STORY: NYIMA Lhamo has gone from the barley fields of Tibet to the rarefied world of art restoration, but she still has a long way to go. ``I've been so frustrated,'' says the 50-year-old Tibetan, who is a chemistry professor and museum curator at Sichuan University.

``I need to do further study on how to protect the Tibetan art that we have here, but there's no money to do that.''

Ms Nyima is one of the first Tibetans in China to receive formal training in art conservation, and her solitary journey reflects the difficulties of Tibetan intellectuals who have chosen to function within the Chinese system rather than oppose it. Ms Nyima is the only Tibetan faculty member at Sichuan University, where, along with her husband and son, she has created a small island of diversity. She wears traditional Tibetan clothes and is a practicing Buddhist.

Her apartment is the only one on campus that smells of yak butter. At the same time, she has forged a successful career in Chinese terms.

For more than two decades she has been a faculty member at Sichuan province's premier university, and she is a member of the Chinese Communist Party.

Two years ago, the Chinese government sent her to Poland's Nicolai Copernici University, where she studied art restoration. During her year in Poland, she went to the library and read everything she could find about Tibetan art.

``I found some articles in English about how to restore and protect thankas (traditional Tibetan Buddhist scroll paintings),'' she says. ``We don't have any of those materials here in China.''

Such research speaks volumes about art conservation in China, where a museum curator must ferret English articles out of a Polish library so she can learn how to preserve Tibetan art.

It also explains why Ms Nyima was so eager to participate in a recent three-week introductory course on thanka restoration, which was funded by the Kham Aid Foundation, an American non-profit organisation.

The Kham Aid Foundation's goal parallels that of Tibetans like Ms Nyima: to preserve Tibetan culture while working within the Chinese system. This approach is sometimes criticised by pro-Tibet activists, who see such support as tantamount to assisting Chinese occupation.

But Karen Yager, a New York-based art conservator who organised and taught the recent Kham Aid course, dismisses such criticism. ``I'm not working with anybody except the Tibetans,'' she says. ``And we're doing things that aid and develop (Tibetan) culture. Many of the Tibetans who get things done work with the Chinese, and the way they do this is by walking a very fine line. These are people who have to work with the politics _ they have to be realistic.''

Located at a Tibetan college in the western Sichuan city of Kangding, the Kham Aid course was an exercise in resourcefulness. ``I showed them the ideal materials, and from there I taught them how to use the available materials,'' says Ms Yager.

``For example, a vacuum table costs US$30,000 (HK$234,000) in a museum, but I showed them how to build one for US$150.''

Ms Nyima translated the lessons on chemical analysis, and the other 18 students, many of whom are teachers or students at Kangding's college, contributed their knowledge of Tibetan art. ``These are kids who grew up in tents,'' says Ms Yager. ``So to go from a tent to talking about distilling chemicals is really mind-boggling. These students will be the first generation of trained Tibetan conservators.''

But even as this generation gains crucial skills, the Tibetan artifacts that have survived Chinese occupation continue to fade from neglect. Ms Nyima, who is herself something of a survivor, hopes that she can win this race against time.

``I wish I were younger,'' she says. ``There's so much more that I need to study. But the good aspect is that I'm incredibly eager, because it's all so new. It's like I'm an elementary school student again.''

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