Lamas in southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region can enjoy movies without bothering to go to a cinema now as a movie projection team has been set up to service the lamaseries.

More than 500 lamas at the Gandain Monastery were delighted when they became the first group of people to receive the service. "I am a movie fan. I like movies about Kung Fu or martial art, and monasticism very much," said Cering Dawa, a young lama at Gandain.

"Many young lamas are fond of movies here, but we didn't have much time to go see a film in town cinemas because of the long distance and busy chanting activities," he said.

In addition, the lamas often attract attention from other viewers around them and feel somewhat embarrassed at times when watching awkward scenes with a secular audience.

The Gandain Monastery is located 4,000 meters up in the mountains, 50 kilometers east of the regional capital Lhasa. The lamas' only other entertainment has been a TV set, said Losang Puncog, in charge of monastery affairs.

To help improve and enrich the lamas' life, the regional and municipal film companies have donated projection equipment to Gandain and promised to train projectionists and provide free copies of films for them.

Thus two young lamas became the first film projectionists. "I hope lamas can acquaint themselves with the outside world by watching more movies," said one young lama.

The company will have a strict selection criteria for the movie topics and will set up more lamasery projection teams in the future, said Lhagba Cering, head of the regional film projection company.

(Xinhua News Agency December 2, 2003)