Two weeks from now my friends from Seattle-area Tibetan community will hold their annual cultural celebration, Tibet Fest, in a huge city-owned building in the shadow of the Space Needle near downtown Seattle. There will be Tibetan singing and dancing and traders will sell Tibetan jewelry, woven carpets, and the like. Many of the local Tibetans will wear traditional costumes -- dressed-to-the-nines, as Americans would say. Long strings of prayer flags will hang from the rafters of the Seattle Center House which hosts the event.
It will be quite a scene then, the Center House a visual feast of color, the Tibetan community happy and in full-on Party Mood. I have been asked to hang a small showing of some of the photographs I’ve shot over the past three years at the community’s events, and I have a lot of work to do to edit, print, and frame my images.
But while my preparation for my Tibet Fest show will keep me fairly busy for just two weeks, my Tibetan friends’ work at sustaining their culture goes on in a myriad of ways all year long. For example: Every Sunday parents and community elders hold language and culture classes for Tibetan youth, where kids learn to read and write in Tibetan (I can tell you from personal and frustrating experience that Tibetan is not an easy language to learn.) And there are other lessons in art and dance.
The parents and teachers are patient and kind with their young students. And the kids? Well they are kids. The little ones are sometimes shy, the older students usually interested and engaged but occasionally a little tired-looking (the kids, after all, attend American school five days a week, then have Tibet Class on Sunday.)
It is an impressive thing to see, this community’s work to keep its culture alive.
I’m looking forward to displaying photographs that I hope reflect my respect for the Tibetans of Seattle.
