‘Tibetanness’ Under Threat? Inner Asia Book Series Edited by David Sneath Caroline Humphrey Uradyn E. Bulag VOLUME 9 The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/ias ‘Tibetanness’ Under Threat? Neo-Integrationism, Minority Education and Career Strategies in Qinghai, P.R. China By Adrian Zenz ᆐ 2013 Cover illustration: Dawa's performance during the Tibetan department graduation ceremony, June 2008. (Source: author.) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Zenz, Adrian. ‘Tibetanness’ under threat? : neo-integrationism, minority education and career strategies in Qinghai, P.R. China / by Adrian Zenz. pages cm. -- (Inner Asia book series ; volume 9) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-25796-2 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Tibetans--China--Qinghai Sheng. 2. Tibetans-- Education (Higher)--China--Qinghai Sheng. 3. Tibetans--Cultural assimilation--China--Qinghai Sheng. 4. Nationalism--China--Qinghai Sheng. 5. Cultural pluralism--China--Qinghai Sheng. I. Title. DS731.T56Z43 2013 305.895’4105147--dc23 2013026386 This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “Brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, IPA, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see www.brill.com/brill-typeface. ISBN 978-90-04-25796-2 (hardback) ISBN 978-90-04-25797-9 (e-book) Copyright 2013 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Global Oriental, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers and Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper. 300854 300854 CONTENTS Acknowledgements ix Notes on Transliteration xi List of Figures xiii 1. Introduction 1 Education, Market and Language 1 Sinicisation, Hybridity and the ‘End-of-Tibetanness’ 9 Structure, Agency and Strategy in Minority Education 13 ‘Tibet’—‘Tibetan’—‘Tibetanness’ 19 Gauging Factions and Groupings Within the ‘Educated Tibetan Community’ 24 2. Tibetans in Qinghai Province: An Analysis of Recent Developments 31 Contextualising the Fieldwork Setting 31 Qinghai’s Ethnic Landscape 36 Economic Developments, Market Reforms and the Employment Market 42 Qinghai’s Tibetan Education Situation 48 3. ‘Harmonious’ Solutions to the Nationalities Question 69 Introduction 69 Minority Rights Part I: Legal Frameworks and Political Trends 75 Chinese for Jobs: The Rising Force of Pragmatism 79 Minority Rights Part II: Han Centre-Periphery Models Past and Present 82 Wenming, Suzhi, Kexue: Cultural Control and Strategic Concealment 85 Contradictory ‘Harmony’: Gauging the Core Tensions within the State’s Minority Work Approach 88 4. Beyond Assimilation: The Tibetanisation of Tibetan Education in Qinghai 95 Making History: The Tibetanisation of Tibetan Education in Qinghai 95 300854 300854 vi contents From Tibetanisation to Re-Tibetanisation 111 Tibetanisation in the Midst of Adversity: An Analysis of Enabling Factors 114 The 2010 ‘Qinghai gangyao’ Educational Reform Initiative: Threat to Tibetan Education? 117 QUN Campus Dynamics: ‘Tibetan Worlds’ in the Midst of Integrationism 121 Conclusions: Sinicisation Through Minority Education 126 5. The Structural Dynamics of Finding ‘Adequate’ Employment in Marketised Times 131 Graduate Employment Statistics and Trends 131 Examining Minority Graduate Employment 147 Obligations, Anxieties, Preferences: The Significance of Formal Government Employment 167 Corruption and Language in Government Recruitment Processes 180 Conclusions: Career, Language and Ethnicity 191 6. Language, Career and ‘Helping My People’: Students’ Education and Employment Strategies 197 Learning “My Mother Tongue”: Education, Ethnicity and Language-Culture 197 “Facing Reality”: Pragmatist Strategies and Chinese-Medium Careers 201 Creative Approaches to the Dilemma: Track Mixing and Tibetan+ 207 The Ethnically-Concious Alternative: Venturing into Tibetan+ 214 Career and ‘Tibetanness’ Between Isolation and Engagement 219 7. Authenticity, Hybridity and ‘In-Betweenness’: ‘Tibetanness’ Between Danger and Doubt 227 Hybridity and Ethnic Authenticity 227 ‘Tibetanness’, Purity and Mixing 228 Authenticity and Linguistic Purity: The Case of Dawa 236 Hybridity, Ambiguity and Confusion 239 To Regret or To Not Regret? Dealing with ‘In-Betweenness’ 248 Conclusion: Digital ‘Tibetanness’, Instrumental-Primordialism, and the Battle Against Hybridity 258 300854 300854 contents vii 8. Between Development and ‘Backwardness’: The Struggle for ‘Modern Tibetanness’ 265 Tibetan Discourses of Tibetan Modernity 265 Contrasting Perspectives on Tibetan Development 270 The Function and Significance of Discourses of Tibetan ‘Backwardness’ 275 Religion as Science: The Significance of Buddhism-Science Discourses 283 ‘Modern Tibetanness’: Concluding Thoughts 288 9. Conclusions: Marketisation and the ‘End-of-Tibetanness’? 