Hello,
When trying to understand the differences in the media coverage of Tibet between Western countries and China, I think it's important that we keep one thing in mind; that is that the average Chinese and average western observer might not have any real idea about what they are talking about at all. Let me explain further.
Obviously the Chinese media is biased. They rarely report anything objectively and they constantly try to spin things to benefit their means. The recent violence in Tibet is no exception. Coverage both on television and in the papers has reached new levels of laugh-ability and is generally a disgrace to the profession in general. Now in saying that, the western coverage has been surprisingly horrid. While the big players have all done well in documenting the events, pictures have been shown in secondary newspapers across Europe and North America of riots and protests of Tibetans in India and Nepal, with captions indicating that they are taking place in Lhasa. Shocking I know. In general the western media has always been sympathetic, to a fault, of Tibet. While it is true that China has taken the territory by force and ran it with little or no recognition for its original inhabitants, fire bombing innocent Chinese business men and shop keepers is not the way out of this mess. But, let me get back to my original point about misconceptions.
The Western Misconception
There has been a rash of blog posting in the last week or so by Chinese bloggers condemning the actions of Tibetan rioters against Chinese people in Tibet. And I must agree, fire bombs being throne in to Chinese stores and incredible levels of violence against innocent Chinese citizens and small business owners are completely unacceptable. Clearly the grievances of the Tibetan people lay with the government which marginalizes them as second class citizens and forces them to repress their religious beliefs; so attacks on ordinary Chinese folks just seems a bit over the top. Which leads me to my first point, Tibetans are violent people and they are hard as nails, so to speak. There is a common misconception in the west that all Tibetan people are buddhist and they are peaceful and would never hurt anyone or anything. And while that is a fairly reliable description of monks and people over 60 years old in Tibet, clearly there are many Tibetans who are not monks and there are many who are young and passionate about their culture. Tibetan people have a strong and proud tradition as hunters, nomads and farmers, and only recently as city dwellers. It has been my experience, traveling in the region for the last seven years, that no matter what the background of tradition, Tibetans can be down right nasty both to each other and to anyone who happens to get in their way.
Violence has been as big a part of Tibetan culture as Buddhism has been over the last thousand years or so, but it is almost never discussed or debated. In fact, in the 10th century, a warlike Tibetan nation was one of the great imperial powers of Asia with their armies stretched deep in to Central Asia, Central India and Western China. More recently Tibet had always been, prior to the 1950s, been a vast lawless frontier where anything went, and there was much tribal warfare within Tibetan clans competing for farming land, live stock and even women. Nomads within Tibet have had, going back to the days of the Silk Road, always been feared for their ruthless banditry, robbing caravans of merchants crossing from Mongolia to Chinese Turkistan who accidently ventured to closely to Tibet's northern frontier.
Buddhism arrived in Tibet in the middle of the 7th century and although it spread slowly over the next few hundred years the religions spread seemed to calm the Tibetan warlike ambition, but large cliques and groups continued their ways of violence. Understanding the Tibetan forms of punishment may help us understand the levels of violence that were once deemed acceptable. In 1929, in his book THE LAND OF THE LAMAS David McDonald witnesses mutilation as a form of punishment for crimes. Men who had committed certain crimes had red hot irons thrust in to their eye sockets, and some had boiling water poured over their eyes; this was a typical punishment for murder or theft from monasteries.
While writers and journalists of our era often have experiences, and myself is included in this group, of the humorous, hospitable and trustworthy Tibetans; this is not the only side of the Tibetan people and like all of us in the west and within China, we all have our nasty sides. Especially when being continuously pressured and belittled.
The Chinese Misconception:
While the first misconception is from outsiders looking in, the second misconception is from Chinese people within China. It is safe to say that the average Chinese person has little or no idea of the history of Tibetan culture and the historically brutal treatment that the Tibetans have received at the hands of the Chinese over the last 60 years. Chinese propaganda and the re-writing of history reigns supreme and many bloggers have only vague ideas of the true history between Tibet and China, and the activities of the Cultural Revolution. While 60 years of intimidation and suppression are still no excuses to take the lives of innocent shop keepers, it can lend value to understanding just how desperate the Tibetans feel, and how serious this problem will become if not dealt with effectively.
