Touching Tibet

by Niema Ash, Dalai Lama XIV (Foreword)

Despite the determined efforts of the Dalai Lama to publicize the Tibetan cause, for many the people, culture, history, and traditions to this country remain mysterious. Niema Ash was one of the first Westerners to enter the country when its borders were briefly opened. In this highly absorbing and personal account, she relates with wit, compassion, and sensitivity her encounters with people whose humor, spirituality, and sheer enthusiasm for life have carried them through years of oppression and suffering. This journey into a forbidden kingdom gives a fresh insight into the real heart of Tibet.

Genres: Travel, Nonfiction

240 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2000

Reviews

[Shu · Rating 5 out of 5]

My heart and soul have never been more ready for this book. Ever since coming back from a China trip where I visited and was invited into the culture of a Tibetan people, I have wondered and marveled at the way they were so attuned with nature, their honesty with emotions, their musical hearts and love of gaiety and colour amidst the stark granite mountains and relentless cold skies. This book introduced to me the many beliefs of this people and the type of quiet compassion and love for the brevity and wondrous miracle of life. The author wrote with such emotion, matching her thoughts and feelings with identifiable images and sensations that I had easily felt I was right there with her, seeing the serene Buddha statues, the Potala, viewing the dances, the dress, and hearing the songs and poetry of the souls that make Tibet. The last chapter was magic in a way I cannot describe. It's a knowing, an understanding that life works in ways that is sometimes so incomprehensible but despite that, still leaves us with enough awareness that it is great and beautiful. This book, Touching Tibet, as the author describes her first-hand experience, has filled my heaven with new stars.

[Amanda Sheridan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first read this book shortly after it was published in 1999 and I still have my original paperback copy because it's one of the few books I cherish. It's a beautiful travel memoir by Canadian author, Niema Ash and it was great to find it available as a ebook - republished in 2010.
Tibet has been shrouded in mystery since before the Chinese invasion in 1950 and the author was one of the few lucky ones permitted in, as a solo traveller, when they briefly opened the country to outside travel in 1986. It was closed again shortly afterwards and remained this way until a couple of years ago when 'organised' tours were permitted.
The author recounts her short time spent in Tibet, mostly in and around Lhasa where she was able to meet ordinary Tibetans as well as monks and lamas. She spent time with them and learned about their culture, way of life and spirituality, and was even invited to a sky burial. I found it fascinating that vultures, despised everywhere, are sacred in Tibet as they feast on the remains of the deceased and thereby return them to the world in a beneficial way.
She visits the Potala palace, the Jokhang temple, drinks yak butter tea, and Chhaang beer, and her vivid descriptions take you there among the people and the place.
Through her words, it gives the reader a chance to visit this beautiful and mysterious and sadly almost completely inaccessible, remote country.
A friend of my husband once asked me what was the one country in the world I would love to visit. He was surprised when I said, without hesitation, Tibet. I very much doubt I'll ever get the opportunity in this incarnation - maybe I will in the next one - but this author showed it to me through her words.
Highly recommended.

[Phoebe Phuong · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a beautiful book. It's a journal of a Western lady who had managed to touch a mysterious land in its purest form, for she was one of the first few outsiders entering Tibet when the border was briefly opened in 1986. But the book is not just delightful collection of travelling experience, it was more than that. Niema's sensitive mind and her compassionate heart leaves much imagination to the readers about a friendly Buddist land being oppressed cruelly under the Chinese authority.

[Sabby · Rating 3 out of 5]

More a travelogue.

[Cathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not the best prose, but definitely readable, and the sharing the experience of Tibet with Niema was really fun! Or engrossing. (Maybe not FUN.) She was there about 1985, I'm guessing, and things have changed, probably for the worse. She didn't relay the same sense of subjugation of the people that friends who have visited more recently describe. What a sad situation!

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is a travel memuar
Wondrful! Enchanting.. I have to go to Tibet