2 Khashag Language, Print, and Ethnic Pride in the 1980s

Two speakers, identified in the script only as Ka and Kha (the first two consonants in the Tibetan syllabary), greet each other:

KA: Ya, aro! What’s rattling around in your thoughts these days? There’s nothing wrong with your health, is there?

KHA: There’s nothing wrong with my health, but my mind really isn’t able to settle itself.

KA: It’s said that

Clothes with patterns are worth looking at, and

words with roots are worth listening to.

And don’t I know it? Your words might be worth listening to.

KHA: That’s for sure. Haven’t you it heard the saying

Butter is at the heart of a tub of yogurt, and

meaning is at the heart of one hundred spoken words?

You’ve got good eyes. With my mouth open, you can see into my chest.

KA: It’s really difficult to see your chest. Haven’t you heard it said that

Livestock’s khya khya [colors] is on the outside, and

a person’s khya khya is on the inside.

I’m not a person with great perception, and I don’t know whether birds in the sky are male or female, but I do know about moods of the black-headed people [Tibetans].

KHA: Yes, That’s really good. So, you should know what’s rattling around inside my thoughts.

KA: By the three jewels! When you have something to think about you, it should be these crooked letters. (Don grub rgyal [1980] 1997, 43)¹

ཀ། ཡ། ཨ་རོ། ཉི་མ་འདི་ཆོ་ཁྱོད་འདང་རྒྱག་ཟིག་གི་ནང་ང་ལྷུང་ངེ་བསྡད་ཡོད་ནོ་ཆི་ཡིན། ལུས་འབྱུང་གཞི་གཟོ་མི་བདེ་རྒྱུ་མེད་ལ།

ཁ། ལུས་འབྱུང་གཞི་ད་མི་བདེ་རྒྱུ་མེད་ཀི་ར། སེམས་བསམ་པ་གཟོ་ངོ་མ་བདེ་ལ་འབབ་མི་ཐུབ་ཀི

ཀ། གོས་རི་མོ་ཅན་ན་ལྟ་རྒྱུ་ཡོད་དྲ། ཚིག་རྩ་བ་ཅན་ན་ཉན་རྒྱུ་ཡོད་ཟེར་ནི་རེད། ངས་མ་ཤེས་ནི་མིན་ན། ཁྱོའི་ཚིག་དེ་ར་ཉན་རྒྱུ་ཡོད་ན་ཐང་གི

ཁ། དེ་ད་ལོས་ཡིན། ཞོ་བརྒྱ་དཀྲོག་གི་སྙིང་བོ་མར་དྲ། ཚིག་བརྒྱ་བཤད་གི་སྙིང་བོ་དོན་ཡིན ཟེར་ནོ་ཁྱོས་མ་གོ་ནེ ཁྱོད་གཟོ་མྱི་རིག་ཡག་ཟིག་རེད། ངས་ཁ་གདངས་རུང་གི་ཁོག་པ་རིག་གེ་བསྡད་ཡོད་ཀ

ཀ། ཁྱོའི་ཁོག་པ་རིག་རྒྱོ་གཟོ་ངོ་མ་དཀའ་མོ་རེད། ཟོག་གི་ཁྱ་ཁྱ་ཕྱི་ར་མྱི་གི་ཁྱ་ཁྱ་ནང་ཟེར་ནོ་མ་གོ་ནས། ང་མྱི་རིག་ཡག་ཟིག་ཚོ་མིན་ར། ནམ་མཁའི་བྱ་གི་ཕོ་མོ་མི་ཤེས་རུང།་ མགོ་ནག་མྱི་གི་རྣམ་འགྱུར་ཤེས་ནི་ཟིག་ཡིན།

ཁ ཡ་དེ་ཡིན་ན་ད་ངོ་མ་ཧྲ་གི འོ་ན། ཁྱོས་ང་འདང་རྒྱག་གི་ནང་ང་ལྷུང་ངེ་བསྡད་ཡོད་ནོ་གི་རྒྱུ་མཚན་ར་ཤེས་རྒྱུ་རེད་ལ།

ཀ དེ་ད་མི་ཤེས་ན་དཀོན་མཆོག་གསུམ། ཁྱོད་འདང་རྒྱག་རྒྱུ་ཟིག་ཡོད་དུས། ཡིག་འཁྱོག་དི་ཆོ་ཡིན་རྒྱོ་རེད།

Crooked letters, he says. With this, the true focus of the dialogue takes center stage. The second speaker (the one identified as Kha) immediately responds with his dislike of the term “crooked letters,” and clarifies the meaning of the term for any audience members who may not understand, saying:

I completely disagree with calling the writing of Tibet, the land of snows, “crooked letters.” (Don grub rgyal [1980] 1997, 44)

བོད་གངས་ཅན་གི་ཡི་གེ་འ་ཡིག་འཁྱོག་དི་ཆོ་བཟོ་ཟེར་ན། ང་འཐད་དུང་རྒྱུ་སྤུ་ཙམ་ཟིག་ར་མེད་ཀི

Now the performers change to a discussion of politics and language. Though the first performer insists that he is not devaluing the Tibetan language, he believes that there is abundant evidence that Tibetan is somewhat obsolete in New China. In fact, the local party secretary, Secretary Wangchen, whose name literally means “very powerful,” speaks exclusively in Chinese to his fellow Tibetans in the countryside, thus requiring someone to translate for him.² The second speaker is understandably taken aback, saying,

What did you say? Secretary Wangchen doesn’t know Tibetan? (Don grub rgyal [1980] 1997, 44)

ཁྱོས་ཆི་གཟེ། དབང་ཆེན་ཧྲུའུ་ཅི་གི་བོད་སྐད་མི་ཤེས་ནི་རེད།

The first speaker quickly reassures the second that Secretary Wangchen (as a Tibetan) certainly does know Tibetan, very well in fact:

KA: Where are there Tibetans who don’t speak Tibetan? He speaks Tibetan better than I do!

KHA: If he knows Tibetan, then why do you have to translate?

KA: The reason cannot be expressed in one or two words, right? Don’t tell anyone, but Secretary Wangchen is really interesting. When he’s with Tibetans, he speaks nothing but Chinese. When he’s in Chinese places, he speaks nothing but Tibetan.

KHA: What are you talking about?

KA: It’s really hilarious if you think about it. Last year we went to the pastoral areas to do propaganda for the Party’s economic policies …

KHA: That’s good. If the pastoral and farming masses know the Party’s policies, then all the agricultural and pastoral work will develop. Moreover, the lives of the pastoral and agricultural masses can get richer.

KA: That’s right. Except the masses were unable to clearly understand the Party’s policies.

KHA: Why not?

