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Closing Day Event: Sat. Dec. 12, 2009
Postmarked Lhasa: An Exhibit of Tibetan Stamps and Correspondence
2:00 - 4:00 pm
A Talk by Geshe Nornang on
Kadrung Nornang’s Rules for Formal Tibetan Correspondence
Kadrung Nornang’s Rules for Formal Letter Writing was written in 1888 by Nornang Wangdü Tsering, a Chair-Secretary in the Tibetan government. The book is a comprehensive manual of the rules and etiquette in the composition of all manner of correspondence, including formatting and margins of letters, how to properly address letter recipients according to their rank or position, how to use a seal and wax to close the letter, and so on. For this talk, speaker Geshe Nornang, the grandson of Kadrung Nornang, talks about the history of the book, its role as the authority on Tibetan letter-writing, and on his exquisite hand-written copy of Kadrung Nornang’s Rules, currently on display at the library.
About the Speaker
Geshe Nawang Lodoe Nornang is a retired lecturer from the Asian Language and Literature Dept., University of Washington. Born in Lhasa, Geshe Nornang came to the U.S. in 1960, where he had a long and fruitful career at the university, teaching and developing Tibetan language materials, including the Manual of Spoken Tibetan, and Modern Spoken Tibetan: Lhasa Dialect.
This talk marks the closing day of the exhibit Postmarked Lhasa: an Exhibit of Tibetan Stamps & Correspondence at Trace Foundation’s Latse Library.
Exhibit opened until December 12, 2009
Postmarked Lhasa: An Exhibit of Tibetan Stamps and Correspondence
Opened to the public on Saturday, the 7th of November Postmarked Lhasa is a unique exhibition featuring Tibetan postage stamps, covers, and letters from the first half of the 20th century. The exhibit examines the variety of Tibetan stamps and covers, including rarities and forgeries.
The opening day of the exhibit included talks by experts and scholars of Tibet’s postal history and letter-writing culture.Tibetan stamp expert Geoffrey Flack presented a talk entitled “The Stamps and Postal History of Tibet” which included discussion of many of the postal items featured in the exhibit. Following the lunch break, Yangchen Lakar, a Tibetan cultural expert, presented a talk entitled “Merchants and Neighbors: a Ladakhi Tibetan Muslim Family in Lhasa.” The talk focused on the social and cultural milieu surrounding a unique collection of personal and business correspondence between a Muslim and a Buddhist family living in Tibet during the first half of the 20th century. Lobsang Dhargyel, a Tibetan scholar, followed with a presentation “The Art of Official Correspondence,” a talk on the rules of style and format governing official written communication in the early 20th century.
A light reception followed the presentations with an opportunity to view the exhibition and meet the featured speakers. The exhibition will remain on display until the 12th of December.
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Report of October lecture:
Vitality and Viability of Minority Languages
October 23 -24, 2009
On Friday and Saturday, October 23rd and 24th 2009, Trace Foundation hosted the third event in its lecture series Minority Language in Today’s Global Society, which was entitled Vitality and Viability of Minority Languages. This event brought together experts from diverse backgrounds to pursue answers to questions surrounding assessment of language vitality, policies to support viability, and practices to ensure a flourishing future for minority languages, with a special focus on the Tibetan language case.
Our keynote event on Friday evening featured Professor Joshua Fishman, a celebrated authority on sociolinguistics, interviewed by Professor Elliot Sperling, a leading Tibetan history expert. Professor Fishman discussed the topic of corpus planning and language maintenance. In combating and reversing language shift, Professor Fishman elaborated on the need of the three essential virtues of patience, prudence and functional specificity. According to him, most weakened languages of the world survive in the homes and communities and therefore, the reversal of language shift should start from there. He also advocated a self-sustained language reversal scheme and cautioned against too much dependency on external infrastructural supports. This informative keynote event was followed by a reception where the audience had the opportunity to engage with the speakers in a lively social atmosphere.
Report of last lecture:
Perspectives in Mother Tongue Education, February 21-22, 2009
On February 21, Trace Foundation marked the tenth annual International Mother Language Day with a two-day lecture event at Latse Library in New York City. This followed up on November’s opening session of the Minority Language in Today’s Global Society lecture series.
In this second session, entitled “Perspectives in Mother Tongue Education,” the focus was on the possibilities and challenges involved in implementing mother tongue education across the world, and particularly in Tibetan communities in China. Trace Foundation was honored to host François Grin, Professor of Economics at the School of Translation and Interpretation (ETI) of the University of Geneva in Switzerland; Shawo Dondrup, Project Manager of Trace Foundation’s Pilot Project Hainan Prefecture Junior Middle School of Qinghai Province in China; Minglang Zhou, Associate Professor and Chair of the East Asian Studies Department at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania; Tenzin Norbu Nangsal, Instructor of Modern Tibetan Language at Columbia University’s Weatherhead East Asian Institute; and Tove Skuttnabb-Kangas, Professor Emerita of both the University of Roskilde’s Department of Languages and Cultures in Denmark and Åbo Akademi University’s Department of Education in Finland.
Land Use in China's West:
A Discussion on the New Land Use Reforms and Their Implications for China's Western Regions
In October 2008, China announced the adoption of a new rural land reform policy that would allow farmers to subcontract, lease, or exchange their land-use rights. This new policy is aimed at increasing the disposable incomes of rural populations as well as offering better protections against unlawful land grabs.
According to recent official figures, the average per capita income from wages and salaries for rural communities in the Tibet Autonomous Region is among the lowest in the nation, yet the average per capita income from properties is more than double the national average. Given these conditions, what are the implications of the new reforms for Tibetan communities in western China? What do the new reforms mean in practice for rural China in general? A panel of experts from different disciplinary fields will present their past research and discuss their thoughts about the current reforms.
The event was free and open to the public.
Thursday, February 5th, 2009, 3-5pm
Trace Foundation, Latse Library
132 Perry Street, Suite 2B (between Greenwich St. and Washington St.)
New York City
Speakers
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Chengri Ding, Director, China Land Policy and Urban Management Program, University of Maryland
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Andrew Fischer, Lecturer in Population and Social Policy, Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, Netherlands
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Emily T. Yeh, Assistant Professor, Department of Geography, University of Colorado at Boulder
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