Before the Dalai Lama spoke on the sober subjects of religion and the environment in Taiwan during a speech this week, he opened with a quip about his English.

“First thing, no grammar, no proper grammar,” the 73-year-old said with a low-pitched staccato laugh while addressing a full auditorium of residents in the southern city of Kaohsiung. “There is a danger to get misunderstandings, so I always tell you, be careful Dalai Lama’s broken English.”

His mischievous chuckle and self-depricating humour sent waves of laughter through the audience.

A day earlier, when aides accidentally broke a table in front of the kneeling religious figure, he surprised a somber crowd of about 10,000 local Buddhists with the same laugh, generating applause. During a Tibetan-langauge prayer for the same audience, he suddenly put on a purple sun visor, breaking into English to say the overhead light was too strong. That time the crowd laughed.

Quips and outbursts of laughter characterise the world-renowned Tibetan spiritual leader’s speeches as he uses humour, part of his core personality, to bring him closer to his listeners, people close to him say.

But his visit to Taiwan is hardly a joke. During his Aug. 30-Sept. 4 visit, he has prayed for hundreds who died when a typhoon hit the island last month. On his first full day in Taiwan, the Dalai Lama knelt above a massive landslide that buried a village, praying for the countless villagers who were killed as relatives of the dead stood by.

The Dalai Lama’s visit has also whipped up a new political storm between Taiwan and its long-time political rival China, which claims sovereighty over the self-ruled island and deems the India-based Dalai Lama a separatist who is seeking to split Tibet from its territory. China has cancelled or postponed a few Taiwan-related events in apparent retaliation, chilling relations with the island after a thaw that began in the middle of last year.

The Dalai Lama’s humour, does admittedly shock some new audiences, said Khedroob Thondup, a Taipei-based member of the Tibetan parliament-in-exile, but they learn fast to relax.

“He’s got a good sense of humour, which is his personal style,” Thondup said. “Normally audiences are surprised because these are serious occasions. But he always tries to make people feel not too strongly about it.”

Taiwan audiences have understood the humour as a way to unify people on the island, which hosts many different religions and ideas, said Chang Chia-hsing, a spokesman for the city of Kaohsiung, which organised many of the Dalai Lama’s events. “What he jokes about doesn’t count as serious,” Chang said. “It’s a way to bring people together.”

Organisers have postponed a conference of Nobel peace laureates in South Africa after the government denied a visa to Tibet's spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, who won the prize in 1989 - five years after South Africa’s Archbishop Desmond Tutu won his and four years before Nelson Mandela and F.W. de Klerk won theirs for their roles in ending the racist apartheid regime.

Although local media said the visa ban followed pressure from China, an increasingly important investor and trade partner, the government said it had not been influenced by Beijing and that the Dalai Lama's presence was just not in South Africa's best interest at the moment.

The conference, ahead of the 2010 World Cup, had been due to discuss how to use soccer to fight xenophobia and racism.

"We stand by our decision. Nothing is going to change. The Dalai Lama will not be invited to South Africa. We will not give him a visa between now and the World Cup," said government spokesman Thabo Masebe.

Whatever the reasoning, it angered the Nobel laureates in a country which has prided itself as a model of democracy and human rights since the end of apartheid in 1994.

Nelson Mandela’s grandson, Mandla, one of the conference organisers said the rejection was tainting South Africa’s democratic credentials.

"The government needs to review its decision and come to the party," said Mandela, set to become a parliamentarian with the ruling African National Congress after the election in April.

Allowing a visit by the Dalai Lama could certainly have made relations with Beijing more difficult. Ties between France and China were badly strained after French President Nicolas Sarkozy met him in December, when France held the European Union presidency.

But banning the Dalai Lama has also created a storm that South Africa was unlikely to have wanted either.

Was the ban the right thing to do?

By Emma Graham-Harrison

I was trying to take photos of pilgrims near the Potala Palace in Lhasa, with my government minders telling me to hurry up (we had a neighbourhood committee to visit) and the pilgrims looking uncomfortable as I snapped away at their devotions.

Suddenly a smiling old woman, dressed like she had stepped out of an engraving of 19th century Tibet, hobbled up behind me and gave me a resounding smack on the bum.

I wondered if this was guerrilla revenge for taking people’s photos without asking – something I’ve always hated doing but felt obliged to attempt.

