Woeser
It was one of those hot summer days in 1999. As usual the Tsuglakhang was packed with pilgrims and tourists. And, as usual, Nyima Tsering was at the entrance selling tickets and always ready to give tours in English or Chinese to visitors from far away. This was his job, unlike other lamas, as he's called in the press or on TV: "tour-guide lama". Yet he's not only a tour guide, he also holds many other titles, among which the most special one is Member of the Standing Committee of the People's Assembly in Lhasa. So, in the news on Xizang TV and Lhasa TV we often see a young monk in his maroon robes sitting amidst those taciturn-looking officials in their laymen's clothes. He always looks calm, sensible and self-assured.
Bhuchung D. Sonam
If you only drag me out
I’ll accept all your accusations
And sign the confession documents.
NO. I don’t need to be forced
I am physically a broken man.
But of course you can practise
Your new round-kicks on me
I am a lifeless mass.
I feel hot in this cold cell
I hear voices in the silence.
My ruptured life is
Bombarded by fragmented images
My bleeding nose smells
Aroma of incense long burnt out
Curling blue smoke lingers
In my hazy mind.
I am addicted to shock-waves
Please prod me with your electric-baton.
Why is there no sting in your voice today?
Clear your vocal chords, redden your face
Show veins on your neck, gnarl your nose
I like to hear a real shout.
Hit harder on my belly
Hang me upside down
It drives me high that way
It helps focus my mind on a single object
I can see Buddha more clearly.
Red stars on your shoulder are fading
Snow lions are wriggling hard
Upon the high windy pass
Are these illusions, delusions or imaginations?
Drag me out of this darkness
And I will sign the confession.
There is nothing left of me
Except the truth languishing in my mind.
Tenzin Tsundue
I am a terrorist.
I like to kill.
I have horns,
two fangs
and a dragonfly tail.
Chased away from my home,
hiding from fear,
saving my life,
doors slammed on my face,
Topden Tsering
Gendun Chophel was a 43-year-old mess of a man when the Chinese soldiers entered Lhasa in September 1951. His long imprisonment under the Tibetan government had left him despondent, sickly and interminably given to alcoholism; he shunned the world outside his house as if it comprised of nothing but lepers and crooks. But that autumn day when the grounds of the Tibetan capital shook with marching boots under thousands of fluttering red banners, guns pointing in the air, Mao Zedong beaming from life-sized portraits, he asked his wife to be carried to the rooftop for a better view. There, held straight by her from one side and a Mongolian neighbor monk from the other, he watched the spectacle and uttered these words: “Now we are f**ked!” [Read...]
Buchung D. Sonam
Exile is a state of physical displacement and longing for the native land...place of birth, or of origin or sometimes just the idea of home. At a more subtle level an exile is some sort of a social outcaste, an outsider--one who intentionally remains outside the mainstream social intercourse. Such alienation from the popular societal norms may influence, in its own way, the critical judgement essential to any writer, poet or for that matter anyone associated with intellectual traditions.
Tsering Shakya
Modern Tibetan literature is unknown in the west, and has been ignored by the field of traditional Tibetan studies, which considers it of little interest. Over the past four decades, however, the Tibetan language and literary production have diverged from the usages and genres of the literature of the past, and thus there is a need to study and read it in light of the many fundamental changes that have occurred.
Bhuchung K. Tsering
The 8th 'Seminar of the Intenational Association for Tibetan Studies' took place between July 25 and 31, 1998 in Bloomingto, Indiana, in the United States. Thirty-six years ago, a 'Conference on Tibet' took place in the Italian town of Bellagio. That conference, held from July 2 to 8, 1962, was attended by 15 Western and Japanese Tibetologists. A comparative study of the two meetings reveals the extent of development in the field of Tibetan studies.
Jamyang Norbu
There has always been a sneaking admiration for China and Communist ideology in a section of Tibetan exile society, especially within the leadership. Even when condemning China's destruction of monasteries and temples, and the murder of over a million Tibetans, there has always been a tendency to qualify such denunciations with the admission that China did develop Tibet technologically and did modernize the Tibetan language. This essay hopes to expose these two enduring propaganda myths that have for long provided the Chinese occupation of Tibet with a progressive if not a reformist aura.
[Read Part I]
[Read Part II]
[Read Part III]
[Read Part IV]
[Read Part V]
