www.thepeninsulaqatar.com CAMPUS | 3 COMMUNITY | 6 ENTERTAINMENT | 11 Bangladesh MHM School PEF hosts Cannes spotlight puts marks Rabindra & delegation from Iranian cinema Nazrul anniversaries NMC Lahore centre stage SUNDAY 22 MAY 2016 Email: [email protected] thepeninsulaqatar @peninsulaqatar @peninsula_qatar SAVING CAVES P | 4-5 Abandoned for centuries, the Mogao Grottoes somehow survived everything that nature and man could throw at them, including earthquakes, floods and sandstorms. SUNDAY 22 MAY 2016 | 03 CAMPUS DeBakey High School students visit Qatar Museums exhibition Students from DeBakey High School visited the new exhibition — What about the Art? — at Qatar Museums Al Riwaq Gallery, where they discovered amazing contemporary Chinese artists. This was an extension from their classroom lessons in Art class. Bangladesh MHM School marks Rabindra & Nazrul anniversaries angladesh MHM School and Col- tal role in the culture and history of the lege, Qatar arranged a discus- country. The programme was graced Bsion and a cultural programme by the presence of Ashud Ahmed, the to mark the birth anniversaries of Rab- Ambassador of Bangladesh to Qatar indranath Tagore and Kazi Nazrul Islam and Chairman of Bangladesh School. at the school premises on May 16. The High official of Bangladesh Embassy, birthdays celebration programme was faculty members and students were organised to pay homage to the two present on the occasion. The pro- great poets of Bengal since these two gramme wore a festive look with reci- remarkable men are remembered, as tation from poems of Nazrul Islam and their impact on Bangladesh and the Tagore, solo and group songs, dances legacy they left behind still play a vi- and drama. 04 | SUNDAY 22 MAY 2016 COVER STORY In China, a new threat to ancient caves By Simon Denyer But the fragile wall paintings, some to 6,000 a day, but demand regularly visitors’ centre on the history of Dun- The Washington Post of which date to the 4th century and exceeds that in the peak July-to-Octo- huang and the caves themselves. show stories from Buddha’s life and ber season. Later, they are guided through a se- visions of the afterlife, face another To relieve the pressure, tourists lection of the 40 caves that are open threat — from a new army of tourists are asked to register in advance and, to the public, forbidden to take photo- t the heart of the ancient Silk and the lure of profit. before visiting the site, watch two graphs in case their camera flash dam- Road, on the edge of the “In the past 100 years, most of the 20-minute movies in a sweeping new ages the frescoes. Gobi Desert, lies a centuries- damage has been done by nature, but Aold place of pilgrimage: hun- visits by more tourists will break the dreds of caves hewn from a sandstone original balance inside the caves,” said cliff containing some of the most ex- Wang Xudong, president of Dunhuang quisite Buddhist frescoes and figures Academy, which runs, preserves and in the world. restores the site. “Constant entrance Abandoned for centuries, the and exit changes the temperature and Mogao Grottoes somehow survived humidity inside the caves. Human bod- everything that nature and man could ies also carry microorganisms, and if throw at them, including earthquakes, they start to grow inside the caves, it floods and sandstorms. Marauding would be very scary.” rebels, plundering European explorers More than 1.1 million tourists visited and White Russian soldiers all left their the caves in 2015, a rise of 40 percent mark. Rampaging Red Guards were in just a year and a roughly 20-fold turned away at the height of China’s jump in the past two decades. Cultural Revolution. The vast majority are Chinese, as Today, the caves outside Dunhuang, the country’s growing wealth fuels a in western China, enjoy a new stature, huge boom in domestic tourism and at the heart of Communist China’s ef- as interest is renewed in China’s Bud- forts to revitalise and rebuild the Silk dhist past. Road as a testament to its growing With advice from Getty’s experts, power in Asia. They also stand as a the Dunhuang Academy initially tried symbol of Sino-American cooperation to cap the number of tourists at 3,000 in China’s cultural preservation, thanks a day but later realised “that limit just to pioneering work by the Getty Con- would not stop people from coming,” servation Institute. Wang said. The limit was then raised SUNDAY 22 MAY 2016 | 05 COVER STORY in 1923 to find the portable treasures gone. Determined not to leave emp- ty-handed, he took some of the sculp- tures and used adhesive glue to rip a dozen paintings off the walls. The official history calls them the “despicable