But when I turned around she was grinning like my little sister did when she pulled the same trick on me years ago. The woman’s face lit up, showing a few remaining teeth, as she roared at the joke.

Later I asked a Tibetan translator accompanying us on the trip whether it was meant as a playful reprimand. She shook her head and laughed as well.

“It’s just her way of showing that she’s close to you, that you are younger and from somewhere else, but she feels a connection.”

The next day we visited a small village, where the farmer I interviewed stuck his tongue out several times in greeting and embarrassment – a custom I’d read about in a book called, “Stick out your tongue,” by Chinese author Ma Jian. I hadn’t realized the practice was still common so close to Lhasa.

As the farmer poured me a cup of homemade barley wine, the stress and worries of trying to report in such a tightly controlled area on a micro-managed government trip slipped away, and for a moment I just felt lucky to be in such a unique part of the world and to be so generously accepted by its people.

For links to some of Emma Graham-Harrison’s stories from Tibet, please click on the following:

http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE5195LD20090210

http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE51C0WY20090213

http://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUSTRE51F0DA20090216

Photo Credit: An ethnic Tibetan prays besides her wheelchair in front of the Potala Palace in Lhasa. Feb. 11, 2009. REUTERS/Emma Graham-Harrison

Thirty years ago today, China invaded its one-time Communist ally Vietnam to “teach it a lesson”, to the delight of Beijing’s newfound friend, Uncle Sam, which was still smarting from having lost its own Vietnam War.
 
The attack came on the heels of Washington switching diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing and a closed-door meeting between China’s paramount leader Deng Xiaoping and U.S. President Jimmy Carter in Washington.
 
Three decades on, it remains unclear just how much Deng told Carter about the incursion and whether Washington offered any assistance such as satellite imagery of Vietnamese troops and military bases.
 
Until the Chinese Foreign Ministry and the U.S. State Department declassify minutes of the meeting, the world will not know for sure whether the United States offered to back China in the event the Soviet Union rushed to Vietnam’s rescue.
 
Now the great wheel of history has turned again, and 30 years on, the United States is seeking China’s help in applying pressure on another Communist neighbour, North Korea.
 
China’s foray into Vietnam was brief yet in some ways disastrous. Its troops suffered terribly against the battle-hardened Vietnamese who were fighting on their home soil.
 
But there is no arguing that the invasion was a watershed event that smoothed the way for China to mend fences with the West.  American investors, tourists and students flocked to China.  Western and Japanese aid and loans flowed in, while trade and investment mushroomed, helping to transform the world’s most populous nation from an economic backwater into an export powerhouse and the world’s third-biggest economy.
 
In an apparent quid pro quo, China abandoned its longstanding policy of “liberating” Taiwan and offered “peaceful reunification” in an overture to the self-ruled island it has claimed as its own since their split in 1949 amid civil war.
 
Also in 1979, Deng invited Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, to visit, prompting the latter to renounce advocacy of Tibetan independence, beseech CIA-armed and -trained Tibetan guerrillas to end their struggle and send his older brother to China on fact-finding trips.
 
The United States softened its criticism of human rights abuse in China, including the imprisonment of dissident Wei Jingsheng for challenging Deng at the height of the Democracy Wall movement.
 
American Sinologist David Shambaugh described as a “marriage of convenience” the teaming up of the United States and China to curb Soviet expansionism.
(http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/01/06/opinion/edshambaugh.php)
 
On a lighter note, American culture invaded China. Many Chinese traded their Mao suits for jeans or business suits and dined at McDonald’s and KFC outlets. Hollywood movies and rock ‘n’ roll — once considered decadent by China’s ideologues — swept many Chinese off their feet.
 
The honeymoon abruptly ended on June 4, 1989, when Chinese troops crushed student-led demonstrations for democracy centred on Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. China slipped into diplomatic isolation in the face of U.S. sanctions.
 
China broke out of isolation and forced the United States to deal with it after menacing Taiwan with war games in the run-up to the island’s first direct presidential elections in 1996. Bilateral relations see-sawed in the ensuing years, hitting low points when NATO bombed the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade and a U.S. spy plane collided with a Chinese jet fighter over Chinese airspace.
 
Fast forward to February 2009. When U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visits on Friday, she will be dealing with a richer, more confident and assertive China.  Again, but now in peacetime, it will be a China that needs the United States as much as the United States needs China.
 
