Project Proposals

Cultural Preservation for Xialadi Village Project Manager: Padmatso (Bethany) Strengthen Tibetan culture and teach younger generations about religion, Strengthen community ties, Provide a place for lay people and practitioners to worship and conduct rituals and practices,  Encourage daily exercise,  Raise morale. Funds needed: $8,909  (71,992 rmb) A private donor funded this project

Padmatso is from Gannan Tibetan autonomous prefecture, Gansu Province, China. She graduated in 2005 with an Associated degree in English from Qinghai Normal University Nationalities Department's English Training Program.
View photos of project location

Where is the project located?

This project will take place in Xialadi Tibetan Village. Xialadi is located 30 kilometers from Qiagai Township Seat, in Zhuoni County, Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Gansu Province, China.

Population:

Xialadi Village has 20 households and 180 villagers. The population of Xialadi Village is 176. There are 76 men, 64 women, and 36 children. All residents are Tibetan.

Income:

In the winter of 2000, Zhuoni County designated Xialadi Village as the poorest village in Qiagai Township, a group of 26 distinct villages. The average disposable cash income of a Xialadi villager is around 150rmb per year. The villagers are nomadic herders; they earn money by selling butter and cheese. A typical family can make 150 rmb per year selling cheese and 480 rmb per year selling butter. They sell these to the businessman in Qiagai Township seat.

In addition, villagers make money by selling livestock such as yaks and sheep. In the space of two years, each family sells one or two yaks for about 1200rmb each.

Finally, some of the Xialadi villagers also take jobs as low-skilled road workers. Due to the demands of herding, they can only work for two months per year: April and May. They usually work building roads for around 10 hours a day for a salary of 15 rmb per day.

Taxes:

Each family must remit 200 jin of milk per year in taxes. This fee is charged regardless of herd size, and some families must buy milk in order to pay the milk tax. In addition, villagers must pay 5 rmb per yak per year. A typical family with a herd of 30 yaks must pay 150 rmb per year plus milk tax. If the villagers are unable to pay their taxes the local government will take some of their livestock as payment.

Agriculture

In all of Qiagai Township, it is very difficult to grow most crops . Because of the high elevation and bad weather, the villagers are limited to growing small amounts of barley and beans for self-consumption. The largest family has 7 mu of land. With this land, they can produce 100 jin of barley or beans per year. The land is allotted according to the number of family members. Families with fewer members have less land. Land is also allotted according to age: those born before 1981 are allotted 1 mu of land each, while those born after are allotted no land.

Xialadi's fie lds are not irrigated. To water their fields, the village women must hand- carry buckets of water from a stream that is 2 km away from the village. Since 1999, the barley crops in Xialadi village have been affected by disease. The villagers have attempted to remedy this situation with pesticides and preventative chemicals, but these often kill the crops and make the fields barren.

As a result of the above problems, most Xialadi villagers cannot produce enough barley for self-consumption, and thus must buy barley flour and beans from the stores in the nearby township.

Health Care:

There is no health clinic in Xialadi Village. When people get sick they must go to Qiagai Township, which is 30 kilometers away. It takes four hours to get to the township by horse or yak. Most people go there on foot, which takes five hours. There is no car in Xialadi Village and it is unsafe for the seriously ill patients to travel by motorcycle to the clinic. The road from Xialadi to Qiagai is a very rough, dirt road and thus very dangerous to travel on by motorcycle. The yak is a slow but more suitable transportation because it walks smoothly .

In the past 10 years, 5 people have died on the way to the hospital. There is no mid-wife in Xialadi Village, so when women give birth they must go to the clinic. Miscarriage is very common, because of the long distance. If the villagers have more serious illnesses, they have to go to Zhuoni County Town. Before the patients enter the hospital they have to pay a two or three thousand rmb deposit to the hospital, o therwise the doctors won't treat them. Upon arrival at the Zhoni County hospital, some villagers have been turned away because of their poverty-stricken appearance.

Education:

There is one Tibetan primary school in Xialadi Village. The school has three grades and only 11 stud e nts: 4 girls and 7 boys. There are 20 school-aged children in the village, but many do no attend the school b ecause their parents want them to herd livestock. The primary school is in very poor condition: it consists of two small rooms, a classroom and a teacher's apartment. The school's roof is in disrepair. During the rainy season, the roof leaks and makes it difficult to hold class.

