Every year, thousands of Tibetans leave their homes under Chinese administration and cross the Himalayas into India, Nepal or Bhutan. Life is not necessarily easier in exile, they say, but at least there is freedom.
Twenty-eight-year-old Lobsang Nyendak is one of those who risked life and limb escaping the roof of the world.
“I was 13 at the time when my father brought me and another brother here,” Lobsang said, recounting his escape.
PHOTO: LOA IOK-SIN, TAIPEI TIMES
He is now studying at Sera Jey Monastic University in Bylakuppe, a Tibetan settlement in southern India.
“We walked for two months,” Lobsang said. “My father carried all my luggage so I only needed to carry my clothes.”
After making sure the two children arrived in India safely, “my father went back because he needed to look after his parents, my mother and my sisters,” Lobsang said, adding that his father wanted to send him and his brother to India because they were considered the “hopes of the family.”
For another student at the university, the 26-year-old Tashi Putsu, the escape seven years ago completely changed his life.
“I came here when I was 19 because I wanted to be a monk,” Tashi said. “Under Chinese administration, there’s no religious freedom.”
Tashi said that back home they were not allowed to have pictures of the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, or listen to recordings of his teachings, although most people would still do it in secret.
“As a person, it’s just too, too painful to have no freedom,” he said.
Tashi therefore decided to leave home and joined 74 other Tibetans in their escape.
“We had to each pay 3,000 yuan [US$436] to the guide,” Tashi said. “We slept during the day, and traveled at night — we began to walk after nightfall at around 6pm and would walk until about 6am.”
He explained that they only traveled at night to avoid Chinese border guards, “since they could arrest us and send us back — sometimes they’d shoot people on the spot.”
In addition to the Chinese border patrols, the extreme weather in the Himalayas would sometimes threaten their lives.
“In our group, many people got frostbite and two died from the cold,” he said.
Eighteen days later, Tashi finally arrived in Nepal. But entry wasn’t free.
“We’ve heard stories of people getting arrested by Nepalese border guards when they tried to enter the country. They’d be imprisoned and sent back — that’s the scariest part,” Tashi said. “You have to bribe the Nepalese soldiers to get in.”
“I’d say that we were finally free as soon as we set foot on Nepalese soil,” he said.
Although life in exile is not easy, Tashi said he thinks it was worth it.
“I was the baby in my family because I was the youngest,” Tashi said, smiling. “I could do whatever I wanted — such as not getting up in the morning to go to school.”
Now, Tashi has to get up at about 5:30am every day to attend prayers and classes.
“I usually study for a couple of hours before going to bed at around midnight,” he said.
“I think the hardest part about life here is not having enough time to sleep,” he added, laughing.
Other than that, he complained that the food is “tasteless,” but has become used to it.
“I also miss my family a lot, because I haven’t seen them for over seven years now,” Tashi said. “But despite all that, I still like it here because at least I’m free.”
Once Tibetans make their escape into Nepal, they stay at a shelter center set up by the Tibetan government-in-exile.
“From the center in Nepal, they would be transferred to another center in Dharamsala [India]. Then, the children will be sent to school, while the adults can decide wherever they want to go,” said Sonam Sangmo, an official with the exiled government’s Department of Informational and International Relations.
After arriving in India and undergoing a background check, refugees will be issued Identity Certificates (IC) by the Indian government, Sonam said.
The IC grants Tibetan refugees the right to stay and work in India, but does not give them Indian citizenship.
“In India, Bhutan and Nepal, there are 81 Tibetan schools with 27,500 students,” said Karma Gelek Yuthok, secretary of the exiled government’s Department of Education.
The Tibetan schools are run by autonomous organizations in association with the exiled government and the Indian government, so that the schools can provide education that not only caters to the needs of exiled Tibetan communities but also meets the curriculum set forth by the Indian government, Yuthok said.
The structure of the Tibetan school system consists of three years of pre-school for children between three and five years of age, five years of primary school, three years of middle school, two years of secondary school and two years of senior secondary school in which students can choose to study in one of the four fields: arts, science, commerce, or vocational education before going to college.
A schedule posted outside a classroom at the Sera Je Secondary School in Bylakuppe showed classes in mathematics, science, English, Tibetan textbooks, handwriting, grammar, social sciences and Chinese.
“College admission rates for Tibetans are very low — only about 40 percent of Tibetan students get admitted into Indian universities,” Yuthok said. “Most of students go into vocational training or work after completing secondary education.”
“The first generation Tibetans usually work in farming or laboring jobs, while the second generation, like myself, began to do business,” Tashi Tsering, a second-generation refugee born in southern India, said.
“It’s quite popular for Tibetans to sell sweaters — I’ve sold sweaters myself,” Tashi Tsering said.
Asked why many Tibetans at the time chose to sell sweaters, Tashi Tsering said: “For some reason — maybe because Tibet is cold — people believe Tibetans sell better quality sweaters ... So, if a Tibetan sells the exact same sweaters as the Indian right next to him, people will buy from the Tibetan.”
His words can be proven by dozens of vendors on crowded streets in Dharamsala, selling scarves and sweaters with big tags reading: “100 percent Tibet.”
Aside from going into business or attending university, many Tibetans choose to pursue studies in Tibetan Buddhist philosophy and become monks.
Bylakuppe’s Sera Jey Monastery alone counts 4,000 monks, while another monastery in the same town, Sera Mey, is home to 2,000.
“The full monastic education lasts for 18 years, but you can withdraw from it at any time,” said Philip Gallenberger, a German who has been studying in Sera Jey’s monastic program for eight months.
Despite having been in exile for nearly half a century and that many who are born in exile have never been to Tibet, most Tibetans in exile are confident that they will always remember they are Tibetans.
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