Losar ལོ་གསར (New Year) is a historical event for Tibetan people. The year of the pig falls on February 5thof the Gregorian calendar this year. Tibetans follow the 12-year cycle zodiac heavily. Most Tibetan mothers even refer to their children’s birth year by the year of the zodiac animal rather than the calendar year. Tibetan culture is […]
Travel
Tibet’s Summer Is Most Striking
The sky is blue, and the clouds are white. Drizzling nights and burning daytime sun, yet leaves you perfectly content. The rainy season cultivates wildflowers, mushrooms, and other vegetation that charm the plateau. The pedicularis (lousewort) flowers in cream and purple color, The meconopsis poppies and gentian in blue and white, And potentillas anserine (silverweeds) […]
How Tibetans Celebrate Losar–New Year?
Wishing you all a Happy Losar. Losar is the Tibetan New Year. It’s the year of the dog. The holiday mixes both sacred and secular rituals. From a cultural perspective, Losar is like Christmas for Westerners, except Tibet’s New Year in Reb gong lasts 18 days. Year after year, we relish the rich heritage of […]
Happy Losar 2016
Wishing all Tibetans and friends a very happy Losar 2016. ལོ་གསར་བཀྲ་ཤིས་བདེ་ལེགས། Below are links to a few stories and pictures that will transport you to the Tibetan plateau and to experience the ancient traditions of Losar (Lo sar, the Tibetan New Year). Visual feast during Losar preparation: During Losar preparation, you only need to take […]
5 Ways to Experience Losar Traditions
While a house requires strong pillars to hold its structures one might say, a culture is formed based upon its long-standing traditions, beliefs, art, and customs. Festivals and rituals are windows into rich traditions of faraway lands. My journey home to the Tibetan plateau for 2015 Losar, Tibetan New Year, was a renewal of my […]
ཐུག་པ Home-made Hand-made Noodles
Like many cultures around the globe, Tibetans cherish our own special noodles. Noodle dishes are, in fact, a staple in Tibetan cooking across the rangelands and lower meadows. We call them thukpa ཐུག་པ (aka thug ba or thugba) and generally refer to wheat flour noodles. Only those never recorded cookbooks knew when a Tibetan grandmother, who […]
Tibetan Dumplings Brighten Others
The September sun up in the sky might be fading its strength. But, like the golden splash in my garden, it is a good time for cooking for your loved ones or brightening someone else’s life. I recently talked to Lindsay Christians, a reporter at The Capital Times, about cooking Tibetan food to benefit Literacy […]