There is only one teacher in the school for three classes. It is very hard for the students pay attention to their classes, because classes are held while all of the students are together in the classroom. The school only has 8 desks, which the students must share between them. The re are five people from Xialadi Village who have graduated from high or normal (teacher training) school.

Herding:

Xialadi Villagers face a number of problems with regard to herding:

1. The village has a very limited amount of grassland . Xialadi's villagers have had conflicts with the neighboring village over grazing rights. In 1995, this conflict escalated into violent fighting, that lasted for two months. Fortunately, no one was killed during this quarrel, but the villagers still have problems with grazing rights. Before the villagers could herd their livestock freely, but now the neighboring village doesn't let Xialadi Village's livestock grass onto their grassland. If Xialadi's livestock cross the neighboring village's boundary, then they kill the yaks. So the fighting has curtailed the Xialadi villagers' ability to herd.

2. During winter when t he temperature drops to 15 below zero with a 7-inch snowfall, some livestock starve to death. This is especially the case for calves and lambs .

3. For the past ten years, two diseases have decreased the number of the livestock. Every winter, each herd loses two to three animals to a small white parasite that attack the animals' backsides. In the spring, a disease called Kutiyi infects the animal's mouths and kills 2-3 yaks and around 10 sheep per year.

•  Project Goals and benefits:

The overarching goal of this project is to preserve and promote traditional Tibetan culture and religion.

The immediate goal of this project is to re-build Xialadi Village's Tibetan Buddhist temple.

Background:

Xailadi's original Buddhist temple was built in 1901. Each day, the temple hosted about 50 worshippers. The temple served as a crucial place of worship for the village's many Tibetan Buddhist practitioners, the majority of whom are women. Xialadi village is home to many women practitioners who have chosen to dedicate their lives to the study and practice of Tibetan Buddhism. The nearest nunnery to Xialadi Village is located in Labrang, which is more than 200 kilometers away. Because Labrang's nunnery is so far away from Xialadi, becoming a nun is not a viable option for the village's devout women. Thus, these women's main means of practicing their faith was to worship at the Xialadi Tibetan Buddhist temple.

In addition to serving as a place of worship, the original temple was the main community-gathering place. Villagers went to the temple to meet with others, circumambulate, pray, and talk. The temple was the village's central building and the most popular meeting place.

In 1958, the village temple was completely destroyed.

In the1980's the people of Xialadi village were given permission to rebuild their temple and resume religious worship. Unfortunately, however, the villagers have not had the financial means to rebuild it. Today, the only evidence that remains of this once fundamental community center is a single, small deity figure that was saved from the destruction by one of the village's female practitioners (see photo). Having no temple has caused several problems for the villagers:

Drolmatso holding the only remnant of the original temple

Loss of culture

Because Tibetan Buddhism is an integral part of Tibetan culture, the original Buddhist temple of Xialadi village was a fundamentally important cultural monument. "Culture" consists of the language, beliefs, values, norms, and behaviors of a group of people. It also includes the material objects that are passed from one generation to next. Xialadi's temple was a monument whose existence necessitated the practice of various parts of Tibetan culture--especially the exercise of beliefs, and the following of religious norms. The temple itself was also a part of Tibetan culture, an object that was enjoyed and used by generations of Xialadi villagers. Thus the loss of the village temple has meant a basic loss of culture for the Xialadi villagers.

In rapidly modernizing China, cultural leveling is a real threat to the traditional Tibetan way of life. When an ethnic group experiences cultural leveling, they cease to be distinct from the dominant ethnic group. Cultural leveling poses a particularly urgent threat to Xialadi village, because it is the only Tibetan village in a valley shared by four Han Chinese Villages and a Han Chinese-run gold mine.

One example of the threat to traditional Tibetan culture is evident in the disappearance of the village's bi-annual horse racing festivals. Previously, these races were held in the summer and during the New Year. Due to the switch from horses to motorcycles as the main mode of transportation, many villagers no longer raise horses, and thus horse racing has become obsolete. Whereas New Year celebrations in the past involved families gathering to watch the races, sing, and dance, New Year celebrations today involve motorcycle racing and are only attended by young men.

