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"The Tibetan: Tashi གསུམ་ (3)"

 

My time at the camp flew by. Perhaps because every day was exactly the same. In my dormitory, with 20 other men, we’d be awoken by airhorns at 5 a.m., tidy up our bunk beds, wash up, stand upright for a roll call, then go to the canteen, eat, then go to the classroom, study Maoism, Communism, study Mandarin, study the PRC Constitution, Chinese history, and watch propaganda videos.

Every lesson would begin and end with us passionately singing patriotic songs. Our teachers were police officers; all of them old, cagey, and having serious, sunken, grim facial features, with loads of bluish spots around their thin, jagged faces.

Then, after classes, we’d have lunch, which was the biggest meal of the day. It was standard Chinese fare, rice, noodles, meats, fried everything… I must admit that the food at the camp was surprisingly tasty. This was undoubtably due to the kitchen staff receiving specialized culinary training in preparation for posts at 5-star hotels, high-end restaurants, and military bases throughout China.

Following lunch, afternoons were spent doing light labor around the camp- cleaning, landscaping, farming. Everyone had an assigned task. Some were assigned to a factory on the site that produced children’s toys.

After dinner, we’d take evening exercise, usually running, walking, or marching in place. This was followed by nightly assemblies, where speakers, generally police or low-ranking party members, would deliver motivational speeches or we’d be shown propaganda films. Afterward, we’d return to our bunks and wash up before lights out.

Most there, including myself, followed the program. I told them what they wanted to hear. I read the propaganda with gusto. There were few who resisted. I only saw one who talked back to a guard, in the canteen, and he was beaten severely by that guard and the guard’s guard comrades. The guards made a point of beating him in front of us, kicking and lashing the man, who’d crumpled up and sobbed into a defensive ball on the canteen’s white linoleum floor.

There were “points” we could earn for informing on a fellow prisoner, points which could help us possibly get released early. But I never saw or heard of anybody doing anything suspicious or subversive. And I don’t think I’d tell if I did, although I might have had to, because if I didn’t, there were also penalties you could receive if you didn’t tell the guards about suspicious or illegal, immoral behavior.

So I kept quiet and avoided any unnecessary interactions with my fellow prisoners. I kept my head down. I followed orders.

 

Now and then, at night, if I couldn’t sleep, I’d lie in my bunk and would reflect on what my grandfather had said, about this being karma, Tibet’s punishment for abandoning the dharma. Would this be atonement? Keeping quiet? Shouting Chinese slogans? I hoped so. But most of the feelings, ideas I had soon died. My mind went quiet. My soul was numb, like my back and shoulders had turned when I was beaten. I stopped having feelings and allowed my place, my spot in the universe to be whatever it would be. I surrendered…

 

At my release hearing, I was praised as a model prisoner. I was assigned a job as a tour guide, which shocked me, because it was nothing I’d ever done before. But I realized that if they feared the foreigners receiving bad news about Tibet, I would be the perfect person to not spread bad news, since I was fully aware of bad news’ and rumors’ consequences.

Once I’d returned home, my family, my wife, and young daughter, were overjoyed to see me. Springing at me with soft puppy dog eyes when I walked in the door of my home, they hugged me tightly. We cried tears of joy and anguish. I hadn’t seen them in three years. 

We’ve never once discussed why I was gone. There’s no need. Others in my village have had the same experience. Many remain in the camps. I know how lucky I am to return. Buddha is merciful…

 

Tibet is often closed for foreigners, so most of the time, I’m in my office, which is on the second floor of a government complex, just outside the city. The complex is enormous. It’s a long horizontal line, a series of identical square, glassy concrete office buildings. However, most of the buildings and offices in the complex sit empty, unused...

I’m often sitting alone in my office, watching soccer, or I’m with a Chinese coworker from down the hall. I don’t know what his job is, and I’ve never asked. He doesn’t appear to work much or ever be in a hurry. Many days, he doesn’t show up to work at all.

There’s a Tibetan security guard I play cards with, in my office. We smoke cigarettes and chat. Our talks are always about European soccer. He hinted once at gambling on matches, but I pretended to not hear it.

I collect a regular government salary, which is generous, more than I earned as a teacher. I’ll have a good pension. My family receives state healthcare. Life’s okay.

