A Korean, an Australian, a Nomad, and a Martial Artist meet on the Tibetan Plateau: Encounters with Foreigners in a Tibetan Comedy from Amdo

Abstract:This article examines the complex processes by which a Tibetan comedy reaches state-sponsored stages in western China's Qinghai Province. By reflecting on my own participation in a Tibetan sketch comedy for a Tibetan-language, provincial version of the Chunjie wanhui, China Central Television's annual New Year's Gala, I examine the Tibetan sketch comedy as a staged vernacular ethnography of a transnational encounter. Juxtaposing Tibetan nomads with characters of Korean and Australian origin, such staged encounters create a productive friction that provides a space for public meditation on politically and culturally sensitive issues central to the negotiation of Tibetanness in the twenty-first century, including cultural preservation and ecological conservation.