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Log on the Internet on the `Roof of the World'
While Tibetan peddlers at Barkhor Bazaar, the busiest shopping area around the holy Jokhang Temple in Lhasa, capital of Tibetan Autonomous Region, attract people from all over the world with exquisite curio articles, Tsedan Zuoga, a 26-year-old Tibetan woman, has something else to offer.
In a small shop to the southwest of Barkhor Square, she and her friends give their customers easy access to the world.
A Mandarin teacher at a local school, Zuoga has been running the Boiling Point Internet Cafe in her spare time, with three partners, since March. The business quartet, made up of three Tibetan women and one Han man, all have regular jobs and run the cafe in their free time.
"We launched the cafe because we were eager to broaden the horizons of Tibetan youngsters' via the cyber world," Zuoga said.
Zesong Lhamu, 26, Zuoga's college classmate and now business partner, agrees with her. A programme director with the Sino-US sponsored Tibet Poverty Alleviation Fund, Lhamu moonlights at Boiling Point after work.
She points out the urgency to "update the younger generation's knowledge of the world" using the Internet, but also admits that as more tourists pour into the region, "the Internet is proving to be a marvelous business venture with a good future."
According to the China Internet Network Information Centre, the growth rate of Internet surfers in Tibet was ranked fifth in China in 1999, with a rise from 420 in 1998 to 2,670 in 1999. However, they account for only a small proportion of the 16.9 million Internet surfers nationwide.
Boiling Point, crammed in a 20-square-metre room with 12 personal computers, opens daily from 9 am to midnight, or until whenever the last customer leaves the keyboard. The charges are flexible from 5 yuan (about US$0.60) for 10 minutes to 20 yuan (about US$2.40) per hour.
Losong Dawa, the cafe's only full-time employee, serves as its "daytime manager" during weekdays. Now 24, he is among the first forward-thinking Internet users in Tibet. His favourite site is the news channel Netease, currently one of China's hottest portals. Another of his hobbies is cruising the various cyber maps to quench his dreams to travel the world. A dream that will remain as such until his wallet is no longer empty.
Dawa would be overjoyed to see Tibetan youngsters to step into this tiny room. For those with student ID cards, the charges are reduced by 50 per cent, and Dawa would serve as a patient tutor, free of charge, to steer the first-timers into the wired world.
Users can surf through Oscar night, the European Cup, and of course, the multitude of Internet chatrooms, though not as yet using the Tibetan language, due to the lack of software.
Despite the owners' desire to serve local Tibetan youngsters, foreigners currently dominate Boiling Point, and make up about 70 per cent of visitors. Some Tibetans turn back at the charges, which to them are perhaps still too costly.
Lhasa's first cyber cafe was opened by a middle-aged Beijinger named Zhang Keqiang, three years ago to the south of Barkhor Square.
Zhang's four computers are temporarily out of service, but when working he offers some Western sites accompanied by Tibetan food and an art gallery of Tibetan paintings. His 11 Tibetan staff also speak fluent English.
According to Zhang, to set up an Internet cafe in Lhasa, one has to go through a strict procedure in order to get licence from the local authorities. There are now about a dozen licensed cafes in the city.
With Zhang's help, Linda, a primary school teacher from Scotland, and her friends who are visiting Tibet, come to Boiling Point to send e-mails to their families and friends.
"The speed here is faster than Kathmandu, and the price is a marvelous bargain," says Linda. "Anyway, cyber world is just the same everywhere."
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