Your Happiness and My Suffering: A Song by Khoten (translation)

Dhondup Tashi Rekjong and I translated this song about a year ago and sent it to High Peaks (HighPeaksPureEarth.com), the best site for news, issues & commentary coming out of Tibet. Dechen Pemba really liked it and wanted to put it up, and asked us if we could get an introduction on Khoten. There wasn’t any information available online, in Tibetan or English, so Dhondup Tashi asked people he knew inside Tibet to get some information on Khoten. This is how he gets the info on most of the people that Tibet Web Digest translates and publishes online.

Finally we got a brief biographical sketch and then that information just slept in our inboxes (ok, fine, my inbox) for a very very long time until someone on the web put up a translation of this song, which was interesting but a little libertarian, (for instance: instead of ‘the snow is not white’, I believe they had ‘it was not the white snow’) and so we got out the intro and dusted it off, edited it and sent to Hpeaks. We have to thank Dechen, who was so patient with us, and does such a wonderful and necessary job with High Peaks.

You can simply read the song lyrics, but I really suggest watching the video (the lyrics are also embedded). It's an entirely different experience. Of course, the Tibetan audience is uncooperative as always. Maybe another time, I'll share my memories of Phurbu T Namgyal desperately trying to get the Boston Tibetans grooving to Jampa Dolma. They watched him like a documentary. Clearly, the Amdo audience is not much better. 

Anyway, Khoten punched me in the heart with this song. I hope we have done justice to his lyrics. Do watch. 

http://highpeakspureearth.com/2013/a-song-by-khoten-your-happiness-and-my-suffering/

Longing for the Deities by Sakyil Tseta: a translation

This is a poem by Sakyil Tseta, one of Tibet’s best young poets. I find that the lines of the original in Tibetan keep echoing in my mind.

Longing for the Deities

By Sakyil Tseta

Translation by Tenzin Dickyi and Dhondup Tashi Rekjong

These days a spring wind is rising under the clouded sky.

In these days when a spring wind is rising, the villagers with bothered and humble eyes are complaining about someone, cursing someone. At the intersection of the city and the street where there are no red mirrors searching with their eyes for the caged birds, the villagers push down their tears of suffering and wish to spit on someone with their laments.

In these days, in these days when a spring wind is rising under the clouded sky,

In every village of Rebkong, arrow bearing hunters multiply, on every street of Rebkong, red traps and black mirrors increase exponentially. The village people, their heads bowed down, are apprehensive of taking a breath. These days if you don’t take care, there are no dharma protectors who can save you.

In these days, in these days when a spring wind is rising under the clouded sky,

In these days when the people of Rebkong stay silently in their homes, where are the deities and dharma protectors that the people have placed in their hearts since the time of their ancestors? Are they disappointed that we can’t take refuge in them? Are they hungry that we can’t make incense offerings? Is this their answer?

Ah, my deities and dharma protectors. Ah.

In these days, in these days when a spring wind is rising under the clouded sky,

The people talk of caterpillar fungus in the day,

And count stars through the window at night.

In these days, in these days when a spring wind is rising under the clouded sky, shoots from the inner depths of the earth give vitality and confidence to someone’s young sun of hope. Now, once more the gorgeous peach blossoms bring to the people’s minds a certain compassionate and youthful face–that face from far far away is brought to mind, is brought to mind.

In these days of fear, in these days of terror,

I long for the deities clad in mourning felt,

I long for Shambala where the people have scattered their hopes. 

"Namkha Jhida, Bird-chaser" by Dhondup Tashi Rekjong

I am posting a translation. I actually translated this a while ago, in May, for an informal Tibetan writers’ gathering that was hosted at Latse Library, but didn’t get to put it up before. The piece itself is an old piece about an episode in his childhood, by Dhondup Tashi Rekjong, but it’s hilarious and vividly written. Dhondup Tashi Rekjong is editor of Tibet Web Digest and Karkhung, a new site that translates pieces from English and Chinese into Tibetan. He is former editor of Khabdha, the most popular Tibetan language blog in exile.