The foreigners they assign me are almost always curious to know about Tibet, its culture, history, but few ask about politics. Many ask me to help them buy drugs. They think every Tibetan smokes hash. I’ve never smoked anything but cigarettes.

Occasionally a foreigner will ask about the Dalai Lama or a sensitive issue; they’ll twist their eyebrows into question marks, speak in hushed tones, innuendos, expecting me to utter a revelation, picking at me for something they can post to Facebook. But I don’t answer any of the foreigners’ questions that would have me in trouble. I avoid unnecessary interactions. I stick to the script. What would it matter anyway? What would it matter if I spilled my guts to one of these snow-skinned, yellow-haired, blue-eyed men or women?

My grandfather told me that the world knows of Tibet’s plight. I read of it online, too. I read of it before, in an internet café, when we could access foreign media sites. I’d use the BBC, YouTube to study English, to gather learning materials for my classes. I saw articles about Tibet. Maybe they still speak of Tibet, I don’t know. I can’t access those sites anymore. They’ve been shut down.

And these days, I wouldn’t even try to find them. In a neighboring village, a college student was recently arrested for selling VPN software that enabled users to bypass China’s internet censorship controls, allowed access to foreign news. For his crime, he was sentenced to two years of hard labor…

Not only is foreign media banned, but there are times, too, around holidays or anniversaries, the entire Internet is shut down for a day or week…

Does the world know about Tibet? Does the world know of our plight? Does the UN know? Yes, of course they do! The world knows everything about us. They know about our leader, His Holiness, The Dalai Lama. They know that it’s illegal to place a picture of the Dalai Lama anywhere, even in our private homes. They know it’s illegal to fly the Tibetan national flag, even in our private homes. They know. They know! 

They know what’s happened here and what is happening here. But, to be frank, they do not care. No one cares about Tibet. Most Tibetans don’t care anymore. Our youngest children can barely speak Tibetan. Tibetan language has been banned in schools. There are Tibetan children in Lhasa who only speak Chinese. There are children in Lhasa who call themselves Chinese.

And no one cares. No one cares. The world has turned its back on us.

Tibet is a country that doesn’t even exist. We’re just ghosts. 

 

"The Tibetan: Tashi གཉིས་ (2)"

 

The faceless guards led me through a series of dark, narrow, bending hallways and brought me to another cell, another icebox. It had lights overhead. They were golden and intensely bright lights. They were lights like spotlights on a stage.

In the cell were 15 other men, all Tibetans, except for one Chinese, who appeared mute or deaf and was missing about half his left arm.

We weren’t allowed to speak. And we didn’t want to, either. A bird-faced jailer sat on a plastic stool, staring at us from the shadows, behind the harsh light. He’d sit pensively, somewhere behind the cell, and would emerge, with a truncheon, and rattle at the bars if anyone spoke. Another jailer, also with enraged eyes, brought us our food, and, in the evenings, wheeled in a TV, that we were required to watch. It’d show Chinese state propaganda, generally news, documentaries, and sometimes soap operas of happy Han families. 

We slept on the floor. We used a bucket in the corner for piss and shit. There was one small, grimy sink, with a single cold-water tap, next to the bucket for washing. We were fed twice daily, a small bowl of rice and a bowl of clear soup with a chunk or two of pork fat and slice or two of cabbage.

I was there a while. I wouldn’t find out how long until I left. The days and nights, time, became irrelevant. There was no window in the cell, no clock, and the lights were kept on 24/7, so time didn’t really exist there.

In that deathly, luminous cell, we all just sat staring at the gray wall. Since I thought I might be sentenced to death, my thoughts, at first, were of my next life, where I’d be, who’d I’d be, what I’d be, and how much karma I’d earned and how I might be reincarnated.

But then my thinking turned to fear, wondering what I’d be charged with, what my “crime” could possibly be. I worried about being sent to one of the worst labor camps. I feared never seeing my family again.

It sounds horrible. I sound like a monster when I say it, but I actually didn’t think too much of my family during this ordeal. Firstly, because it was too painful. Secondly, though, because I thought, perhaps, that they’d turned me in, for whatever my crime was, and that hurt so much more.

Thinking, about anything, became too difficult, so I stopped. I stopped my mind from racing, from conjecture, and I accepted karma. I began to silently recite Buddhist mantras, over and over, and I’d meditate, revisit the calm of dreamless sleep…

 

Eventually, the faceless men in turtle helmets returned, took me to another room, in another part of the jail. This room actually had a window, and I saw the sun for the first time in ages. The sun! The glorious sun! Its yellowy light pouring into the room, like the aura of a deity.

