The Peculiarities of Cultural Authenticity

The caption to this one reads: "ERDAOGOU, Tibet—A train on the railway line between Lhasa and Golmud, 2006. © PG / Magnum Photos."

Then, the caption to this photo reads: "TIBET—Traditional daily life goes on near the railway line linking Lhasa to Golmud, 2006. © PG / Magnum Photos."
I suppose I must've skipped my undergrad anthropology classes on the days when we learned that billiards were a traditional Tibetan pastime!
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PS: For readers interested in political theory, I actually have published several academic papers on the difficulties surrounding recent attempts to accord normative status to cultural traditions and, in particular, with what I see as the problems fatal to even the best efforts to defend cultural authenticity. Here are citations:
"Why Respect Culture?" American Journal of Political Science 44:405-18 (July 2000).(ADDED: Later that same day ...)
"Inventing Constitutional Traditions." In Constitutional Culture and Democratic Rule, ed. John Ferejohn, Jack Rakove, and Jonathan Riley. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
"Liberalism and the Politics of Cultural Authenticity." Politics, Philosophy, and Economics 1:213-36 (June 2002).
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