NAMKHA JHIDA, BIRD-CHASER by Dhondup Tashi Rekjong

Namkha Jhida was my friend, my childhood friend. When I was young, every time I went home for my summer holidays, I would go bird-chasing with Namkha Jhida. It has now been more than ten years since I last saw Namkha Jhida but these childhood memories are still fresh in my mind. Namkha Jhida's real name is Namkha Tsering, and family and friends used to call him Namkha. The people in our village called him Namkha Jhida, Bird-chaser, because he loved chasing birds.

The village kids also loved chasing birds. During summer holidays I would go home to the village with my father, and most of my summer vacation would be spent chasing birds. I would spend all day with Namkha Jhida chasing after birds, and some days we wouldn't catch even a single bird. Sometimes running after the birds, we would leave footprints all over other people's fields. When the owners saw this, they would tell our parents, and we would get a beating from our parents. In those days, we would get a beating like that every one or two days.

If, we caught many baby birds in a day, we would divide the baby birds amongst ourselves. Namkha Jhida was always our leader. During our bird chasing expeditions, everyone listened to his orders. After we had caught the birds, he would pick the best baby bird. After that, we would take our picks. Carrying a baby bird in our hands, we would go back home. Before reaching home, we would hide the bird somewhere near the house, sometimes under a hedge bush. The next morning, usually the bird would be dead. I think now that when we were young, we earned a lot of bad karma.

One day, we went with Namkha Jhida to chase birds. Namkha Jhida carried a long rope in his hands. We came to a small cliff:  we knew that there was a bird’s nest up there. But we had never found it. That day, Namkha Jhida said, "Today we will empty this nest." We all agreed. But we couldn't decide on who was going to climb the cliff. We talked about it. But no one volunteered to climb the cliff. We all looked at Namkha Jhida. We all wanted him to climb the cliff. Finally, Namkha Jhida said he would climb the cliff.

We went to the top of the cliff. We tied the rope around Namkha Jhida's waist. There were six of us. Three of us held the end of the rope. Very slowly, we lowered Namkha Jhida down the face of the cliff. Two kids went to the bottom of the cliff. If Namkha Jhida were to fall, these two would catch him. Three of us held on tightly to the end of the rope. The two friends at the bottom of the cliff yelled out, "Lower the rope a bit more." So we slowly lowered a bit more rope. They said, "Lower the rope a little bit more, he is almost at the nest." Again, we let out some more rope from our hands. We yelled out, "Is that okay? Is he at the nest?" "Lower the rope a little more," they said. "Oh, I got it, I got it," Namkha Jhidha started yelling. All of a sudden, the rope slipped out from the hands of the kid at the end. Namkha Jihda's body began pulling at my friend and me.

The two of us screamed, "Namkha fell" and let the rope slip from our hands. Our friends at the bottom of the cliff cried out. We ran to the bottom. We were all very frightened. Namkha cried out, "Shit, shit, shit" while rubbing his butt. He said to my other friend, "You were the one who let go of the rope." My friend said, "No it wasn't me, it was him." We started quarreling about who had let go of the rope. Our quarrel grew. It grew and then turned into a fight.

Namkha Jhida became incensed and said, "Shit, why are you fighting? From tomorrow, don’t follow me anymore. No more baby birds for any of you. As your punishment for today, each of you has to catch and bring me two baby birds." We stopped our quarreling and fighting. Then, without any baby birds in our hands, we silently went back home.

Originally published on Khabdha.com in March 2010.

http://www.khabdha.org/?p=7000#more-7000

A Review: "THE GRASSLANDS" by Pema Tseden

On Saturday I watched a short film: The Grasslands by Pema Tseden. It is Pema Tseden’s student film, and Latse Contemporary Tibetan Library* in the West Village has a copy in their video archives.

