“Careful Village’s Grassland Dispute”: An A mdo Dialect Tibetan Crosstalk Performance by Sman bla skyabs Timothy Thurston Your browser does not support the audio tag. Recording. Click to hear audio Timothy Thurston The Ohio State University Footnotes 1. Tibetans generally divide the plateau into three general cultural and dialectical areas: A mdo, Dbus gtsang, and Khams. Dbus gtsang largely conforms to the boundaries of the present Tibet Autonomous Region. A mdo refers to the Tibetan areas of Qinghai (excepting Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture), Southern Gansu, and Northern Sichuan. Khams includes Ganzi Prefecture (Sichuan), Eastern Tibet Autonomous Region (Chab mdo, changduo), Northwest Yunnan (Shangrila area), and Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Qinghai. 2. This name is clearly fictitious; many say it is allegorical and refers to the entirety of Tibet. 3. David Moser, “Reflexivity in the Humor of Xiangsheng,” CHINOPERL Papers15 (1990): 45–68, p. 45, has suggested that a more accurate translation of xiangshengwould be “face and voice routines.” 4. This paper uses the extended Wylie transcription system to render all Tibetan terms and names. Wylie is based on the Tibetan orthography and does not represent pronunciation in any dialect. An A mdo Tibetan pronunciation-based romanization might render his name Hmen la hjyab, while a romanization based on the Lhasa dialect would render it as Men la kyab (see http://www.thlib.org/reference/transliteration/phconverter.php). Another way of romanizing his name would be Man la jab. 5. As we will see in the title of the piece written in Chinese on the history of the genre cited below, the genre is often referred to as “ xiangshengin Tibetan language” ( Zangyu xiangsheng藏 語相聲) in Chinese. 6. Moser, “Reflexivity in the Humor of Xiangsheng,”pp. 45–46. 7. See Suoci 索次, “Lun Zangyu xiangsheng de lishi he xianzhuang” 論藏語相聲的歷史和現狀 (On the history and current state of xiangshengin Tibetan language), Xizang yishu yanjiu西藏藝術 研究 (Research on the arts of Tibet) 2003.3: 12–24 and Phuntshog Tashi and Patricia Schiaffini, “Realism, Humor, and Social Commitment: An Interview,” Manoa18.1 (2006): 119–24. 8. For examples of this emphasis on literature, film, and music, see Lama Jabb, “Singing the Nation: Modern Tibetan Music and National Identity,” Revue d’Etudes Tibétains21 (2011): 1–29; Lauran Hartley and Patricia Schiaffini-Vedani, eds., Modern Tibetan Literature and Social Change(Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press. 2008); Anna Morcom, “Modernity, Power, and the Reconstruction of Dance in Post-1950s Tibet,” Journal of the International Association of Tibetan Studies3 (2007): 1–42; Françoise Robin, “Performing Compassion: A Counter- Hegemonic Strategy in Tibetan Cinema?” in Tibetan Arts in Transition: A Journey through Theatre, Cinema and Painting, Seminar Proceedings(Rome and Naples 2008–2009), www.asia-ngo.org/en/images/eas/handbook%20arts.pdf#page=38, accessed 29 September 2011; Vincanne Adams, “Karaoke as Modern Lhasa, Tibet: Western Encounters with Cultural Politics,” Cultural Anthropology11.4 (1996): 510–46; and Yangdon Dhondup, “Dancing to the Beat of Modernity: The Rise and Development of Tibetan Pop Music,” in Robert Barnett and Ronald Schwartz, eds., Tibetan Modernities: Notes from the Field on Cultural and Social Change(Leiden: Brill, 2008), pp. 285–304. 9. Suoci, “Lun Zangyu xiangsheng de lishi he xianzhuang,” pp. 14–15. 10. Phuntshog Tashi and Patricia Schiaffini, “Realism, Humor, and Social Commitment: An Interview,” p. 122. I have to date, unfortunately, been unable to unearth the kind of evidence necessary to produce a definitive timeline for the development of kha shagsin the A mdo region. I have seen dialogues that were written in 1980, and am sure that the tradition in the region predates then, but have not been able to find evidence to prove that. 11. Per K. SØrenson, “Divinity Secularized: An Inquiry into the Nature and Form of the Songs Ascribed to the Sixth Dalai Lama,” Wiener Studien zur Tibetologie und Buddhistmuskunde, heft 26 (Wien: Areitskreis für Tibetische und Buddhistische Studien, Universität Wien, 1990), p. 18, describes glu shagsthus: “As a pendant to the Central Tibetan tshig rgyagtype of repartee song...