The United States needs China to help rein in a nuclear North Korea and help nurse the global economy back to health. But China’s abrupt slowdown in growth and exports shows that it remains yoked to U.S. fortunes.

Photo Credit: A Vietnamese border guard stands next to a border marker between China’s Guangxi and Vietnam’s Lang Son provinces on Jan. 13, 2009. REUTERS/Kham

A German water polo player who had earlier this year floated the idea of his team wearing orange robes a symbolic protest at the Olympics against China’s Tibet has changed his mind, saying the Tibet issue is far too complex and that he knows too little about China to organise such a demonstration.

Soeren Mackeben, 29, told Der Spiegel news magazine this week:  “I’ve become more sceptical towards all sides in the meantime.” Mackeben had first proposed wearing the orange robes — the same colour as the Tibetan monks — in an interview in March.   

“I was asking during an interview about the events in Tibet what sort of protest I could envision and that’s when I mentioned the robes,” Mackeben said. “That naturally had quite an echo in the media. In the meantime, I’ve learned that the issue is too complex to take a clear position on it.”

Mackeben said he did not know enough about China, even after studying the issue and paying a visit to China’s ambassador to Germany in Berlin.

“I spent an hour asking the ambassador questions,” Mackeben said. “Afterwards they gave me two bags filled with books. I’ve become too sceptical to put an orange robe one. I want to concenrate on water polo. It’s going to be very difficult to get a glimpse into how China really is.”

Picture of Soeren Mackeben (R) celebrating a goal at the FINA Men’s Water Polo Olympic Games Qualification Tournament by Sergio Moraes.  

Wong How Man is one of China’s best known and most active explorers, whose accomplishments include an expedition that discovered a new source of the Yangtze, China’s longest river.   

More recently the Hong Kong native and his group, China Exploration & Research Society, have taken on a number of conservation projects in Tibetan areas of China — work that helped him land a spot as an Olympic torch runner last week.

Wong, one of Time magazine’s Asian heroes, carried the torch briefly on a section of the route in Qinghai province — home to many Tibetans — on June 23, opting for the lower-key destination to draw attention to his work rather than the more controversial leg in Tibet.

He wrote an e-mail about his experience to Reuters Taiwan bureau chief, Doug Young:

Q: Can you give some quick thoughts on the experience?   

A: Outside of Everest and Lhasa, this is highest relay site (Shangri-la is about same elevation as Qinghai Lake).  Again, not counting Everest, this is only site in a natural setting and synonymous with much of my work, dealing with nature, wildlife and culture.  

Q: What were some of the most enduring memories you took away from your participation?  

A: We had 162 torchbearers at this site, each running for 38 meters.  Took me exactly 38 steps and just under half a minute …. like to think that is the most important 38 meters I have run, but then my final approach to both the Yangtze and Mekong sources also count as important, if not more so. 

It was great to see that those 15 nominated by Coca-Cola came from all walks of life, including many many young people and students.  I at first thought most candidates would be gov’t officials monopolizing the few places, and that turned out to be not the case.  Met many wonderful people, from different parts of China …. but the best positions, at the starting point and finish line, were all kept for local Tibetans …. that is great arrangement.  There were also a couple of foreign runners.  

Q: Did you feel any political element in what you were doing, or did this seem like a purely non-political event? Do you think people will criticize you for taking part in such a controversial relay and, if so, what would you say to the critics?  

A: Too many police escorts and security measures, making an otherwise festive event into a high risk occurance. This I must blame on people who over-politicize the torch run.  I have conducted dozens of projects in Tibetan areas over almost 30 years if I care to count them. 

But I think if we were to take out all the noisemakers from those who have actually contributed definitively to betterment of Tibet and Tibetans, I am afraid we may be left with a decimal point of what all those involved in the Tibetan cause and movement.  This is the most political torch run I have seen in my adult life. 

China has improved a great deal since my first visit 34 years ago.  Though there are still much room for improvements, I have seen tremendous changes, especially over the last ten years.  But outsiders who knew little are not only impatient, but at times down right ignorant! 

I have a center run all by Tibetan staff, except one staff who belongs to another minority group.  We have great trust and respect for each other, so I feel a bit more entitled to speaking up, ready to be in the crossfire.  The few who made complaints or disturbances have compromised all other Tibetans, and put us backward in progress and peace for the entire Tibetan region.  