KA: The document was in Chinese, Party Secretary Wangchen proclaimed in Chinese, and there are very few among the masses who understand Chinese.

KHA: You couldn’t interpret?

KA: Who would have a Tibetan interpret for a Tibetan? Also, I myself am not very capable, and afterward Secretary Wangchen would say, “This was an error and that was wrong.”

KHA: Then there’s nothing you can do. Well then, can’t Secretary Wangchen speak in Tibetan?

KA: How could Party Secretary Wangchen speak Tibetan, you old fool?

KHA: Why’s that?

KA: If he spoke Tibetan, then it would dull the shine of being a party secretary.

KHA: Stop being silly.

KA: I’m telling it like it is. If a Tibetan speaks Tibetan, then he can’t signal that he is a party secretary.

KHA: I’ve never seen or heard anything like it. It’s really difficult if you have a party secretary like that.

KA: Actually, Secretary Wangchen speaks broken Chinese. Unless you’re accustomed to listening to it, it’s very difficult [to understand]. (Don grub rgyal [1980] 1997, 44–46)

ཀ། བོད་ཀིས་བོད་སྐད་མི་ཤེས་ནི་གང་ན་ཡོད་ཀི བོད་སྐད་གཟོ་བཤད་ན་ང་བལྟས་ན་ར་དག་གི་ཡ།

ཁ། བོད་སྐད་ཤེས་ན་ཁྱོས་ལོ་ཙཱ་ཡིད་ལེ་ཆི་གོ་ནས།

ཀ། དེའི་རྒྱུ་མཚན་གཟོ་ཚིག་གཅིག་གཉིས་གཟིག་གི་ནང་ང་ཤོང་ནི་མ་རེད། ཨ་རོ། ཁྱོས་མྱི་གཞན་པ་གཟོ་མ་བཤད་དྲ། དབང་ཆེན་ཧྲུའུ་ཅི་ད་ངོ་མ་མྱི་ཡ་མཚར་ཅན་ཟེར་ནོ་ཡིན་རྒྱུ་རེད། བོད་ཀི་ནང་ང་ཡོང་ན་རྒྱ་སྐད་མིན་འདའ་བཤད་ཀྱི་མ་རེད། རྒྱ་གི་གྱབ་བ་སོང་ན་བོད་སྐད་མི་འདའ་བཤད་ཀྱི་མ་རེད།

ཁ། ཁྱོས་ཆི་གཟེ།

ཀ འདང་བརྒྱབ་ན་ངོ་མ་དགོད་རྒྱུ་ཡོང་གི ན་ནིང་། ཀྲང་རྨི་ཧྲུའུ་ར་ངེད་ཆོ་གསུམ་པོ་རུ་ནང་གཟིག་ག་སོང་ངེ་། ཏང་གི་དཔལ་འབྱོར་སྲིད་ཇུས་དྲིལ་བསྒྲགས་ཡེ་ནས།

ཁ། དེ་ཧྲ་གི་མོ། རོང་འབྲོག་པ་མང་ཚོགས་ཀི་ཏང་གི་སྲིད་ཇུས་ཤེས་ན་ད་ཞིང་ཕྱུགས་ལས་ཐམས་ཅད་གོང་འཕེལ་ལ་འགྱོ་རྒྱུ་རེད། དེས་མི་ཚད་རོང་འབྲོག་པ་མང་ཚོགས་གི་འཚོ་བ་ར་ཇེ་ཕྱུག་ག་འགྱོ་ཐུབ་རྒྱུ་རེད།

ཀ ཡིན་རྒྱུ་དེ་རེད། དེ་རེད་དྲ་ར། མང་ཚོགས་གིས་ཏང་གི་སྲིད་ཇུས་གསལ་པོ་ཟིག་ཤེས་མ་ཐུབ་ཟིག

ཁ། ཆི་ཟིག་ག

ཀ ཡིག་ཆ་རྒྱ་ཡིག་རེད། དབང་ཆེན་ཧྲུའུ་ཅི་གི་རྒྱ་སྐད་གི་བསྒྲགས་ནི་རེད། མང་ཚོགས་གི་ནང་ན་རྒྱ་སྐད་གོ་ནོ་ཧོན་ད་ཉུང་གི

ཁ ཁྱོས་ལོ་ཙཱ་ཡེ་ན་མི་ཆོག་ནས།

ཀ བོད་ཙིག་གི་བོད་ཟིག་ག་ལོ་ཙཱ་འཛུགས་ནོ་སུ་རེད། ང་རང་གེ་ཡོན་ཚད་དམའ་ནི་རེད། དུས་འཕྲོ་དབང་ཆེན་ཧྲུའུ་ཅི་གི་འདི་འཕྱུགས་ཐལ་ར་། ཀན་ནོར་ཐལ་ཟེར་གི་བསྡད་ན་དཀའ་མོ་རེད་ཨ་རོ།

ཁ། དེ་ཡིན་ན་ཁྱོ་ར་ཁག་མེད་ཀི འོ་ན་དབང་ཆེན་ཧྲུའུ་ཅི་ཁོ་གིས་བོད་སྐད་བཤད་ན་མི་ཆོག་ནི་རེད།

ཀ ཨེ་ཀློའུ་རྒན། དབང་ཆེན་ཧྲུའུ་ཅི་གིས་བོད་སྐད་བཤད་ཁ་ཉན་ནེ།

ཁ། ཆི་ཟིག་ག

ཀ བོད་སྐད་བཤད་ན་ཧྲུའུ་ཅི་གི་གཟི་བརྗིད་ཉམས་འགྱོ་གི་མོ།

ཁ། ཁྱག་གཏམ་མ་བཤད།

ཀ ངོ་མ་བཤད་ནེ་ཡ། བོད་ཟིག་གི་བོད་སྐད་བཤད་གོ་གི་ཟེར་ན། ཧྲུའུ་ཅི་ཡིན་ནོ་གི་རྟགས་རིག་མི་ཐུབ་ཀི

ཁ། རིག་ད་ཆེ་མྱོང་ར། གོ་ར་མ་མྱོང་ནི་གཟིག་རེད། ཧྲུའུ་ཅི་དེ་མོ་གཟོ་ཡོད་ན། ངོ་མ་དཀའ་རྒྱུ་རེད།

ཀ དྲང་མོ་བཤད་ན་དབང་ཆེན་ཧྲུའུ་ཅི་གི་རྒྱ་སྐད་བཤད་ན་ཏ་མ་ཏིག་རེད་ཡ། ཉན་ནས་ལོབས་བསྡད་ཡོད་ནི་ཟིག་མིན་ན། ངོ་མ་གོ་དཀའ་རྒྱོ་རེད་གོ

