The story of these spiritual bastions of Tibet is a sad story. The Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) is not actually autonomous. Every week Chinese government visits this monastery located about 20 miles from Lhasa. Around 20 years ago this monastery housed the biggest number of monks, roughly 10,000 (not sure) see my other photos of this monastery in Lhasa album. It is like a little village. The Chinese government have cameras to monitor the monastery's activities. Now there are only 200; in 2008, there were 300... the missing numbers are unknown as to what happened. Ordinary pilgrims are not aware of these anomaly, since pilgrims cannot afford to visit monasteries like this one. The numbers of these monks are dwindling.
Every 2pm the monks come out to this square and debate. Notice the teacher in front about to clap his hands. If he claps his hand with palms down, the student's answer to the question was right, if up, it was wrong. So all the time, while listening to the debates spoken in Tibetan Chinese.. I hear intermittent hand clapping. It gets loud here, as students will wrestle a bit and exchanges can become boisterous.
Every 2pm the monks come out to this square and debate. Notice the teacher in front about to clap his hands. If he claps his hand with palms down, the student's answer to the question was right, if up, it was wrong. So all the time, while listening to the debates spoken in Tibetan Chinese.. I hear intermittent hand clapping. It gets loud here, as students will wrestle a bit and exchanges can become boisterous.