Since the late 1990s, reports about the exclusion of ethnic Tibetan tour guides, particularly those educated in schools from the Tibetan exile community in India, have reached the outside world. A milestone in the authorities’ control over tour guides was the setting up of the ‘Guide Company’ [Chinese: Dao yu Gong ci] in 2000. One of the sections under this body, the ‘Gao yuan san ke zhong xing,’ took away from travel agencies the authority to form tour groups for foreigners who had entered Tibet on individual visas. Another section of the Guide Company is the ‘Dao yu pei xun zhong xing’. This department issues temporary guide licences to all guides operating in Lhasa without proper educational qualifications. The issuing of such licences is dependent on passing an exam after a programme of winter training organised under government control.
Until recently, these measures were less effective than they seemed, with many young people continuing a professional participation in the Lhasa-based tourism industry. In 2002 however, 3 guides were reported to have been detained and expelled for giving versions of Tibet’s history that were not in line with the government’s view. In the last round of exclusions in April 2003, the renewal of at least 100 temporary guide licences for Tibetan tour guides were refused. These further restrictions on the participation of ethnic Tibetans coincided with the launch of a ten-year programme to employ 100 Chinese guides from various Chinese provinces, a move which the authorities could justify by pointing out the known shortage of tourist guides during the busy summer season.
The following extracts are from interviews with three young Tibetan men and women who were educated in India and employed in the tourism industry of the TAR. They were recorded by TIN during the summer of 2003. These extracts describe the impact that the tightening of the regulations has had and give some insight into the daily reality of the work of tour guides operating in the TAR. Their work involves balancing their enthusiasm for being able to show tourists around with the demands the foreigners make, set against the frustrations caused by a government that creates a tiresome bureaucracy and countless practical inconveniences.
First Interview
Q: What was the situation like when you were working as a tour guide (up until 2002)?
A: Generally, the main problem for those tour guides who have come from India is that they are not allowed to take permanent jobs. Apart from charging RMB 800 to 1000 Yuan (USD$96-$120, Euro?84-?105, GBSTG£57-£72) for temporary guide licences, in 1997, the authorities started to organise winter training and examinations for Tibetan tour guides who were not blacklisted. From 1999 onwards, additional requirements were introduced, such as having to have ration cards and Chinese Middle School certificates.
Q: What does it mean if a tour guide is blacklisted?
A: The names of Tibetans who the government doesn’t allow to operate as tour guides anymore appear on blacklists. When it first appeared in 1997, the blacklist included the names of about 70 tour guides who had studied in India and all were out of work for at least a year. Gradually however, most of them managed to get jobs, like in restaurants and hotels or once more as guides through backdoor connections and or after changing their names in order to get guide licences once more.
Q: What was the actual impact of these measures?
A: The main problem being a tour guide is the uncertainty; policies are always changing and you never know what is coming tomorrow. Things look OK for a while but then there will be a period when things are implemented more strictly. We operate in a constant state of uncertainty and fear because we don’t have any chance of getting a stable, permanent job and we feel that we are being watched by the Public Security Bureau (PSB) because we came from India.
A new government body called the Guide Company [Chinese: Dao yu Gong ci] was established in 2000. Previously, travel agencies were allowed to form their own groups of people on individual visas. These days however, travel agencies are not allowed to form such groups by themselves, the Guide Company takes charge of that. The Guide Company also gives licences to guides and arranges their payments. In the past, we didn’t need such licences; we could contact travel agencies ourselves, work for them and get paid by them directly. Now, tour guides have to deal with the Guide Company whose work is supervised by the PSB and the Tourism Bureau. Working without sufficient documents, we are subject to fines of up to RMB 3000, (USD$362, Euro?316, GBSTG£216.) They also divided the tour guides into categories A, B and C and most of those in category A are those who graduated from China. Those category A tour guides earn 600 Yuan per month as a salary, (USD$72,Euro?63, GBSTG£43.) This is the basis of your salary, like a guaranteed minimum. For guides categorised as B and C, this minimum income is 300 Yuan per month, (USD$36, Euro?32, GBSTG£22.) On top of this, you get daily wages according to the number of days you work. You will not get month-long tours. The longest tour you can get is 15 days.