So even if listeners could understand Chinese, they might not understand the party secretary’s Chinese. To combat this, the secretary devises a workaround. After he finishes in his broken Chinese, he asks “Secretary Zhang,” a Han subordinate of Secretary Wangchen’s, to interpret in Tibetan. Although Secretary Zhang does speak some Tibetan, when called on to interpret, he simply says:

Well, I’m not very good at translation, and there were many mistakes! But you get the general idea! (Don grub rgyal [1980] 1997, 46)

ད་ང་ལོ་ཙཱ་ཨ་རྫ་མི་ཤེས། འཕྱུག་སོང་ནོ་མང་གི་ཡ། ད་དེ་ཁྱོད་ཚོ་ཤེས་གི་མོ།

Then, when speaking with Han officials on trips to Inner China, Party Secretary Wangchen only speaks Tibetan and requires the first speaker (and not Secretary Zhang) to interpret for him. This patently ridiculous linguistic situation (and not the Party’s policies), it is implied, is one reason Tibetan regions lag behind the rest of the country in terms of economic development. Facing this, the first speaker concludes that learning Tibetan is useless in the present moment.

The second performer then takes it upon himself to disabuse the first of these errant notions about the utility of the Tibetan language in the dawning post-Mao period:

KHA: You’ve got the wrong idea. These years, Lin Biao and the Gang of Four have caused many misfortunes and done damage, and in general, the country has gone horribly backward. Especially minority nationalities’ education and culture were made to go backward. For Tibetan culture, before the greater five and lesser five cultures are famous,³ but you certainly know that during the Gang of Four, people weren’t even allowed to look at long books, let alone study culture.⁴ And there’s no need to say that it wasn’t only Tibet at that time—the entire country was like that. But these days, for example, it’s a good time: people are happy, the policies are good. What do you think? Is it like that?

KA: That goes without saying.

ཁ། ཁྱོའི་བསམ་བློ་དེ་ནོར་འཁྲུལ་རེད། ལོ་འདི་ཆོའི་རིང་ང་། ལིན་པིའོ་ར་མྱི་བཞི་ཚོགས་ཁག་གིས་བར་ཆད་ར་གཏོར་བརླག་ཡེ་ལས། སྤྱིར་ན་རྒྱལ་ཁབ་ཅང་ང་མི་རིག་ནི་ཟིག་གི་ལོག་ཡོད་ཀི སྒོས་སུ་གྲངས་ཉུང་མི་རིགས་གི་སློབ་གསོ་ར་རིག་གནས་གི་ལས་དོན་འདི་ཅང་ང་མི་རིག་ནི་ཟིག་གི་བཏང་ཡོད་ཀི བོད་གི་རིག་གནས་གཟོ་མཚོན་ན། སྔོན་ཆད་གཟོ་རིག་གནས་ཆེ་བ་ལྔ་ར་ཆུང་བ་ལྔ་བཟེ་སྐད་གྲགས་ཆེ་ནི་རེད། རེད་དྲ་ར། མྱི་བཞི་ཚོགས་ཁག་གི་རིང་ང་། རིག་གནས་སྦྱོང་རྒྱུ་ད་ཕར་ཞོག་དཔེ་ཆ་སྣ་རིང་ཟིག་རིག་མི་ཉན་ནོ་ཁྱོས་མི་ཤེས་ཟེར་རྒྱུ་ཆི་ཡོད། སྐབས་དེ་དུས་གཟོ། བོད་ཁེར་རོ་ཟེར་རྒྱུ་ཆེ་ཡོད། རྒྱལ་ཁབ་ཚང་མ་དི་རེད། ད་དེང་སང་གཟོ་མཚོན་ན་བསྐལ་བ་བཟང་གི སྣང་བ་སྐྱིད་གི སྲིད་ཇུས་ཡག་གི ཁྱོས་བལྟས་ན་དེ་མོ་ཟིག་ཨེ་རེད།

ཀ། དེ་ད་ཆི་བཤད་ཀྱེ། (Don grub rgyal [1980] 1997, 47–48)

Such is the accepted logic of the moment that the first speaker is forced to agree. Having gotten his interlocutor’s approval for the first set of statements, the second speaker then notes that in this better era, Tibetan culture remains very great, and worthy of study. Again, the first agrees. Once he has done so, he is on the hook for the rest.

KHA: Okay, and moreover, we have everything, from Tibet’s own religious and political histories, to biographies and hagiographies, to maxims and treatises. Studying these is virtuous. Who could say that they have no benefit? What do you think? Is it like that?

KA: It goes without saying, that’s for certain.

KHA: Well, beyond these, Tibetan folklore like epic and myths, folktales and speeches, songs and love songs, dances and games, jokes and sarcastic arguments, geomancy, and even milking songs, wedding songs, threshing songs — there are eighteen types of songs, one melody has eighteen variations. Studying all these is virtuous. Who could say that they have no benefit? What do you think? Is it like that?

KA: It goes without saying, that’s for certain. (Don grub rgyal [1980] 1997, 48–49)

ཁ། ཡ། ད་དེའི་མི་ཚད་ཀི བོད་རང་གེ་ཆོས་འབྱུང་ལོ་རྒྱུས་གཟོ། རྣམ་ཐར་རྟོགས་བརྗོད་གཟོ། ལེགས་བཤད་བསྟན་བཅོས་གཟོ། དེ་ཚང་མ་མ་འཛོམ་ནི་མེད་ཀི། འདི་ཐམས་ཅད་སྦྱངས་ན་ཡོན་ཏན་རེད ཕན་པ་མེད་ཀི་ཟེར་ཆེ་ཐུབ། ཁྱོས་བལྟས་ན་དེ་མོ་ཟིག་ཨེ་རེད།

ཀ ཆི་བཤད་ཀྱེ། དེ་ད་ལོས་ཡིན།

ཁ། ཨ་རོ། ད་རུང་དེས་གི་མི་ཚད་གི བོད་དམངས་ཁྲོད་གཟོ་མཚོན་ན། སྒྲུང་རིང་སྒྲུང་ཐུང་། གནའ་གཏམ་འབོལ་གཏམ། གླུ་ར་ལ་ཡེ། བྲོ་ར་རྩེད་མོ། གཞའ་་ར་ཤག་འདེབས། ས་དཔྱད་ཆུ་དཔྱད་ཐ་ན་འོ་མ་བཞོ་བའི་གླུ། ཡུར་མ་ཡུར་བའི་གླུ། གཡུལ་ཀ་གཅོག་པའི་གླུ། གླུ་མི་གཅིག་གླུ་སྣ་བཅོ་བརྒྱད་ཡོད་ཀི། གདངས་མི་གཅིག་འགྱུར་ཁུག་བཅོ་བརྒྱད་ཡོད་ཀི འདི་ཐམས་ཅད་སྦྱོང་ར་ཡོན་ཏན་རེད། ཕན་པ་མེད་ཀི་ཟེར་ཆེ་ཉན། ཁྱོས་བལྟས་ན་དེ་མོ་ཟིག་ཨེ་རེད།

ཀ ཆི་བཤད་ཀྱེ། དེ་ད་ལོས་ཡིན།

Then, moving back up in scale, the second speaker points out that the Party wants the people to develop both scientifically and culturally, and then links the study of the Tibetan language to these modern goals:

What we Tibetans have is Tibetan, what we speak is Tibetan. If we don’t know how to speak and write Tibetan, how can we study culture? How can we understand science? If we don’t have the proper levels of science and culture, we won’t be able to realize the Four Modernizations.

