 Welcome to the Interviews section of Worldguide! You have found the September 14, 1996 interview with actor Phil Borges, aired on the Futurist Radio Hour in the San Francisco Bay Area. 
A couple of years ago photographer Phil Borges went to the Himalayas to document the life of a people who embody compassion to its fullest, despite living under the brutal occupation of the Chinese for nearly 50 years. His trek was intended to create a piece of political photojournalism, the epic struggle for human rights, but instead Borges chronicled the Tibetans in a heart-rending portrait of the power of compassion, people who regard their enemies as "precious jewels."
Questions or comments about Interviews? Feel free to let us know what's on your mind. Please Note: 
BORGES: Yes, it was my first time over there. I had done quite a bit of traveling in the years prior to doing this project, I had always wanted to go to India, and especially to the Himalayas and Nepal, and I never got around to it. This was my first. CAPEN: Why pursue somethingthat takes you to a high plateau at 17,000 feet plus in the dead of winter? There had to be an enormous commitment . BORGES: This is a question I am constantly asked, and I really have to rake my memory and think back to what got me started on it in the first place. As I've said in Tibetan Portrait, my first awareness of anything political in Tibet came via bumper stickers, "Free Tibet!" I've always had a fascination with the Tibetan people. It's always been in the back of my mind, their mysticism, their stories about the lamas who could do these fantastic physical feats. The Himalayas have always been a place of majesty and mysticism. I just assume almost everybody has that in them somewhere, and I had it in me and had a chance to follow it through to a project I conceived with the Tibetan Rights Campaign in Seattle, and I just went with it. When I ended up at 17,000 feet in the dead of winter it was my third trip over there and it was just one of the more wonderful parts of the project. I had no reservations about doing that and I would love to go deeper into it, find even more remote areas of Tibetan culture. CAPEN: Peter Matthiesson, in The Snow Leopard, talks about the guides and the people he traveled with as being a pretty irrascible crew. Did you round up people to help you make your first exploration into this culture? BORGES: Well, not really, it wasn't that difficult. I first started this project by going to areas around Tibet--Dharamsala, India, where the the Dalai Lama lives, where the government-in-exile of Tibet is. I started interviewing peope there to get a sense of what they had been through. A lot of these people had escaped from Tibet and had stories to tell, very dramatic stories, much more dramatic than I ever anticipated. Then, after I had done some work in Nepal and these northern India towns, I decided to go into to Tibet. I went in alone. The way I got in was I got a visa in the United States before I went over there, a Chinese visa. The way I got that was by getting my travel agent to make up a phony itinerary as if I were going to Beijing. I sent down to LA, got my visa, and I flew into Katmandu, went into a travel agency with my Chinese visa and booked a flight into Tibet. So that's the way I got in as an individual and went in alone, and when I got into Lhasa, the main town, I first set about finding an interpreter and once I had one I started taking pictures of the people. And I had traveled around by various means in Tibet. There's not that much public transportation so I had to hire land cruisers and I traveled with Medicine Sans Frontiers for a while, but I always managed to get around by myself and find an interpreter somewhere that could help me with the project. It wasn't a big crew of people by any means.