Also, the language that the villagers use is changing. Previously, all of the villagers used Tibetan to communicate, and very few Chinese words could be heard in their speech. Since the arrival of the Chinese gold mine ten years ago, and the subsequent arrival of televisions in the village's homes--the younger generation of villagers uses more and more Chinese words in their daily speech. In addition, the village's children pick up Chinese words from the TV and use them in daily life.

Loss of culture in younger generation

Today, Xialadi's young people don't know much about Tibetan Buddhism because there is no place to practice. This means that the youth of Xialadi village are largely ignorant about a fundamental part of Tibetan culture. Culture is learned as children grow up in a society and discover how their parents and other people around them view the world. Because there is no temple in Xialadi, the village children have not learned some basic religious norms. For example, some of the village children don't know how to circumambulate the temple when they visit other monasteries. They sometimes circumambulate counterclockwise because they have never learned how Gelugpa Buddhists circumambulate.

Loosening of community ties

Nowadays, because the village has no community center, people stay at home to watch TV when they have free time. Because the villagers do not meet with each other on a regular basis, they do not know each other very well, and many families keep to themselves.

No access to a monastery

Many Tibetan villages do not have their own temples, but they usually have a nearby temple or monastery where they go to worship. Xialadi village does not have a nearby temple. Qia Gai monastery, the nearest temple, which is located in Qiagai Township, is 30 kilometers away from the village. In order to get to this temple, Xailadi villagers must walk 4-5 hours on foot. Because of the journey to the temple is such a long one, the villagers cannot make it very often. The distance to Qia Gai monastery also makes it especially difficult for the poor villagers to hold any rituals, because when the villagers invite the monks to their home to do rituals, they must hire a car or truck (the monks won't travel by motorcycle because they thinks its too dangerous).

Difficulty in practicing religion

The village is home to around 55 Buddhist practitioners, for whom the temple is a very essential building. Some of these particularly devout practitioners live together, and their lives are focused around chanting and conducting Buddhist prayer rituals. Without a village temple, these practitioners cannot properly perform these Buddhist rituals and practices. In addition, the vast majority of Xialadi villagers believes in Buddhism and follows certain norms related to its practice. The loss of Xialadi village's temple has made it difficult for both the laypeople and the practitioners to practice their religion. Because there is no temple in which to worship, practitioners must conduct their religious rituals and practices in their homes, which are inadequate (see photo). Many of the devout women and men of Xialadi have built small prayer shrines in their homes in which to prostrate and chant, but these rooms are usually too small to make full body prostrations and thus the practitioners must prostrate on wooden boards outside of their homes (see photo).

Drolmatso in her small prayer room

LhamoTso readies her prostration board, which is too large to fit inside of her prayer room

Decline in health

For the past 40 years, the villagers have had no place to do daily rituals, which, while being primarily religious/cultural in nature, also serve as daily exercise. When there was a temple, the old people went there to listen to Buddhist teachings, circumambulate, and prostrate. Now they all stay at home, and although some attempt to prostrate, many do not get any physical exercise. Lack of exercise contributes to the onset of acute pain on back and arthritis. Some elder villagers people are not yet 65, but they are already bedded.

Low morale

Perhaps the most noticeable problem caused by the destruction of the original village temple is a feeling of depression and hopelessness among the villagers. When the temple was destroyed, so was the heart of the village. The eldest villagers are saddened by the thought that the village may never be returned to its rightful state, and also by the indifferent attitude that most of the younger generation has towards Tibetan religion and culture.

Benefits

Rebuilding the Xialadi temple will have several substantial benefits:

•  Strengthen Tibetan culture and teach younger generations about religion

•  Strengthen community ties

•  Provide a place for lay people and practitioners to worship and conduct rituals and practices.

•  Encourage daily exercise

•  Raise morale

Rebuilding Xialadi temple will benefit the village in myriad ways. In addition to strengthening the village's ties to traditional Tibetan culture by providing a place of worship and religious practice, the temple will serve as a community center where villagers can meet and socialize. It will provide grandparents with an opportunity to pass their knowledge of Tibetan Buddhism on to the younger generation, and it will afford devout practitioners a place to comfortably conduct their practice. It will also give the elder villages an excuse to leave their homes and exercise. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, it will restore the village's "heart" and raise the villagers' spirits.

