NPR "Hacking the Himalayas," part 2: Connecting exiles online

Part two of my four-part NPR "Day to Day" series "Hacking The Himalayas" airs today.

When the Dalai Lama fled Chinese rule of Tibet in 1959, he found refuge just across the western border in India. Waves of refugees followed their spiritual leader out of the once-isolated kingdom when India provided them with land. Today, nearly 50 years after that first exodus, more than 100,000 people of Tibetan heritage live in the area. The Dalai Lama and leaders of the Tibetan government-in-exile now call the northern village of Dharamsala their home.

Even though two full generations of Tibetans have grown up outside their native land, the Tibetan community is still very close-knit, and many still harbor dreams of returning to a country free of Chinese domination -- something unlikely to happen any time soon.

But with the help of some technology experts from the West, the Tibetan community in India hopes to get the word out about their cause via the viral grapevine that is the Internet. It's an enormous challenge. Electricity, phones and Internet access are expensive and hard to come by. Phone lines can go down for days at a time, leaving the region cut off from the world. But there's an effort under way to change that, and to teach young Tibetan refugees about computers and the Web.

Link to archived audio, and multimedia extras. Here's the series home page.

Image: Both adults and children take computer classes at the technology center of the Tibetan Children's Village in Dharamshala. Web publishing is one of the favorite subjects. Left, Tashi Phuntsok, and right, Nyima Woeser -- two geeks I met who were studying javascript and PHP. Xeni Jardin © 2006

Corrected by a monkey: the meaning of "rinpoche."

An NPR staffer wrote promotional copy on npr.org for one of the "Hacking the Himalayas" segments that read,

Rinpoche is an honorary title that translates as "senior lama."

The most famous monkey on the internet wrote in to correct this. Monkey says,

xeni-la, dear,

in your report today on npr you say Rinpoche is an honorary title that translates as "senior lama." well... it's not exactly. it means "precious one" (actually precious-one-great) and is given to a tulku (a reincarnation of a lama), the title can be given to an accomplished teacher or monk that an oracle foresees their reincarnation, but that is rare. while many senior lamas are rinpoches, not all rinpoche's are senior or scholarly. stephen segal, for instance, is referred to as rinpoche since penor rinpoche revealed that he is a tulku. I've even dangled from the mouth of toddler tulku and heard the demand "rinpoche, take the monkey out of your mouth and say thank you." what a strange world we live in!

Monkey is small, terry cloth, and in addition to being something of an expert on Tibetan Buddhism -- has a nice personality: Link.

And I'm told by a knowledgeable but anonymous source that on a saucier side... colloquially, "rinpoche" is also a euphemism for male genitalia.

Gear notes: my sound recording equipment

I'll be posting a number of gear/HOWTO items on this blog, but I'll start with the hardware that makes these radio pieces possible. When I go out in the field to record sound for NPR "Day to Day," or for online audio features, I carry four things:

(1) Minidisc recorder SONY MZB100. I don't even know if they're still being made, but this is the model I've always used -- and Sony has others. Bought mine on eBay, and you shouldn't pay more than $250 for them. As Day to Day's Chip Grabow told me when I was first asking him for gear advice, if you're on a budget -- save your money for a good mic which would be from $150-250.

(2) and (3): I use two mics. Unidirectional: AT835b Line + Gradient Condenser Mic (audio-technica), Link, about $225-250 from various online stores. Ombidirectional: EV Model RE50/B Omnidirectional Dynamic mic. Link. About $150-175.

(4) Shure Model A96F Line Matching Transformer (PDF link).

I'm going to switch to an all-digital recording device soon. I've been reluctant to make the jump until now because (a) minidiscs have never failed me in the field, and (b) the digital devices small and affordable enough to be useful for freelancers who tool around in rough places are not always reliable. Your gear -- and your ability to use it properly -- should never get in the way of telling a story. But the reliability of digital devices is improving as the technology matures, and I'd love to ditch minidiscs. The rest of the staff on NPR "Day to Day" are migrating to digital devices in the near future. Maybe I'll wait to see how their choice works out for them, and follow.

Make sure to carry good wind protection thingies for your mics if you're recording sound out in the world. I brought some high-quality, high-wind protection "socks" for Tibet from an audiovisual pro gear shop in LA. They saved my sound in windy, mountaintop spots.

When I was traveling inside urban Tibet, and trying to maintain a low profile in the presence of authorities, I sometimes placed other things around my mic so they wouldn't look so -- well, journalist-y. The disguise that seemed to work best was a neon-lime-green iPod sock. Lime green never looks serious. I slipped it over the mic, then tucked it under my shawl when gathering sound in situations that required discretion (for instance: inside larger temples or historic sites where there are many guards). The sock was thin enough that it didn't muffle sound, and thick enough that it did protect from wind.

Some good audio gear links: Transom's page on minidiscs, minidisc.org, planetminidisc.com., minidisco.com.

Technorati Tags: radio

Biker gangs of the Tibetan plateau: nomads on motorcycles

Jim Yardley had a really interesting piece in the New York Times recently about rural nomads in Tibet using motorcycles as a replacement for traveling by yak-back. What's next, a roving band of bikers called the Naraka's Angels? Snip:

At the Doulong Store, the musty shelves are stocked with the necessities for Tibetan nomads. There are kettles for yak butter tea and bolts of colorful fabric for traditional robes and clothing. A nomad affluent enough to use a light bulb in his tent can buy an electric generator. But an unexpected necessity here in the immense grasslands of the Tibetan plateau are the six motorcycles on display, including the Asiahero Alt 150-7 bought by a nomad named Trashi Dorjay. He had traveled almost 320 kilometers, or 200 miles, to the store from his tent because he wanted a bike to herd his sheep and yaks. "I used to ride a horse," he explained. "A motorcycle is faster."

Link. Image: www.photoglobe.info, via Dvorak's blog.

Tibetan photojournalist Lobsang Wangyal

When Lobsang Wangyal walked into the guest house where I was to interview him for NPR, rain was coming down in unending sheets. Dirt paths around McLeod Ganj were flooded, and all was soggy.

But Lobsang arrived crisp, pressed, behind stylish white sunglasses -- looking like he'd be as much at home in Hollywood as in Himachal Pradesh. I joked that he looked like the playa of the Himalayas.

More importantly, however, he's a talented photojournalist and "cultural entrepreneur." He organizes events in the Tibetan refugee community there, including a Tibetan film festival and the Miss Tibet Pageant. "Why Miss Tibet?", I asked him -- "Miss Tibet? Because we miss Tibet," he replied.

Check out his work at lobsangwangyal.com, and you'll hear his voice in the NPR and Wired stories this week. Image: Lobsang Wangyal at Chonor House, McLeod Ganj, India. (c) 2006, Xeni Jardin.

Technorati Tags: Dharamshala, India, Tibet