Pema Tseden, or Wanma Caidan as the pinyin transliteration has it so awkwardly, is a talented Tibetan film maker who studied at the Beijing Film Academy and has made two feature films in recent years. I have seen both, The Silent Holy Stones and The Search, and they are both amazing and excellent… and I am deeply in love with The Search. So I was curious to see his student film, curious to see how his directorial vision has evolved, curious to see whether his master talent so clearly displayed in every frame of The Search is manifest in this his first creation.

And yes, yes, it is. The Grasslands is short, only about twenty minutes or so. The film opens with a simple frame: an old couple trekking across the empty grassland under a blue sky. They are Aku Tsendruk, a stubborn old man who just can’t bear any wrongs done to him, and his wife Ama Tsomo, an even older woman who is curled into herself with age and resignation, a passive bystander who is swept in the drift of the current churned up by her aggressive husband.

They are headed to the next nomadic settlement over, to confront three young men who have stolen Ama Tsomo’s yak. As they go on, we learn that the yak is a “liberated” yak; which means that Ama Tsomo had released this yak from slaughter and the yak was a free animal until its theft. So the thieves had compounded their crime which had become a wrong not just against morality but against dharma.

When Aku Tsendruk and Ama Tsomo reach their old friend Dorlo’s tent, his grown son Juga, a pipe smoking thick-set type with streaming highlander hair, is dispatched to fetch the three men. An elaborate ceremony of oaths follow and the film wraps with a small twist that manages to convince and satisfy without being either surprising or predictable. The director is talented like that.

After I watched the film, I felt that the film was not about Aku Tsendruk and Ama Tsomo, nor about the other people in the film so much as it is about a way of life- a way of life where you can take a man’s word when he swears, a way of life where people still “liberate” their prized yaks, a way of life where a radio is as close as the outside world gets to you. And it’s about the land that not only sustains but rather reinforces this way of life-the immense rolling plains and mountains that are inseparable from the people who live there.

It’s worth seeing. It’s very worth seeing. Ok it’s worth the trek to Latse. Need I say more?

*www.Latse.org

BUS RIDES IN TIBET

This is a piece I wrote in October 2006. A friend of mine, Thupten, who was interning at Tibet Justice Center, asked me to submit a piece for their newsletter Trin-Gyi-Pho-Nya. He knew that I had just spent the summer in Tibet. I had a hard time thinking about what to write – I wasn’t sure that I would be able to write what they were probably hoping for. I ended up writing this. And of course they couldn’t use it. I have shared it with a couple of friends, and thought that I might share it here as well. Especially as I have not updated in a long while.

October 2006

I went on a lot of bus rides in Tibet. My first bus ride was along the Golok-Xiling route. It was an uncomfortable experience. The bus made a stop at 11 o’clock at a small Tibetan settlement along the road that looked exactly like the western town in High Noon. Dust, horses, leathery men, fat women, filthy restaurants, motorbikes. My friends said the bus would stop in the afternoon for lunch so I bought some plums and got back into my seat. Afternoon came and passed and the bus made no signs of stopping. I ate my plums and finally descended from the bus in late evening tired and hungry. Xiling, or as the Chinese call it, Xining, has no tourists. It is a small city bounded by mountains and looks like a small version of Beijing transplanted to Tibetan soil. But I didn’t mean to stay in Xiling; my destination was Labrang-a Tibetan town another long bus ride away.