treasure hunters.” Others who weren’t seeking rel- ics inflicted their own sorts of damage. In 1870, rebels turned up at the caves, burning down many of the wooden ladders that gave access. They may al- so have been responsible for scratch- ing off the faces from some of the paintings. In 1921, White Russian soldiers who had retreated into China during the war against the Bolsheviks were de- tained by the Chinese government and temporarily jailed in the caves. The damage from their fires, and their graf- fiti, is still visible in several caves. But history was kinder during Chi- na’s Cultural Revolution, when, on or- ders from Premier Zhou Enlai, People’s Liberation Army soldiers and police were dispatched to protect the caves Register too late, above the 6,000 the Mogao Grottoes. They are going to was chosen to fill the gaps. from gangs of Red Guards intent on cutoff, and you’ll miss the movies and have their work cut out to control visi- The project has produced guide- destroying them. get to see only four caves. By giving tation, and, of course, I think you’d find lines that have been applied to other Today, 735 caves remain, hewn from these latecomers “a very bad experi- many people who are interested in de- grottoes across China as well as princi- the cliff over a period of 1,000 years. ence,” Wang said he hopes to encour- velopment of the region want more ples that have helped the country bet- Nearly 500 have paintings on the walls age more people to come during the visitors.” ter manage its heritage sites. It has al- — undecorated caves were for medita- low season, when ticket prices are Yet there is also state-of-the-art so spawned a major new exhibition at tion — while more than 2,000 sculp- halved. restoration work going on here, thanks the Getty Research Institute in Los An- tures have survived. The question is whether Wang can to a long-standing collaboration be- geles that runs from May until Septem- With partners all over the world, stem the tide. Beside the visitors’ cen- tween the Dunhuang Academy, Getty ber and includes full-size replicas of the Dunhuang Academy is working on tre, nine miles from the caves, con- and other foreign experts. three of the caves. a major digital archiving project, pho- struction workers are building a pri- Painstakingly, the restorers start in It is a much happier example of Si- tographing the caves and everything vately funded tourist complex, includ- each cave by taking hundreds of high- no-Western collaboration than the that was once contained within them. ing a theater and hotels. resolution photographs, in colour and caves experienced a century ago. In Wang said that more than 40,000 In the city of Dunhuang, a $250m black-and-white. Then the frescoes are 1907, Hungarian British archaeologist artworks or scriptures are scattered conference centre and a bigger, examined to see what materials were Aurel Stein persuaded a local monk to around the world but that this is a way 2,000-seat theatre are being built to used — and the causes of deterioration sell him 24 trunks packed with ancient to unite them and preserve them for- house an annual Silk Road Cultural Ex- diagnosed — before experts decide on Buddhist scriptures and five trunks of ever. po. The large modern airport is being the best materials and methods to re- paintings, embroideries and other art- “Of course, we hope that when the expanded, with a $150m upgrade. store them. works that had only recently been dis- world truly becomes a big family, they “There is enormous commercial Some of the paintings, rendered covered in a small walled-up cave. He can come back to Mogao caves and pressure,” said Neville Agnew, who has on a base of mud and grass, are part- paid the equivalent of 130 pounds. unite with the other relics here,” he been visiting and working in the caves ly detached from the rock face, and French, Japanese and Russian ex- said. “But reality is quite cruel some- for 28 years for the Getty Conserva- enormously vulnerable to humidity or plorers took thousands more priceless times. If we can get them back to the tion Institute. “The growth of the city earthquakes. Different kinds of grout documents in subsequent years before Internet family through digitalisation, of Dunhuang depends ultimately on were extensively tested before one American Langdon Warner showed up that is a target we can achieve for now.” 06 | SUNDAY 22 MAY 2016 COMMUNITY PEF hosts delegation from NMC Lahore akistan Engineers Forum (PEF) hosted a reception dinner at Pistachio Restaurant Doha in Phonour of the visiting delega- tion to Qatar as part of their course being held at National Management College (NMC), Lahore.