goes to visit his guest and is required to wait as if he were the guest and the Chinese commissioner the host. The chieftain reacts with anger:

“Wait?” my father asked, “Do I need to wait to see someone in my own house?” . . . The chieftain returned to his room, smashed three cups of wine one after another, and then splashed one bowl of tea at the maidservant. He stamped his feet and shouted: “Wait and see if I don’t kill this guy.” Since the dawn of history, in Chieftain Maichi’s territory people always requested audiences with the chieftain. But now, this man, who was a guest in our house staying in

our beautiful guestroom, was making a show of power. Not only was my father enraged but I was too. I was so angry that my head got swollen. [Alai, 1998: 36, my italics]

This episode, in which the Chinese is presented as an unwelcome “guest” who takes over his host’s home and behaves as if he were the host or master, can be read as a metaphor for the problematic relations between China and Tibet today. This metaphor is widely used today in daily discourse not only among

Tibetans but also among other minority people in China, especially the Uyghurs in Xinjiang, whose relations with China are no less problematic than the relations between the Tibetans and China (see Sultan and Korpe, 2004: 62–64; Harris, 2002: 265). Chieftain Maichi’s insistence on remaining the only master

in his own land becomes clearest toward the end of the novel. When the Communists arrive in the land of the chieftains and make it clear that they intend to takeover the land and put an end to the rule of the chieftains, the “pro-Chinese” chieftain, who had always accepted China’s overlord status, but only as long as it remained symbolic or nominal, fights them to his death.

Alai’s Alternative Perspective on the “Liberation” of the Tibetans Alai chooses to end his novel with the “liberation” of the land of the chieftains by the Chinese Red Army. By referring to this army again and again as the “Liberation Army” and by reminding the reader several times that they are fighting for

the poor, he seems to offer a moral justification for their fighting. Furthermore, he depicts the Communist soldiers as highly disciplined and fair, “pure” (chunjie), “serious” (yansu), and “friendly” (heqi) (Alai, 1998: 403–4), and suggests that the Communists “can’t just kill people whenever they want to” (Alai, 1998: 406). This rosy depiction of the Communists clearly conforms

to the orthodox Chinese state narrative about the “Peaceful Liberation” (heping jiefang) of Tibet. However, as in the rest of the book, where very different narratives coexist, the end of the story also contains a very different subtext that poses a serious challenge to the standard Chinese state narrative about the “liberation” of Tibet. The paragraph below appears after the Communist soldiers destroy the Maichi estate, kill the narrator’s father,

and take him captive. In sharp contrast to the Chinese narrative, instead of celebrating their “liberation,” the slaves start to weep over the fall of their master:

I rode the horse and passed among the tents. Faces slipped by one after another from the front to the back. Everyone stared at me blankly, but started to weep after I passed. Before long, the whole valley was filled with mournful weeping. The Liberation Army soldiers heard the crying and weren’t happy about

it. Every time they arrived somewhere, there were lots of people cheering for them loudly. They were the army of the poor. The poor made up the majority in the world, and all the poor cheered loudly because finally they had their own army in this world. But here, these slaves opened up their stupid mouths and began to cry for their master. [Alai, 1998: 401–2]

Alai challenges the Chinese narrative about the “liberation” of Tibet also by suggesting that only a few Tibetans actually joined the Communists. This is not really surprising if we consider that according to Red Poppies, the Tibetans were not really interested in the war between the Nationalists and the Communists. Their indifference is revealed in the way the narrator describes the war, as a war between colors, white and red, without any reference to its ideological and political aspects and implications. Indeed, until the war reaches the land of the chieftains, it is presented as a purely Chinese matter

that has nothing to do with the Tibetans. This view is illustrated when the narrator tells the Nationalist commissioner who escaped to the Maichi territory: “Damn! Let the Han fight the Han” (Alai, 1998: 385). From the point of view of the Tibetan narrator, the Nationalists and the Communists are

both alike. They are first and foremost Chinese, but unlike ordinary Chinese individuals who come to the Tibetan territories as guests, they want to take over the Tibetan territories and remake them in their own image. As such both are unwelcome guests:

Now I understood. The Han people who didn’t have a color came here just to make some money, like those businessmen, or just to survive, like the advisor himself. But those with color were not the same. They wanted to dye our land with their own color. The white Han wanted to do that. And if the red Han won the war, it was said that they were even more determined to dye every piece of land with the color they themselves worshiped. [Alai, 1998: 368, my italics]

