BOOK REVIEW: HOPES, GATHERINGS, AND NEW BEGINNINGS: AN A MDO TIBETAN NEW YEAR IN 2018 BY KLU THAR RGYAL ཀླུ་ཐར་རྒྱལ།

Sami Honkasalo. 2023. Review: Hopes, Gatherings, and New beginnings: An A mdo Tibetan New Year in 2018 by Klu thar rgyal. Asian Highlands Perspectives 63:469-471.

Klu thar rgyal ཀླུ་ཐར་རྒྱལ།. 2021. Hopes, Gatherings, and New Beginnings: An A Mdo Tibetan New Year in 2018 (3^rdedition), bit.ly/3XHtcyj 7 July 2023.

At one level, Klu thar rgyal's Hopes, Gatherings, and New Beginnings is a meticulous description of celebrating Lo sar (Tibetan New Year) in the Tsha nag community of Qinghai on a single occasion in 2018. At another level, the ethnography is also an autobiographic narrative of the author's observation of change and continuity in the Amdo Tibetan culture of his region and reminiscences about his family and community. Klu thar rgyal is not an independent observer arriving to report from the outside but an active participant in most of the described events connecting his own direct personal experiences and memories with the recollections of earlier generations he has come to know during his life. Consequently, while the book's core narrative focuses on the present era and its practices, Klu thar rgyal offers the reader a glimpse of the historical aspects of what he observes, creating a web of narration intertwining the present and past. Lo sar appears not as a static celebration but a constantly evolving cultural practice reshaped by societal changes.