DEQIN, China — As the flames of anti-Chinese riots and protests engulfed many Tibetan areas of western China last spring, soldiers sent to the towns and villages of the deep river valleys around here encountered nothing but silence.

Political moderation is the norm in this corner of the Tibetan world. A steady flow of ethnic Han Chinese tourists has lifted incomes in recent years. Farmers convert old homes into guesthouses. Monasteries are erecting new buildings.

Perhaps nowhere is there a better example of the “middle way” attitude promoted by the Dalai Lama, the exiled Buddhist avatar who advocates a nonviolent movement for Tibetan autonomy within China but not outright independence…

The conversation Jeremiah keeps hearing from Han acquaintances:

A: You teach Chinese history?

GS: Yes.

A: In Beijing? Really?

GS: Well, I teach students from American universities.**

A: Ah! (relieved) That makes sense. (Furrowed brow) What do you teach about Τibet? Do you teach your students that Τibet has ALWAYS been part of China?

GS: No.

A: Why not!?!?! …

The milk scare has been a boon to green, Tibetan yak milk:

“A pioneering Chinese company is to market pasteurised Tibetan yak milk in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, in the hope that it will become a new superfood in the world’s most populous country.

At 24 yuan (£2) for a small 250ml carton, Feifan - meaning ‘uncommonly good’ - costs several times as much as cow’s milk. ‘It’s very natural, green, pure and high-quality. That’s our big selling point - we aim at the high-end market,’ said Ding Pengcheng of the Treasure of the Plateau Yak Milk Company. Over the next three years, the firm is to spend millions to crack the domestic and international markets, with the help of state investment. Yaks produce fewer than 300 litres of milk a year, while cows yield 35 times as much. The firm pays Tibetan farmers 16 yuan or more per litre; eight times the price of standard milk…”

A look inside an ancient religious site near Lhasa, Tibet:

“Tibetan Buddhists consider Drak Yerpa (pronounced sort of like ‘tra-YER-ba’) with its more than eighty meditation caves and temples, to be the ‘life tree’ of Lhasa. In 1959, the Chinese military demolished most of the temples here. Signs of that destruction are etched into walls pockmarked with bullet holes. The few artifacts that saved from that destruction have been hidden for half a century, only recently reemerging for worshippers.”

“Their real aim is not Tibet or the Olympics, but rather to force China to pay the bill for their economic depression. Don’t pay the bill: screw yourself over, you’ll die, and everybody dies together. Pay the bill: have a seat and talk, you agree with me, I make concessions to end the trouble.”

A leading historian on modern Tibet delves into the background leading up to the protests:

“How would you compare the protests that began on March 10th this year—the 49th anniversary of the 1959 rebellion—to those of the 1980s?”

“The first distinctive feature of the 2008 protests is their geographical spread—they seemed to take place simultaneously in almost all the areas where Tibetans live. I think the reason for this is the use of mobile phones and text messaging to spread news and mobilize for demonstrations; in China, it is a far more popular means of communication than the internet or email. It is noticeable that very few protests took place in Western Tibet, where there is no mobile phone network in operation, whereas many took place to the East and in regions on the borders of Sichuan and Qinghai, where the system is well developed. These demonstrations erupted within a matter of days, after the initial March 10 monastery protests were put down by the police.

Second, there is a major social difference: the 1980s demonstrations were essentially led by the monks, but this time the protests involved groups from across Tibetan society. There were schoolchildren, students, intellectuals, city workers, farmers, nomads—as well as Tibetan university students in Beijing and other cities. This level of involvement from different sectors of Tibetan society was unprecedented.”

Tibet has been vulnerable to outside powers for centuries, but now its troubles are internal:

“The country may be on the brink of an uprising but it lacks the political direction without which the Lhasa spring will never bear fruit.”

“When Tibet has this Shangri La-like romantic image in the west, it is unavoidably linked to the wave of thinking about anti-modernity, anti-globalization and multi-culturalism.” A Chinese blogger’s response to the New York Times.

After Bjork chants “Tibet” in a Shanghai concert, vice culture minister Zhou Heping says “It is hoped that these artists can understand Chinese laws and the feelings of the Chinese people and not do things against our laws or feelings”

11 years ago, the Dalai Lama explained American sympathy this way: “I feel that Americans are interested because they are open-minded. They have an education system that teaches them to find out for themselves why things are the way they are… Buddha urged people to investigate things — he didn’t just command them to believe.”