The ethnic Chinese driver, Mr Li, knows that in the deadly riots that rocked this city in mid-March, shops and homes marked with a khata were largely spared. The scarf sent a message - that the shop and homeowners were Tibetans.

Almost six months have passed since the worst anti-government violence to convulse the Tibetan capital in two decades, but Mr Li is not ready to remove his scarf.

Read the full story in Thursday's edition of The Straits Times.