As if these statements are not enough to articulate the antagonism that the narrator feels toward the Chinese forces that threaten to take over his land, the text also suggests in passing that red is a rare color among the Tibetans. This observation, which ironically comes from the mouth of one of the very

few Tibetans who joined the Chinese Communists, emphasizes the otherness and strangeness of the latter and links them to the red poppies that the Nationalists brought to the Tibetan territories several years earlier, poppies that started the extinction of the world of the Tibetan chieftains. Another important challenge that Alai poses to the Chinese narrative about the “liberation” of Tibet is that instead of extolling the Communists for liberating the

Tibetans, he gives a rare voice to Tibetan resistance. Whereas in the standard Chinese state narrative this resistance has always been depicted as a “monstrous crime” “against the motherland” committed by a “gang” of “criminal” “traitors” who “disrupted national unity” (e.g., Chang Lu, 1959: 8–9; Peking Review, 1959: 6), Alai depicts those who resist the Communists with sympathy and respect. This manifests itself most conspicuously when immediately after hearing that his parents decided to resist the Communists rather than surrender, the narrator is suddenly filled with renewed love for them after a long

period in which they had maintained minimal contact, and he decides to join them in their last struggle. The depiction of Tibetan resistance evokes sympathy and respect but also a great deal of pity and a sense of tragedy because it is clear that those who choose to resist are doomed to defeat due to

their technological inferiority. Alai makes it clear that the Tibetans who fight the Communists know for sure that they have no chance of winning, but they still fight in dignity. The respect, sympathy, and pity that the narrator feels for those who resist the Communists are expressed forcefully in the short paragraph below, in which the narrator describes how after the Communists destroy the Maichi estate and take him captive, someone opens fire on the soldiers who accompany him:

The sound of the gunshot reverberated alone in the deep, serene valley. My people stood there dumbstruck as the soldiers charged towards them. It was the housekeeper who had fired. Holding a rifle, he stood on a big tree trunk that had fallen to the ground, like a hero, but his facial expression was completely blank. Before I could get any closer, he was knocked to the ground with a rifle butt and tied up. [Alai, 1998: 401, my italics] Alai’s detailed depiction of the Tibetan resistance also suggests that the “liberation” of Tibet was not “peaceful,” contrary to the Chinese narrative. In

another obvious challenge to the Chinese narrative of “liberation” with its happy end, suggesting that the Communists brought new life to the miserable Tibetan people, in Alai’s novel the end is filled with melancholy and a sense of loss, and most significantly it is linked with death—the death of the

narrator, his family, and the unique world that the book describes in vivid detail in more than 400 pages. In choosing a tragic end to his novel, Alai gives a rare voice to the silenced experience of tragedy of those who, for more than half a century, could be represented in China only as happy, “emancipated serfs” forever grateful to the CCP and Chairman Mao. The challenge to the Chinese narrative is brought to a climax at the very end of the

novel, when instead of welcoming the brave new world brought about by the Chinese Communists, the narrator exclaims, “Oh God, if souls can really be reincarnated, let me return to this place in my next life. I love this beautiful place” (Alai, 1998: 407). In this statement, which the narrator makes

seconds before his death and in the closing lines of his story, Alai offers the most forceful and explicit affirmation of the world that is lost, a final affirmation that contains the most powerful challenge to the narrative of “liberation.”

Conclusions and Implications Red Poppies contains two sets of very different narratives, which in many cases contradict one another. But what are the sources for and meanings of this duality? In what follows, I propose three interrelated and complementary explanations. The first explanation suggests that at least some of the orthodox narratives in Alai’s novel are a kind of disguising technique. This explanation takes into account the political limitations

that writers and artists face in China, limitations that become all the more relevant where the sensitive issue of Tibet (or other restive minority areas) is concerned. Alai was definitely well aware of these limitations and of the fact that messages challenging the official rhetoric regarding Tibet could

easily lead to the banning of his book and even to his persecution. Therefore, it seems quite reasonable to assume that at least some of the politically correct narratives and images in his book were employed in order to conceal the alternative voice that it contains or at least make it look less obvious. The rosy depiction of the Communist soldiers at the

very end of the novel seems to provide an excellent example of how politically correct narratives are used in Red Poppies to hide subversive ones. This depiction stands out as too idealized in the context of the general cynical style that characterizes the entire book, and it seems to have been inserted by Alai in order to blur his alternative view of the Communist “liberation” and the tragic tone with which he chooses to end his novel. A second explanation

for the duality of the narratives in Red Poppies takes into account the forces of the Chinese market. As in many other places around the world today, in China, art and literature constitute commodities, and writers and artists have to compete for audiences in an increasingly competitive cultural market. One can assume that like many other writers and artists, Alai too aspires to gain popularity and fame, and probably also to maximize his profits. Yet, given that the market and state politics are closely intertwined in China today, one basic requirement for achieving commercial success is to maintain good

relations with the cultural authorities, who have the power to ban literary or artistic products or alternatively to promote them enthusiastically in the marketplace. Against this complex relationship in China between the state and the market, the politically correct narratives in Red Poppies can be understood not only as a means to avoid censorship but also as a means to achieve commercial success.16 Finding favor in the eyes of cultural officials,

however, is not enough to achieve success in China’s cultural market. Official approval may be a necessary precondition for large-scale distribution in the market, but it does not necessarily ensure large-scale consumption and popularity. Moreover, officials are certainly not the ultimate readers that writers in China have in mind when they write. In the final analysis, the broader audience of the public and its taste are what count. Considering that Alai wrote

Red Poppies, like all of his stories, in Chinese, he must have had Han Chinese readers in mind when he wrote the novel. This implies that he also had to cater, at least to some extent, to the sensibilities and taste of his Han Chinese readers, rather than to the taste of his fellow Tibetans, most of whom cannot read Chinese. Thus, it is also possible that Alai’s use of some of the popular Chinese stereotypes about Tibetans, such as images of unrestrained

sexuality, extreme violence, and an oppressive social order, are linked in part to the fact the he caters primarily to Han Chinese readers, who expect to find such stereotypes in a book that deals with “Old Tibet.” To be sure, Alai is not the only minority individual who adopts Han Chinese images of ethnic

minorities to sell his minority identity to the Han Chinese, who after all constitute the majority of the buying force in the Chinese market. In the 1980s and 1990s, the demand among Han Chinese intellectuals and members of the newly emerging middle class for

exotic otherness, combined with the shift to a market economy, turned ethnic minority cultures into a popular commodity. As a result, many minority writers

and artists started to capitalize on this trend and to participate in the exoticization of their own minority group along the lines delineated by the majority group.17 Yet, the above political and economic factors provide only a partial explanation for the duality of narratives in Red Poppies, as they clearly offer very little help in explaining the alternative voice that exists in the novel. Another important factor that needs to be addressed is the

complex identity of the author, an identity that could be best described as Chinese-Tibetan. While some of the dominant narratives perpetuated by Alai may indeed be a calculated effort to overcome censorship and to cater to a broad Han Chinese audience, others, combined with the alternative narratives in the novel, seem to reflect a genuine sense of ambivalence on the part of the author, which derives from his hybrid Sino-Tibetan minority identity. In an

article exploring the encounter between minority peoples in China and the dominant Han Chinese culture, Stevan Harrell (1995: 6) has observed that the former often tend to internalize the dominant discourse that relates to their minority identity but at the same time also try to resist it. With its dual narratives, Red Poppies provides a vivid example of this ambivalent and contradictory attitude. Alai has lived most of his life in a Chinese environment:

he was educated in Chinese and writes in Chinese; he has been living in a large Chinese city (Chengdu) for years and has married a Han Chinese wife; and he has also been an active participant in mainstream Chinese culture (editing a popular science fiction magazine in Chinese) (Batt, 2001: 259–60). Moreover, Alai is only half-Tibetan, having a Tibetan father and a non-Tibetan mother.18 Considering that Alai received a Chinese education in his childhood, and has

been surrounded by Chinese culture most of his life, it seems reasonable to assume that he is not only familiar with the Chinese narratives and stereotypes relating to Tibet and to the Tibetans, but that he has also been influenced by these narratives and stereotypes and internalized them to some extent. The most powerful manifestation of Alai’s Chineseness in Red Poppies is the narrator’s fatalistic acceptance of the Chinese takeover of his land. In sharp

contrast to Tibetan intellectuals in exile, Alai does not even hint at the possibility of Tibetan independence or struggle in the future. Instead, the text laments the loss of a way of life, but at the same time suggests that the author has come to terms with the Chinese presence and dominance, which he treats as destiny, or an inevitable historical process. Alai’s choice to narrate his story from the point of view of a mixed-blood person, whose father is Tibetan and mother is Chinese, is another powerful reminder of his own hybrid identity.

