What is it about?
This article is about how Dondrub Gyal's poem Blue Lake, set to music by Chopathar, became a nationalist symbol for some Tibetans.
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Why is it important?
It looks at the song in different versions, and examines perspectives from Tibetans living in various different places to see how they perceive the significance of the lyrics, music, and videos.
Perspectives
This was my first publication. It started out as an entirely cultural studies piece, analyzing the song without relying on ethnography, just getting historical context and one individual perspective from interviews with Chopathar. Then, I felt it would be good to include the perspectives of some of my friends and their friends, so had them watch Dechen Wangmo's videos and talk about the song with me. It was not really ethnographic, since I was bringing them this video and asking what they thought about it, and I've always wished that I had had time to do something more methodologically rigorous with it.
Anna Stirr
University of Hawaii System
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Blue Lake: Tibetan Popular Music, Place And Fantasies Of The Nation, January 2008, Brill,
DOI: 10.1163/ej.9789004155220.i-458.83.
You can read the full text:
Resources
Blue Lake (Tso Ngon Po) by Dadon; New York version
Tibetan singer Dadon singing Tso Ngon Po. Recorded in New York.
Ling Dringmo Tsendep 2015 version of Tso Ngon Po
A more recent version of the song performed by Ling Dringmo Tsendep.
Qinghai Lake video playlist
Video playlist of all sorts of videos about Qinghai Lake/Tso Ngon Po/Kokonor.
Dondrub Gyel - The Treasury of Lives
Dondrub Gyel/Dondrub Gyal biography
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