Much of the understanding in China about Tibet comes from a "version" history I described above. Most Chinese are taught in schools that Tibetans are culture-less nomads, barbarians who have rapped and pillaged for centuries. This type of thought control allows Chinese to feel superior to their minority peoples and therefore gives them a "moral green light" - so to speak - in running the territories they live in. The comment in my last blog about Tibet is a prime example of this mis-education, whereby the current party secretary in Tibet referred to Tibetan people as children and mentioned that the Communist Party was the Tibetan people's real Buddha. A whole new level of sickness, but in his mind he is completely justified because he has been taught since he was a child that Tibetans are less than human, or at least less than a Han Chinese.
Had Chinese people had un-biased books to read from and a less-slanted post secondary education, they may understand that their government has made some unforgivable mistakes over the last 60 years in Tibet; but my hope is that all of that will be pushed to the past and a new reconciliation will begin. Now is the time, dialog is the only way to end this suppression and the negative media attention it attracts. And while this is my hope, this will most certainly not become reality.
The Chinese government will do what it does best: suppress, suppress, suppress. They will blame the Dali Lama because that's all they really know how to do. Imagine if they preformed an internal investigation into their own policy in Tibet, and then made changes?
It'll never happen, blaming is easier and a clear sign of guilt and ignorance. Economic growth and emerging global power has fueled Chinese Nationalism to ever dangerous levels, arrogance and self-ritiousness is visible throughout all levels of government and society; for too many there is little reason for change. And so minorities continue to suffer.
--
Cheers,
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Ryan Pyle Blog: The Policy Failure of Tibet
Hello,
As someone who has traveled dozens of times in Tibet, and who has spent countless hours sitting in monasteries and documenting life in this part of the world; I find it necessary to share my opinion on the recent brutal crackdown on Tibetan protests by the police and military in the provinces of Tibet, Sichuan, Gansu, Yunnan and Qinghai.
The title of this blog is: "The Policy Failure of Tibet", because since 1949 every single policy that the Chinese government has come up with has failed, and failed miserably.
The mainly Chinese view that the Tibetan people should be thankful for the wealth and prosperity that the Han Chinese have brought to the region of Tibet is largely bunk. The wealth that the Han Chinese have brought to Tibet has largely benefited not Tibetans, but themselves. They've built schools for their own children and hospitals that few locals can afford, and when Tibetans are admitted it is generally ceremonial or an act of charity. The roads and infrastructure build up has largely benefited the commodities industry which the Tibetans are shut out of, and for each train that reaches Tibet from mainland China full of tourists; another two or three trains go back in the other direction full of coal, iron ore and copper.
It's true, Tibet is incredibly strategic to China. It makes up about 15% of China's overall land mass and borders Pakistan, India, Bhutan, Nepal and Burma. The region of Tibet offers a convenient buffer between the mainland and previous threat of India, and above all this the Himalayan kingdom is said to contain abundant mineral wealth. It makes very clear sense, looking back, why China wanted to incorporate it in the People's Republic of China in the 1950s. But the historical record of how China has done in the almost 60 years of "managing" Tibet offers little comfort - one can't help but feel that these recent moments of unrest have been a long long time coming. Below are a few examples of policy failure:
Almost immediately after claiming power in 1949 the People's Republic of China and its governing leaders decided to shrink the new "province" of Tibet. The leadership collectively gerrymandered the territory much like an electoral district in the United States of America. The resulting territory is half of its original size, resulting in a fact that many Tibetans now living in China live outside of Tibet proper; which is one reason why we've seen protests in many of the neighboring provinces - Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan, Yunnan.
