Gold and Chains
Travel Report and Reflections on the Potala Palace, the 50-yuan note, and the true meaning of liberation in Tibet
In front of the Potala Palace in Lhasa (photo Felix Abt)
Inside the Potala Palace — the former winter residence of 14 Dalai Lamas and a well-known image on the 50-yuan note — golden treasures worth billions sparkle. The sight takes your breath away. Yet at the same time, a shadow falls over the heart.
The images from the history museum were still too vivid in my mind: barefoot serfs whose lives counted for nothing in this merciless cold. People who could be bought, sold, and humiliated whenever their owners wished. Between this “sacred” gold and the suffering of these people lies an abyss that is almost unbearable to contemplate.
Image from the History Museum in Lhasa (photo Felix Abt)
In moments like these, one understands why the People’s Liberation Army bears exactly this name. For those who lived in this darkness, it truly was light — a liberation that changed their entire lives.
Having emerged from bondage, Tibetans today live as free Chinese citizens. They enjoy a modest but noticeably growing prosperity. The gold remained untouched in the palace — but the state has invested billions in roads, housing, schools, clinics, and overcoming bitter poverty.
The author speaking with Tibetans (photo Felix Abt)
Today, life is pulsing once more in Lhasa and throughout Tibet. And in the faces of its people, one perceives something truly precious: calm, dignity, and a quiet, heartfelt contentment.
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P.S.
In the continuation of this travel report, I will focus on the culture and history of Tibet — including the Tibetan woman who invited me into her remote home far from the capital. She lives with three husbands and has five children. At school, they learn not only Mandarin, the Chinese national language, but also their own mother tongue. Like most Tibetan families, they continue to actively preserve their religion and cultural traditions.
Such observations — and countless more like them — clearly demonstrate that the Western accusation of “cultural genocide” in Tibet is nothing but a grotesque lie.
Those who voice this accusation most loudly are often the same people who remain conspicuously silent in the face of actual cultural suppression. Take Ukraine, where millions of Russian-speakers have seen their language restricted, Russian-language books removed from libraries, Russian-language media shut down, and the Russian Orthodox Church heavily constrained.
Or consider France, where regional languages such as Basque, Alsatian, Corsican, Breton, and Occitan have no official status. They are barred from administrative use and banned from classrooms under national law. In the past, students were even forced to wear a “necklace of shame” if they dared to speak their mother tongue.
A similar practice existed in the United Kingdom: in Wales, schools used the “Welsh Not,” a token of shame hung around a child’s neck if they were heard speaking Welsh.
France’s official policy of linguicide produced stark results: according to its own statistics, regional languages such as Corsican and Breton declined from being spoken in 70–80% of local families at the end of World War I to under 10% by the late 20th century. Even in Alsace, the most resilient of these regions, the intergenerational transmission of Alsatian fell from roughly 70% to just 18% within only two generations.
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Felix Abt is an entrepreneur, author and travel blogger living in Asia.
With his articles, he tries to make a modest contribution to debunking the omnipresent propaganda of the mainstream media for those who don’t have the time (and that’s most people) to do the research to see through it.
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