'My apartment is on the top floor of the [hotel] House of Shambhala. The house is Tibetan-style and when I wake up in the morning, usually the first thing I do is practise karate. I only sleep about four hours a night. I get up about 6.30 or 7am. I've done karate since I was a kid. It's beautiful to wake up in the morning and see dawn over Lhasa. The city is surrounded by mountains and there's snow on them all year round. It's very inspiring to wake up that way.
I begin the day with tsampa [roasted flour] and yak-butter tea. And then coffee. I'm a coffee addict and have been for years. Tsampa and yak butter tea are nutritious and I have about three or four cups. It helps you fight off the cold.
I live in Tibet about two-thirds of the year and in Beijing about one-third. When I'm based in Beijing, about half of my time is spent travelling internationally, to places such as Nepal, Sri Lanka and Pakistan, meeting NGOs and that kind of thing. I spend so much time in Lhasa that when I go back to Beijing I get reverse altitude sickness; my body isn't used to the low altitude any more. I get strong jet-lag symptoms for about a week and I vomit.
I raise huskies in Beijing, and their father, Himalaya, is in Lhasa. He's a pure Siberian husky and he's very beautiful. He sleeps outside my door. Because Tibetans have never seen a husky they think he's a wolf, so you hear a lot of cries of, 'Wolf, wolf!' Himalaya is a sweet dog but he plays to the crowd, so people think he's fierce. Sometimes I take him with me to clubs, basically cabarets with Tibetan music, and they often say at the door, 'You can't bring a wolf into a nightclub!' Himalaya has become the most famous dog in Lhasa. Everyone knows him.
Usually in the morning, I do House of Shambhala things. We're supporting Tibetans to create microenterprises. We have a textile co-operative where we are making 'tiger' rugs and pillowcases. Another project is for women who have families to support. We call that the Mala [prayer bead] Breakfast Club. They all get together and make jewellery. There's also the Handicapped Children's Initiative. Some of the rugs are made on the premises but some are made in town. During the British Raj, they wiped out the Himalayan tiger; they shot them all. Today, most of the tiger rugs available in Lhasa are synthetic and are made in Shanghai or Beijing. We dye the wool then the women weave it.
It's expensive but the key thing is the message: you can change things if you want to. We could stop global warming but there are interests that don't want to do that. Ancient wisdom holds that change is possible if you really want it and we want to send that message.