Once Tibet was settled in the late 1950s and early 1960s the Chinese began an official assimilation policy, tempting Chinese from eastern China to move to Lhasa and set up business; in an grand effort to make Tibetans a minority in their own territory and therefore more stable. The policy eventually worked marvelously and Tibetans are now in fact a minority in their own territory and anyone who has visited Lhasa in the last year or two will be completely put off by the "new Tibet", while roads are paved much of the central planning has lead to Lhasa looking like every other city in China, with ugly white "bathroom" tile buildings and honking motorists on every corner. On a recent visit to Lhasa my taxi driver from the airport to the city center was a man from Hunan province. He had come to Lhasa a few years back because taxi companies paid a premium for drivers in Tibet - upwards of 150% what they can make in their home province. So he came, he drove, and he doesn't like it much. He mentioned the food had no taste, the air was too dry and that Tibetans didn't like him. Why stay I asked, to save up a little more money and then go home he replied. His tail is telling and common of most who move to Tibet from the east. Most don't like it, most come just for the money and most make no attempt to integrate in to local life, leaving a great barrier between the two cultures that exist side by side. The larger the Han population in Lhasa, the more the tensions increased. Han took care of Han and gave the best jobs to each other, leaving the mostly un-educated Tibetan population out of their plans for a new Tibet. Assimilation policies generally make the original inhabitants second class citizens in their own homes, clearly leaving them resentful and feeling helpless. This has essentially been the case since real development began in Tibet during the 1990s.
When things became too dangerous for the Dali Lama he had to flee Tibet in 1959, taking refuge in India. It was a disastrous event for the people of Tibet. While its true that the Dali Lama's life was most likely endanger it marked the beginning of a full out assault on Tibetan Buddhism. In the years that followed the Cultural Revolution shut down or destroyed some 6000 or more monasteries. A culture that had existed untouched for centuries was beset by systematic program of complete destruction. One monk I recently interviewed in the Labrang monastery told me that the Cultural Revolution was a horrible time, and he reminisces, anytime he kneeled on the ground to perform prostration's he would be wiped or beaten. Those, he said, were times best forgotten.
Since the "Opening and Reform Period" was ushered in by Deng Xiaoping in 1979, much Chinese history has been conveniently re-written or erased. The government's bureau of education has willing done it's "Big Brother Best" to conveniently forget much of the atrocity that has ravaged within the country for much of the last half century. While the disastrous policies of the Great Leap Forward and the starvation that followed are erased from history; much of Tibets history has been altered to suit the cause of government. Ask the average Chinese person in their 20s on the streets of major cities of China what they learned about Tibet during their education and they'll look dumbfounded. Stories of savages and unsophisticated barbarians come to mind, that is before the region was "liberated" by the People Liberation Army. The Chinese government has much avoided the topic of policies that were implemented in Han China during the Cultural Revolution, but they have pleaded complete amnesia to policies that were implemented in minority regions like Xinijang and Tibet during the same time frame - because they were often far far worse than anything that happened in the east. Based on my travels many monks still live with memories of the Cultural Revolution and wounds that have never been brought in to the open, or in fact have swept under the carpet as if they never happened, and that only leaves a deeper resentment. Some of which has boiled over this week.
With all the assimilation, immigration and business buildup in Tibet it is hard for Tibetans not to feel like second class citizens in their own homes. Now this has happened countless times throughout history to parts of the world that have been invaded and colonized; the British in India, Europeans in North and South America for example. But this is somewhat different in that today we live in a world of fixed territorial boundaries and issues of national security that reign supreme; a much different world that when the British governed Pakistan and India. In today's world the buzz word of stability, or the impression of stability, reigns supreme in many developing countries in the world today; and China is perhaps the perfect example. It's booming economy and upcoming Olympic games means that there is a lot to lose, and media attention is getting fierce, the impression of stability is of the utmost importance. But you can only keep people down for so long, and this quote by Zhang Qingli, the Communist Party Leader of Tibet, the highest ranking official in the territory, seem to speak volumes of the dissatisfaction by Tibetans of Han rule. Zhang says in an interview last year, "The Communist Party is like the parent to the Tibetan people, and it is always considerate about what the children need. He later added: "The Central Party Committee is the real Buddha for Tibetans." What more can I say, when top government officials put their foot in their own mouths this well!
To be honest, I had hope for Tibet under Chinese rule up until a few weeks ago. China's current president Hu Jinatao was the Party Leader of Tibet from 1988 and had experienced, and was generally responsible for the, crack down in 1989. My hope was that he had learned his lessons and might have been able to avoid similar situations, but it's clear that the current party chief is stuck in the 1960s mentality of governing Tibet. The future looks bleak indeed: wrong thinking ministers, trigger happy soldiers and a complete blockade against independent observers and journalists are all steps in the wrong direction. When will China learn that this behavior just doesn't fly when you view yourself as an emerging superpower? Maybe never. Will further gaps in stability plague China in its minority hinterlands? Only time will tell. But my guess is this will be the most political Olympics on record and China will weather each storm with heavy-handed crackdowns, prompting further resentment. And so the vicious circle continues.
