by Escape From the Land of Snows_The Young Dalai Lama's Flight to Freedom
When he first saw the plains outside Lhasa, the landscape shocked the young Choegyal because it looked so much like Palestine, “arid and flat.” And soon after the escape, Tibet was grouped with the Middle East as one of the earth’s insoluble, godforsaken messes. But what the Tibetans want—autonomy, the Dalai Lama to return, respect and support for Tibetan religion and culture—isn’t particularly exotic in Chinese terms. Most of the people in Mongolia or Shanghai get much the same already, not abstract freedom but a practical one, so long as they don’t challenge the Communist Party. Freedom of religion is written into the Chinese constitution; it isn’t an alien concept here at all.
Tibetans tell jokes about their odd status. One goes like this: The Dalai Lama is pushing for “one country, two systems”—for Tibet to remain within China but to be governed differently—while ordinary Tibetans themselves want “one country, one system.” That is, they just want what everyone else in China has. And, of course, to see His Holiness.
When we got to the Norbulingka, I was astonished to see that the open square in front of the palace where the 1959 protests had begun was now a park cut into an intricate pattern of small hillocks and ponds. The park was exquisitely crafted, but obviously a mass rally would be impossible here. What looked like a gift to the Tibetan people had the added bonus of keeping them from rioting.
We walked along the yellow-and-red walls where so many Tibetan rebels had died. As we passed through the groves of poplar and bamboo trees that shade the Norbulingka’s grounds, I saw a young, thin Tibetan man walking to our left. Sharma was on the phone again. I let him walk ahead and fell in stride with the Tibetan. I couldn’t see any cameras or microphones in the grove of poplars that surrounded us.
I nodded. “Hello?” the man said. “English?”
I pretended to look at the trees and ask questions about them. But we talked about the situation in Lhasa. As I walked alongside the young man, I mentioned the troops in Lhasa, the rising tension. The man nodded. “They’re worried there’s going to be trouble,” he acknowledged. “It’s worse than it’s ever been.”
I nodded. “What about the Dalai Lama?”
“We want the Dalai Lama to return,” the man said, smiling slightly, his voice ragged with emotion. “But sometimes it seems hopeless.” Many old farmers and nomads couldn’t afford the visas that would let them travel to India, he told me; their last wish was to see the Dalai Lama, but they would die without looking on his face. A Westerner must imagine the spirit of Christ alive somewhere in the world, and a Christian unable to go and see and be touched by him, to really get a sense of what Tibetans feel, the almost physical pain the separation causes them. Not to see the face of their Precious Protector is like passing through life as a restless ghost.
I looked ahead of us. Sharma had pocketed his cell phone and was waiting. I nodded to the man and hurried to catch up with my guide.
That night, Sharma and I went out for Losar, the Tibetan New Year. It seemed that Lhasans were intent on ushering in the Year of the Female Earth Ox by burning their city to the ground. There was fire everywhere. Girls ran by with torches lit with thick flames, sending a brief wave of heat across our faces as they dashed down the alleys. Roman candles shot up from street corners where people, reduced to slim silhouettes in the darkness, stood by boxes packed with what looked like every firework known to man. Enormous bonfires burned in the middle of the streets, and young men ran up to them and tossed in fistfuls of fireworks, which exploded in an earsplitting roar as the men danced into and then away from the flames.
Glowing beneath the dark dome of sky, the city felt alluring, incendiary, free. The people were smiling, and hawkers were selling sweets. But this was a party, not an insurrection. The Chinese troops, some of them wearing white dust masks, ghostly in the gloom, followed behind the young men who were spiking the bonfires, dutifully putting out the flames with brooms and shovels as the clock ticked toward midnight, like conscientious parents making sure the house didn’t go up in a blaze.
Tibetans, their faces happy and entranced, watched the orange flames as they licked the night air and fell back. Sharma and I walked the Barkhor, circling the darkened Jokhang. For a few hours Lhasa seemed transformed. It was for a moment no longer an occupied capital with an empty throne sitting at its heart.