འུ་ཚོ་བོད་ལ་ཡོད་ནོ་བོད་ཡིག་རེད། བཤད་གོ་ནོ་བོད་སྐད་རེད། བོད་སྐད་ར་བོད་ཡིག་མ་ཤེས་ན་བོད་གི་རིག་གནས་ཆི་ཤེ་སྦྱང་རྒྱུ། རིག་གནས་གི་ཡོན་ཚད་མེད་ན ཚན་རིག་ཆི་ཤེ་ཤེས་རྒྱུ། ཚན་རིག་ར་རིག་གནས་གི་ཆུ་ཚད་མེད་ན་དེང་རབས་ཅན་བཞི་འེ་བསྒྱུར་ཐུབ་རྒྱུ་མ་རེད་ལ།

With this, the speakers have returned to the subject of language. Having already agreed to the previous arguments, they must also agree to this new assertion that the Tibetan language is indeed useful, and the speaker identified as Ka begins his now-habitual refrain:

It goes without saying, that’s definitely true.

ཆི་བཤད་ཀྱེ། དེ་ད་ལོས་ཡིན།

Having said this in response to every previous assertion the first performer makes, the second realizes he has been trapped and forced to contradict himself, and admits the errors in his thinking. By linking the Tibetan language to then-leader Deng Xiaoping’s signature policy slogan—the Four Modernizations—as well as the entirety of the Tibetan written tradition, the speakers see that writing system (and by extension the Tibetan language) is important and that studying Tibetan does have value even in the modern era.

The performance ends when the second performer suggests that the first should no longer translate for Party Secretary Wangchen. Though the first begins to agree almost out of habit, and perhaps really wishes to defy the leader’s orders, he realizes that Secretary Wangchen is too powerful a figure to confront, and he cannot really refuse the official’s summons or requests. In the end, both performers laugh together.

This is “Studying Tibetan,” (Woyik hlobpa)⁵ a script of a khashag (ཁ་ཤགས།), a “comic dialogue,” similar to the routines from the iconic American comedic duo Abbott and Costello, typically featuring two to three speakers and performed on stage or broadcast on state media.⁶ The script was written by Dondrup Jya, the iconoclast poet and author (and Amdowa) frequently credited as one of the founders of “modern Tibetan literature.” Sent to school at a young age, he later worked for Tibetan radio—one of the few spaces for approved public use of minority languages (Si and Li 2013)—reading and translating the news during much of the Cultural Revolution, and studied in Beijing, pursuing an MA there in 1978. In the early years of the post-Mao era, he became one of Tibet’s first published authors.

Dondrup Jya’s influence on modern Tibetan literary arts is difficult to overstate. As an expert in the Indic Ramayana and its influence on classical Tibetan poetics, he was keenly attuned to Tibetan oral and literary traditions. His education and upbringing, meanwhile, provided access to the resources and means of more modern literary production. The short story “The Tulku” (Htruku) depicting a thief and lecher who preys on a community’s piety by pretending to be a tulku (reincarnate lama) now shines within the gradually developing canon of modern Tibetan literature, along with others of his works.⁷ Students recite his iconic, free-verse poem “The Waterfall of Youth” (Langtsee babchuh) at school events, and treat the song “Tsongonpo” (meaning “Koknor” or “Qinghai Lake”) as a sort of unofficial anthem for Tibetan communities (Stirr 2008, 305). The controversial essay “The Narrow Footpath” (Hkang lam tramo) enraged more conservative Tibetans (Shakya 2008, 80) and inspired other authors through its experimentation with both form and content (Sangye Gyatso 2008, 264).⁸ “Studying Tibetan,” by contrast, is a relatively obscure part of Dondrup Jya’s prolific body of work.⁹ Written in 1980 and subsequently published in the journal Folk Art, this script is one of the earliest dialogues in my corpus, making it highly instructive for understanding both comedic dialogues in post-Mao Amdo, and some of the prevailing intellectual trends among Tibetophone intellectuals at that time.

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Khashag, the term most frequently used for this form of comic dialogue in Amdo, derives its name from the words kha (ཁ།, mouth) and shag (ཤགས།), a term that the Rangjung Yeshe dictionary translates variously as “joke, jest,” “to rally maliciously,” “cause of contention,” and “quarrel in general” (Kunsang 2003, 2713). The latter term can be traced at least to an ancient document of “maxims” (Stein 2010, 38), found in the caves at Dunhuang. This Dunhuang document attests to the historical presence of shag as a speech style, without necessarily creating a link between the form as practiced now and that recorded in the documents. By at least the twentieth century, the term shag was used to reference oral duels between two performers (or two groups of performers) and was commonly associated with “antiphonal singing” (lushag). The preceding kha, meanwhile, distinguishes it from, but also ensures a relationship with, antiphonal singing. In the narrowest sense, then, khashag are verbal contests or duels between a set of speakers.

The precise origin of khashag, in its present form as staged, scripted comic dialogues, is a matter of some debate among Tibetan intellectuals. The nature of the debate demonstrates the high stakes the Chinese Communist Party places on identifying “true” or “authentic” origins of cultural phenomena, and how the Party’s own emphases create spaces for Tibetan intellectuals to complicate established narratives. To this end, Tibetan writing and interviews suggest two competing narratives about the origins of khashag. The most commonly accepted—the one that comedians tell about themselves—holds that khashag is a uniquely modern form of cultural production based on the Han xiangsheng (crosstalk) tradition in which “two performers … stand before an audience and tell jokes, recount humorous anecdotes, sing songs, do imitations, recite tongue-twisters, engage in contests of vocal pyrotechnics, verbal wit, and wordplay, and in general do their best to provoke laughter” (Moser 1990, 45–46).¹⁰

Shortly after the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, Mao, who was himself reported to have been a fan of xiangsheng (Link 2010, 210), as well as famous author Lao She, saw the potential for these comic dialogues to spread the social and political ideologies of the Chinese Communist Party. They sent comedians to perform in the countryside, and to China’s margins (Wang, Wang, and Teng 2011, 191). During this period, authors and performers began to write new performances featuring revolutionary content, although that content was carefully monitored so that it fulfilled the key political criterion of the moment: that all art serve the people.¹¹

