The Autonomous Region

Two veteran travellers set out in 1989 for Amdo and Tibet. They spent months on the road in the company of nomads, pilgrims, monks, and traders. Their journey was halted at the border of the Autonomous Region of Tibet by the events of the time: general strikes, a military clampdown, and the Tiananmen Square massacre. Smith's photographs testify to the dignity of the Tibetan people and their courageous refusal to allow their culture to be destroyed by the Chinese; Jamie's poems interweave her own wanderings with those of two historical characters she 'met' on her journey across China -- Fa Hsein, a fourth century Chinese monk, and Princess Wen'ch'eng, a 6th-century Buddhist pioneer and educator.