Family’s odyssey a history lesson

Tale of Tibetans’ exile unfolds as woman studies her uncle’s life

Sep 11, 2009 04:30 AM

Dasey Wangkhang Silva is the niece of one of the first two Tibetans to come to Canada. She is documenting that pivotal time in history.

Stuart Laidlaw

Faith and Ethics Reporter

Dasey Wangkhang Silva is worried.

Her oldest relatives are getting on in age and soon they will be gone – taking with them the stories of an important chapter in her people’s struggle to survive.

“Their memories are too important for us to lose,” she says. “I want to keep them alive.”

She has already lost her uncle, Tsering Wangkhang, who died 10 years ago. He was one of the first two Tibetans to come to Canada at the invitation of Pierre Trudeau and Bata Shoes in the 1970s. She fears the story of how this country opened its arms to the followers of the Dalai Lama will soon be forgotten.

MODEL TIBET VILLAGE: Tibetan Residential Quarters in New York or New Jersey‏

A Tibetan Residential Quarters, an exclusive Tibetan community, will be built in either New York or New Jersey. This project will be undertaken by the Tibetan Housing Society, with the Office of Tibet, New York, providing necessary support and guidance.

An apartment complex of two and three bedroom units will be built, and the units will then be sold off to individual families. The apartment complex, which is to be a model Tibetan village, will contain a temple, a day care center, a recreation center, a basketball court and a library.

The following proposal contains further information. Please contact Ms. Tenzin Dickyi at tibetvillage@gmail.com  and 212-213-5010 ex 14 if you need the proposal in Tibetan.

Should We Really Boycott Lhasa Beer?

The TibetTruth Blog (See here) has been running a campaign against the Lhasa Brewery Company Ltd. and it’s importer Lhasa Beer USA, labeling the product as:

…yet another form of cultural oppression waged against Tibetans by the occupying communist Chinese regime. Its mass production and ready availability is producing worrying levels of alcoholism among the Tibetan population.

I was shocked to hear about the statistics concerning the alcoholism problem in Tibet, outlined in the post “Alcohol-China’s Weapon of  Choice,” on the TibetTruth Blog (See here).

According to a 2008 field-study, in part conducted by Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College in London, the extent of alcohol related disorders has reached 31.6% for males and nearly 10 % for women. While a 2003 investigation recorded that “Alcohol use disorder was the most serious problem in Tibet with a point prevalence of 41.89‰ and a lifetime prevalence of 43.6%“.A number of associated mental health problems were also noted amongst those Tibetans examined with neuroses reaching a level of 26.7% and over 20% instance of anxiety related disorders.

Can we really make progress for Tibet through the Chinese legal framework?

Autonomy? Think Again – Elliot Sperling

Rejoinder to “Autonomy? Think Again” – Lobsang Sangay

A Response to Lobsang Sangay -Elliot Sperling

Be Cool – Be Tibetan

In my life there have been a few rare occasions when I wished I were younger. Such futile sentiments are usually followed by a mixture of nostalgia and regret. Sitting now in a coffee shop, watching the Tibetan pop vocal group Yudruk perform Milam, I am struck by these feelings once again. I wish I were experiencing this as a younger man. I wish I had had the chance to be cool and be Tibetan when I was a young college student in Beijing.

In those days, I struggled to express who I wanted to be. Looking back, I can see that I was searching for a way to be “cool” and be Tibetan at the same time. Of course, back then, the term cool didn’t exist, either in Tibetan or Chinese. And whatever it was, “coolness” was the last thing associated with Tibetans in the Chinese imagination. As a young Tibetan who grew up in the Chinese education system, we didn’t yet know how to live outside Chinese imagination.

See the rest of the article here

BBC to Help the Chinese Government in the Exploitation of Tibetan Culture and the Marginalization of Tibetan People

On May 25th, Chinese media released stories on the BBC’s decision to broadcast a promotional commercial in December on its World Channel free to help promote Lhasa’s tourism (See article here)

At the West China Counties International Investment and Cooperation Forum held in Hong Kong late April, the BBC World showed great interest in Lhasa’s tourism and promised to make a short film costing 100,000 Yuan on the topic.

“This will be the first time for Lhasa to publicize its tourism worldwide. With this 30-second short film, we hope to enhance Lhasa’s international image, help the world know the city better and attract more people,” said Gao Fu, deputy director of the Lhasa’s Tourism Bureau.

This decision by the BBC must be reversed. By choosing to collaborate with the Chinese government in publicizing Lhasa’s tourism the BBC will only add to the exploitation of Tibetan culture, the marginalization of Tibetans in Tibet by supporting the dominance of Chinese owned businesses and enterprises who overwhelmingly control the tourism industry in Lhasa, and the spread of the Chinese propaganda on Tibet that is administered to the tourists in Tibet.

Highway to Lhasa

Dear Jigme,

We hope you are moved by “Highway To Lhasa” on YouTube

Traditional Tibetan Folk Tales

Tibetan Folk Tales - A.L. Shelton

Albert L. Shelton was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, on June 9th 1875, his parents soon after moved to Kansas where Shelton grew up. Shelton spent more than twenty years in Kham as a medical missionary and was particularly well respected among the Tibetans there but on a high mountain pass in 1922 Shelton was shot, apparently by a bandit, and died at the age of 46.  In 1923, Shelton’s widowed wife Flora published a biography on the life of her late husband entitled Shelton of Tibet. Then in 1925 Flora also compiled and published a collection forty-nine tales that had been gathered by Shelton during his trips among Tibetans.

The little stories in this book are told as the people sit around their boiling tea made over a three stone camp-fire. They are handed down from father to son, from mother to daughter, and though often filled with their superstitious beliefs, through them all run a vein of humor and the teachings of a moral truth which is quite unexpected.

Refugee Stories

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.

A Tibetan Book of Spells

By earlyTibet.com

Can monks do magic? Should they? We often picture monks (or at least the ideal of the monk) firmly in the setting of the monastery, either seeking enlightenment through study and meditation, or carrying out in the affairs of the monastery. But magic? Well, it seems that throughout most of the history of Buddhism the answer to the first question has been yes, and to the second usually why not? In fact, the  Buddhist canon contains enough spells to rival the repertoire of Merlin, Saruman and Harry Potter put together.

See rest of article here