And yet, Alai’s Chineseness does not mean that he has assimilated into mainstream Chinese culture and has given up his minority identity. The latter is

most evident in his alternative narratives, which clearly constitute an expression of resistance to the dominant narratives of the Han Chinese and to their dominant culture in general. As Uradyn Bulag (2000: 178–79) has argued in relation to Chinese-Mongols, ethnic resistance today in China does not necessarily mean a quest to achieve independence. I would further argue that in Alai’s case, as with many other minority individuals living in China today,

the struggle has shifted in recent decades from a struggle to achieve independence or more autonomy to a struggle to achieve dignity. Indeed, in Red Poppies, Alai seems to be engaged primarily in a struggle to affirm his otherness and its value, and to achieve some kind of recognition, a project requiring the reconstruction and rehabilitation of the Tibetan past and liberating it from the stigma that the Chinese regime had associated with it. The

Chinese narratives about “Old Tibet” not only silenced Tibetan narratives and voices, but in the long run left young Tibetans with no past to long for and therefore with a very fragile and hollow basis on which to construct a sense of different identity. By undoing the orthodox Chinese narratives about Tibet, Alai attempts to create the foundation for a renewed sense of roots and a new sense of Tibetan self and pride. In addition, and no less importantly, Red

Poppies constitutes a bold effort to voice Alai’s own truth about Tibetan history, a truth that seems to be shared by many other Tibetans and that has been silenced in China’s cultural sphere for more than half a century. Red Poppies opens a window onto the complex sense of identity of millions of Chinese ethnic minority people, who have already integrated into Chinese society and culture, but still struggle to maintain a different identity vis-à-vis the Han Chinese majority. Moreover, the novel also provides another significant example of the increasing agency that some minority individuals have acquired recently in the negotiation of their ethnic minority identity in China’s mainstream culture. With his novel, Alai joins a growing group of minority writers and artists who, since the early and mid-1990s and in the very heart of China’s cultural sphere, have started to challenge some of the most established n

arratives and images that relate to their ethnic identity, narratives and images that for decades (and in some cases for centuries) were constructed and perpetuated almost exclusively by the Han Chinese majority and the Han Chinese–dominated state.19 The ability of these minority writers and artists to play an active and challenging role in the representation of their ethnic identity, and to voice independent voices in mainstream Chinese culture, suggests a significant change in the social, cultural, and political landscape in contemporary China, as Alai himself

notes in the quotation with which I opened this article. Despite continuing difficulties such as harsh censorship and personal persecution, today, probably more than ever before in the history of the PRC, China’s minorities are able to assert their different identity on their own terms and with pride in the

most general public sphere in China, and to carve out for themselves a respectful niche in Chinese culture. It is not clear yet when and to what extent the new minority voices like that of Alai will be able to transform the general condition of minority people in China, or even the dominant discourse about

minority people. However, such voices have already transformed China’s mainstream cultural landscape by making it much more diversified and pluralistic and more multiethnic and multicultural than ever before in the history of the PRC.

Acknowledgent I am grateful to Michal Zelcer, with whom I held many valuable discussions about Alai and Red Poppies as part of a guided-reading course titled “Contemporary Minority Literature in China: Political, Social, and Cultural Aspects,” which I taught at the University of Haifa in 2004; to Michal Zelcer, Avital Pollak, Noam Urbach, and several Tibetan individuals in China for their assistance in finding important materials for this article; and to

Robert Barnett and an anonymous reader for Modern China for their valuable comments on an earlier draft of this article. Declaration of Conflicting Interests The author declared no potential conflicts of interests with respect to the authorship and/or publication of this article.

Notes 1. This citation is from an interview conducted with Alai in Chinese through e-mail by Ofra Weinstein-Arbel, the translator of Alai’s novel into Hebrew. Alai’s response was in an e-mail of December 27, 2005. I am grateful to Ms. Weinstein-Arbel for providing me with this interview. The translation

of the above excerpt and all other translations from Chinese in this article are mine. 2. The original title of Alai’s novel in Chinese is Chen’ai luoding, which means “the dust settles.” Nevertheless, throughout the article I use the title Red Poppies, which is how the novel is known in English (see Alai,

