Well I heard he is living near Xining so I will keep an eye out for him during my week-long trip to Qinghai starting from tomorrow. Just wanted to have a chuckle with him about some of the stories Xinhua was told to release about his uncle this past week. The DL did an inteview with Der Spiegel at the end of March and it has taken the Information Office of the State Council nearly a month to deliver a riposte or three. In fact, it wanted Xinhua to release four stories on four consecutive days but Xinhua decided three were all their readers could stomach. Actually, the fourth was released in a slightly different guise on Friday which would be hilarious if it wasn’t so tragic.
The 11th Panchen Lama, Gyaincain Norbu, currently the highest ranking figure of Tibetan Buddhism in China, on Friday visited two space science research institutes in Beijing.
At the Chinese Research Institute of Space Technology, the bespectacled 17-year-old, wearing a Tibetan Buddhist robe, walked through the research facilities and listened to briefings on China’s aerospace science development.
The institute is responsible for developing spacecraft and satellites for remote sensing, telecommunications, meteorology, earth resources and navigation.
He later visited the Beijing Aerospace Command and Control Center and met with China’s first astronaut Yang Liwei.
The young Panchen lama said he had always had a keen interest in aerospace science and felt enormously proud at the thought of China’s manned spacecraft roaming around in outer space.
He said he would, as a religious figure, remain concerned about the country’s development and make greater efforts in scientific studies in order to contribute to the development of the motherland.
Gyaincain Norbu was born on February 13, 1990 in Lhari County of Nagqu Prefecture in northern Tibet. In November 1995, he was approved by the central government as the reincarnation of the 10th Panchen Lama, who died in 1989, after a lot drawing ceremony among the three candidates in the Jokhang Temple in Lhasa.
I actually had no idea the CPC believed their selected Panchen Lama was in fact a reincarnation.
Looking forward to another break from the office of course but I will be sad to miss the reporting of the Canadian Foreign Minister Peter MacKay’s visit to China on April 29. He will be airing Canada’s anger at the sentencing of Huseyin Celil to life imprisonment. Incidentally, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Thursday that the issue was none of Canada’s business because it was “in essence related to anti-terrorism”. That should give Mackay a point to argue. Celil was only sentenced to ten years on terrorism charges. Life was for “secessionism”.
Phil | 01-May-07 at 4:44 pm | Permalink
“I actually had no idea the CPC believed their selected Panchen Lama was in fact a reincarnation.”
Yeah, man, continuing a beautiful Chinese tradition. There was a great law in Qing times stipulating exactly where and when (Tibetan and Mongolian) deities could choose to be reincarnated, and the registration procedures they must go through when it happened.
In some ways it’s laughable, but it makes its own kooky kind of sense, too.