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Tibetan Artisan Jewelry Revival

“Come visit my shop,” calls out Yu Drun to foreign visitors passing by in the alley outside. “I can make you a cafe latte while you brose at my jewellery. Remember, my jewellery is designed and made by me, and I am Tibetan. So when visiting Tibet,” she pleads with a laugh, “please do not buy Tibetan jewellery made by other peoples!”

Most “Tibetan” jewellery in Lhasa is imported from Nepal, India, even Baluchistan, and of course artificial products from the interior and coastal production bases of China. Actually, today in Lhasa there is very limited local production of Tibetan jewellery. So Shambhala believed it was time for a revival of Tibetan jewellery making, made by Tibetans only.

This concern led Shambhala to establish a Tibetan Artisan Jewellery Revival project in Lhasa, with micro-enterprise financing from the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in China. Shambhala believes laying solid economic foundations will aid in the sustainability of Tibetan culture against onslaught of external influences. The revival and sustainability of Tibetan artisan jewellery is part of ethnic identity.

Stringing turquoise and designing traditional and new age Tibetan jewellery is one way of restoring local identity among indigenous people, while confidence can be built through provision of skills with an economic foundation to ensure ongoing craft and community traditions within the Barkhor heritage district of Lhasa. But to ensure the sustainability, ongoing skill development is needed to empower locals to protect and preserve, as well as to evolve their own local craft.

“When making Tibetan jewellery I feel great because I am the one creating the product. We collect old pieces from Shigatze, Nachu and Amdo regions and use these to inspire our own designs,” explains Yu Drun, a young girl who manages the Tibetan Artisan Jewellery Revival project. “We have even created some designs to replicate the turquoise jewellery of ancient Guge kingdom in Ngari prefecture, of course modified to modern taste and fashion. I don’t believe that any American or European commercial fashion jewellery designer really can top what we are doing, because it comes from within.”

“I am from Shigatze so most of my ideas for jewellery design are from my home area,” adds Yu Drun. “There we have many of the nobility characteristics, Usually Shigatze fashion and jewellery wins the annual competitions in Lhasa. We have powerful turquoise and coral combinations. Turquoise has an ancient tradition from the mountains, a symbol of nobility. Red coral is the color of monks’ robes. My grandmother used to tell us that using coral for mala prayer beads makes them special.”

Shambhala’s Tibetan Artisan Jewellery Initiative has already become a sustainable artisan revival micro-enterprise. To date most creations involve traditional beading and stringing of necklaces and beaded jewellery. It was discovered that skills do not exist for making silver working (rings, necklaces and pendants). These skills were lost during the Cultural Revolution and have been displaced in the new economy by Nepalese imports. Necessary funds for critical expansion including the re-training of silversmiths became a priority of Shambhala.

To date all silver jewellery in Lhasa are made in either India or Nepal. To assure a purely Tibetan product, revival of silver making is necessary. Thanks to generous support in the form of micro-enterprise financing from the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in China, Shambhala has begun a program of technical training skills and capacity building using Nepalese silversmith teachers to backward engineer these traditional techniques as essential ingredients to achieve this.

Shambhala’s program involves taking a community of marginalized individuals and providing them with employment while reviving and sustaining cultural identity by integrating them into a program of skills training with an economic foundation. Individuals selected for this program are mainly unemployed Tibetan women. Yu Drun herself was a housekeeper and babysitter before taking the challenge to lead this cooperative.

“Creating our own products we can make our own designs and it is a part of ourselves,” explains Yu Drun. “I am really proud to be manager of this project because suddenly it has empowered me with not only a career but appreciation for my traditional family skill which might otherwise be lost in our now very mobile and complicated society. I am also really proud to be able to promote our Tibetan culture and the philosophy of our Buddhist values through high fashion jewellery that is appreciated by foreigners visiting Tibet.”

The planned results will include a sustainable social enterprise, which involves revival of a tradition craft, which has meaning in an evolving modern context. Such a program involves employment, skill training, cultural identity revival and teaching of communal responsibility through participation in a social enterprise.

For many Tibetans in the Barkhor District, a low income amid against a changing economic paradigm and lifestyle conditions is a serious problem. The trainees will become self-sufficient by employing people and sustain their incomes by retailing their creations in Shambhala Foundation’s cultural sustainable shop in the Barkhor.

Currently only women are involved in the program. Most are supporting families (an average of three children). Service personnel in Lhasa receive an income ranging from 300-600 RMB per month. Women participating in the jewellery initiative receive an income starting at RMB600 per month during the first month of commencement. Income is received against work and results from sales made, stimulating the creative adaptation of traditional designs for modern tastes.

To date, all participants live in the Barkhor heritage district. By providing a sustainable income, they are able to stay in the Barkhor, maintaining a traditional lifestyle, not needing to find work elsewhere, and leaving their neighborhood.

Culture is always evolving. This initiative provides an environment conducive to stimulating creative ways of evolving tradition crafts for modern consumers, which makes the initiative economically sustainable.

“Sometimes at home I look at my mom’s old antique jewellery and it gives me a sense of my roots and identity,” says Yu Drun. “Moreover, it inspires me to carry this tradition on. Once my mom’s heirlooms are gone, we will have nothing left to remember our traditions by.”

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