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The Resource Eat the Buddha : life and death in a Tibetan town, Barbara Demick

Eat the Buddha : life and death in a Tibetan town, Barbara Demick

Creator
Narrator
Contributor
Summary
A gripping portrait of modern Tibet told through the lives of its people, from the bestselling author of Nothing to Envy. "You simply cannot understand China without reading Barbara Demick on Tibet."--Evan Osnos, author of Age of Ambition Just as she did with North Korea, award-winning journalist Barbara Demick explores one of the most hidden corners of the world. She tells the story of a Tibetan town perched eleven thousand feet above sea level that is one of the most difficult places in all of China for foreigners to visit. Ngaba was one of the first places where the Tibetans and the Chinese Communists encountered one another. In the 1930s, Mao Zedong's Red Army fled into the Tibetan plateau to escape their adversaries in the Chinese Civil War. By the time the soldiers reached Ngaba, they were so hungry that they looted monasteries and ate religious statues made of flour and butter--to Tibetans, it was as if they were eating the Buddha. Their experiences would make Ngaba one of the engines of Tibetan resistance for decades to come, culminating in shocking acts of self-immolation. Eat the Buddha spans decades of modern Tibetan and Chinese history, as told through the private lives of Demick's subjects, among them a princess whose family is wiped out during the Cultural Revolution, a young Tibetan nomad who becomes radicalized in the storied monastery of Kirti, an upwardly mobile entrepreneur who falls in love with a Chinese woman, a poet and intellectual who risks everything to voice his resistance, and a Tibetan schoolgirl forced to choose at an early age between her family and the elusive lure of Chinese money. All of them face the same dilemma: Do they resist the Chinese, or do they join them? Do they adhere to Buddhist teachings of compassion and nonviolence, or do they fight? Illuminating a culture that has long been romanticized by Westerners as deeply spiritual and peaceful, Demick reveals what it is really like to be a Tibetan in the twenty-first century, trying to preserve one's culture, faith, and language against the depredations of a seemingly unstoppable, technologically all-seeing superpower. Her depiction is nuanced, unvarnished, and at times shocking
Language
eng
Work
Publication
Edition
Unabridged.
Extent
1 online resource (1 sound file (11 hr., 21 min., 08 sec.))
Isbn
9780525494454
Instance
Label
Eat the Buddha : life and death in a Tibetan town
Title
Eat the Buddha
Title remainder
life and death in a Tibetan town
Statement of responsibility
Barbara Demick
Creator
Contributor
Narrator
Subject
Genre
Language
eng
Summary
A gripping portrait of modern Tibet told through the lives of its people, from the bestselling author of Nothing to Envy. "You simply cannot understand China without reading Barbara Demick on Tibet."--Evan Osnos, author of Age of Ambition Just as she did with North Korea, award-winning journalist Barbara Demick explores one of the most hidden corners of the world. She tells the story of a Tibetan town perched eleven thousand feet above sea level that is one of the most difficult places in all of China for foreigners to visit. Ngaba was one of the first places where the Tibetans and the Chinese Communists encountered one another. In the 1930s, Mao Zedong's Red Army fled into the Tibetan plateau to escape their adversaries in the Chinese Civil War. By the time the soldiers reached Ngaba, they were so hungry that they looted monasteries and ate religious statues made of flour and butter--to Tibetans, it was as if they were eating the Buddha. Their experiences would make Ngaba one of the engines of Tibetan resistance for decades to come, culminating in shocking acts of self-immolation. Eat the Buddha spans decades of modern Tibetan and Chinese history, as told through the private lives of Demick's subjects, among them a princess whose family is wiped out during the Cultural Revolution, a young Tibetan nomad who