Beneficiaries

This project will benefit a total of 336 people, including 200 Xialadi villagers and 136 Tibetan villagers from the next valley. It will also benefit many generations of Xialadi villagers still to come.

The steps of the project (describe each step of the project)

• Hold a meeting with the villagers (both males and females) and the local leaders.
• Assign villagers to the project committees which will be in charge of building
• Go to Zhoune county town (the nearest market) to purchase the needed pillars for the temple.
• Local villagers transport stones for the foundation of the temple.
• Hire skilled workers from the county town.
• Build the temple with the combined labors of the villagers and the skilled workers.
• Collect and assemble information for final report, including interviews, photos, and receipts
• Write final report

Timeframe

The expected timeframe for this project is five months:

1. In the first month of funding we will buy the equipment for the temple.

•  In the second and third month, we will build the temple

•  In the forth month, we will paint the temple

•  In the fifth month, we will put scriptures in the temple and complete the final report

•  Detailed Budget:

Local contribution

•  Sustainability

This project will be very sustainable once the temple is built. Every family in the village will take turns being responsible for care of the temple. Each year, two families will have this responsibility, and at the end of the year, two different families will take on caring for the temple for one year, and so on. Examples of temple care committee tasks are: going to the temple to offer clean water to the Buddha images, cleaning the whole assembly hall, and examining the temple for damage and repairing it if any is found.

The villagers will pay for temple repairs. Each household will pay 5 rmb per year for repairing the temple. There are twenty households so the committee will have100 rmb to use for repairing the temple every year. This temple will last for many years, especially because the villagers have pledged to take good care of it.

Interviews:

During the summer vacation, Padmatso (Bethany) went to home and interviewed some elder villagers. They said that they are desperate to have a temple in Xialadi Village, because they are always sad and they don't have many reasons to go outside and exercise or meet with other villagers. They recounted that if they had Buddhist temple, they could practice in that temple and they can have enjoyable life with their elder companions . Below are three interviews of elder women from Xialadi Village:

"Why it is important to have a Buddhist temple in your village?"

Sonamkyi is a 74-year-old female practitioner

"If there were a temple for practicing Buddhism, it would be very good for our elder people, because they really can't pay attention to the dharma when they stay at home and instead they want to waste time on gossiping. Sometimes I get sharp pains in my back and with my legs because of not doing exercise. Also I feel very lonely when the youngsters go out for work the whole day. If we can rebuild the temple, I will not feel lonely because I can circumambulate the temple every morning and evening."

Lhamo Tsho is a 48-year-old female practitioner.

"The temple is very important to the villagers. The old temple was destroyed, and people wanted to rebuild it when they were once again allowed to practice their own religions. But it is very difficult to earn money from doing low skilled-jobs. The villagers didn't have money to rebuild it, but we saved for a long time and we accumulated a little money for rebuilding the temple after many years. Finally, we had enough money to rebuild the temple. Unfortunately, the government ordered us to send our children to school, and pay the high school fees--otherwise they would punish the children. If we sent the children to Qiagai Township site's school, it would take 5 hours for them to get there on foot. So, we used the money that we had saved for rebuilding temple to build a three-roomed school instead. After that we couldn't get enough money to rebuild the temple. Some families have small rooms for practicing Buddhism, but the people's belief is going to become strong if there is a Buddhist temple in Xialadi Village. Thanks for considering about our temple and I hope you can support us.

Gazang tsho is a 67-year-old woman.

"I am a blind woman and I have to stay at home everyday. I feel very lonely and sad even when I have enough time to chant Buddhist scriptures. So if we can rebuild a temple, I can ask other people to take care of me and to circumambulate the temple with me. I also can get partners to talk with and practice Buddhism with. I am 67 years old I am still hoping for a temple in Xialadi Village. Otherwise our culture is in danger.

The site of the original village temple, which is now covered over in barley fields (villagers have time and time again expressed their willingness to convert the current barley feilds into a space for the proposed temple.)