The alliance between professional satirists and state ideological interests finally came to a head in 1955 with “Buying Monkeys” (Ch. Mai hou’er), a crosstalk performance by He Chi and Ma Sanli, which indirectly satirized party members and officials who did not live according to the communist ideal. In showing “the vulnerabilities of the new society—on problems either that did not exist in the old society or that did exist but now seemed to grow worse” (Link 2010, 229), He Chi, a longtime party member, opened himself to significant criticism from authorities. Thus, in spite of the performance’s popularity, He and Ma were both criticized and labeled “rightists” in the ensuing Anti-Rightist Campaign in 1957, thus sending a clear message to performers: while satire remained possible, the ideological work of art outweighed all other concerns (Kaikkonen 1990). As comedians went to the countryside, they also went to ethnic minority communities, creating performances in Mongolian, Tibetan, and other ethnic-minority languages (Link 2010, 214). One Tibetan comedian, for example, described the genre’s history in the following terms:

Well, for Amdo Tibetan comedies, originally, long, long ago, well, before me, in the 1960s, during that time, in Qinghai there was something called a theatre troupe. It was called a hua ju tuan, right? They translated Chinese khashag about the situation in Tibet into Tibetan, and then performed them. They did it like that. They also told folktales and the like on stage. In the past, folktales were told in the home, but now they performed them on stage. However, there were no real comedies in the strict sense of the term, except for translated ones—there were some translated ones. Later, at the beginning of the 1980s, there were ones like Rinchen Dorje, my personal teacher [who] also [worked] in the radio station. That one and the one called Phurwa. Before, they wrote one or two comedic dialogues. They did it like that. And after that, I myself first wrote comedies, beginning in the 1980s. (personal communication, November 21, 2013)

The timeline presented here gives the suggestion of a state-imposed change in the contexts and practices of storytelling, moving first from the house to the stage (from intimate domains to public ones) and then from traditional narrative forms like folktale to emergent stage performances. In this way, it may be valuable to understand Amdo Tibetan khashag as a sort of successor genre to traditional storytelling. Such a genre, in this sense, not only follows and (to some degree) displaces its predecessor but also fills a similar cultural role. In this case, folktales have an important didactic function within Tibetan communities, and audiences similarly expect the comedic performance to both entertain and to instruct.¹²

Comedians from Central Tibet, not just Amdo, also accept the timeline presented above. Suoci, a prominent writer of Tibetan-language crosstalk dialogues in Lhasa, suggests a parallel historical progression for the first one in Lhasa, tracing that history back to the formation of propaganda troupes to pacify Tibet after the 1959 rebellion and a star performer with one of those troupes:

The Eastern Lhasa Propaganda Team’s primary performer and director [was] Lobzang Dorje—people all loved to call him King Zangmo, which is the name of a role in the Tibetan opera Drowa zangmo. He was a teacher: he studied at the Central Nationalities Institute and later also became a teacher there. Making use of the Tibetan language’s rich layers of meaning and the performance principles of traditional Tibetan shadgadpa [comedy], he went on study and make use of the artistic characteristics of crosstalks from Inner China.¹³ He began by translating the famous crosstalk performer Hou Baolin’s¹⁴ crosstalk, “Drunk,” adding into this crosstalk a few phenomena found in contemporary Tibetan life. (Suoci 2004, 14–15, original translation in Thurston 2013)

Suoci also goes on to point out that original, Tibetan-authored, Tibetan-language crosstalks were not written in large volume until after the beginning of the period of Reform and Opening Up began in 1978.

Seeking earlier origins for khashag that might predate the arrival of Chinese propaganda teams, some Tibetan scholars proffer much earlier roots for the genre. One view, for example, looks for inspiration in Tibetan-language manuscripts found in the caves at Dunhuang that use the term shag. This, he believes, provides proof that “shag are not merely a form of play that has developed [recently] in Amdo but a part of cultural and political life in all of Tibet from ancient times” (Gdugs dkar tshe ring 2007, 319).

Other thinkers take this view a step further, attributing the first khashag to a little-known text in the collected works of the nineteenth-century religious leader Gungthang Tenpa Dronme, entitled “Gonpo Dorje’s Tea Prayer” (Gonpo Dorje jamchol). This piece—written like a script, with Tibetan syllables ka and kha to designate the two speakers, and using Tibetan phalké (vernacular language) instead of the literary register—depicts the dialogue between a teacher and his pupil as they discuss how the latter makes a tea libation. Since the work is believed to have been written between 1800 and the cleric’s passing in 1823, it is argued that Tibetan khashag (in form, if not in name) predated the existence of even Chinese xiangsheng, which the author dates as 1861 (Mog chung phur kho 2013).¹⁵

Regardless of which of these (if any) provides the “true” origins of khashag, this book tends to side with the comedians I interviewed, who believe that they are engaging in a form influenced by government’s introduction of Han xiangsheng traditions. This is not least because their training and early performance stemmed from Chinese training and scripts. The official support that these new comedic forms received ensured that khashag were performed on stages, radio, and other contexts where they would be sure to have a sizable audience. Indeed, like xiangsheng in the People’s Republic of China—which has migrated from streets to school auditoriums to radio, television, and the internet (Link 2010, 208)—many Tibetan comedies in Amdo have been performed primarily in government-sanctioned contexts. During the 1980s, this meant performing at schools and festivals, and on state-sanctioned radio broadcasts. Almost all performances required the government’s blessing in advance, and there was little room for improvisation.

Tibetan comedians in Amdo (and beyond), however, believe that they are creating something uniquely Tibetan. For instance, Phuntsog Tashi, a comedian from Ü-Tsang, stresses that “the topics of the Tibetan comic dialogues [created by Tibetans] are different from those of the Chinese ones because [Tibetan people’s] senses of humor are very different” (Phuntsog Tashi and Schiaffini 2006, 122). So how do Tibetan comedians in the post-Mao period make this transplanted art form into such a fully Tibetan phenomenon? Through zurza and larjya (ལ་རྒྱ།, pride), concepts that become increasingly important in the 1980s.

