(January
2017)
The
framing device describes the author meeting a gnarled old Tibetan woman,
spending a couple of days with her hearing her remarkable story, and then
(in)conveniently losing touch with her completely. The main narrative is that
story, in which is transpires that Shu Wen isn’t Tibetan at all, she’s Chinese,
but has spent decades searching for her husband, who disappeared shortly after
his army unit was dispatched to the region during its ‘incorporation’ into China
in the 1950s. She joins the PLA herself, but very quickly gets separated from
her unit, living the rest of her life among the nomads of the Tibetan plateau
before a series of conveniently fortuitous encounters deliver her closure
regarding her husband, if not her place in modern China.
The
bulk of the book details Shu’s day-to-day life among the nomads, and while it’s
beautifully and hauntingly rendered, it’s also essentially the Noble Savage in
Central Asia. Just as the original trope grew out of the West’s self-serving
justification for its imperial misadventures, so too is China’s annexation of
Tibet presented as a disagreeably messy but ultimately beneficial step towards
modernity for both the conquerors and the conquered. Shu’s isolation means she
proceeds blissfully unaware of the Great Leap Forward or the Cultural
Revolution, and can instead present a ‘both sides’ story about the violence
with which Tibet was brought into China: it was all just one big misunderstanding,
you see? And one which, as it transpires, her husband’s death went a
significant way towards clearing up. What a stroke of luck.
This
is a gorgeously written book, and some of the imagery and detail is stunning,
but throughout it all you can’t help but wonder about what’s not being said. In this post-truth era
of fake news and the like, it’s probably important to remember that the best propaganda
doesn’t feel like propaganda at all.
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