Sharma and I walked in silence. There was nothing to say that could be said.
GLOSSARY
amban: A representative of the Chinese emperor.
bodhisattva: A person who has attained complete enlightenment but postpones Nirvana in order to help others obtain liberation from suffering.
Chenrizi: The bodhisattva of Infinite Compassion, the deity whom each Dalai Lama manifests in human form.
choe-ra: A common area in a Tibetan monastery where teaching was often conducted.
chuba: A long sheepskin coat made of Tibetan wool; a common outer garment worn by Tibetans.
Dharma: The body of teachings expounded by Buddha; the essential doctrines and practices of Buddhism.
dob-dob: One of the Dalai Lama’s bodyguards.
dzo: A Tibetan hybrid of a yak and a cow.
geshe: An advanced degree earned by a Tibetan monk.
kalön: A Kashag member; a cabinet minister.
Kashag: The Tibetan cabinet, or council of advisers.
kata: A white ceremonial greeting scarf.
Khampa: A Tibetan from the eastern region of Kham.
kora: A walking pilgrimage, often around a Tibetan holy site such as a temple or stupa.
lama: A Buddhist teacher.
miser: Depending on the context, either a Tibetan serf or a citizen of Tibet. Used here in the former sense.
Mönlam: Mönlam Chemmo, the Great Prayer Festival, held annually in Lhasa at the beginning of the first Tibetan lunar month.
palanquin: A covered sedan chair carried by teams of men.
stupa: A structure containing Buddhist relics or the remains of a bodhisattva or other revered person; a burial tomb.
Tendra: An enemy of the Buddhist faith.
thamzin: A “struggle session” orchestrated by the Chinese authorities, designed to humiliate and persecute perceived “rightists” and “splittists.”
Three Great Seats: The three most important monasteries in Tibet—Ganden, Sera, and Drepung.
tsampa: The basic Tibetan staple, a dough made of parched barley flour.
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NOTES
Introduction
1 “dizzying, frightening blur”: Dalai Lama, Freedom, p. 135.
2 “between two volcanoes”: Dalai Lama, My Land, p. 172.
3 “They were almost”: Dalai Lama, Freedom, p. 124.
4 “I feared a massive, violent reprisal”: Ibid., p. 117.
5 “There was an unforgettable scent”: Dalai Lama, My Land, p. 33.
6 “driven into barbarism”: Ibid., p. 137.
7 Some 40,000 Chinese troops: Dunham, p. 264.
One
AN EXAMINATION OF PRIOR MEMORIES
1 Details of the death of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama and the search for the Fourteenth are drawn from the Dalai Lama’s two memoirs, from Goodman, and from Avedon.
2 “everywhere else is to be feared”: Gyatso, p. 13.
3 “In 1950”: The population figures are from French, pp. 278–79.
4 “ ‘Good,’ he said”: quoted in Avedon, p. 9.
5 “Clear springs”: Dalai Lama, My Land, p. 16.
6 “I used to torture”: Q&A with the Dalai Lama, University of California at Santa Barbara, February 24, 2009.
7 “I have memories”: Quoted in Chhaya, p. 52.
8 “I’m packing”: Quoted in Goodman, p. 13.
9 “Now that we had witnessed”: Ibid., p. 14.
Two
TO LHASA
1 What the Dalai Lama especially remembered: Dalai Lama, Freedom, p. 14.
2 “gargantuan mountains”: Ibid., p. 13.
3 “as if I were in a great park”: Dalai Lama, My Land, p. 33.
4 “huge monastery”: Quoted in Hopkirk, p. 13.
5 “organized gold-bricking”: Life magazine, April 6, 1959.
6 And one young monk: The reference is to Tashi Tsering’s memoir The Struggle for Modern Tibet. Armonk, N.Y.: East Gate Books, 2000.
7 “the last temporal liberty”: Dalai Lama, Freedom, p. 15.
