Demonstration for a Free Tibet

The day started out with a temperature of about 32 degrees farenheit,
colder than usual for this time of year. When I went into the Japan
Society building around 11 a.m., the New York Police Department (NYPD)
was setting up barricades across the street in Dag Hammarskjold Plaza.
When I came back outside at around 1 p.m., there were, I would
estimate, between 200 to 300 demonstrators, mostly Tibetan, holding
Tibetan flags and chanting slogans, with the UN building looming up
behind them a few blocks away. These flags weren't the little hand-held
ones on small wooden sticks that are waved at sporting events. These
were full-sized flags on poles that require both hands to hold uprignt.

There were New York City police present, both Patrol Officers and
Community Affairs Officers, as well as four Mounted Patrol Officers on
their well-groomed horses.

Most of the chants were derogatory toward China. One of the NYPD
officers I saw looked to be ethnic Chinese. If I had been more
courageous, I would have asked him how he felt hearing these anti-
Chinese slogans being chanted.

I spent some time watching some of the children there with their
parents among the demonstrators. The children chanted the slogans too,
but seemed more pre-occupied playing with the protest signs they were
carrying than putting all their attention and energy into chanting as
their parents were doing. I was handed a couple of printed flyers
detailing the situation in Tibet, and what people could do to help, and
then with a backward glance at the Tibetan flags fluttering and
flapping in the gusty wind, I went on my way.

Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, New York City, March 22, 2008

a cold wind blowing
as if from far-off mountains:
Tibetan flags fly!

Larry

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Thanks for sharing your experience, Larry san!


and for Shibata,
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Darumasan-Japan/message/1485

GABI