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Although the political and economic disruption of the Cultural Revolution ended after Mao’s death in 1976 and the nationwide economic and cultural reform period officially began in 1978, the reforms arrived in China’s Tibetan areas somewhat later. Those monastic centers left standing at the end of the Cultural Revolution slowly began to reopen, with Labrang Monastery doing so in 1979 (Makley 2007, 76). A year later, Hu Yaobang, then general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, gave a speech in Lhasa, encouraging Tibetans to exercise national autonomy, heralding a period of economic and cultural liberalism unprecedented before or since (Willock 2011, 28; Bauer 2005, 53; cf. Yao 1994). In the wake of this momentous speech, the number of open monasteries gradually increased, and monks renewed their vows—albeit under considerable scrutiny and with limitations placed on the number at a given monastery.¹⁶ As lamas and other clerics reentered public life, they began to play an important role in establishing educational institutions and revitalizing monastic communities (Willock 2011). Communes officially began disbanding at around the same time, though Horlemann (2002, 252–53) notes that the process failed to reach remote pastoral areas of Golok Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture until 1984. The Tibet Autonomous Region followed similar trends (Bauer 2005, 54; Goldstein and Beall 1989).

As more schools and universities reopened and began to operate at fuller capacity, those who were able to receive some education during the Cultural Revolution—and Amdo was the most progressive Tibetan region for this—found themselves ideally placed to take advantage of these emerging opportunities.¹⁷ Among those being educated at this time, language and humanities majors dominated the course offerings at minority-serving institutions (Postiglione 1992, 27). Many Tibetan students, unsurprisingly, opted to study their own language and culture. But upon arrival at their universities, these students often found little pressure to prepare for lessons, because the education they had received at secondary institutions around Amdo gave them better command of the language (traditional grammars and the like) than their predominantly Han teachers (Wu Qi 2013, 196).

Without the pressing need to study, students read Chinese translations of Western literature and philosophy. Upon graduation, these young academics found relatively few business-related outlets in Western China’s anemic economy (Wang 2013, 143), and many instead entered state-sponsored work units based around media, broadcasting, and translation. Meanwhile, the dearth of established cultural producers in Tibetan areas—Shakya (2008, 64) argues that there were no Tibetans writing in their own language by the 1980s—and the concerted effort to establish literary journals to nurture new Tibetan authors and readers created a space for young people to experiment with new expressive forms.

With access to education and to the means of disseminating ideas about culture through new media, these young scholars were poised to emerge as a new generation of Amdo Tibetan intellectuals, playing a “privileged role,” in the words of Verdery (1991, 17), “in creating and disseminating ideologies that shape cultural values and influence identity formation.” In the 1980s, at smoke- and drink-fueled gatherings, this new group tried to imagine a new Tibetan style of cultural production—broadly to include music, literature, comedy, and more—that would simultaneously meet Chinese state demands for new (and secular) cultural production, and Tibetan-audience expectations that this content be meaningful. The linguistic and cultural formations that survived the sometimes-violent contact with Mao-era policies evidenced both a radical rupture with the past and continuance of traditional forms and ideologies (Lama Jabb 2015). In larjya and zurza, aspiring Tibetan writers and intellectuals found discourses that could provide some inspiration for a modern, and uniquely Tibetan, cultural practice. It begins with larjya.

Larjya has alternatively been translated as “ethnic sentiment” (Yü 2006, 2013), “honor” and “allegiance” (Shakya 2008, 77), and “dignity” (Virtanen 2011, 84). When I first noticed the term sneaking into conversations, however, I was surprised by people’s ambivalence toward larjya in the twenty-first century. One professor, for example, chatting in the comfort of his office, postulated that “speaking plainly, that thing called larjya is each person’s own larjya. Uh, your own village, your own entire place, your own county, your own prefecture, your own land, your own country, these all have their own larjya. So, in Tibet, speaking plainly about Tibet is positive, but it is also very problematic” (personal communication, May 11, 2013).

Another consultant similarly distinguished between several types of larjya, saying, “Larjya has many divisions. Many: national pride, cultural pride, familial pride, school pride, personal pride. There are many kinds (personal communication, March 25, 2013). At each level of scale, larjya is, in the words of one recent college graduate, “about whether or not you benefit yourself or your group.” Benefits to an individual, family, or community can be good for your own community but may come at the expense of others. For example, in one 1990s comedy performance, an elder justifies his village’s continued fight with a nearby community by saying, “We mustn’t lose our pride.” These sorts of situations, then, suggest that larjya, at local levels of scale, has led to disharmony. Hence the ambivalence I heard from the interlocutors.

Moving up the scale, however, discourses of “national” or “ethnic” pride (mirik gi larjya) served as a prominent part of Tibetan intellectual conversations beginning in the 1980s (Shakya 2008, 77), especially among Amdo’s emerging literary circle. In this moment of unprecedented—though still heavily restricted and monitored—cultural openness, Hortsang Jigmé remembers,

[a]round that time, the phrase “national pride” … began to appear with greater frequency in writings by young Tibetan intellectuals. When drinking or otherwise gathered together, certain young Tibetan writers, such as Döndrup Gyel [Dondrup Jya] would discuss “national pride” and related issues. (2008, 287)¹⁸

In many cases, this natively Tibetan discourse “paralleled state-sponsored discourse on modernization” (Shakya 2000, 36) and was therefore tolerated despite its simultaneous potential for mobilizing nationalist sentiment.

National pride continues to shape Tibetan intellectual conversations into the present, particularly around the questions of language, even—or perhaps especially—in the multiethnic city, where a localized version of standard Chinese is the primary language of everyday interaction, as I noticed one chilly windswept evening in 2012, when a group of Tibetan tour guides gathered to celebrate the end of the short but grueling tourist season in Qinghai. They met at a Tibetan restaurant located in one of Ziling’s celebrated tourist streets to eat dinner, drink exuberantly, and share favorite stories about the tour guide life. The staff all wore Tibetan clothing, and the décor was in Tibetan style: customers sat on pine-wood benches topped with thin cushions and at on low tables intricately carved with Tibetan motifs; yak-hair slings for tossing rocks when herding and other Tibetan artifacts brought from the countryside hung on the walls. All these marked the restaurant as a distinctly Tibetan space in the predominantly Han city. Images of famous Tibetan customers—singers, comedians, and television presenters—adorned the restaurant’s walls near the entrance, providing further testament to the establishment’s popularity and authenticity. Many Tibetan-serving establishments in urban environments replicate this format, catering to a mix of Tibetans wanting a taste of home and tourists looking for an “authentic” experience.

As we were led into the private room reserved for our party, I noticed immediately posters with quotes from famous Tibetan intellectuals. One, attributed to the late Amdo cleric Jigme Rigpai Lodro, read:

Because students these days from a young age learn only from textbooks that have been translated from Chinese, their compositions are influenced by translations; they never have the compositions written by our own Tibetan scholars, beautiful like the sound of buzzing bees’ wings. So, we must not make the mistake of imitating—this is very important.