297 Education, Career, and Minority School Success 297 Marketisation versus Protectionism: How Can ‘Tibetanness’ Survive? 302 Ethnicity versus Market: The Possibility of Ethnic Entrepreneurship 306 Hybridisation: The Beginning of the ‘End-of-Tibetanness’? 311 The Complex Way Ahead 317 Appendix A 321 Appendix B 322 Bibliography 327 Index 339 300854 300854 300854 300854 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This work would have been impossible without the personal support so generously given by many people In particular, I am profoundly indebted to my beloved wife Rachel, who lovingly took care of her family at home day after day throughout the many years it took to complete this work. Much gratitude is also due to my parents, who funded my PhD in Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge. On the academic side, this work would have been impossible without the close involvement of my supervisor Dr Hildegard Diemberger. I would also like to thank Dr Uradyn Bulag for encouraging me to turn my PhD thesis into a book manuscript, Brill’s anonymous reviewer for all the help- ful comments, and especially Dr Andrew Fischer, who not only provided many helpful insights but took significant amounts of time to answer many questions and review my statistical analysis. The true heroes of this research are undoubtedly its main ‘actors’—the Tibetan students and educators who allowed me to be part of their lives, and several of whom generously entertained me (and in some cases our Author with wife, daughter and a group of close Tibetan student friends, June 2008 300854 300854 x acknowledgements whole family) in their families’ homes. Many of them became close per- sonal friends during the research process. I am profoundly grateful for all their time and support. Finally, I would like to thank Jesus, the Son of God, my friend, Lord and Saviour, who opened the doors for me to do a PhD, and who has been lov- ingly enabling and sustaining me through all these years. 300854 300854 NOTES ON TRANSLITERATION Chinese terms are romanised based on the pinyin system, while Wylie was employed for Tibetan terms. Tibetan place names are given a more readable romanised transcription following Kolas & Thowsen (2005) instead of using the more cumbersome Wylie versions. In the text I provide Tibetan and Chinese translations in the format (T. / Ch.) as appropriate. In order to reflect my fieldwork setting, I only provide Tibetan terms where they were commonly used by my inform- ants. For example, for many educational terms such as ‘college entrance examination’ (Ch. gaokao) or ‘associate degree’ (Ch. dazhuan xuewei) my informants (including minority department majors) would invariably employ the Chinese terms. Conversely, I occasionally omit Chinese trans- lations where they seemed unnecessary. At times, local (Tibetan / Chinese) words for important terms or concepts are provided in cited informant statements. Where relevant, transliterations for original interview ques- tions are provided in footnotes. The Tibetan versions of these questions were rendered by my research assistants in a spoken form of Amdo, and I chose to directly transliterate them into Wylie without seeking to adapt them to a literary Lhasa-Tibetan style. Place names are given in the format ‘Tibetan name / Chinese name’ for counties and prefectures that have both such names. The Tibetan names are purposely omitted for Haidong prefecture and several of its counties in order to indicate the sinicised nature of this Han-majority region. An exception here are Bayan Khar (Ch. Hualong) and Yarze (Ch. Xunhua) counties because of the significant presence of Tibetan groups there who still regularly use their mother tongue. The Tibetan names used in this book are pseudonyms, with the excep- tion of a few educators who gave permission for the use of their real names. They are based on common romanised spellings for Tibetan names. For these names, I chose to use the Amdo spelling, such as ‘Tserang’ instead of ‘Tsering’, in order to retain a stronger sense of local context. 300854 300854 300854 300854 LIST OF FIGURES 1. Map of regions with Tibetan populations 32 2. Map of Qinghai’s