becomes radicalized in the storied monastery of Kirti, an upwardly mobile entrepreneur who falls in love with a Chinese woman, a poet and intellectual who risks everything to voice his resistance, and a Tibetan schoolgirl forced to choose at an early age between her family and the elusive lure of Chinese money. All of them face the same dilemma: Do they resist the Chinese, or do they join them? Do they adhere to Buddhist teachings of compassion and nonviolence, or do they fight? Illuminating a culture that has long been romanticized by Westerners as deeply spiritual and peaceful, Demick reveals what it is really like to be a Tibetan in the twenty-first century, trying to preserve one's culture, faith, and language against the depredations of a seemingly unstoppable, technologically all-seeing superpower. Her depiction is nuanced, unvarnished, and at times shocking
Accompanying matter
technical information on music
Cataloging source
TEFOD
http://library.link/vocab/creatorName
Demick, Barbara
Dewey number
951/.38
Form of composition
not applicable
Format of music
not applicable
LC call number
DS797.77.A63
LC item number
D46 2020ab
Literary text for sound recordings
other
Music parts
not applicable
PerformerNote
Read by Cassandra Campbell
http://library.link/vocab/relatedWorkOrContributorName
Campbell, Cassandra
http://library.link/vocab/subjectName
  • Tibetans
  • Tibetans
  • Buddhism
  • Refugees, Tibetan
  • Aba Zangzu Qiangzu Zizhizhou (China)
  • Aba Zangzu Qiangzu Zizhizhou (China)
Transposition and arrangement
not applicable
Label
Eat the Buddha : life and death in a Tibetan town, Barbara Demick
Instantiates
Publication
Antecedent source
unknown
Capture and storage technique
unknown
Carrier category
online resource
Carrier category code
  • cr
Carrier MARC source
rdacarrier
Color
not applicable
Configuration of playback channels
unknown
Content category
spoken word
Content type code
  • spw
Content type MARC source
rdacontent
Control code
on1178997173
Dimensions
  • not applicable
  • unknown
Edition
Unabridged.
Extent
1 online resource (1 sound file (11 hr., 21 min., 08 sec.))
File format
unknown
Form of item
online
Groove width / pitch
not applicable
Isbn
9780525494454
Kind of cutting
not applicable
Kind of disc cylinder or tape
not applicable
Kind of material
unknown
Level of compression
unknown
Media category
computer
Media MARC source
rdamedia
Media type code
  • c
Other physical details
digital.
http://library.link/vocab/ext/overdrive/overdriveId
067993de-f091-43ef-bb7a-402cf08c7cdf
Quality assurance targets
not applicable
Reformatting quality
unknown
Sound
sound
Special playback characteristics
digital recording
Specific material designation
  • other
  • remote
Speed
other
System control number
(OCoLC)1178997173
Tape configuration
not applicable
Tape width
not applicable
Label
Eat the Buddha : life and death in a Tibetan town, Barbara Demick
Publication
Antecedent source
unknown
Capture and storage technique
unknown
Carrier category
online resource
Carrier category code
  • cr
Carrier MARC source
rdacarrier
Color
not applicable
Configuration of playback channels
unknown
Content category
spoken word
Content type code
  • spw
Content type MARC source
rdacontent
Control code
on1178997173
Dimensions
  • not applicable
  • unknown
Edition
Unabridged.
Extent
1 online resource (1 sound file (11 hr., 21 min., 08 sec.))
File format
unknown
Form of item
online
Groove width / pitch
not applicable
Isbn
9780525494454
Kind of cutting
not applicable
Kind of disc cylinder or tape
not applicable
Kind of material
unknown
Level of compression
unknown
Media category
computer
Media MARC source
rdamedia
Media type code
  • c
Other physical details
digital.
http://library.link/vocab/ext/overdrive/overdriveId
067993de-f091-43ef-bb7a-402cf08c7cdf
Quality assurance targets
not applicable
Reformatting quality
unknown
Sound
sound
Special playback characteristics
digital recording
Specific material designation
  • other
  • remote
Speed
other
System control number
(OCoLC)1178997173
Tape configuration
not applicable
Tape width
not applicable

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