དེང་སང་གི་སློབ་གྲྭ་བ་ལ་ཆུང་དུས་ནས་རྒྱ་ཡིག་ལས་བསྒྱུར་བའི་སློབ་དེབ་སྟེང་ནས་བསླབས་པ་ཤ་སྟག་ཡིན་པས། དེའི་ཚིག་སྦྱོར་ལ་སྒྱུར་རྩོམ་གྱི་ཤན་ཡོད་སྟབས། བོད་རང་གི་མཁས་པས་བརྩམས་པའི་ཚིག་སྦྱོར་བུང་བའི་གཤོག་སྒྲ་ལྟ་བུའི་སྙན་ཆ་དེ་གཏན་ནས་མེད། དེའི་ཕྱིར་ལད་མོ་བྱེད་ས་དེ་འཆུག་མི་ཉན། འདི་ཧ་ཅང་གལ་ཆེན་གཅིག་རེད།

Another, from the tenth Panchen Lama, still much beloved in his home region of Amdo today, opined on the question of language:

Tibetan is the language of our ethnic group. Because it is extremely useful, one must certainly study Tibetan.

བོད་ཡིག་ནི་ང་ཚོའི་མི་རིགས་ཀྱི་སྐད་ཡིག་ལ་བཀོལ་སྤྱོད་ཀྱི་རྒྱ་ཤིན་ཏུ་ཆེ་བས་ངེས་པར་དུ་བོད་ཡིག་སྦྱོང་དགོས།

A third poster featured a quote attributed to Dondrup Jya:

Pride is our essence and patriotism our self-dignity. Our parents held their heads high and did not allow them to be trampled under the feet of others. If we can raise the shoulders of the Snowland’s pride upon the heads of others, this is the self-dignity of our ethnic group, and our ancestors’ pride.

ལ་རྒྱ་ནི་རང་རེའི་བླ་སྲོག་ཡིན་པ་དང་། ང་རྒྱལ་ནི་རང་གི་གཟི་བརྗིད་རེད། ཕ་མས་སྤྲད་པའི་མགོ་བོ་མཐོན་པོ་དེ། གཞན་གྱི་རྐང་འོག་ཏུ་མི་འཇོག་པ་དང་། ཁ་བ་ཅན་གྱི་ལ་རྒྱའི་དཔུང་བ་དེ། གཞན་གྱི་མགོ་ཐོག་ཏུ་བསྒྲེངས་ནུས་ན། རང་རིགས་ཀྱི་གཟི་བརྗིད་དང་། མེས་རྒྱལ་གྱི་ལ་རྒྱ་ཡང་རེད།

Our group ate and drank well into the night. The conversation and laughter reverberated around the small private room. All the while, these posters hung in the background, unacknowledged, literally surrounding our conversations and our meal. And yet, I found something strange in that combination of quotes juxtaposing the words of Dondrup Jya with those of religious clerics from the twentieth century: I was struck by the seeming incompatibility of these giants of the Tibetan intellectual world. On the wall of the private room, they sat silently and placidly, but I had trouble imagining they would be similarly restrained if they were physically present with us that evening. Nevertheless, the posters with their quotes blended to form a single (and predominantly male) logic of Tibetan culture that emphasized native language, education, and national-level pride.

Not limited to private rooms in restaurants, many of the same quotes also appear on the walls of Tibetan classrooms in urban universities and rural middle schools, where the next generations of Tibetans receive instruction. The posters seemed to literally frame our conversation on that night while reminding anyone interested about the foundational discourses of Tibetanness in the post-Mao era.

This sort of national-level pride is of particular importance for the production and reception of new Tibetan expressive arts. Audiences evaluate a work and its creator at least partly on the latter’s perceived larjya and the degree to which it is included in the work. As one Ziling-based interlocutor suggested in an interview:

I think, like, there’s not like one single thing that’s considered larjya, but there are many kinds of things. If you do it correctly, if you do it with your heart, … you’re kind of making a kind of contribution to your ethnic group. Like, for instance, as a teacher, if you teach well, if you do all the jobs you need to do, you are making good things. As a singer, … if you sing good songs, or especially if you try to put some kind of … social things into your lyrics, it’s also perfect. (personal communication, June 5, 2013, in English)

With “social things” meaning messages for the benefit of the Tibetan people (about ethnic unity, language, culture, etc.), ethnic pride is explicitly linked with socially conscious cultural production, in which the benefit that producers can bring to their nationality is demonstrated through the lyrics of their songs, the words of their characters, and the contents of their plots. Though not an essential element of Tibetan cultural production in the post-Mao period, this ethnic pride is reputational, earned over the course of a career, and plays an important role in the reception of a work. For example, dunglen music frequently expresses ideals of national pride (Lama Jabb 2011, 24), and the genre’s most popular singers—including the late Dubhe—are often praised for their pride (Lama Jabb 2019, 12). The specific social issues targeted to demonstrate their pride, meanwhile, change at different moments of the post-Mao era in response to changes in Tibetan society. Zurza provided one way for aspiring Tibetan authors to demonstrate their pride and thread a very narrow and constantly moving needle between the government censors and audience expectations, through providing practices for articulating meaningful social critique in entertaining—and politically acceptable—fashion.

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When meeting with Amdo’s comedians, I had a choice: alcohol or tea. Alcohol deepened relationships, but tea often yielded the clearest information. Regardless of where we met—and it was almost always in a public place—the establishment often played loud music in the background. This made recording and transcribing a challenge. Nevertheless, I always felt it important to meet on the grounds they chose. Sitting in one such teahouse, with Maroon Five’s “Moves like Jagger” blasting on the sound system, I asked one illustrious comedian to discuss the “artistic characteristics” of khashag comedic dialogues.

“If we speak about the main artistic characteristics of khashag,” he began, “we can say that it really has to meet three primary conditions. One is verbal art.”

“Mmm,” I responded, nodding my head, keenly aware that Amdo Tibetan conversation expects frequent cues from listeners.

The comedian continued: “Verbal art, um, this is one. And what is the main part of verbal art … then, it is humorous art, making you laugh … And then the condition that comes after humor is zurza [satire]. Zurza. It’s called fengci [in Chinese], right?” After a brief exchange to make sure that I had understood the Chinese term, he continued: “So where does the humor come from? It comes from the zurza. So basically, there are these three major characteristics.” He paused to take another sip of tea.

Rather than the imported formal features of the Han xiangsheng genre—like conversations between two or more speakers; self-referentiality (Moser 1990); long, rapidly delivered lists called “word fountains” (Tsau 1980), all of which also feature in popular khashag performances—this comedian’s definition of khashag comedic dialogues focused on Tibetan expressive ideologies. The most important of these is zurza. The same comedian later drove this point home, when he said that comedies “all have a little criticism written in them. Moreover, they have a cultural foundation, and that cultural foundation is using zurza to solve problems.”

