Survivor

(a super short story) 


They brought the carcass of a dead donkey into the kitchen and ate it, including the hoofs.

It was the summer of 1968. All the prisoners, including my grandfather, were transported from the dreaded Powo Tramo labour camp to a desert near Samye Monastery, where they were forced to work for six months to turn it into a farm to grow cabbage for the Chinese army. But the wind swept the sands back into its place. Each day they began the labour anew.

Desert near Samye, the oldest monastic institution in Tibet

 Prisoners were given a bowl of thin watery porridge and a mug of water a day. The whistle blew at dawn to begin the labour and blew again at dusk to end the day. The hunger was constantly intense. They found neither insects nor wild plants in the dry sands to eat. The only comfort was to go to toilet, which gave their tired body a chance to rest and to wait for worms to crawl out of their shits.

A father and son, who formerly owned an estate near Lhasa, collected worms in a small tin can, which they ate sparingly. They were among the few who survived, and after their release they started a small but successful canned food business.

You Wait for Me with Dust - by Liu Xiaobo

for my wife, who waits every day

Nothing remains in your name, nothing
but wait for me, together with the dust of our home
these layers
amassed, overflowing, in every corner
you're unwilling to pull apart the curtains
and let the light disturb their stillness

The Dalai Lama Will Retire

Yeshi Tsomo is 74-years-old. When asked about His Holiness the Dalai Lama's retirement from Tibetan politics her face melts into a pool of tears. This is the fundamental problem. Emotions of the Tibetan people, both in and outside Tibet, become so elevated on this issue that the possibility of any logical analysis and factual decision dies. We must, as Bob Dylan sang, “take the rag away from [y]our face/Now ain't the time for [y]our tears.”

Dharamsala's Gorshey and XZTV's Asinine Programs

A woman in 'Sinicised' Tibetan dress

A scantily clad woman in colourful see-through silk attire danced seductively. In front of her is a thangka of Buddha - beatific and calm. A khata hangs across Buddha’s face lazily. Sharp beams of light darted on the floor and across the hall. Then the woman raised her left leg in the air far above the Buddha's head. This was one of many terribly produced and totally vulgar programs on Xizang TV (XZTV), the official TV channel of the so-called Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) on the eve of Losar.

The Great Fall of China — 1

On 28 January 2011, the State Council Information Office and Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security of China issued the following notice to its people:

"For the disturbances in Egypt, media across the nation must use copy circulated from Xinhua.  Websites are to strengthen [monitoring] of posts, forums, blogs, and particularly posts on microblogs.  Our bureaus will forcibly shut down websites that are lax in monitoring."

 This was soon after the Jasmine Revolution ousted Ben Ali in Tunisia and the Egyptians were flowing into Tahrir Square, which ultimately led to the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak. People's protests are now infiltrating the streets of Beijing and other major Chinese cities, giving the Communist Party of China led by Hu Jintao splitting headaches almost to a point of nervous breakdowns. The harmony of the Party's absolute rule may be in danger.

The Karmapa Is Not…

On 26 January two Indians were arrested with a large amount of cash, which led to the raid on the room of Karmapa’s monk accountant in Gyuto near Dharamsala. Gyalwa Karmapa, Ugyen Trinley Dorjee, the 17^th Gyalwa Karmapa and the spiritual leader of the Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism. The police seized foreign currencies, including a large amount of Indian rupees, which has become a feast of sorts for the Indian media. Instead of presenting well-researched news, various media channels sought comfort in eye-catching headlines and unsubstantiated allegations. Some of the headlines read: