Performers play King Gesar at a festival in Dege county, Sichuan province, which the legend describes as the king's hometown. Wu Guangyu / Xinhua

New technologies give Tibetans more entertainment options

Preservation of the masterpiece of ancient Tibetan culture, The Epic of King Gesar, is facing challenges on two fronts: The region's wizened storytellers are taking their treasures to the grave even as the younger generation is focused on contemporary entertainment.

"The epic is under constant onslaught from globalization and modernization," said Tsering Phuntsok, director of the Ethnic Institute of the Tibet Academy of Social Sciences, who has been leading preservation efforts in the Tibet autonomous region.

The King Gesar story of good vanquishing evil was transmitted orally from generation to generation over a millennium. Today, it's much less popular, quickly losing ground to the many activities of modern life on the plateau, known as the "roof of the world".

"The emergence of much modern technology has provided Tibetans more options on amusements, but it also has had an impact on the traditional way of transmitting the heritage, which is mainly transmitted orally," Tsering said.

"Both the governments and insiders have been valuing preservation, rather than studies, in the past few decades, because of its importance to Tibetan folk culture," he said.

An office dedicated to preserving the epic was opened in 1979, according to the Tibet Academy of Social Sciences. Starting in the 1980s, Tibet carried out a survey on the epic's many iterations, seeking storytellers, and collecting old manuscripts and woodblock printing versions of the saga, said Tsering, 50.

More than 74 old manuscripts were collected, and within a couple of years, the office had identified 39 storytellers who could each recount more than 10 of the King Gesar tales. The epic's narrators were mainly found in Tibet's northern Nagqu prefecture, eastern Qamdo prefecture and western Ngari prefecture.

Since then, more than 57 storytellers have been identified and their tales have been preserved in print, and on audio recordings and video. More than 5,000 hours of audio recordings were collected and many of the stories have been rendered into books. A collection of King Gesar tales performed by 10 eminent storytellers from Tibet is expected to be published this year.