2002). 3. Despite the significant liberalization of the post–Mao era, the practice of banning books and persecuting writers is still very much alive in China today where

minority writers are concerned. A recent example that is particularly relevant involves the now-famous partly Tibetan writer Woeser (Chin: Wei Se). Woeser

was persecuted in 2004 after her book Notes on Tibet (Xizang biji), in which she expressed reverence for the Dalai Lama and described some negative aspects of life in Tibet under Chinese rule, was banned because of its “serious political mistakes.” Concomitant with the banning of her book, Woeser was reportedly fired from her work unit in Lhasa, forced to give up her home, deprived of her health and retirement benefits, and prohibited from applying for

a passport (see Government of Tibet in Exile, 2004). In a more recent case of persecution, a Tibetan writer named Dolma Kyab was reportedly detained in 2005, and later sentenced to ten years in prison for intending to publish a book he wrote about Tibet titled “The Restless Himalayas.” For more details on this case, see Sarkar (2006). Restrictions on freedom of expression in the domain of literature have also been applied to writers belonging to other

minorities. A well-known example is the banning in 1990 of a book titled The Uyghurs (Uyghur: Uyghurlar) by the famous Uyghur writer Turghun Almas, which presented an alternative history of the Uyghur minority. The book was banned shortly after its publication, many copies were burned in public, and the author was put under house arrest until his death in 2001 (Rudelson, 1997: 157–59; Dillon, 2004: 51–52; Bovingdon, 2004: 363–64, 366–67). Other cases of

silencing include the historical novels by the famous Uyghur writer Abdurehim Otkur, which were reportedly banned for a while in 1992 (Rudelson, 1997: 163–65), and another historical novel by another famous Uyghur writer, Zordun Sabir (Bovingdon, 2004: 369–70). For information on recent persecution of Uyghur writers, see Uyghur Human Rights Project (2005), Congressional Executive Committee on China (2005), Becquelin (2004: 43), and Amnesty International (2002:

16–18). The effort to suppress alternative historical narratives that pertain to ethnic minorities is not confined to the Tibetans and Uyghurs. An example that extends to another minority involves the controversial historical novel History of the Soul (Xinling shi, published in 1991), by the famous Hui writer Zhang Chengzhi, which recounts the bloody history of the Sufi Islamic Jahriyya community in northwest China during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries

(see Liu, 1997, 1998, 2000; Zhang, 2000/2001; Xu, 2002; Garnaut, 2006). According to one source, during the 1990s the book was “briefly banned in Xinjiang and Ningxia” (Ying, 2005: 20). 4. The detailed description of the hellish life of the Tibetan serfs that follows provides a typical example of the standard Chinese narrative about “Old Tibet”: “In [their] own area the local chieftain[s] ruled supreme. . . .They could kill and torture the serfs at will. Those

who offended them would have their noses, ears or tongues cut off, their eyes gouged out, their hands and feet amputated, their hearts ripped out or their bodies skinned. The full story of this criminal rule of feudal serfdom reads like a hell on earth” (Chang Sen, 1959: 13).

5. A good summary of the standard Chinese narrative about “Old Tibet” and a comparison of this narrative with the Tibetan narrative that relates to pre-

1950 Tibet can be found in the first chapter (“Old Tibet: A Clash of Myths”) of John Powers’s 2004 book. Another, briefer discussion and analysis of the different narratives can be found in the introduction in Shakya (1999). 6. The Tibet Museum of Revolution in Lhasa has played a central role in representing “Old Tibet” to locals as well as visitors from the outside. In addition to the exhibition mentioned above, it also hosted other exhibitions

that aimed to expose the brutality and exploitation that prevailed in Tibet before “liberation.” One of these was a sculpture exhibition consisting of 106 life-size figures, dedicated to depicting the “evil world of Old Tibet.” For a short article reporting on this exhibition that includes photographs of several sculptures, see China Reconstructs (1976a). 7. For discussions of Serfs, see Clark (1987: 96–99) and International Campaign for Tibet (2001: 9–10).