BORGES: The Tibetan people themselves tend to be very open. They, through their conditioning and Tibetan Buddhism, produce a very emotionally open person compared to the average person that I run into. So they tend to be that way, but, yes, they were more cautious in Tibet than outside of Tibet and for good reason. They weren't sure who I was. I had an interpreter explaining it to them and what I told them was I was just doing an exhibition in the United States and that I wanted to use their portraits in an exhibition about the Tibetan people. The thing I did inside Tibet that I didn't do outside was that I made it a point not to ask them anything about their relationship with the government. I did not want them to comment on the Chinese government and what was going on there, I didn't want any political statements at all. I just asked them how old they were, what they did for a living, where they lived -- many were on a pilgrimage -- where they came from and that sort of thing. CAPEN: You cited one instance where some Chinese soldiers were a little upset at this Westerner with a lot of camera equipment . Did you have much of a problem? BORGES: It was very unpredictable over there. I found myself being stopped at roadblocks all the time as I traveled around, but not bothered too much. You're supposed to have a travel permit and I didn't have one. I had talked to other travelers who had been thrown in jail because they didn't have one. I was never bothered on that level, but there was one time that I referred to in the book where I was out in the middle of nowhere and taking pictures of two young women and all of a sudden out of nowhere two Chinese guards appeared with AK-47s and started yelling in Chinese and it was one of those times where the interpreter had gone away for a few minutes, into another house that was way across the valley, so I was there alone with these Chinese military guys screaming and yelling at me and not knowing a thing they were saying but I knew they were upset with me taking pictures, I assumed, and I had some Polaroids. I always take a Polaroid before I shoot the film for two reasons: to give the person something, and to check my lighting. I use lights when I take pictures. Well I had all the used Polaroid backings and the guy ripped them out of my upper shirt pocket and held them up to the sun because he thought those were the negatives and immediately took them in his mouth and started ripping them apart. And he got that goop that's on the back of a Polaroid all over his lips and that made him all the madder. I assumed I was going to lose my camera, and the thing I was most afraid of was that I was going to lose my film. I had all the film that had been shot. I was on my way out of Tibet at that point; everything I had done in Tibet was in my bag. But he didn't take my cameras, he overlooked the real film, and that was the end of that. Previous to this, I had been up on the roof of the Jokhang Temple in downtown Lhasa. There are surveillance cameras there, a tremendous amount of military presence, and no one bothered! I took pictures for days on the roof of that temple. So as I say it was unpredictable.
BORGES: I really didn't know. My main fear when I went to Kathmandu was that I wouldn't be able to book a flight into Lhasa alone. They say the only way you can get in there is with a group, if you're going with a tour, join a Chinese tour company, and they lead you around and show you what they want to show you. I was afraid that as an individual I wouldn't be able to get in. When I got the flight booked and that worked and I got on the plane and my next obstacle was to get through customs and immigration into Tibet, I sort of hung out next to a group as I went through immigration hoping to blend in with them -- and I did, it worked. There was one instance where I had just gone through immigration and I was walking to the door saying man, I've made it, and this little guy runs up behind me and stops me and says "May I have your passport?" and he took my passport away. I stood there thinking oh, man, this is it, I'm not going to get in, and he came back and asked me if I had ever been to Switzerland or some place in Europe, and I said many years ago, and he said okay and let me go. Actually, that was my only real worry, that I wouldn't be able to get in. Once I had gotten in I wasn't that worried. CAPEN: You mention you take Polaroids. There is an exquisite photo of Jitme, a young girl who you gave a Polaroid, and this was her first opportunity to see herself. BORGES: This was a very special group of people. Most Tibetans have mirrors in their homes, but this was a group of nomads way up in the very high reaches of the Himalayas. They were at 18,500 feet and they came down to 17,000 to winter. I went there in the wintertime and they were at 17,000 feet, at their winter camp, a band of about thirty nomads. Yes, they were very primitive, they were completely subsistence people, they were wrapped in furs. They raise yaks and goats and that's what they live on, dairy and meat. That's all they have because there are really no plants that grow up there, they can't grow any wheat or vegetables. Tibetans mainly eat barley and they can't grow that up there. This little girl, that I took a picture of, well, I handed her a Polaroid, and she looked at it and screamed -- she was about eight years old -- then ran back into her tent, and after about a half an hour came out sheepishly holding her little Polaroid next to her, and came up and watched me as I took pictures of some of the other people in her group. It is fascinating that somebody gets to be eight years old, and some of these other people were older, and they have undoubtedly very rarely, if at all, seen themselves, except maybe in a lake, a river. That really struck me.
BORGES: That's right. When the Chinese first took over they put out an order that all the nomads had to live in communes because that was the nature of communism, especially anybody that had what they called an inordinate amount of animals. Anybody with a thousand goals would be considered a supreme capitalist and they would be either thrown in jail or their goats would all be taken from them and redistributed. They put them in these communes and it led to widespread starvation. The nomad culture has evolved over centuries and centuries, and it's a very fine balance because it is some of the harshest living conditions, as you can imagine, in the world up at that altitude, at those temperatures. All they have in the winter for fuel to keep them warm and to cook their food is goat dung, and that's it, there isn't any wood up there, there is very little grass that the goats and yaks find to eat, to survive. That whole communization when the Chinese took over killed thousands upon thousands of nomads. But right now, it seems to me and I may be wrong, they seem to be left alone to a certain extent. The communization of the nomads failed so miserably. The nomads I took pictures of in this very remote area, this one little band, was on the Indian side of the border, very close to the Tibetan border in Ladakh, up on the Tibetan plateau. They weren't on the Tibetan side, so I didn't come in contact with the very, very remote nomads inside Tibet.