8 “a solid, solemn”: Quoted in Goodman, p. 64.
9 “So strong”: Dalai Lama, Freedom, p. 19.
10 “I missed my mother”: Quoted in Craig, p. 176.
11 “It was pitifully cold and ill-lit”: Dalai Lama, Freedom, p. 21.
12 “My only interest was in playing”: Q&A with the Dalai Lama, University of California at Santa Barbara, April 24, 2009.
13 “When he left after each visit”: Dalai Lama, Freedom, p. 20.
14 “Those children”: Quoted in Craig, p. 54.
15 “They unnerved me”: Dalai Lama, My Land, p. 40.
16 “He laughed enthusiastically”: Harrer, p. 250.
17 “From the first day”: Dalai Lama and Carrièrre, p. 162.
18 “not yet human”: Smith, p. 21.
19 “a mere puppet”: Petech, p. 285.
20 “very often”: Lixiong, Wang, “Reflections on Tibet.” New Left Review, March–April 2002, p. 81.
21 “Many of them”: Laird, p. 280.
Three
ACROSS THE GHOST RIVER
1 “[They] were held to be like butchers”: Dalai Lama, Freedom, p. 52.
2 “liberate our compatriots”: Quoted in Knaus, p. 47.
3 “What is meant”: Norbu, Dawa, “The 1959 Tibetan Rebellion: An Interpretation.” China Quarterly, no. 77 (March 1979), p. 90.
4 “The relationship”: Quoted in Shakya, p. 70.
5 “When Great Heroes”: Quoted in Chang, p. 14.
6 Watch us kill: Ibid., p. 54.
7 “The noblemen were getting truckloads”: Interview with Gray Tuttle.
8 “The challenge filled me”: Quoted in Levenson, Tenzin Gyatso, p. 78.
9 “If you don’t make”: Quoted in Goldstein, vol. 1, p. 705.
10 “I had to leave”: Quoted in Craig, p. 78.
11 “began to r
ealize”: Ibid., p. 127.
12 “I could not believe”: Dalai Lama, Freedom, p. 63.
13 “Some of your advisors”: Quoted in Shakya, p. 81.
14 “He was isolated”: Quoted in Strober, p. 107.
15 “If Tibet is to be saved”: Quoted in Knaus, p. 97.
16 “Tibet will once again”: Quoted in Shakya, p. 80.
17 “half convinced”: Dalai Lama, Freedom, p. 66.
18 “Regardless of all the suspicion”: Ibid., p. 67.
19 “What comes naturally”: Quoted in Goldstein, vol. 2, p. 199.
20 “I had still had no theoretical training”: Dalai Lama, My Land, p. 97.
21 “His Holiness is very humble”: Quoted in Laird, p. 322.
22 “He thought people were so good”: Interview with Tendzin Choegyal.
23 “Absolute selfishness”: Chang, p. 14.
24 “Of course there are people”: Ibid., p. 13.
25 “truly respect”: Quoted in Goldstein, vol. 2, p. 180.
26 “When the Chinese first came”: Tibet Oral History Project, testimony of Thupten Chonphel, interview #26.
27 “We had a saying”: Interview with Topgay, Tibetan refugee and former security official in the Tibetan government-in-exile. Dharamsala, India, January 2009.
28 “Make every possible effort”: Quoted in Shakya, p. 93.
29 “The more I looked”: Dalai Lama, Freedom, p. 93.
30 “If you’ve ever been”: Interview with Gray Tuttle.
31 “There is everywhere”: Quoted in Shakya, p. 117.
32 “old and ruined”: Dalai Lama interview with Welt Online, July 10, 2009.
33 “I felt”: Dalai Lama, Freedom, p. 88.
34 “the pace of reform”: Ibid., p. 89.
35 “How could he”: Dalai Lama, Freedom, p. 99.
Four
EASTERN FIRES
1 “We could not even look up”: Tibet Oral History Project, testimony of Dorji Damdul (alias), interview #16.
2 “They would say”: Ibid.