Eat the Buddha

Life and Death in a Tibetan Town

By: Barbara Demick

Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell

A gripping portrait of modern Tibet told through the lives of its people, from the bestselling author of Nothing to Envy

“A brilliantly reported and eye-opening work of narrative nonfiction.”—The New York Times Book Review

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Parul Sehgal, The New York Times • The New York Times Book Review • The Washington Post • NPR • The Economist • Outside • Foreign Affairs

Just as she did with North Korea, award-winning journalist Barbara Demick explores one of the most hidden corners of the world. She tells the story of a Tibetan town perched 11,000 feet above sea level that is one of the most difficult places in all of China for foreigners to visit.

Ngaba was one of the first places where the Tibetans and the Chinese Communists encountered one another. In the 1930s, Mao Zedong’s Red Army fled into the Tibetan plateau to escape their adversaries in the Chinese Civil War. By the time the soldiers reached Ngaba, they were so hungry that they looted monasteries and ate religious statues made of flour and butter—to Tibetans, it was as if they were eating the Buddha. Their experiences would make Ngaba one of the engines of Tibetan resistance for decades to come, culminating in shocking acts of self-immolation.

Eat the Buddha spans decades of modern Tibetan and Chinese history, as told through the private lives of Demick’s subjects, among them a princess whose family is wiped out during the Cultural Revolution, a young Tibetan nomad who becomes radicalized in the storied monastery of Kirti, an upwardly mobile entrepreneur who falls in love with a Chinese woman, a poet and intellectual who risks everything to voice his resistance, and a Tibetan schoolgirl forced to choose at an early age between her family and the elusive lure of Chinese money. All of them face the same dilemma: Do they resist the Chinese, or do they join them? Do they adhere to Buddhist teachings of compassion and nonviolence, or do they fight?

Illuminating a culture that has long been romanticized by Westerners as deeply spiritual and peaceful, Demick reveals what it is really like to be a Tibetan in the 21st century, trying to preserve one’s culture, faith, and language against the depredations of a seemingly unstoppable, technologically all-seeing superpower. Her depiction is nuanced, unvarnished, and at times shocking.

©2020 Barbara Demick (P)2020 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

“Outstanding . . . a book not only about modern Tibet but one that helps explain the current, poisonous moment in China.”—Financial Times

“[Demick’s] method is programmatic openness, deep listening, a willingness to be waylaid; the effect, a prismatic picture of history as experienced and understood by individuals in their full amplitude and idiosyncrasy.”—Parul Sehgal, The New York Times

“This remarkable book offers a unique insight into Tibet's plight, allowing the reader to understand what it is like for its people to be tossed about in a political storm they neither want nor understand.”—Daily Mail

Interesting but sad histiry of Tibet rinse 1920s

Very factual history featuring a few characters and the last King and his family. Depiction of China's takeover and the atrocities endured by the people of Tibet. Some insights into monastery life and the Dalai Lana are also featured. Narrator has pleasing voice.

Very good story

Good cultural insight woven into a fascinating story. Only complaint is the narrator’s Pǔtōnghuà; I couldn’t understand her enunciation.

Astounding

This book documents the plight and experiences of everyday Tibetan people under Chinese rule. Well documented and very engaging

Loved it

I learned a lot about an area I've been fascinated by my whole life. Demick illuminates the story of Tibet beautifully.

Spectacularly depressing look into hidden history

Compelling contemporary history that is all but "forgotten." This expose on the intentionally hidden and propgandized abuse of Tibet by communist China taught me things never mentioned in history class.

Excellent writing, moving and powerful stories

Powerful listen- written in a moving but not overstated way- great journalistic ethics and research in writing. EXCELLENT narrator. Excellent research and journalism. One of the top 3 listens of more than 50 books I have Audibled. I now have purchased her book on Korea.

Fascinating

This book was so interesting and opened a window on a history that is not well known.

Interesting History

Brings to life the history of Tibet since the Chinese walked in and took over. Treated like second class citizens in their homeland these people have had to make great sacrifices to survive. They hold the Dali Lama close to their hearts. While he is alive there is hope. what will happen when he dies? There will never be another.

Interesting and heartbreaking book

I’m so glad I found this book, which I listened to on Audible. The author, Barbara Demick, is an American journalist who served as the Beijing Bureau Chief for the Los Angeles Times, and earlier as that paper’s bureau chief in Korea. The book Eat the Buddha focuses on a town in Tibet called “Ngaba” and the surrounding prefecture. She tells the stories of several Tibetans from that area. Most fascinating to me was the story of the daughter of a Tibetan king - I had not known that Tibet had any kings – and her schooling, her efforts to assimilate into Chinese culture without completely losing her Tibetan culture. I knew, before this book, of the oppression of Tibetans by Chinese authorities, the destruction of monasteries, the clear cutting of Tibetan forests and shipping of their lumber to the Han parts of China, the settlement of large numbers of Han Chinese on the Tibetan plateau, and the reprisals against Tibetans who possessed a photo of the 14th Dalai Lama. But, as I learned from this book, the oppression surpasses anything I knew or imagined. The book shows how Tibetans have not been able to depend on any improvements in their circumstances lasting, because over the decades since the 1950s, policies affecting them have continually changed at the whim of the Chinese government, or as a result of upheavals affecting all of China, like the Cultural Revolution. The author makes clear that today’s Tibetans are not looking to return to the past, but they want to be allowed to enjoy the same rights and privileges as Han Chinese living in Tibet enjoy, including access to the same kind of jobs, better schools for their children, and the right to a Chinese passport. The book also makes clear that Tibetans would like the freedom to practice Buddhism without interference from Chinese authorities, and they want their children to have the option to learn in Tibetan as well in Chinese. This is a serious book, but very accessible, and I highly recommend it. It held my interest from beginning to end.

TIBET

Barbara Demick gives listeners a picture of Tibet with a darkness that rivals the narrative she creates for North Korea in “Nothing to Envy”. “Eat the Buddha” is a reminder of China’s insistence on Tibet’s acceptance of Communist authority in the face of Buddhist and Tibetan ethnic and religious identity. Like the Uyghurs in mainland China, Tibetans practice a religion that conflicts with Communist atheism. Unlike Islamist Uyghurs, Buddhists eschew violence against oppressors.

The last chapters of Demick’s book acknowledge her extensive research. She notes Tibetans are better off now than they were during the Mao years. However, she explains Tibetans do not have the same economic opportunity as the ethnic Chinese. It is important to be Chinese and even more important to be a member of the Communist party.

Demick draws an interesting picture of Tibet. It reveals both the truth and weakness of one historian’s view of China and Tibet. It is founded on the truth of what a number of Tibetans remember of the Mao’ years and the current relationship of China and Tibet. As is true of all books of history, China’s and Tibet’s past is not perfectly clear and the future, at best, becomes a cloudy past.