--
Cheers,
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
As someone who has traveled dozens of times in Tibet, and who has spent countless hours sitting in monasteries and documenting life in this part of the world; I find it necessary to share my opinion on the recent brutal crackdown on Tibetan protests by the police and military in the provinces of Tibet, Sichuan, Gansu, Yunnan and Qinghai.
The title of this blog is: "The Policy Failure of Tibet", because since 1949 every single policy that the Chinese government has come up with has failed, and failed miserably.
The mainly Chinese view that the Tibetan people should be thankful for the wealth and prosperity that the Han Chinese have brought to the region of Tibet is largely bunk. The wealth that the Han Chinese have brought to Tibet has largely benefited not Tibetans, but themselves. They've built schools for their own children and hospitals that few locals can afford, and when Tibetans are admitted it is generally ceremonial or an act of charity. The roads and infrastructure build up has largely benefited the commodities industry which the Tibetans are shut out of, and for each train that reaches Tibet from mainland China full of tourists; another two or three trains go back in the other direction full of coal, iron ore and copper.
It's true, Tibet is incredibly strategic to China. It makes up about 15% of China's overall land mass and borders Pakistan, India, Bhutan, Nepal and Burma. The region of Tibet offers a convenient buffer between the mainland and previous threat of India, and above all this the Himalayan kingdom is said to contain abundant mineral wealth. It makes very clear sense, looking back, why China wanted to incorporate it in the People's Republic of China in the 1950s. But the historical record of how China has done in the almost 60 years of "managing" Tibet offers little comfort - one can't help but feel that these recent moments of unrest have been a long long time coming. Below are a few examples of policy failure:
Almost immediately after claiming power in 1949 the People's Republic of China and its governing leaders decided to shrink the new "province" of Tibet. The leadership collectively gerrymandered the territory much like an electoral district in the United States of America. The resulting territory is half of its original size, resulting in a fact that many Tibetans now living in China live outside of Tibet proper; which is one reason why we've seen protests in many of the neighboring provinces - Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan, Yunnan.
Once Tibet was settled in the late 1950s and early 1960s the Chinese began an official assimilation policy, tempting Chinese from eastern China to move to Lhasa and set up business; in an grand effort to make Tibetans a minority in their own territory and therefore more stable. The policy eventually worked marvelously and Tibetans are now in fact a minority in their own territory and anyone who has visited Lhasa in the last year or two will be completely put off by the "new Tibet", while roads are paved much of the central planning has lead to Lhasa looking like every other city in China, with ugly white "bathroom" tile buildings and honking motorists on every corner. On a recent visit to Lhasa my taxi driver from the airport to the city center was a man from Hunan province. He had come to Lhasa a few years back because taxi companies paid a premium for drivers in Tibet - upwards of 150% what they can make in their home province. So he came, he drove, and he doesn't like it much. He mentioned the food had no taste, the air was too dry and that Tibetans didn't like him. Why stay I asked, to save up a little more money and then go home he replied. His tail is telling and common of most who move to Tibet from the east. Most don't like it, most come just for the money and most make no attempt to integrate in to local life, leaving a great barrier between the two cultures that exist side by side. The larger the Han population in Lhasa, the more the tensions increased. Han took care of Han and gave the best jobs to each other, leaving the mostly un-educated Tibetan population out of their plans for a new Tibet. Assimilation policies generally make the original inhabitants second class citizens in their own homes, clearly leaving them resentful and feeling helpless. This has essentially been the case since real development began in Tibet during the 1990s.
When things became too dangerous for the Dali Lama he had to flee Tibet in 1959, taking refuge in India. It was a disastrous event for the people of Tibet. While its true that the Dali Lama's life was most likely endanger it marked the beginning of a full out assault on Tibetan Buddhism. In the years that followed the Cultural Revolution shut down or destroyed some 6000 or more monasteries. A culture that had existed untouched for centuries was beset by systematic program of complete destruction. One monk I recently interviewed in the Labrang monastery told me that the Cultural Revolution was a horrible time, and he reminisces, anytime he kneeled on the ground to perform prostration's he would be wiped or beaten. Those, he said, were times best forgotten.
