Culture & Health of Tibetan People!

China invaded Tibet in 1950. Inside its borders and across the world, Tibetans have never stopped believing Tibet is a nation.

After more than 60 years of occupation, Tibetans still resist China's rule and defy its oppression.

"Tibet today is one of the most repressed and closed societies in the world."

The Tibetan people are an ethnic group that is native to Tibet. There are an estimated 7.8 million.

Significant Tibetan minorities also live outside of Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) in China,

India, Nepal, and Bhutan.

Culture Mountains

Family NunsTibet Opera

Street Prayer

Tibet is rich in culture. Tibetan festivals such as Losar, Shoton, Linka (Festival) and the Bathing Festival are deeply rooted in indigenous religion and also contain foreign influences. Each person takes part in the Bathing Festival three times: at birth, at marriage, and at death. It is traditionally believed that people should not bathe casually, but only on the most important occasions.

The Department of Health organized a Health Information System workshop training for the healthcare workers and nurses of 12 settlements of Nepal, including the remote Tibetan settlements of Nepal.

Hotel Tibet in Dharamshala

The objective of the training was to build efficient capacity of health care workers and staffs of the health clinics of Tibetan settlements in Nepal to build a robust, reliable and efficient health information system for health data collection.

The processes taught were how to collect health information on paper forms as well as on the health information system software developed by the department.

Training of Health Care Workers

Medicine

Traditional Tibetan medicine utilizes up to two thousand types of plants, forty animal species, and fifty minerals. One of the key figures in its development was the renowned 8th century physician Yuthog Yontan Gonpo, who produced the Four Medical Tantras integrating material from the medical traditions of Persia, India and China. The tantras contained a total of 156 chapters in the form of Thangkas, which tell about the Tibetan medicine and the essences of medicines in other places.

Mushroom gatherers arrive in Qinghai Province every March to forage for wild caterpillar fungus.

Caterpillar fungus, a traditional Tibetan medicine now popular in China and across the world.

Caterpillar Fungus

Is used to treat coughs, chronic bronchitis, respiratory disorders, kidney disorders, nighttime urination, male sexual problems, anemia, irregular heart beat, high cholesterol, liver disorders, dizziness, weakness, ringing in the ears,

unwanted weight loss, and opium addiction.

It is also used for strengthening the immune system, improving athletic performance, reducing the effects of aging, promoting longer life, and

improving liver function in people with hepatitis B.

Tibet developed a distinct culture due to its geographic and climatic conditions. While influenced by neighboring countries and cultures, including Nepal, India, and China, the Himalayan region's remoteness and inaccessibility have preserved distinct local influences, and stimulated the development of its distinct culture.

Buddhism has exerted a particularly strong influence on Tibetan culture since its introduction in the 7th century. Buddhist missionaries who came mainly from Nepal and China introduced arts and customs from India and China. Art, literature, and music all contain elements of the prevailing Buddhist beliefs, and Buddhism itself has adopted a unique form in Tibet, influenced by the Bön tradition and other local beliefs.

Several works on astronomy, astrology and medicine were translated from Sanskrit and Chinese. The general appliances of civilization have come from China, among many things and skill imported were the making of butter, cheese, barley-beer, pottery, water mills and the national beverage-tea.Tibet's specific geographic and climatic conditions have encouraged reliance on pastoralism, as well as the development of a different cuisine from surrounding regions, which fits the needs of the human body in these high altitudes.

Tibetan Culture

Hospitals

Major towns in Tibet Autonomous Region have hospitals with basic facilities. Western pharmaceutical treatment, Tibetan herbal remedies and Chinese herbal remedies are also accessible.

In Tibet, the standard of the hospitals is not very high and some of them are without sufficient electricity or heating systems.

The medical and sanitary conditions of most hospitals are not as satisfactory as those in developed areas. However, in an emergency, they can still give basic medical treatments and be of great value in saving a life when necessary.

A Look Inside Hospitals And Clinics!

In the West, there are two mainstream models to describe happens when we die.  On the one hand, the Christian tradition teaches that each of us has a soul which separates from the body at death and goes to heaven or hell for eternity.  On the other, the materialistic model suggests that matter is all that exists, and that our mind equals our brain, so that when we die, consciousness dies too.

Tibetan Buddhism offers a third view.  It is that of consciousness remains after physical functioning ceases.  This consciousness might be regarded as a form of energy and is something that cannot be created or destroyed, but it can and does change form.  It is consciousness that moves onto new experiences of reality.

Life after death – the Tibetan Buddhist view

BUDDHA STATUE

Tibetan Philosophy

The term “Tibet” refers to a geographic area around the Himalayan mountains and the culture which originated there.  Tibetan thought is a living tradition of rigorous argumentation, psychological insights, and philosophically relevant ideas concerning metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and moral psychology.  It has a rigorous and formal system of philosophical debate and a wealth of meditative traditions, both of which provide insights for the nature of reality, the self, and truth.

Though it is strongly influenced by earlier Indian Buddhist philosophy, it offers a range of perspectives on these issues and presents many insights and practices of its own.  Tibetan intellectual culture often treats innovation differently than that of the West.  When a thinker comes up with a new distinction, argument, or practice it is likely to be attributed to an older, often Indian, source for various reasons including modesty, authority, loyalty, or admiration.

By 2006, the Tibetan population in Canada was estimated at 4,275 and continued growing. The majority of Tibetan-Canadians live in the Toronto metropolitan area (estimated 3,475). In 2011, there were 4,245 Tibetan-Canadians living in the city of Toronto. There is a sizable Tibetan community with Tibetan businesses and restaurants, known as Little Tibet, in the Parkdale neighborhood in Toronto, in the area bound by Queen St. W. to the north, the Gardiner Expressway to the west and south, and Atlantic Ave. to the east. There is also a growing Tibetan community in South Etobicoke. 

Tibetan Population in Canada

English Language and Tibetans!

• English is an international language and many people know it

• Generally speaking, most Tibetans can not speak English

• Many Tibetans may fail to even understand English

• But some remote areas in Tibet you may meet Tibetans who can speak English very well and they have possibly learned it in India

• Sometimes, the clear eyes and friendly smiles on the faces of the Tibetans show everything

• In 2007 The first group of Tibetans to relocate to Canada under a new federal program arrived by plane in Ottawa and Toronto

• Three years later, Jason Kenney, the immigration minister at the time, announced that Canada would take in as many as 1,000 Tibetans living in exile in the northern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh

Most people think about speech when they think about communication but there are many other ways we can also use to communicate with individuals that don’t speak or understand English!

For communication to be effective we also have to be able to understand what others are trying to communicate to us.

• Speak Soft, Calmly & Slowly• Tibetan’s Aren’t Comfortable With Loud Conversations• Use Lots Eye Contact• Look for Facial Expressions, Give Positive Facial Expressions in return• Hand , Face & Body Gestures• Use Lots Of Hands Gestures• Write Things Down-Go Over Slowly• Draw Diagrams• Use Computer Illustrations• Laughing & Lots Of Smiling Makes Them Comfortable

Helpful Tips To Help MOA’s Communicate With Non-English speaking Tibetan clients!