I woke up uneasy on the morning of November 6, 2024—and not just because of the US presidential election that had just happened.
(I was in the Tibetan city of Shigatse, of course, which meant that election results were just beginning to roll in as I had my breakfast. It was still the evening of November 5 in America.)
And I wasn’t uneasy about said results, at least not in that moment. “She’s going to win,” I projected confidently to one of my fellow tour participants, as I hoisted pieces of deep-fried sweet potato into my mouth with chopsticks. “It’ll be close, but she’ll win.”
No, as I cleaned my plate, pushed in my chair and hurried across the portion of the corridor between the dining area and the main hotel that was exposed to the elements, the main source of my discomfort was regret. In a moment of exhaustion, I’d opted against attending the previous night’s dinner show.
We’d just driven back eight hours from Everest Base Camp, which we’d reached via another eight hour drive the day before. And although we were eventually able to see the mountain, we spent most of our time beneath it under a blanket of clouds that made the frigid air temperature unbearable.
“I want to go back the hotel,” I insisted, feeling as filthy after not showering for nearly two days as I felt exhausted due to having barely slept.
The last thing I wanted to see was a contrived dance performance (which was “sad” and “minstrel-like,” according to a TripAdvisor review), particularly given my distaste for Tibetan cuisine.
And so as we left the hotel for Tashi Lunpo, a monastery within Shigatse’s city limits that was founded by the very first Dalai Lama during the 15th century, I wanted primarily for the nascent experience to dislodge my negative emotions attached to the night before.
Unfortunately, by the time we had made our way into the Maitreya Buddha chapel about 30 minutes after arriving on site, it became clear from what I was able to glean glancing down at my phone every once in a while that Donald Trump was going to win.
Not that I was willing to admit that out-loud.
“He’s just carrying the red states,” I reassured the Franco-German couple, when they postulated that the election might be as close as everyone had been predicting, the sun now shining brightly on the monastery’s golden accents. “The swing states won’t be called for days.”
Yet the entire thing had been called for Orange Oprah by lunchtime; it took halfway through our somber dinner in Old Lhasa near Jokhang Temple for someone to breach the topic. As the only American, I was the one who spoke most (and most forcefully) about it.
“It feels sadder than 2016 did,” I began, explaining to my new friends (some of whom were a decade younger than me) just how traumatic it had been to witness Trump’s victory that year in real time. “But also way more anti-climatic.”
His first term, to be sure, had also been traumatizing, on an almost daily basis. Then again, I now more or less knew what to expect: Minimal competence; maximum drama; and frequent embarrassment for my country and at least half of its voters.
There was also, importantly, seeing the election in the context of the place I was traveling. Not only does Tibet not have elections; its residents have virtually no fundamental freedoms, and are not even full citizens of the country that has been occupying their territory for decades.
To Americans living in an American bubble—and especially, a liberal one—it can seem perfectly normal to throw around words like “dictator” and “fascism” in response to the 2024 election results, particularly given his admiration for authoritarian dictators and penchant for fascist rhetoric.
However, having spent almost two weeks in Tibet and observed first-hand what real authoritarianism looks like, it felt inappropriate to use such melodramatic language—to feel such existential despair—over what is in the bigger picture little more than a very bad outcome for the American Left.
(The events of January 6, 2021 and their instigator’s lack of accountability for this role in them notwithstanding, needless to say.)
A few days later, sipping 3-in-1 Nescafe in a tent on the shores of Namtso Lake, having just gotten my bucket list riding-a-white-ox shot, I was chatting with a local Tibetan who spoke surprisingly good English.
“My dream destination is Greece,” he told me, looking out at the sparkling, blue-green waters of the sacred lake. “But it will always remain nothing but a dream.”
“Why?” I took another sip. In my peripheral vision, a boy who couldn’t have been older that 15 lit and took a massive drag of a cigarette.
“We can’t get passports,” he said, sounding somewhat indignant but not raising his voice. “Well, at least not until we’re 60. At that point, China knows we don’t have the fight left in us to be a threat.” He laughed, but I could tell he didn’t find it funny—I certainly didn’t.
In the six weeks that have now passed since the election, I’ve been surprised by how quickly the dread and sadness I felt in its wake have passed.
At this point in 2016, I was literally plotting my departure from the US; today, I’m going about my business more or less as I did in March or May or August. It’s not that I don’t care about the impending presidential transition, or that I doubt many terrible things will happen because of it. Quite the contrary.
Nor is it only because of what I witnessed in Tibet, though I will say it once again: Hyperbole about a touchy topic is irresponsible once you’ve seen the real thing. And tacky, like the way a flaxen toupée clashes with pumpkin-orange makeup.
No matter which country you come from, or which tour you select, exploring Tibet will change your perspective—it might even change your life. I hope my pictures inspire you to follow in my footsteps.