Since the "Opening and Reform Period" was ushered in by Deng Xiaoping in 1979, much Chinese history has been conveniently re-written or erased. The government's bureau of education has willing done it's "Big Brother Best" to conveniently forget much of the atrocity that has ravaged within the country for much of the last half century. While the disastrous policies of the Great Leap Forward and the starvation that followed are erased from history; much of Tibets history has been altered to suit the cause of government. Ask the average Chinese person in their 20s on the streets of major cities of China what they learned about Tibet during their education and they'll look dumbfounded. Stories of savages and unsophisticated barbarians come to mind, that is before the region was "liberated" by the People Liberation Army. The Chinese government has much avoided the topic of policies that were implemented in Han China during the Cultural Revolution, but they have pleaded complete amnesia to policies that were implemented in minority regions like Xinijang and Tibet during the same time frame - because they were often far far worse than anything that happened in the east. Based on my travels many monks still live with memories of the Cultural Revolution and wounds that have never been brought in to the open, or in fact have swept under the carpet as if they never happened, and that only leaves a deeper resentment. Some of which has boiled over this week.
With all the assimilation, immigration and business buildup in Tibet it is hard for Tibetans not to feel like second class citizens in their own homes. Now this has happened countless times throughout history to parts of the world that have been invaded and colonized; the British in India, Europeans in North and South America for example. But this is somewhat different in that today we live in a world of fixed territorial boundaries and issues of national security that reign supreme; a much different world that when the British governed Pakistan and India. In today's world the buzz word of stability, or the impression of stability, reigns supreme in many developing countries in the world today; and China is perhaps the perfect example. It's booming economy and upcoming Olympic games means that there is a lot to lose, and media attention is getting fierce, the impression of stability is of the utmost importance. But you can only keep people down for so long, and this quote by Zhang Qingli, the Communist Party Leader of Tibet, the highest ranking official in the territory, seem to speak volumes of the dissatisfaction by Tibetans of Han rule. Zhang says in an interview last year, "The Communist Party is like the parent to the Tibetan people, and it is always considerate about what the children need. He later added: "The Central Party Committee is the real Buddha for Tibetans." What more can I say, when top government officials put their foot in their own mouths this well!
To be honest, I had hope for Tibet under Chinese rule up until a few weeks ago. China's current president Hu Jinatao was the Party Leader of Tibet from 1988 and had experienced, and was generally responsible for the, crack down in 1989. My hope was that he had learned his lessons and might have been able to avoid similar situations, but it's clear that the current party chief is stuck in the 1960s mentality of governing Tibet. The future looks bleak indeed: wrong thinking ministers, trigger happy soldiers and a complete blockade against independent observers and journalists are all steps in the wrong direction. When will China learn that this behavior just doesn't fly when you view yourself as an emerging superpower? Maybe never. Will further gaps in stability plague China in its minority hinterlands? Only time will tell. But my guess is this will be the most political Olympics on record and China will weather each storm with heavy-handed crackdowns, prompting further resentment. And so the vicious circle continues.
--
Cheers,
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Ryan Pyle Blog: Looking Back...........Toronto
Hello,
I've been wanting to write this blog for about a week now, but something has always come up and postponed it; well not today.
I wanted a moment to reflect on my most recent trip back to Toronto. I had originally planned the trip back to Toronto for my brothers wedding and a bit of time with family. But that soon became just the anchor to what was an intense week of photography and lecturing.
First off, having stayed in touch with my former Chinese Politics professor at the University of Toronto, I was invited back to the university in late February to give two lectures to 2nd and 3rd year undergrad classes studying contemporary Chinese Politics. I was really pleased to have had this opportunity and I embraced it.
I prepared a two hour lecture on some of the negative impacts of rapid Chinese economic growth, using a basic model that there are essentially two China's; the urban centers and the countryside - and the gap between them widens further each year. Supporting this main argument I touched on local corruption, environmental destruction, land rights, poverty, health care and education. I intertwined a lot of facts and statistics with a lot of personal stories about hair raising experiences doing journalism work in China - it was great fun. It was also the first time I have ever stood up and talked for 2 hours, but once I got cracking along it was easy enough. The class was well received and I know many of the students enjoyed a change of pace from the regular lectures delivered by the professors. I've since been invited back to lecture again next year, once my final plans are formalized for my next trip to Toronto.
