ZHANDETAN, China — There are many marvels at the end of the punishing dirt road that skirts the edge of this stark white glacier high on the Tibetan plateau: thousands of fluttering crimson prayer flags, planted on the slopes by the religious faithful; wild goats scrambling across impossibly steep cliffs; and Buddhist monks meditating as they have for centuries in a place where newcomers find themselves gasping for air.

But perhaps the greatest marvel unfolds each morning in the newly built classrooms here at the foot of one of Tibetan Buddhism’s holiest mountains — six hours from the nearest city and far from the circumspect eyes of Communist Party technocrats — where dozens of young men and boys learn to write the curlicue letters of the Tibetan alphabet and receive their first formal introduction to a history, culture and religion that many Tibetans describe as embattled.

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