BORGES: Oh, definitely. I could talk on and on about this. First of all I was shocked by how giving they were. I can remember one instance when I first got to Dharamsala. I had landed in Delhi at 2:30 in the morning to get out of the plane and then out of the airport, immediately everybody besieging you to go to their hotel or take their taxi, and everybody wants something from you as a Westerner, since obviously you've got money, or a lot more than they do. I got to a point where I didn't trust anybody. You know that feeling if you have ever been in that situation. When I arrived in Dharamsala there was an all night bus ride. It was late at night, about midnight, I got into Dharamsala, and as I got off the bus I had my camera equipment, which weighs quite a bit. I had two bags and each weighed about fifty pounds. A Tibetan guy ran up to me and offered to take my bags, and my immediate reaction was no, I don't want to pay a fortune to have somebody carry my bags ten or twelve feet. He insisted, and I was so tired I said go ahead. He helped me find a hotel and he walked around with me. There was a conference of Western Tibetan Buddhist teachers that were meeting with the Dalai Lama, so all these little hotels were filled. We went around from hotel to hotel to find one and I assumed he was taking me to a brother's or friend's hotel to get a kickback or something. All these suspicious things were coming out of me. He finally found a hotel for me forty-five minutes later after carrying these heavy bags around for me. As I was checking in I turned to pay him. And he just waved at me and said "well, I'll see you later, maybe I'll see you tomorrow some time," and went. I asked the clerk at the hotel if he knew him and he said "no, I don't know him." That showed me what I am used to. Of course, I was coming out of India, but not only coming out of India, I was coming out of the United States. It showed me what I was used to.
CAPEN: Each of the photographs is accompanied by a brief history, and what you learn ts that these people were driven from their homes, beaten in prison, that their sisters and brothers died in the onslaught., a heartbreaking text that accompanies these extraordinary people who are, again, firm and open-eyed. BORGES: Yes and I went over there initially with the intention of doing a political exhibit, and that's what I was going to bring back. Tell these stories of the torture and it was, it was incredible, some of the things that go on in the prisons. They're shocked with cattle prods until they are unconscious. I'm not talking about just men, I'm talking about young nuns, nineteen, twenty year olds, shocked until they wake up later in their own vomit. I mean, they're just horrible, horrible stories. But as I was talking to them, the thing that started to emerge was the fact that . . well, one I heard over and over again was how they don't have any more anger towards their captors. I heard them say that over and over again. And so part of their process, the Tibetan Buddhist process, is to use an enemy as a learning tool or as a means to deepen their tolerance and patience and compassion, and they think of their enemies as precious jewels in that way. That is what they use to further their enlightenment on the path. In fact, when I first got to Dharamsala, the Dalai Lama was giving a public teaching out in the courtyard near his house and a lot of these people who had just escaped from Tibet were there, what they call the new arrivals. He made the statement--there was a little section for us Westerners and there were maybe a hundred there--and the translation came over the little speaker and it said we should treat our enemies as "precious jewels"! I thought to myself, what are these new arrivals thinking that just came from Tibet? At that point I had talked to so many of them and heard these horrible stories, what are they thinking about this? Here's this man who is their leader, but he's not in the mix, he's not in there having this torture done and he's telling them that they need to treat these people who are torturing them as if they were precious jewels! Another thing that emerged, I remember distinctly talking to this one man who was 62 years old and had just gotten out of prison the year before, had been in prison for 33 years, lost 20 teeth in one beating, was tortured frequently yet also said he no longer has anger for the captors. I asked him, how did you survive? Because they were also starved in prisons. Most of the people that went into prisons did not come out alive. He was one of the few. And he said, well, you know, I wasn't a real good . . . he was a monk when he was thrown in prison, his whole monastery was . . . . he said to tell you the truth, I was 28 years old, I wasn't that great a student of Buddhism, but I did remember the basics. He said the way to overcome suffering is to take yourself out of yourself and devote yourself to the relief of suffering in others. So, he said, I went about doing that in prison, and I think that is how I saved myself. And so I heard that, over and over again.
BORGES: I set up the appointment to do his portrait in the United States and we faxed back and forth until we got an appointment. So I flew over there in November, and I had to convince his secretary and the people around him that I wanted to do the portrait not on his front porch, as they wanted me to, but up on his rooftop. So that took awhile, they were very reluctant to do that. It was one of those days where he was running late -- he holds audiences with these people that come in, the new arrivals. Sometimes he'll hold an audience for as many as 900 people, this day it was about 400. Holding an audience means he sits there and shakes hands with every one of them, talks to every one of them as they go through this kind of procession line in his little compound where he lives. He was running late, the sun was going down, I was getting nervous because I had come all this way to do this. As he came up this little rickety staircase up to the roof of his house he caught my eye and he came on over. I was already somewhat nervous because the light was going and I had to get this picture and I wanted to show him what I was doing and talk to him for a little while. He sensed that. I stuck out my hand to shake his hand, I didn't know what else to do. What do you do with the Dalai Lama? He just reached around my hand and jabbed his fingers in my ribs and tickled me real hard and laughed! That was the way he defused the situation. He is very, very light. On my first trip to Dharamsala I sat and listened to a tape that a friend of mine had done, an interview for Esquire. He came back to the hotel room with the tape and we sat up that night listening to it. I swear, forty percent of that tape was laughter from the Dalai Lama! If you consider the responsibiliies that he has, he is not only the spiritual leader of the peope but the temporal leader, he's the head of the government. He's like the Pope and the President all in one. He gets up at 3:30 every morning to start his routine, his spiritual routine, and then he gets into all the meetings about the governmental stuff and he goes until I don't know what time at night, but I think it's way past 9 or 9:30. He's 60 years old. In spite of that load he is just very, very light.
BORGES: He has a very strong sympathy with the Tibetan people and he also is good friends with the Dalai Lama and what we did--when I say "we" I was working with Tibetan Rights Campaign in Seattle, my home town--we just wrote to him and asked if he would write the epilogue to the book that would be sort of a call to action. He agreed to do that and in fact he had excerpts from a speech that he had given a few months before that were almost perfect and he modified those a bit and that's what we used in the book. CAPEN: You just returned again from Dharamsala? BORGES: Yes, I went over a fourth time and I just returned from another very remote area in Ladakh called Spiti, and the Dalai Lama was giving a kalichakra ceremony there at a temple having its 1,000th birthday. An old, old little temple in the middle of nowhere, and this little village built a helipad where the Dalai Lama could land. It seemed almost like a Buddhist Woodstock. Here comes the Dalai Lama, and he does this kalichakra and all the locals come out of the woodwork there in this Himalayan region. It actually took me, well, from Delhi it took a day to get to the town where I hired a land rover, another two days to get to this area where the ceremony was given, so it was in a very remote area again. Yes, I just went and did that, and took some more pictures. CAPEN: So there will be something of a follow-up, more of these exceptional portraits of the Tibetans, which can be seen now in several cities around the country. BORGES: Tibetan Portrait is only part of this project. What I consider the main part is the exhibit, and the exhibit consists of large prints in a shadow box with the little biographies of the people. It opened in the Capitol Rotunda in Washington D.C., and then it went over to London. I had to create a second one because I was getting more requests, opening in Denver, then simultaneously in New York and Los Angeles. Then it goes on to Vancouver, BC and Chicago and a few other places.
BORGES: In the very near future. I'm going to start a project in northern Kenya around Somalia and Ethiopia, on the borders up there where there are not only very beautiful people, but also a strong slave trade going on with the children. I probably will want to try to build something around that, if it's possible. I'm going there in November to check it out. I have considered Nepal. I would like to know more, I'm rather ignorant of that, but I know there are problems. CAPEN: Thank you, Mr. Borges. Phil Borges' book is "Tibetan Portrait," with text by the Dalai Lama, and an epilogue by Elie Wiesel. Questions or comments about Worldculture? Feel free to let us know what's on your mind. 
© Worldguide 1996, all rights reserved. |