8. For an excellent collection of translated short stories about Tibet that were written in Chinese and published in China during the 1980s and 1990s, see Batt (2001). This collection includes stories by the best-known writers about Tibet in China, including the Han Chinese writers Ma Jian, Ma Yuan, and Yan Geling, and the Tibetan and half-Tibetan writers Tashi Dawa, Alai, Sebo, and Yangdon (Chin: Yangzhen). Other prominent writers who write about Tibet in

Chinese but are not represented in this collection include Ma Lihua (Han Chinese), Medon (Chin: Meizhuo, Tibetan), and Woeser (partly Tibetan). 9. The most notable work among the few that have challenged the standard Chinese narrative about “Old Tibet” is Yangdon’s novel A God without Gender (Wu xingbie de shen). See Yangzhen (1994). 10. The spiritual stereotype of Tibet and the Tibetans has been criticized recently by a growing number of exiled Tibetans. One

of the most vocal critics of this image is the famous Tibetan novelist Jamyang Norbu, who has remarked, Some [[[Tibetan]]] people don’t want to be enlightened, at least not immediately. . . . We are ordinary Tibetans. We drink; we eat; we feel passion; we love our wives and kids. If someone sort of messes around with them, even if they’re an army, you pick up your rifle. . . . [[[Tibetans]] have an] affinity to the place they live in. And they don’t want the Chinese there. [Mishra, 2005]

Another challenge to the spiritual stereotype is found in the recent film We Are No Monks, directed by the Tibetan filmmaker Pema Dhondup. For an informative review of this film, see Tsering (2005). 11. The stereotypes of barbarism and backwardness do not relate in China exclusively to Tibetans but to most of the ethnic minorities that live in the country. For the

denigrating attitude of the Han Chinese toward China’s minority people in the past and in the present, see Eberhard (1982), Thierry (1989), Gladney (1994), and Harrell (1995). Nonetheless, among China’s different minorities, the Tibetans are clearly seen as one of the least civilized. 12. The article by Chang Sen is particularly relevant because it is dedicated specifically to describing the “liberation” of the Tibetans in Sichuan, the area in which Red Poppies

is set. 13. For an analysis of the differences between the Chinese and Tibetan narratives regarding Wencheng Gongzhu and her marriage to Songtsen Gampo, see Sperling (1976), Benard (2000), and Powers (2004: 30–38). 14. Western scholars often make the distinction between “ethnic” (or “ethnographic”) Tibet, a

term referring to all the Tibetan-inhabited territories, including those that have been made parts of Chinese provinces, and “political” Tibet, a term denoting only the territories that were under the actual control of the Dalai Lama’s government before the Chinese takeover of the 1950s. The latter is approximately the same in terms of territory as the Tibetan Autonomous Region, which the Chinese government established in 1965. See Richardson ([1962]

1984: 1–2) and Goldstein (1991: 9). 15. For an example of the Tibetan territorial definition of Tibet, see Thonden (1991: 12). The Chinese definition, by contrast, generally identifies Tibet only with the territory of the Tibetan Autonomous Region, a territory that excludes all of Amdo and a large part of Kham. For an instructive set of maps that illustrates the different territorial definitions of Tibet, see the opening pages in Shakya (1999). 16. Clearly,

the fact that Alai has been awarded the prestigious Mao Dun Prize and that a television series has been made based on his novel and then broadcast on national television not only helped him achieve fame but also resulted in material rewards. Accommodating the politics of the state in order to gain success in the market is a common practice today in China, not only among writers but also among pop artists. For the complex relationship between pop

musicians and the Chinese state, and examples of the economic dependency of the former on the latter, and of the former accommodating the latter because of this dependency, see Baranovitch (2003a: 191, 214–22, 229, 234–36). 17. See, for example, Baranovitch (2003a: 89) and Schiaffini (2004: 92, 98, n. 39, 40). 18. According to some sources, Alai’s mother is Han (see Li, 2004: 126), while other sources suggest that she is Hui (Danzhencuo, 2003: 39). 19. There are

multiple examples of minority writers and artists who, in recent years, have gained a relatively independent public voice in mainstream Chinese culture. See, for example, articles on the half-Tibetan writer Tashi Dawa (Zhaxi Dawa) (Shi, 2003); the Hui writer Zhang Chengzhi (Liu, 1997, 1998, 2000;

Zhang, 2000/2001; Xu, 2002; Garnaut, 2006), the Mongol musician Teng Ge’er (Baranovitch, 2001: esp. 359–77); and the Uyghur musician Askar (Baranovitch 2003b: esp. 736–38; Baranovich, 2007).

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Biography Nimrod Baranovitch is a senior lecturer of Chinese Studies and chair of the Department of Asian Studies, University of Haifa, Israel. His publications include China’s New Voices: Popular Music, Ethnicity, Gender, and Politics, 1978–1997 (2003); articles in Modern China, China Quarterly, and The China Journal; and contributions to several edited volumes and encyclopedias.