Hopefully some of the students have signed on to the blog and are keeping watch of all the turmoil that has been happening recently. But I'll save those details for another blog - some time soon.
So, the lecturing went well and it is absolutely something I would like to do in the future; not just at the University of Toronto but at other institutions as well. I feel that my day to day life in China, and my photojournalism work in the country offers me a unique perspective that I want to share with as many people as possible. Obviously I would love to write a book about some of these issues some day, but alas finding the time is just not possible at the moment.
The second portion of the trip back to Toronto involved my very first photography exhibition. The topic was Chinese Turkistan, also known as the province of Xinjiang province in northwestern China. I have spent a significant amount of time in the last two years traveling in Xinjiang, attempting to document life and culture - I felt this first stage of the project was a success. I called the show Chinese Turkistan because I wanted the imagery to remind people of the special Silk Road history and wealth of culture that exists in this very special region of China. I felt the show was well attended and very well received and I am hoping to continue on with another show next year in 2009. The only question that remains is the venue, whether we will be in Toronto again or perhaps London, UK. Hopefully I'll know in the next few months.
The last stop of my trip back to Toronto was to be the best man at my brothers wedding. Now, I don't talk much about my personal life on this blog, and it's safe to assume that won't change anytime soon, but it was great to be back and catch up with a lot of family and friends that I hadn't seen in ages. When you live a long way away, going back and having everyone together for one special night is a great thing. A true pleasure.
More soon.
--
Cheers,
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
I've been wanting to write this blog for about a week now, but something has always come up and postponed it; well not today.
I wanted a moment to reflect on my most recent trip back to Toronto. I had originally planned the trip back to Toronto for my brothers wedding and a bit of time with family. But that soon became just the anchor to what was an intense week of photography and lecturing.
First off, having stayed in touch with my former Chinese Politics professor at the University of Toronto, I was invited back to the university in late February to give two lectures to 2nd and 3rd year undergrad classes studying contemporary Chinese Politics. I was really pleased to have had this opportunity and I embraced it.
I prepared a two hour lecture on some of the negative impacts of rapid Chinese economic growth, using a basic model that there are essentially two China's; the urban centers and the countryside - and the gap between them widens further each year. Supporting this main argument I touched on local corruption, environmental destruction, land rights, poverty, health care and education. I intertwined a lot of facts and statistics with a lot of personal stories about hair raising experiences doing journalism work in China - it was great fun. It was also the first time I have ever stood up and talked for 2 hours, but once I got cracking along it was easy enough. The class was well received and I know many of the students enjoyed a change of pace from the regular lectures delivered by the professors. I've since been invited back to lecture again next year, once my final plans are formalized for my next trip to Toronto.
Hopefully some of the students have signed on to the blog and are keeping watch of all the turmoil that has been happening recently. But I'll save those details for another blog - some time soon.
So, the lecturing went well and it is absolutely something I would like to do in the future; not just at the University of Toronto but at other institutions as well. I feel that my day to day life in China, and my photojournalism work in the country offers me a unique perspective that I want to share with as many people as possible. Obviously I would love to write a book about some of these issues some day, but alas finding the time is just not possible at the moment.
The second portion of the trip back to Toronto involved my very first photography exhibition. The topic was Chinese Turkistan, also known as the province of Xinjiang province in northwestern China. I have spent a significant amount of time in the last two years traveling in Xinjiang, attempting to document life and culture - I felt this first stage of the project was a success. I called the show Chinese Turkistan because I wanted the imagery to remind people of the special Silk Road history and wealth of culture that exists in this very special region of China. I felt the show was well attended and very well received and I am hoping to continue on with another show next year in 2009. The only question that remains is the venue, whether we will be in Toronto again or perhaps London, UK. Hopefully I'll know in the next few months.
The last stop of my trip back to Toronto was to be the best man at my brothers wedding. Now, I don't talk much about my personal life on this blog, and it's safe to assume that won't change anytime soon, but it was great to be back and catch up with a lot of family and friends that I hadn't seen in ages. When you live a long way away, going back and having everyone together for one special night is a great thing. A true pleasure.
More soon.
--
Cheers,
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
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