The Great Tibetan Carpet Disaster
The great Tibetan carpet disaster. In the 80's there was so much demand for Tibetan carpets, every Tibetan who could afford it started a tiny carpet factory. In my just before life, I also invested in a start up carpet business. I sent two monks to Nepal to start carpet business, but it never made any money because it had already peaked. You would think I would have checked better, but that was the "gold rush fever" of that time... hee hee. Eventually, there were so many making carpet, good weavers were not available and many used younger workers to meet the demand. It is not uncommon anywhere in the Orient for children to work to help the family, but when the world export market knew this, the carpet business crashed. Purchasing a license as an adult only carpet making was prohibitively expensive and so many lost both investment and livelihood. Many small enterprises that invited relatives from Tibet to come make carpet and live in safety, could no longer do that. Also,...