Watching "A year in Tibet"

It's finally arrived, it took a whole month, but we can finally watch it.
It's the doco directed by Sun Shuyun about her year spent in Tibet following the lives of a few characters between Gyantse and a small village half an hour drive from there.
Steve and I had some obstacles to overcome this week concerning the reservations of all the flights.
Apparently now airline companies before issuing your tickets charge you twice the amount of money for your purchase and if they do not receive confirmation from your bank institution they stop the booking and do not proceed any further until you've accrued the money they request.
In a few words if your flight costs 1000 USD, in order to book it you have to accrue money for 2000 USD from your bank account. You will not be charged twice but the 1000 additional dollars will be on hold in your account until the airline will give the permission to release them.
This normally happens within a few hours from the purchase of the tickets and the confirmation from the bank so many people here do not even see it, but if you do not have enough money to accrue then your ticket will not be issued.
Not all airline companies do that and not all travel agents do that, but ironically enough it happened to us twice in one week.
I will not debate whether this is legal or not, there seems to be SO many illegal things going on these days that it's appalling some companies have still not succumbed from legal sues, but right or wrong... they do it!
And we're talking major airline companies too!
Anyway, once we solved this "small" problem, we were exhausted and we just decided to sit in front of the tv and start watching the doco.
The first episode is about the visit of the Panchen Lama to the monastery in Gyantse and all the preparations that took place before that.
The last visit happened almost 20 years earlier and the monks were very excited about it!
So many small details that have so much importance in the official protocol about such an important visit, and it's so interesting to watch the monks thinking about overcoming obstacles of any kind. There's not enough fabric for the drapings, the monastery hasn't been properly cleaned in 20 years, there's 50 stray dogs roaming freely in the precint, there's not enough monks to precede the procession...
The doco also tells the story of the owner of an hotel in Gyantse and all sorts of problems seem to be happening to him as well. He does not have enough customers, when he finally does there's an obstruction in one of the sewage pipes and he has to call in a plumber...
The other parallel story is the one of an entire family that lives half an hour drive from Gyantse.
In this family the young boy has passed the national test to enter university but the family does not have enough money to pay tuition. It is a great honour to be able to attend university and the percentage of Tibetans actually pursuing their studies is so low that the family decides to put forward a request for a loan. The loan is unfortunately not granted, but the head of the family, a shaman, decides to borrow the money and to solve the problem somehow. They will have to sell part of their harvest that year.
In a different place a doctor sees a pregnant woman who's complaining of pain and headache, it turns out she might loose her baby, it's very serious.
All these people, the monks, the hotel owner, the family, the doctor and the pregnant woman.
They talk directly into the camera and they explain their problems. Serious problems, sometimes even life or death situations.
I'm just shocked at how strong they are. They don't despair, they just get on and hope for the best and in the meanwhile work hard to secure what future they will have.
During the interviews they even laugh, more often than not. It might be because they are camera shy or embarrassed to explain their own problems to strangers.
Or it might just be that they know they have it tough but they also have no alternatives so why waste time in crying on spilled milk when you could be productive instead.
I really think I complain too much sometimes!