Stopping 'false' ideas at the airport

I should have known. When I came back to China a few hours ago, returning from a five-week trip to Pakistan and Nepal, I was only concerned about one thing.

I had an extra bag with two small Afghan carpets that I had bought in Islamabad.

Would customs stop me and charge me duty?

My Air China flight took me first to Lhasa, where we went through customs and immigration, then on to Chengdu and Beijing.

Sure enough, the agents stopped me at Lhasa airport even before I could pick up my bags. But it wasn’t the rugs. Instead, it was the little cloth bag with five new books I had bought in a Kathmandu bookstore the night before.

One security agent signaled another one over, who knew some English, to peruse the books. They asked me to take off the plastic wrap around two of them. He opened each one and flipped through the pages. I thought maybe he believed I had sliced out a secret compartment in the middle of the books, which obviously I hadn’t done.

He took particular interest in one book: Buddha’s Warriors, by Mikel Dunham, a 2004 account of how the CIA helped turn peaceful monks into armed warriors to fight the Chinese invasion of Tibet. I haven’t read the book but best as I could tell it was a historical review of a brief and long-forgotten U.S. policy during the early Cold War era.

Here’s the problem: The book has photos, including of cadres during the Cultural Revolution belittling class enemies in mass rallies in Tibet. The agent studied the photos, and quickly looked at me. “This is false history,” he said.

Astonished that he could make such a quick determination, I said that the book was about a failed U.S. policy more than four decades old. He was not moved. He suggested that I could buy “true” histories of Tibet at the main market in Lhasa. Reminded that I wasn’t staying in Lhasa, he just shook his head and said the book was confiscated.

I’m sure it was for my own good. 

Comments

[BeWay]

Wonder why there are so many Westerners who love to blog China's affair instead of India's affair. It must be the skin color factor, I guess.

[Pffefer]

nh, what is a SB like you doing in China then? Just get the hell out of here.

[nanheyangrouchuan]

@pfeffer,

China has so many revisions of history it can't get them straight. Classics like "ancient scrolls" depicting Chinese playing soccer suddenly discovered during the World Cup or other such revisions like inventing ice skating and golf.

China is full of BS and its history is the definition of revisionist.
Bad, self-deceiving China.

[chinese buddhist]

hah. hah. Chinese Buddhist (me) wishes that assorted morons would get it through their thick skulls, that "warriors" is the ULTIMATE LAST word, to use in connection with Buddhism. Any "warring" Buddhist, would undoubtedly be funded by unnamed "Agencies." So, who (I wonder) is this M.Dunham...

[Pffefer]

"So Pffefer, where then is the appropriate place to learn about how the CIA sought to create trouble on China's southern flank by arming Tibetans? Must we only read Chinese history books, some without access to real source material, including interviews of those armed, as this writer has done?"

Different countries have different interpretations of history. The Chinese need to realize that. You need to realize that too, Tim.

[Mikel Dunham]

Delighted you bought my book, amused Chinese security still knows what's best for your brain, would LOVE to gift you an autographed copy of Buddha's Warriors. Just let me know where to send it. Best, Mikel Dunham

[Liang]

You should have put it in your suit case, and based on my experience, security guys usually do not check the suitcases unless someone is targeted.

[CS]

and that is why i left China.

oh, good to see pfeffer has made it here too.

china newbies... gotta love em

[Tim J]

So Pffefer, where then is the appropriate place to learn about how the CIA sought to create trouble on China's southern flank by arming Tibetans? Must we only read Chinese history books, some without access to real source material, including interviews of those armed, as this writer has done?

[A B]

You mean they did not examine what was in your head?

What about the hard drives in your possession? Flash memory? CD/DVD? Stuff stored or hidden in the volatile RAM of your machine by secret caching programs?

Then there is the steganographic images you had hidden in your papers.

Finally, what about that stuff you have been accessing from unauthorized servers?

The secret code hidden in your carpets, weaved in messages like the Mayan Khipu code?

Finally, what about all that harmful bacteria you carried in?

Did you get the names of these customs officers who let you in?

They must be subject to self criticism and reform through labor.

[Marvin Foushee]

http://www.namgyal.org/image.cfm?image=/img/photos/gallery_ithaca_aurora/house_5.jpg&credit=Lang+Elliot

I wonder how the CIA explains the two Jewish rugs in this Dalai Lama TEMPLE in Ithica, New York. How many millions of dollars did the ATHEIST Dalai Lama sell out his Tibetian Buddhist religion for to be an undercover Jew for the CIA?

[Pffefer]

"how the CIA helped turn peaceful monks into armed warriors to fight the Chinese invasion of Tibet."

If this is not false or one-sided history, what is? :-)

[Ghazala Khan]

Hello ,
I hope you are fine and carrying on the great work you have been doing for the Internet surfers. I am Ghazala Khan from The Pakistani Spectator (TPS), We at TPS throw a candid look on everything happening in and for Pakistan in the world. We are trying to contribute our humble share in the webosphere. Our aim is to foster peace, progress and harmony with passion.

We at TPS are carrying out a new series of interviews with the notable passionate bloggers, writers, and webmasters. In that regard, we would like to interview you, if you don't mind. Please send us your approval for your interview at my email address "ghazala.khi at gmail.com", so that I could send you the Interview questions. We would be extremely grateful.

regards.

Ghazala Khan
The Pakistani Spectator
http://www.pakspectator.com

[Marvin Foushee]

I heard that the American pureblood Semitics (Stephen Spielberg) are planning to boycott the 2008 Olympics because of the way the Chinese are treating the mudblood Semitics in Sudan and in Tibet. How many books have the Stalinist revisionists of Palestinian history burned in the name of Zion?

[Marvin Foushee]

"It isn't what you eat that offends you, it is what comes out."--Rabbi Jesus

[chinese buddhist]

Agreed. Book confiscation was for EVERYBODY's good. Yours included.