Second interview
Q: What is the difference between the 2003 withdrawal of temporary guide licences and the earlier blacklisting of tour guides who had studied in India?
A: The difference this time is that there is the Guide Company, which makes implementation more effective. (…) In the past, tour guides who didn’t have their licence because they were on the blacklist were often called up anyway during the summer months, the busiest period with tourists in Tibet and during which the number of guides available in Lhasa is not always adequate. In such situations, the travel agencies would just call up guides who were actually out of work and write some statement like; he or she lost his or her licence, thus letting them work again. These days, there is not much room for manoeuvre because the Guide Company keeps your guide licence. They keep it after they pay you for having completed a tour.
Q: How many guides without actual licences would, until recently, be working during the high tourist season?
A: I think there were many. I often met guides who didn’t have licences, many of whom had been my schoolmates in India. So far, they have been able to continue to work because there are people in certain offices who are sympathetic to them and help them.
Q: What else makes the situation different from how the system worked until recently? A: During the summer of 2002, I saw preparations for more restrictions, such as the setting up of an extra checkpoint near customs and one just outside Dram, [on the border with Nepal, the transit point for many foreign tourists visiting TAR,] along with the setting up of a new branch in Dram of the Guide Company, which is called ‘Gao yuan san ke zhong xing’, and is a branch of the Guide Company that operates under the Shigatse Tourism Bureau. Up until last year, many Tibetan guides who didn’t have their guide licences managed to take groups which they would leave just before customs at the border in order to avoid detection. But now, when they reach Dram, [the border] they are stopped by PSB officials who work together with the Guide Company and are checked to see whether the tour guides have proper licences.
Q: Generally, how many Tibetan tour guides are there in TAR?
A: The Tourism Bureau listed 1900 tour guides in a list published last year. This list was not public. About 500 to 700 tour guides were educated in India, did not have licences but were still listed. There are also many guides who studied English in Lhasa. Many of the guides without licences used to have licences but the licences were out of date. Some of the guides just erased 2001 on their licences and wrote 2002 in the licences.
Third interview
Q: Does the government set rules that you have to adhere to?
A: For tour guides, the most important responsibilities are to be on time, to explain properly to tourists what are the places they are not allowed to visit and what things they are not allowed to do. When we had the one-month lesson at the Guide Company, we were taught these things, along with politics, history and geography. They warn us not to talk about things we are not allowed to talk about. In what we explain to tourists, there are things we are and things we are not allowed to say. Q: How do you know what you can and what you can’t say? A: The government only tells us that we get into trouble if we talk about the things you are not allowed to tell, and we are assumed to know what are the things that we are not allowed to say. During the winter training for example, they teach the Chinese version of history, so through this you know what you are supposed to tell the tourists.
Q: How do you implement this in your day-to-day work?
A: Often we won’t say much while visiting monasteries; we would rather talk while on the road. Before we enter a monastery, we ask the tourists not to ask any political questions and that if they have any questions, they can ask them later in the car. I have been in some very uneasy situations where tourists, for example, were insensitive enough to ask questions about the incarnation of the Panchen Lama, recognised by the Dalai Lama, right in the middle of Tashilhunpo monastery, the seat of the previous Panchen Lamas. It is not only in trying to talk about politics that foreigners manage to embarrass us, some people seem preoccupied with sex and, for example, start to ask all sorts of questions about theoretical situations where monks could be seduced into breaking their vows, or they assume that we find it easy to talk about things like homosexuality in monasteries, which is something we just don’t talk about. Also, one of the greatest difficulties is finding understanding for practical problems, such as roadblocks and other hazards, and pointless government regulations which we are both victims of. In some ways however, we tend to fall somewhere in between, victims of the system on the one side, and undeliverable demands on the other side.
