Tibet in translation
It is the final day of our government-led tour of Tibet's capital Lhasa. I'm in a group of about 40 foreign journalists invited into Tibet on a trip to cover the Olympic torch relay. We're the first foreign reporters China has allowed into the capital, Lhasa, for almost three months.
First stop is the Sera monastery - one of the most important places in Lhasa to Tibetans and also to China's security forces. Monks here played a leading part in anti-China protests in March. Some were arrested, others went on hunger strike.
Our tour starts shortly after 0900. We're driven to the monastery in our official convoy (which is so large it's practically visible from outer space).
We're met by a senior monk who gives us a short tour of the monastery's main buildings. He speaks to us in Tibetan - his words are translated by government interpreters (more on this later).
About 550 monks live in this monastery. But on our brief tour we come across only about a dozen of them, none of whom look to be under 40. That's no great surprise. The last time China organised a foreign media trip to a monastery in Lhasa - at the end of March - the tour was interrupted by a group of young monks shouting "Free Tibet".
We are allowed to interview one senior monk - Lobsang Choepel, the Director of the Democractic Management Committee of the Sera Monastery.
We crowd around him - it's a first chance to ask the kinds of questions we've all been thinking about for months.
One reporter asks: "What do you think of the Dalai Lama?"
The monk replies in Tibetan. The government interpreter translates his words into English: "The Dalai is the head of the Gelupa sect and I, myself, when I was young, I also learned religious scriptures from Dalai. In terms of religion, we believe in Dalai, but I don't recognise or accept what he says and what he does."
Does he teach the younger monks about the Dalai Lama ?
Answer (through the interpreter): "I'm not introducing Dalai to the students."
An interesting small point - when Lobsang Choepel speaks in Tibetan we clearly hear him say the words "Dalai Lama". But the interpreter uses the single word "Dalai" - a term often used by the Chinese government, which can come across to Tibetans as derogatory.
We carry on asking questions.
"What does the Chinese government's re-education programme involve?" (Since the Tibetan protests in Lhasa in March, the government says it has sent task forces into monasteries to teach monks that they must obey the law.)
The answer (through the interpreter): "The content of the legal knowledge education is to help the monks to have a better understanding of the state law and constitution so that after we have this legal knowledge, in the future, we will not violate any laws."
And that's it. We're escorted back onto our buses. As we drive away, we pass a number of shops and stalls on the road leading to the monastery. Standing outside the shops are a number of men. We look closely and see that many of them have ear pieces and carry walkie-talkies. It's a pretty easy guess that they are plain clothes officers, deployed to make sure there are no disruptions to our tour.
After the monastery, we're taken to the Potala Palace which overlooks the heart of Lhasa. It was home to the Dalai Lama before he went into exile in 1959. It takes us all of about three seconds to ask the guide the question that's on all of our minds - can we see where the Dalai Lama used to live?
We're taken in and shown his old chapels and his old bedroom (we get to see the outer chamber - a curtain is drawn over the room that is said to contain his old bed). As we walk through the palace, we see two portraits of the Dalai Lama's immediate predecessor - but no pictures of the current Dalai Lama whatsoever (in Tibet, displaying a picture of the Dalai Lama is a punishable crime).
With that, the trip is done. We're driven to the airport. As we queue up to go through the security check, we pass a bit of paper stuck to a pillar - it shows photos of two Tibetan protestors wanted by the police.
The official doing the security check reminds us that cigarette lighters are not allowed on board. But, right now, it seems that there is an exception. A number of people waiting to get on the flight back to Beijing are carrying long cardboard boxes - printed with the logo of this summer's Olympic Games. Each of these people ran a leg of the Olympic relay in Lhasa. As a reward, they get to keep the torch they ran with (wrapped up carefully inside a cardboard box). We head onto the plane, take off, and Lhasa disappears behind us.
I wonder when we'll be allowed to go back.
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