Uyghur and Tibetan Voices Project
Anonymous Tibetan #2
This history researcher dedicated years of her life to interviewing Tibetans and capturing their stories for posterity. Here she shares some of her central learnings from those conversations. A core focus area is on the impacts of the Chinese occupation in Tibet, and in particular the adverse treatment of Tibetan children who were deprived of quality healthcare and education, especially as compared to Chinese children. Moreover, the Tibetans were prevented from freely practicing and propagating their religious beliefs due to the Chinese influence. In addition, she reflects on the stories she heard about the Chinese impact across Tibetan villages, where citizens were forced to endure public humiliation and torture in a manner simliar to China’s own Cultural Revolution. These stories reveal the the gut-wrenching and traumatic impacts on the Tibetan way of life, and the desire for Tibetans to have their voice heard in spite of their relative size as compared to China.
Impacts of Chinese Occupation In Tibet
"...and the mothers and fathers were very fearful if the Chinese kept control of Tibet, that their children would not learn anything about Buddhism, about the beliefs of compassion and kindness, and that they would start being influenced by a lot of the Chinese infiltration..."
"...were confronted with the lack of healthcare for children, the lack of education, the abusive treatment, and the bias in the treatment towards the children in school compared to Chinese children..."
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"A lot of these young Tibetan boys would go to a monastery at an early age and I would ask why? Why would you send your son to a monastery? And the monks that I interviewed said...my mother loved me so much that she wanted me to have an education, and she wanted me to understand the Buddhist Dharma, the teachings of compassion so I would have a good life in this life and a good life in the next...this was a major theme about why women did this...they thought it was good for their children, especially as the sons..."
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Recounting The Suffering
"One of the most poignant quotes was a woman said...please go back and tell the world, we Tibetans are so small and the Chinese are so big. We have no way to get our voice heard. And I was very moved by that considering what she had gone through and her sister who was in prison, who was a nun, who had been raped and beaten...abuse of her own children, and that's why she fled…"
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"We began to ask a lot of questions about when was the first time you saw the Chinese? What was the impact on your village? What happened to your family as a result? And that's when the stories got to be gut wrenching. Absolutely gut wrenching. How people were culled out of their village, out of their homes and brought to the center of town.…there was the mayor and the librarian and the school teacher and the head monk and the people were told to point out what flaws had these people done to harm...It's public humiliation and torture, and this is something the Chinese did not invent [just for Tibet and] that they were already doing it in their own country...during the Cultural Revolution and before Mao invaded Tibet, they were doing it. So it it was like it wasn't invented, but it was very, very effective in terrifying people."
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"...wanting to hear more, but not wanting to tax them too much if it was overwhelming. Several times we had turn off the camera and let them just cry and cry and cry and cry. Until they could stop crying...then we'd get back in and a lot of people would come in and want to tell us the trauma story first because that was the one that really remained very clear in their memory, like most trauma stories…"
How Can We Help?
"...…join organizations like the International Campaign for Tibet and Students For A Free Tibet....can support the Tibetan Nuns Project....[there are] a lot of organizations [to consider joining]...there's many short videos they can watch...one called With My Own Eyes based on interviews…they can certainly support the Tibet Oral History Project…"