              We started out early the next morning. The 6 hour bus ride took 9 hours because the bus kept breaking down. The driver and the conductor were both Tibetan. They stopped the bus outside Xiling and picked up about 10 passengers without tickets, all of them Tibetans. I learned later that most of them were from the town of Labrang. They sat on the floor or on the raised engine platform. Every so often, we would stop and the extra passengers would get off and be bundled into passing cars. We would then drive cheerfully past a checkpoint. Once we were safely past, the bus would wait at the roadside for the other passengers to get on board. The driver and the conductor were smuggling Tibetans between Xiling and Labrang. It wasn’t a political statement. At first I thought it simple kindness and then I saw the conductor collecting money from them-he was just making some extra money on the side. Did he take less than the ticketed amount, since no tickets were involved? I wanted him to have done so. He was a young man and acted as repairman for the bus as well. Because the bus kept breaking down, the Chinese tourists kept asking him, “When will we get there?” He was snappish to them and gave monosyllabic answers. When a Tibetan asked him the same question, he answered quite patiently. Was that a political statement? Later when he found out I was Tibetan and a tourist, he began pointing out places to me. We passed through Rebkong, small villages with large fields, green rolling pastures and barren mountains, and my entire being thrilled. The Chinese tourists on the bus did not know, and would not have cared, that this was the birthplace of Gedun Choephel.

              There is awe but no reverence. There is attention without respect. Monasteries have become museums. Chinese tour guides talk in loud voices and banish sacredness from these hallowed places of worship. Is there such a thing as sustainable tourism? Especially in such a place as Tibet where the factory line is staffed mostly with Chinese?

              Later I went on another bus from the Chinese city of Chengdu to Lithang through Dhartsedo, that ancient trading town on the old border. Everyone on the bus was Chinese. Most of them seemed to be going to Bathang for work. I immediately stood out because I didn’t speak Chinese. At a stop I asked the Tibetan woman guarding the public bathroom how much farther it was to Lithang. When I climbed into the bus, many of the other passengers looked at me in surprise and puzzlement. The middle aged man across the aisle, who had taken off his shirt as we left Chengdu and sat in a comfortable sheen of sweaty nudity-to be covered only as we began climbing mountain after mountain, began speaking to me in unintelligible Sichuanese. Who were all these people going off into places about which they knew nothing?

              There were other differences, perhaps minute to others but insurmountable to me. Tibetans, when they travel, slide their windows open so the warm sun and the cold air fall upon their faces. The Chinese tourists shy away from the wind and zip up their jackets to their chins. But they shy away from the sun also-the young women prop up umbrellas inside the bus to keep their skin fair and untanned. Tibet is a place of scorching sun and savage wind. I wondered why, if the Tibetan wind and the sun bothered them so much, they were there. But of course I knew really.

Thanking His Holiness

I had a chance at Garrison Institute in upstate New York to thank His Holiness. This was in front of a hundred Tibetan professionals who had gathered there for the three-day Tibetan Professionals' Conference. The Conference itself was crazy and inspiring and very very hectic for Tsewang la and me. But more on the conference later. For me, of course, the moment that stands out is when I got to thank His Holiness. I was to thank him for being there. But of course I had to thank His Holiness for so much more than that. Obviously we owe His Holiness everything- the strength of our identity, the unity of our people, our image, our platform, our place in the world. Displaced as we are, we are not invisible and that is because of His Holiness. Anyway this is my thank you note, or address, or whatever that I read in front of His Holiness and the audience of Tibetan professionals at Garrison Institute, Monday, October 5.

Tashi Delek, Your Holiness, and good afternoon to all. On behalf of the Office of Tibet, I would like to once again thank all the participants and speakers for being here and Garrison Institute for providing us with this wonderful space.

On behalf of all the Tibetans, and all the youth and professionals gathered here, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Your Holiness for meeting with us in spite of your most hectic schedule.

In the past fifty years, we were forced to cross the highest mountains to go into exile, and from that exile we crossed oceans to go into an even further exile. We live on other nations’ charity, on other people’s good will and conscience, but we have dignity and we have strength because when we lift our gaze up, we see you.

Many of us here in this room are more fortunate and privileged than most of our countrymen. We believe that there is no further exile. From here on, every step must be a step home. Our parents’ generation suffered and sacrificed for the cause of our nation. I assure Your Holiness that we will continue to do the same, with courage and resilience, to realize the vision of a Tibet where Tibetans can live in peace and prosperity and freedom. Thank you.