“Studying Tibetan” includes all three components of the comedian’s definition. “Verbal art,” for example, features from the earliest lines of the performance. Dondrup Jya, who is famous for his skill with proverbs, opens the dialogue with traditional proverbs like “Clothes with patterns are worth looking at, and words with foundations are worth listening to.” The author continues to use other forms of verbal artistry throughout, to win the audience’s attention and appreciation. By referring to Tibetan writing as “crooked letters” and other forms of figurative language (talking about seeing into one’s chest at the beginning), the performance again taps into popular discursive practices. The debate through which the language advocate convinces his opponent of the value of the Tibetan language (and specifically writing), meanwhile, uses a classic strategy of circuitous arguments to eventually turn an initial supposition on its head.

The author matches these more traditional forms of verbal art with novel interventions as well. The script is somewhat uniquely composed entirely in a form of colloquial Tibetan that approximates the author’s native dialect rather than the more commonly used literary language.¹⁹ Though Dondrup Jya’s other writings occasionally use colloquial Tibetan for dialogue between characters, very rarely does he use it to this extent. This, in turn, provides interesting insights into the linguistic practices and limits on expression in the early 1980s. “Studying Tibetan,” for example, frequently makes reference to the policy goals of its time, including Deng Xiaoping’s signature policy, “the Four Modernizations” (Don grub rgyal [1980] 1997, 49)²⁰ and “Lin Biao and the Gang of Four” (47), who Communist Party history labels as the main antagonists of the Cultural Revolution. The speakers also refer to each other as lomtun (comrade), language that largely disappeared from common parlance during the 1980s, and, with the exceptions of meetings and government leaders, is rarely used unironically in daily communication (including even broadcast media). While audiences may find some humor in the language play, Dondrup Jya also created humor through the party secretary’s bizarre language practices and the way it produces humorously incongruous circumstances that motivate the entire performance.

Finally, Amdo’s comedians and audiences will not appreciate a script or performance that fails to sarcastically target some sort of problem facing their communities. Although the party secretary’s behaviors create a secondary critique about the behavior of local cadres (but never about central policy), the primary target of Dondrup Jya’s zurza—from the comedy’s title down to almost every line of the conversation—centers on those who would devalue the Tibetan language in modern society. Language provides an easy target. Sharing a common tongue was one of the primary criteria used to identify ethnic groups under the auspices of the “ethnic identification” project in the 1950s. In the context of Amdo at the beginning of the 1980s, meanwhile, the Tibetan language may well have seemed to be in a state of crisis as Tibetans began to debate its place and that of the culture in a modernizing society.

At the dawn of the post-Mao period, the government had just begun to allow Tibetan-language education and cultural production, and literacy rates remained low but were increasing. But decades of state propaganda emphasizing the backwardness of Tibetan society, plus government-imposed limits on minority-language expression (especially during the recently ended Cultural Revolution), had left a deep impression. Many Tibetans—Zenz (2014, 27) calls them “pragmatists”—might be forgiven for hesitating to invest too much time and effort in the Tibetan language. But this exact situation also made it a valuable site for articulation on ethnic pride in Amdo.

“Studying Tibetan” models a riposte to the pragmatist position through using traditional verbal arts, including tamhwé (proverbs),²¹ figurative language about Tibetan “crooked letters,” and indirect arguments to satirize pragmatists and send a clear message to any doubters: the Tibetan language remains worthy of study in the modern era. In doing so, Dondrup Jya shows that Tibetans can speak their native tongue in a modern society. In fact, by explicitly linking the language—and the entirety of the Tibetan culture—with modern development policy, he contends that it is necessary for the development of Tibetan society. In short, Dondrup Jya uses zurza to offer a distinctly Tibetan solution. This contrasts markedly with the broader world around Tibetans.

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Starting in the first years of the post-Mao era, zurza, in conjunction with content focusing on problems of local concern (larjya), provided Tibetan comedians, authors, and other artists with valuable expressive resources for creating new, meaningful, and specifically Tibetan cultural production in the early years of the post-Mao period. In doing so, they effectively localized the Han Chinese performance style of xiangsheng, transforming it into a uniquely Tibetan phenomenon: khashag. Not limited to this obscure khashag script, Dondrup Jya’s use of zurza and larjya extend across his literary corpus. His landmark short story “The Tulku,” for example, portrays a lecherous charlatan who masquerades as a holy man to dupe devout Buddhists and take their wealth (and sometimes their virtue). In doing so, he “does zurza” on people whose abundance of religious (generally Buddhist) faith leads them to make poor decisions (more on this later). Not limited to Dondrup Jya’s work, these same concepts also figure heavily in the work of Amdo’s other poets, authors, and singers, among others. These trends continue to this day. By ensuring access to state media, without compromising the linguistic and conceptual Tibetanness of these works, zurza and larjya form the grounds of Tibetan cultural survival even in Western China’s highly constrained public sphere in the 1980s.

Returning to “Studying Tibetan,” the critique Dondrup Jya makes in this comic script points to a few significant trends in the uses and understandings of zurza in the post-Mao period. First, the script’s is locally focused. “Studying Tibetan” never criticizes central government policy but instead focuses on issues specifically facing Tibetan communities. In fact, where “Studying Tibetan” does mention central policies—either in general or by name, as with the script’s reference to “the Four Modernizations”—the reference is exclusively positive. While the censorial standards of the day almost certainly influenced this, Dondrup Jya also used this as an opportunity to focus attention on issues that he believed to be directly affecting Tibetan society, like language that become central to emerging discourses on ethnic pride more generally.

Additionally, “Studying Tibetan” focuses its critique on generalized behaviors and stereotyped characters. Unlike the verbal dueling traditions discussed earlier, which may use zurza to comment on the attributes and behaviors of an individual, much of the critique in contemporary Tibetan cultural production satirizes general behaviors. Instead of directly lampooning the actions of an identifiable cadre, “Studying Tibetan” targets stereotyped and fictional characters. Party Secretary Wangchen, for example, serves as a stereotype of powerful (Tibetan) officials. His actions (only described) and his words (never quoted directly) cause no end of difficulties for those around him. Audiences may find this humorous in its own right, but the party secretary’s actions, and those of other stereotyped characters, help to focus the satirical critique on broader issues facing Tibetan society. In this case, Dondrup Jya focuses it on people who harbor negative attitudes toward the Tibetan language and its continued value for society.

The focus on language continues, but it forms only one part of a broader intellectual critique of the issues facing Tibetan society in the post-Mao period. In the 1990s, when, if anything, comedy grows more popular, a series of four performances about a comedian’s trip to a nomadic settlement reveals much about the satirical agenda of post-Mao intellectuals at the time.