Q: Was there any media at the event? Do you think this will help draw attention to some of the causes that you’ve been working with these last few years?   

A: I did not usually talk to media … this is one of the few exceptions … I get more done by doing it quietly … noisemakers have little time remaining to act …

Q: Why is it important for you to “discover” the sources of these major rivers in China? Do you think China minds the fact that a non-Chinese is leading these important discovery expeditions in China?  

A: I am Chinese, born and raised in Hong Kong, educated in the US, and hope to contribute to the advancement of China and betterment of all Chinese.  Almost all great rivers of Asia starts from the Tibetan plateau.  I believe we can all protect these sacred places together, as their drainage area affects hundreds of millions of people, maybe over a billion….  

Picture of schoolchildren with homemade torches in in Huzhou, Zhejiang province by China Daily, enthusiastic crowd in Yuncheng, Shanxi Province by Reuters stringer.

I caught up with IOC vice president Thomas Bach for an interview the other day in his Berlin office.

Bach has been one of the most eloquent opponents of any boycott of the Summer Olympics in Beijing — leading a lightning pro-Games campaign earlier this year when tensions in Tibet flared.

The man who won a gold medal in fencing for West Germany in 1976 in Montreal was more than happy to talk openly in his soft southern German accent about a wide range of issues.  

But the smile disappeared from Bach’s face when I asked about comments last week from Zhang Qingli, Tibet’s Chinese Communist party boss: “We will certainly be able to totally smash the splittist schemes of the Dalai Lama clique.”  

Bach had already seen the remarks made in conjunction with the Olympic torch relay through the Tibetan capital, Lhasa.  

“I don’t consider that to be an acceptable formulation, especially at the Olympic torch relay,” Bach said. “It’s essential that one carefully chooses the right words — there is after all a dialogue going on now with representatives of the Dalai Lama. And that evidently did not happen here. That is not the type of language that is appropriate for the dialogue and for the Olympic torch relay.”  

Bach said German Olympians would be free to express their opinions about any issues at all in China — but political demonstrations are forbidden.

“One has to respect the position of the athletes, and by that I mean any position they have.”  

Bach is certain the Olympics have already contributed to a great opening of China and believes the effects will be lasting.

“The Games are definitely contributing to an opening in China. There’s already been a considerable development and the Games will further that development. When 25,000 journalists, hundreds of thousands of overseas visitors and 10,000 athletes from 205 nations come into a country and communicate with the people, all that will leave an impact on Chinese society.  

But Bach acknowledges that the IOC has little say in what happens in China after the Olympics are over.  

“We’re not the supra-national government of any country or the world. What’s important is that the Games make a contribution to promote communication, understanding and dialogue — and on those counts to leave a lasting impact on Chinese society. That is the task at hand for the Games and that goal will be fulfilled.”

Picture of Bach (top) by Alex Grimm, Zhang (bottom, left) by Nir Elias

WASHINGTON - The Olympics are supposed to be all about sports, not politics, right?

Wrong.

Although the Games began in 1896 with the hope that sporting events between nations could bring about a more peaceful world, they have not escaped politics.

Over the past 112 years, nations have boycotted the Games for political reasons, others have been denied entry by the International Olympic Committee and in 1972 Israeli athletes were murdered by Palestinian insurgents.

Click here for a photo slideshow “Politics and the Olympics”, narrated by noted American sportswriter Frank Deford published by the U.S.-based Council of Foreign Relations.

The Beijing Olympic torch is held aloft at the top of Mount Everest on Thursday in this image taken from television footage.

Three months to the day before the Games open, members of a 31-strong team reached the top of the 8,848-metre (29,030-ft) peak carrying the Olympic flame in a lantern before lighting the torch.

The climbing team, which included 22 Tibetans, eight Han Chinese and one man from the Tujia minority, had been on the mountain for more than a week preparing the route along the north-east ridge.

Take a look at Nick’s story about the moment so many Chinese have been waiting for.

But the trip is more than just another stopover on the Olympic torch’s journey around the world, read about the controversy and the deep symbolism surrounding the project.

Our Reuters team of Nick, Dave and Mark will be in touch with a us soon to give a personal account of today’s achievement.

You can also catch all the latest Olympics news at our website .

Pix: REUTERS/CCTV via Reuters TV.