AP PHOTOS: Tibetan traditions threatened by politics, growth

LHASA, China -- The name Tibet conjures up images of snowy peaks, vermillion temples and prayer flags snapping in the Himalayan wind. Those features remain, but the religious and cultural foundations underpinning them appear to be coming unstuck. Long defined by its Buddhist culture, the region is facing a push for assimilation and political orthodoxy under China’s ruling Communist Party. Tibetans and other minorities are seeing the use of their languages downgraded in schools and old ways of living eroded for the promise of better quality of life through mobile phones, online shopping, higher education and improved health care. Political conformity is enforced through relentless surveillance of people’s social interactions in actual life and online. Religious practices that once dominated the region have been excised from daily living and the aging Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibet who has lived in exile since 1959, is portrayed as a figure of scorn, when he’s even acknowledged at all. Chinese tourists have flocked to Lhasa, the capital, and it’s environs, despite the high altitude that requires many to rely on canned oxygen. They mix with Tibetans making rare pilgrimages that include devotional laps around Jokhang Temple, the cathedral of Tibetan Buddhism.