"Where the Snow Lotus Blooms" TV series propagates China's propaganda, ignores real Tibetan culture: Report

Beijing [China], July 10 : The most successful series of the year on Chinese TV "Where the Snow Lotus Blooms" promotes a false "old Tibetan spirit" and ignores real Tibetan culture, according to Bitter Winter.

Bitter Winter is a magazine on religious liberty and human rights around the world, with a special focus on China.

Henan Radio and Television and Tibet Radio and Television co-produced the series with CCTV. The 32-episode series broadcast from May on CCTV 1 of the government-controlled China Central Radio and Television Station is just another piece of Communist Party of China (CCP) propaganda.

The series has been successful all over China. So far, it is the most-watched TV series of 2023 in the country.

However, according to Bitter Winter, the series tells the usual lies. Tibetans are depicted as unhappy and backward until the Chinese "liberators" arrived.

The soldiers, the CCP Han Chinese cadres, and students who "voluntarily" came to Tibet after the invasion were selfless heroes whose main purpose was to "revive the old Tibetan spirit."

The series' key concept is the "old Tibetan spirit" but it has nothing to do with Buddhism, monasteries, and traditional Tibetan culture. By searching inside themselves, the Tibetans of the series discover this spirit, whose actual content is that they are Chinese.

As one character says, "the life connection of the Han and Tibetan peoples' blood is thicker than water", as per Bitter Winter.

The only nod to reality is a mention of the anti-ecological behaviour of large Chinese companies. However, while in reality these companies operate under the protection of corrupt CCP bureaucrats, in the series the CCP unrealistically protects the villagers from them, as per Bitter Winter.