Tibetan Elders

In the article The stories of Tibetan elders in exile by J.M. Brown, Brown writes about the oral history project work by clinical psychologist Marcella Adamski in recording the stories of Tibetan elders in exile. Adamski’s work was spurred directly from a request by the Dalai Lama, whom she met in Dharamsala in 1999.

After reading this article I was reminded of some of the exile stories I have heard from my own exiled elders when I was younger. I thought I’d patch together and share some of the stories that I can recall so that people can read them and then maybe share their own exile stories as well.

I can remember most clearly my mother’s account of why her family fled from Tibet in late 1959. My mother’s family lived in the  small farming village of Namdha, about a half hour walk from the city of  Khangma in the district of Gyantse. Her family was the wealthiest of the village and her father was well respected for the kindness he showed to the poorer villagers in the village and also for the loans he lent out to those who needed it.

My late Grandfather and I

One particular villager had a lot of respect for my mother’s father. He had many children but was the father of one of the poorest families in the village, because of this my grandfather had always helped his family by giving them food and clothes for their children. On one occasion my grandfather lent money to the poor villager for a business venture he wanted to engage in. Rather then using the money for business, the poor villager ended up gambling the money and losing it all. Out of shame and fear of coming back to face my grandfather the poor villager hid somewhere nearby. Due to the absence of their father, the poor villager’s family began to suffer, thus, my grandfather went to the place where the father was hiding and told him to forget about the money and come back to his family.

When the Chinese invaded Tibet in the 1950s they began to implement social reforms within many Tibetan communities. Many of the poorest Tibetans were placed as the head of their respective communities. When the Chinese arrived in my mother’s village of Namdha they did exactly this, they placed that same poor villager, who had gambled away my grandfather’s loan, as head of the village. As head of the village the man was present at many of the meetings the Chinese Communists held in the region. During one meeting he overheard, or was made aware, of the Chinese government’s decision to arrest my grandfather under the charge of being a “feudal serf lord”. He quickly went to my grandfather and told him of the Chinese decision to arrest him and told him that he should quickly leave before they arrive. My grandfather gathered his family and fled south towards India before the Chinese could arrest him.

Himalayas

One side story from the my mother’s family’s flight to India that comes to mind is from my late uncle, who was my mother’s oldest brother. He had  gotten lost during the family’s flight to India through the Himalayas. My uncle was in a tough situation, he didn’t know which direction he should head in order to find the family. He started to look around. He then noticed a bird flying high in the sky and then remembered that this particular bird was sacred. Therefore he believed that this must be a sign of some sort. He began to head in the direction of the bird. After walking for some time a snow storm picked up and soon it became very hard to see far in front of him. Suddenly he noticed a silhouette of a man in front of him. Fearing it was a Chinese soldier he turned and began to run away but the man chased him. However the man was too fast for him and quickly caught up, my uncle turned around and tried to slip past the man but the man blocked him from running around. When the man finally approached and grabbed him he realized that it was not a Chinese soldier, it was his father who had been searching for him all along.

Tibetan Mastiff

I can also recall another story from my other uncle, who is my mother’s second oldest brother, telling me of how they had a large Tibetan Mastiff dog he had begged to take along with them when the family had fled, but my grandfather objected because it would have been too dangerous if the dog was noisy. The dog was left behind, but after leaving their village and walking for some time the dog had managed to somehow escape from his leash and find the family. It made my uncle very happy to be able to take the dog along after all, something which later proved to be a blessing in disguise.

After reaching the Tibetan border, many fleeing and starving Tibetan families, who had made the strenuous trek through the Himalayas, approached farmers in the borderlands with gold, jewelry, and other valuables in attempt to make exchanges for food. My mother’s family was one of these Tibetan families, the harsh conditions during the trek had led to the death of two of her younger siblings.

They approached a farmer and offered their most valuable jewelry and belongings for food. The farmer rejected their offer since he had already amassed plenty of jewelry and gold from other fleeing Tibetan families before them. However, he had taken a liking to their Tibetan Mastiff; and so the dog was exchanged to the farmer for food.

Sometime after my mother’s family arrived in India, my grandfather received a letter from the Chinese government telling him that his crops from his village had been sold for a certain amount of money which he should come back to claim. Suspicious of the Chinese government, my grandfather replied that he did not want to come back to claim the money, rather, the Chinese government should distribute the money out to the people of his village.

Whether the Chinese government followed out my grandfather’s wishes is not certain but it gives me another reason to someday go to Tibet and see the village where my mother and uncles were born.