Sitting down to a hard metal chair, I was not strapped in or bound, but my back and shoulders still ached, from the first day’s beating, and from sleeping on the cold concrete floor. But I could feel the beautiful, merciful touch of the sun’s rays, shining in from that window, and the sunlight tickled and warmed me and brought me back to life, and I shifted my weight toward its glow, like a flower. 

The men presented me a written confession and a pen. I’d have almost signed anything, just to be out of there. I’d have maybe confessed to murder if it meant being outside, working in the sun, breathing fresh air, never seeing that jail again, never again smelling its mutant stench of feces, urine, and bodies.

The statement said I’d been reported by a neighbor for “spreading rumors and subverting state power.” It didn’t say the neighbor’s name. It didn’t elaborate on exactly what “rumor” I’d spread. I couldn’t imagine what I’d said that would have been considered a “rumor.”

But I knew of this charge. I heard of others receiving it, usually for criticizing the government or holding an unsanctioned religious event or gathering. Short of being told that everything was a misunderstanding and declared innocent, a charge like this was the best I could hope for. It meant probably, at most, maybe 5 years, and in a reeducation camp, not one of the hard labor camps.

I signed it without question and was then whisked to another part of the building, brought before a panel of 3 judges, one of whom, not much older than me, looked Tibetan. I don’t know if he was for sure Tibetan, but he looked like it. I’ve rarely felt such anger as I did, toward that judge. I’d expect the Chinese to do this, but a fellow Tibetan, being my judge, no, I couldn’t... Part of me died inside, just laying eyes on him.

Buddha forgive me, but I’d have killed him, with my bare hands, if I could have. I’d have sprung up, charged at him and wrapped my hands around his skinny neck, and strangled him to death, snapped his neck, like a chicken, and stomped on his lifeless face until it was gone, until any trace of his Tibetan features were erased.

I’d never felt such hate for my fellow man. Rage jolted through me, as I stood there, my teeth chattering, and I hung my head and stared at the floor. In that moment, I couldn’t see the judge’s face. I couldn’t bear it…

The panel sentenced me to three years and asked that I apologize and acknowledge my crimes to the court. And I did. I threw my head back. I looked up. I told them what they wanted to hear. That I apologized for my crimes. That I loved Mother China. That I was proud and loyal to the Communist Party. That I would correct my errors. I would have mentioned my errors, specifically, since I know that would have made them happier, but I couldn’t, because I still wasn’t exactly sure what I’d been accused of saying.

(Deep down, it dawned on me how grateful I should be that it was a “neighbor” who’d been the informer and not a family member. I felt horrible, too, that I’d ever suspected my family of such treason. Buddha please forgive me for this sin…)

The judges admonished me. They spoke, sternly, iron-eyed, saying how hopefully “I’ve learned my lesson.” I was immediately led, in handcuffs and shackles, to a van, which had three other men, who were Chinese, and we were transported to a reeducation camp that was fairly close by.

 

 

"The Tibetan: Tashi གཅིག་"

 

I don’t like to talk about it. But I see it in dreams. I dream of it. I’m there. On the floor, that cold concrete floor, where I stayed for what I think was months. I stopped counting the days. But it was probably two or three months. I only know this because the season had changed. It was the dead of winter when they came for me, when they came to my house.

We’re used to seeing them. We’re used to their questionings, or them cordoning off the village. They rope off the village during holidays. Or if there’s an immolation. There were more immolations before, but they’ve stopped almost entirely since the Chinese began arresting the immolator’s family members. Is it guilt by association or that they fear the family members would do it next?

It’s unclear, to me, why they’d care. The cynical side of me believes they’d be happier with us in flames, us eaten by fire. Then there’d be less Tibetans for them to worry about.

My grandfather spoke of our country before it was invaded and captured. He spoke of greed. He spoke of serfdom. I wasn’t sure whether to believe him or not because he’d been in a reeducation camp like I was. He was schizophrenic. He’d parrot the party line in public, but at home he’d speak of the country, the old times, independence, both in nostalgia and disgust.

