Tibet's Great Prayer Festival
Tibetans recently observed Monlam, or The Great Prayer Festival, with prayers, ritual dances, traditional foods and giant tapestry-like paintings. Ethnic Tibetans are maintaining their traditional culture while change slowly comes their way. Chinese officials have prohibited the festival in the past, and still discourage participation, and more change will be arriving soon by rail as the Qinghai-Tibet railway between China proper and Tibet is scheduled for completion three years from now. Chinese government officials are now preparing for possible trouble in March, on the 50th anniversary of the 1959 Tibetan uprising, when the Dalai Lama fled into exile, and tens of thousands of Tibetans were killed. Foreign travelers have now been banned from large parts of western Tibet until late March. Several portraits in today's entry come courtesy of photographer Hugo Teixeira.
Footprints carved in wood, which locals believe were made by a worshipper who prayed at the same spot for decades, are seen at a monastery near Tongren, Qinghai province February 5, 2009. Local Tibetan monks and pilgrims gather to celebrate Monlam, or Great Prayer Festival, one of the most important festivals in Tibetan Buddhism. (REUTERS/Reinhard Krause)
A crowd gathers to watch Cham Dances during ongoing festivities celebrating Monlam, or the Great Prayer Festival, at a temple in Repkong on February 5, 2009, in northwest China's Qinghai province on The Tibetan plateau. The Monlam festival was established in 1409 by Tsong Khapa, founder of the Geluk (Yellow Hat) tradition and is the greatest religious festival in Tibetan Buddhism where the performances of masked dancers, known as Cham, always attract a crowd. (FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/Getty Images)
A young ethnic Tibetan monk runs to a prayer meeting in a monastery near Tongren, Qinghai province February 3, 2009. (REUTERS/Reinhard Krause)
Cham Dances take place during Monlam, or the Great Prayer Festival, at the Gomar Gompa in Repkong on February 5, 2009, in Qinghai province on The Tibetan plateau. (FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/Getty Images)
A monk who controls the crowd with a stick wears a mask while people watch religious performances at a monastery in Tongren, Qinghai province February 4, 2009. (REUTERS/Reinhard Krause)
An ethnic Tibetan pilgrim stands on a hillside overlooking part of the Labrang Monastery in Xiahe on February 6, 2009. (REUTERS/Nir Elias)
