Autumn in Lhasa

The weather is turning, I think. We have bright sunny days, then a cold overcast day. We have clear
starlit nights, then thunderstorms. Tibetans tell me they can't remember weather like this. Global warming,
I say, but they believe it's because the Chinese are mining mountains and damming the rivers.

Maybe they're right.

The light in Lhasa is beautiful this time of year. People seem in a good spirits, the Nomads are doing prostrations,
shopping and hanging out in tea houses. Money's in peoples' pockets. You feel tension when conversation runs to
government. I heard a rumor that all the rickshaw drivers were banned from working on account of a fight one had
with a traffic cop. Who knows the reasons for anything around here? No reasons are ever given and if one is stated
on TV, no one believes it. Most of the rickshaw drivers are young, uneducated Tibetan men; the rest are older Chinese.

The tourists left town. The remaining groups are well supervised by their tour guides. I see them when walking a kora,
usually going counter-clockwise instead of clockwise (like the Tibetans) interrupting the flow. I noticed older Tibetans
walk on the shaded side, leaving the sunny hot side to the tourists---smart.  Most Tibetan women wear hats or carry fancy
umbrellas to avoid the sun and tanned skin, unfashionable among both city folk and Chinese. The country folks don't care,
but they're already tanned.

Ciao, Pietro