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The Melong: an Example of the Formation of a Tibetan Press

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The Melong: an Example of the Formation of a Tibetan Press The Melong An Example of the Formation of a Tibetan Language Press Revised Edition Of a thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the "Mag.phil." (MA) degree at the University of Vienna, Austria Anna Sawerthal Vienna, 2011 2 Abstract Until the beginning of the 20 th century, there was no such thing as “press” in the Tibetan- speaking world. Texts, the act of printing, and the act of reading were highly entwined with religious, i.e. Buddhist, aspirations and did not necessarily fulfil the goal of acquiring knowledge or spreading news. On the contrary, printing and reading were often expected to accumulate merit. The concept of “news" in the modern sense did not exist. It were Christian missionaries on the one hand, and Chinese representatives residing in Lhasa on the other hand, who introduced first attempts of producing newspapers in the Tibetan-speaking world in the first decade of the 20 th century. In 1925, the first Tibetan stepped into the scene: Dorje Tharchin founded the Yul phyogs so so’i gsar ‘gyur me long (The Mirror of News from Different Regions), in short: the Melong (Mirror) which was usually published monthly. The Melong existed until 1963 and in the course of time grew to be a serious piece of journalistic work. This study deals with the Melong, as an example of the formation of journalistic Tibetan publications. The general question is raised: how can the Melong be characterized? To answer this question, the study clarifies the Melong's position in reference to the two journalistic genres of newspapers and magazines. Furthermore, the different titles of the publication are introduced. Then, the situation of print and press in Tibet until the middle of the 20 th century is examined from three different perspectives: the technical (printing techniques), the social (social system, attitude of the people), and the organisational (delivery of news). This goes hand in hand with introducing the La dwags kyi ag bar (Ladakh News), produced by Christian missionaries in North-western India, and the Bod yig phal skad gsar 'gyur (Tibetan Colloquial Newspaper) by Chinese imperialists in Lhasa. This discussion leads directly to the Melong: Though it also evolved from a missionary tradition, it presents the first Tibetan language publication founded by a Tibetan. To further characterize the Melong, its place of publication (Kalimpong, North-east India), its editor (Dorje Tharchin), and its mode of production (history of production, financing, distribution, aims and impact) are explained. Next, the appearance and content of the Melong are addressed: Concerning the content, an exemplary quantitative content analysis of one publication year (June 1930 – May 1931) is conducted in order to establish the Melong's core departments and to investigate their quantitative distribution over the newspaper in the aforementioned period. Finally, one article of each of the most prominent departments is translated. 3 4 Contents Acknowledgements 1 Introduction...................................................................................................................... 11 1.1 Object of Research ................................................................................................... 12 1.2 The Research Questions........................................................................................... 13 2 The Newspaper - The Melong?........................................................................................ 17 2.1 The name of the newspaper...................................................................................... 17 2.2 Differentiation between "newspaper" and "magazine" ............................................ 20 3 Printing in Old Tibet ........................................................................................................ 27 3.1 Technological Status Quo ........................................................................................ 28 3.1.1 Development of Movable Types.......................................................................... 31 3.2 Social Status Quo ..................................................................................................... 36 3.3 Organizational Status Quo: News delivery.............................................................. 39 4 The First Tibetan Language Publications......................................................................... 43 4.1 From India: La dwags kyi ag bar (Ladakh Newspaper)........................................... 44 4.2 From China: Bod yig phal skad gsar 'gyur / Xizang Baihua Bao ............................ 51 5 The Melong ...................................................................................................................... 59 5.1 Kalimpong and its History ....................................................................................... 59 5.2 The Editor Dorje Tharchin....................................................................................... 67 5.3 Production ................................................................................................................ 76 5.3.1 History of Production........................................................................................... 77 5.3.2 Finance, Price....................................................................................................... 82 5.3.3 Circulation, Distribution....................................................................................... 84 5.3.4 Making of ............................................................................................................. 87 5.3.5 Aims and Reception ............................................................................................. 89 5.3.6 The End ................................................................................................................ 91 6 A Description of the Melong............................................................................................ 93 6.1 Appearance............................................................................................................... 93 6.2 The Content of the Melong .................................................................................... 102 6.2.1 Quantitative Content Analysis ........................................................................... 104 5 6.2.1.1 Setting up the Departments ........................................................................ 106 6.2.1.2 Results........................................................................................................ 111 6.2.2 Departments in Detail ........................................................................................ 118 NEWS - Home News - Kalimpong News.............................................................. 118 NEWS - Tibet......................................................................................................... 119 NEWS - World News............................................................................................. 120 NEWS - Miscellaneous .......................................................................................... 121 SERVICE - Economy - List................................................................................... 121 SERVICE - Entertainment ..................................................................................... 122 OPINION ............................................................................................................... 123 ADVERTISEMENTS - Outside Ad ...................................................................... 124 7 Conclusion...................................................................................................................... 127 8 Appendices..................................................................................................................... 130 8.1 Appendix 1: Publication Dates of the Melong....................................................... 131 8.2 Appendix 2: Definition of Categories.................................................................... 144 8.3 Appendix 3: Results of the CA .............................................................................. 147 8.4 Appendix 4: Tibetan Texts..................................................................................... 152 9 List of Figures ................................................................................................................ 157 10 Bibliography................................................................................................................... 159 6 7 8 Acknowledgements I first came across the Melong through a casual talk with my colleague Markus Viehbeck at Vienna University. After a brief online investigation, I found the Melong to be "The first Tibetan newspaper" – which attracted my attention even more. Luckily, Columbia University in New York City had just finished uploading about a third of the whole run of the paper, and made it available in digital form through their website. I started to read the pages, being quite entertained by some illustrations, astounded by some articles – but mostly overwhelmed by the mass of content, and the many possible ways of approaching the material. It took some weeks of organizing until I found my way to a more focused and organized approach of research. After my encounter with Paul G. Hackett, who has worked with the Melong for a long time, some targets of this paper unfolded. Paul Hackett did not only give me the nearly full run of
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