He spoke of it being karma. That Tibetans had strayed from the righteous path the Buddha had set for us. He’d wished the next life, for him, and for every Tibetan, to be better.

I pondered the next life a lot, my first days in jail.  

 

When they arrested me, they bound my arms behind my back, blindfolded me, and hauled me away. Then they brought me to jail and chained me to a chair, a tiger chair; my arms and legs strapped tightly, by leather bands, to the cold, hard metal seat. I sat rooted in that chair for hours. I pissed myself.

They yelled at me, again and again, demanding that I confess to my crime, but I didn’t know what crime they meant. I’d been an English teacher at the local school. I’d only taught from the books they gave me. I’m a devout Buddhist. I don’t believe in harming others. I’ve never stolen. I’ve never committed an illegal act.

I repeated, over and over, that I’d committed no crimes. That didn’t satisfy them.

I remember the room… The interrogation room… It was dark and freezing. It stank. It’d stunk so thickly of urine, already, when I’d been led in there. The atrocious smell was the first thing I noticed when I entered the room, blindfolded, my hands roped behind my back. I was revolted by the intensity, the heavy punch of the stench. It reeked worse than any toilet or outhouse or manure pit… It made me woozy…

They’d untied my blindfold, but I couldn’t see their faces. All I could see were their helmets. The helmets were pill blue and shaped like turtle shells. I still couldn’t quite see their faces when they approached me, either. It was as if they had no faces. There was only a ball of darkness where a face should have been. There was only a black bubble, a void between their uniformed bodies and turtle helmets. It was as if the turtle helmets were hovering in the air above, like flying saucers.

I believe that I pressed my eyes shut when they approached because I didn’t want to see them. I wouldn’t see them. I would control that, if nothing else. But I couldn’t stop hearing. I couldn’t stop hearing the cries, accusations of sedition. Sedition? That’s what it was about, I pieced together. And I denied that, strongly. I professed my patriotism to the Communist Party. I professed my love for my country.

“What is YOUR country?!” one shouted, before dashing over and whacking me, hard, on the shoulder, with a truncheon.

“China!” I cried, “China!”

“China?!” he bellowed back, before striking my sides and shoulders several times, sending shockwaves of crunching pain searing through me.

There’s only so much a person can endure, and eventually the anguish reached its crescendo. My nerves became blunted, and I numbed up, and thank Buddha, the last couple strikes I felt only the sickening jolt of their sticks whipping my numb body. But at least the pain… the pain slept… Then I figured out what I’d said wrong...

“The People’s Republic of China!” I cried out, and then began to sing the national anthem, “March of the Volunteers.” I’d memorized it by heart, after hearing it, every day for years, blasting from the loudspeakers installed around my village.

Once I started singing the anthem, the men relented striking me.

So I sang louder, and louder, my voice straining, hot-salt tears involuntarily streaking down my cheeks, I sang, “Arise, ye who refuse to be slaves! With our flesh and blood, let us build a new Great Wall! As China faces her greatest peril, from each one the urgent call to action comes forth. Arise! Arise! Arise! Millions of but one heart! Braving the enemies' fire! March on! Braving the enemies' fire! March on! March on! March, MARCH ON!”

I’d had a cousin who’d been interrogated, beaten, and he’d spontaneously burst into the song, thinking it might make his captors let up their assault. And it worked. Fortunately, it worked for me too.

But again, they demanded I confess to my crimes. I knew my options were limited, that I would probably have to confess.

After they’d struck my back, the blows must have damaged my lungs because it hurt to breathe. Between choking gasps of breath, I requested they present me my crimes, in writing, and that I’d sign a confession.

I supposed that as long as I wasn’t being framed for a murder and wasn’t facing the death penalty or life sentence, I might confess, depending on the charges. Once the Chinese arrest you, whatever they arrested you for, you did, whether you really did it or not. I’d learned from others’ experiences that the only way out is to confess, that way you’ll receive a lesser sentence.

A murder or other heinous crime that carried too long a sentence I wouldn’t confess to, since either way, I’d be dead. A death penalty would be better, anyhow, than a life in the Chinese labor camps. I’ve heard of life there, waking up at sunrise, picking cotton all day, digging holes, doing hard labor, or toiling with backbreaking factory work. Being beaten, kept in a small dog cage if you didn’t meet quotas. The prison labor camps in China are hell on Earth. I’d rather they just shoot me in the head...