Having skipped classes in elementary school to prepare for a trip to Taiwan before he even knew where Taiwan was, Tibetan representative to Taiwan Tsegyam said it was destiny that eventually brought him here.
"I was only 12 or 13 years old at the time; I had no idea where Taiwan was, but I'd heard that Taiwan was a good place," Tsegyam said, recounting his first Taiwan experience in an interview with the Taipei Times.
"So one day, two classmates and I just decided to go to Taiwan, and we began to plan the trip right away," he said.
At the time, Tsegyam was a third grade student in his native village in China's Sichuan Province.
Although the village administratively belongs to Sichuan Province, Tibetans are the majority as the area was part of Tibet before China's invasion and occupation in 1949.
Soon, the three children assigned themselves tasks -- one was to prepare money for the trip, while Tsegyam and another friend prepared food.
They skipped classes for three days to prepare for the trip, but their plan came to nought after it was uncovered by adults.
After that, Tsegyam said he didn't think about Taiwan again for 30 years.
He grew up to become a history teacher in a Tibetan community in Sichuan.
He later became a political prisoner because of his role in the Tibetan independence movement.
Tsegyam began by teaching his students "real Tibetan history" he learned from Tibetan books published in India, instead of the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) version.
"I knew [the CCP] was keeping an eye on me, but they didn't take action until some students and I began to post `free Tibet' flyers around town," he said.
He was jailed for more than a year for that. When released, he found himself out of a job and blacklisted by the government.
"I was nearly 30 at the time and knew I had no future in China, so I crossed the Himalayas to join the Tibetans in exile in India," he said.
After spending seven years in India, Tsegyam was appointed representative to Taiwan.
"I was surprised nine years ago when I learned that I was to be assigned to Taiwan. It was like a dream come true," Tsegyam said with a smile on his face. "Destiny eventually brought me here."
Taiwan doesn't recognize the Tibetan government in exile because Taiwan's "Constitution of the Republic of China (ROC)" says that Tibet is part of the ROC.
The Tibetan representative office is formally called the "Tibet Religious Foundation of His Holiness the Dalai Lama," with Tsegyam as its chairman.
"But the entire staff is directly associated with the Tibetan government's Ministry of Foreign Affairs," Tsegyam said, adding that the situation is similar in the other 11 Tibetan representative offices around the world.
The "foundation" was established in 1998 after a historic visit by the Dalai Lama to Taiwan in 1997. Tsegyam arrived as the assistant representative in 1999 and took over as the representative, or chairman, in 2003.
Over the past nine years, he has seen ties between Taiwan and Tibet grow closer.
"The Dalai Lama's visit was actually the beginning of high level government-to-government exchanges between Taiwan and Tibet," Tsegyam said.
"Although the Chinese Nationalist Party [KMT] was in power at the time [the office opened], former President Lee Teng-hui [
RSS