Magyia Ngami is a small restaurant in the Barkor area of Lhasa. Covering less than 200 square metres, it is dwarfed by a giant tower.
However, the small eatery is known to many international visitors to Lhasa since it has featured in more than 30 journals and on TV programs in Beijing and Hong Kong as well as in Germany and Thailand.
The restaurant's fame largely rests with the building in which it is located. The building is called the Yellow House.
Throughout history, many millions have worshipped in front of the Jokhang Monastery in Lhasa, burning smashed pine and cypress tree branches to create auspicious smoke and prostrating themselves on the stone-paved Barkor Street. Many still take ritual walks along the street, which is lined with stands offering a dazzling variety of ethnic handicrafts.
The Yellow House is a small building standing in front of the giant sutra streamer at the southeast corner of Barkor Street.
Tibetans' houses are generally painted white. Only monasteries and residences for Living Buddhas and eminent monks are yellow.
Under the bright sun, the yellow colour seems even more pronounced against the backdrop of the surrounding colours. The windows on the second floor provide a good view of the street, which bustles with ritual walkers, visitors and shoppers.
Legend has it that the sixth Dalai Lama often visited the yellow building.
According to history, when Emperor Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty led his troops to fight the rebellious Jungar troops in 1696, he discovered that the fifth Dalai Lama had already been dead for 15 years.
Emperor Kangxi angrily scolded the local Tibetan officials and ordered Cangyang Gyamco - a boy born into a peasant family in Moinyu in southern Tibet - to become the sixth Dalai Lama.
The young Living Buddha was very clever and loved poetry very much. He was both a religious leader and a romantic poet. He often went out alone into different monasteries for a better understanding of the life experienced by the general public. Whenever he was inspired, he wrote a poem. Many of his poems depict the vicious side of feudalism.
Legend also has it that the sixth Dalai Lama often stayed in the Yellow House. When he looked out through its windows one day, he spotted a fairy-like beauty named Magyia Ngami among the ritual walkers on Barkor Street.
They fell in love at first sight. They met in the house from then on. It was here the sixth Dalai Lama wrote his famous poem:
Whenever the bright moon rose
From the top of high mountains
in the east,
The smiling face of Magyia Ngami
Rises in my mind.
In the main hall on the Yellow House's second floor is enshrined a statue of Qamba Buddha. There are photos of landscapes on the southern walls, and an oil painting, bronze art objects and tangka paintings on the northern wall.
The room is adorned with yak-hair carpets, bronze jars of holy water, earthen vases, coffee cups, and sheep's wool dinner table cushions. This was the dining hall of the sixth Dalai Lama.
Many visitors to the Magyia Ngami restaurant seek the ancient romantic ambience and have discovered that the restaurant and its coffee bar is indeed "homely."
Customers can choose from Tibetan, Indian, Nepalese, Italian and American food. Yoghurt, buttered tea, qingke barley wine and other food unique to Tibet are offered alongside foreign wine and coffee.
Tibetan and Western classical music is played in the dining area while books in foreign languages are available. The owner is a young Tibetan woman who speaks perfect English. She often tells her customers romantic stories.
"When a German girl, aged 29, visited this cafe, she met a fellow countryman. They fell in love over cups of coffee. Three years later, when they returned here, they came with their child."
(China Daily August 20, 2002)
