Dachung (Dawa Chung)
approximately 80 years old
Recorded in Bylakuppe at New Camp 6 on Sunday, May 1, 2005
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(Many older Tibetans don't know their exact birthdays--sometimes not the calendar date, and sometimes not the year. It has not traditionally been important, and personal birthdays were not celebrated in Tibet.)

Dachung (Dawa Chung)

I came from Lhasa, not exactly Lhasa, but Lhasa district. But we kept moving, me and my husband. We were in Lhasa, but then we were in Paray-for eight years we were in Paray-but our main place was nearby Lhasa. My mother's house is in Tolung. Tolung is the place where in the month of May (or in the Tibetan seventh month) all these business people, they had their meeting in that place. From all the cities, from all the main cities, they came for meetings, even from Bhutan and Ladakh and even from Kalimpong in India. They lasted for several weeks. First they had a big meeting in Hogar. After Hogar, then they came to Tolung. It was a three day journey from Hogar to Tolung.

My husband wasn't in the meetings, but some of the meetings were in our town. They were only for the really important business people. People would stay in my mother's house. I was the only child of my mother. I was like an "illegitimate child." My father made my mother pregnant, and then he just left. I know his name and everything. He was quite a famous and popular man, so we couldn't follow or bother him. I was the only child for my mother. My father didn't take care of my mother and me, he was really a little bit bad, so I would like to find out about him, and I'm curious; but I know he's not alive now.

But I did have a stepfather. My mom didn't marry him, but he was there, and we called him stepfather. Later, he was put in prison by the Chinese when they came to Lhasa.   At first, the Chinese weren't there in Lhasa. It took many years for them to get there. At first, they were in Kham. Kham is a border area, and there were many Chinese soldiers kept in the border area. But then the Chinese fought hard, and the Chushi Gangdrug volunteer soldiers lost and were defeated, and that's how they ended up further inside Tibet, closer to Lhasa.. After Chamdo they reached Lhasa.

When they were having a war in the Chamdo border, whoever was still alive, they put them in prison. They kept them there for about three months and then they let them out. They made all of them go to Lhasa. They kind of fooled everybody by letting them go and showing pity for them and sending them to Lhasa. This was just so we Tibetans would think that since they released our captured soldiers and they were slowly coming to Lhasa, that they were nice. When the Chinese soldiers first came into Lhasa, they spoke quite nicely. Most of the Tibetan people were very poor, you know, and the soldiers said they were going to help us, they were going to make a good road, and be very nice, and do construction on the road for the poor people. Slowly, however, [we realized] they were just fooling the people. But the people believed. When somebody told us Tibetans that they were going to do something good, we simply believed, because we didn't have it in our minds [it didn't occurr to us] that these people were going to capture our nation or harm us. "We're going to make you happy and improve Tibet." That's what they always told us. Whoever wanted could pray or make pilgrimages or go to the temples. They said we would have religious freedom and all of that-they promised us that.

When all the youngsters and soldiers came, more and more, then we began to think maybe it wasn't going to be so good. More and more young Tibetans were brought into Lhasa, and they were organized into big groups. Lots of Chinese soldiers, more and more, also came into Lhasa, and we began thinking, and saying to each other that it wasn't going to be good for Tibet.

At that time, His Holiness was in Lhasa. He was in the Norbulingka, the Summer Palace. He was there during that season. In the winter he goes to the Potala, the Winter Palace. The Tibetan soldiers knew that the Chinese were going to harm His Holiness, so they surrounded the palace to guard him. And then they told the Chinese, "Now please leave the country, enough of your help, we want you to go." But still they didn't move, and said "Don't worry, we're only doing good things for Tibet."

The Tibetan soldiers scattered all over. We knew the Chinese soldiers were going to do something. There were more and more of them, so they scattered all over in different places. Then they [the Tibetan soldiers] made an arrangement for His Holiness to escape. They were fooling the Chinese, telling the Chinese that they wanted them to leave and protesting that didn't want any more help, and while they were tricking the Chinese and keeping them busy with words, they were quietly planning an escape. There was a man called Lobsang Tashi. His gravesite is here in the First Camp, here in Bylakuppe. He was quite a popular person, and even then he had quite a high position with the Chinese. He worked under the Chinese, and then he turned toward the Tibetans. He helped His Holiness to escape. He told His Holiness's bodyguards and soldiers, "Go this way, and if the Chinese forces are coming, I'll tell them he went that way and then turn them around. That way you can escape."

So once His Holiness reached India in Tawang, way up in Arunachal Pradesh... You know that person, Lobsang Tashi? When he heard His Holiness was safely in India, even he made his escape to India with the other soldiers. He really helped.

I didn't go to school. During my childhood I was trained in embroidery work for all kinds of Tibetan clothing, doing the borders in the old old Tibetan tradition, especially in the ladies' aprons, the chubas, which have very special designs. I was a teenager when I was trained. There was no regular school for us then.

As for my singing career, well, at the age of eighteen... It's not so much that I learned opera just like that. It's just that as a child I loved singing and dancing. It was my hobby, like that. When I was about eighteen years old, we had a visit from a foreigner who came to Tibet. I think she was from Europe, maybe Italian. She wanted to record some Tibetan songs, so I helped and I was recorded singing. You may have heard of one group called Nangma. They're quite a famous group. They do theatre, and their songs are really very nice, and they're quite famous. You know, there are Tibetans Muslims, too. And they are very nice. There was a husband and wife who were Tibetan Muslims, and they were also in that recording, and I was there. I sang the Lhamo opera, and they made a record and they took it to the West. They made a tape recording and they sold it too, and we had a copy, but the copies are all gone now. We couldn't bring anything like that with us to India, but only really necessary things like food and clothing.

Every year we had the Shoten opera festival. We still have it now in India it once a year, usually in Dharamsala. But this year it was here in Bylakuppe. So we only had it once a year, organized by a monastery called Drepung. There is still a monastery in Tibet called Drepung, and now there's a monastery called Drepung here in India, at Mundgod in the north of Karnataka, Shoten is done in the 7th Month of the Tibetan calendar-using the lunar calendar. Once they finished with the main Shoten festival, they would go down to the Norbulingka and perform there for five days, for the Dalai Lama only. So they did five days for the public, and five days for His Holiness.

I never saw the 13th Dalai Lama, but I remember hearing about his death. I was maybe five or six years old. It was when I was a child. I had some half-brothers and half-sisters from before, but I didn't know who they were. And my mother had no other children. My mother did farm work, and I lived with my mother. When I was a child, I didn't have a hard time at all, and I was very happy. My mother didn't allow me to work. My childhood was in the village, and my mother worked very hard. When I was old enough to perhaps do some work, we moved to Lhasa, where we lived in a rented house. I had lots and lots of friends, both boys and girls.

At every festival occasion, our group of friends, all of us children, would go singing. In the village, I was really quite lucky, my life was quite good. And then my husband found me, and almost forced me to get married! He was from the Kham region, and the people from the Kham region are very brave and even fierce. So these Khampas are almost like dangerous people. The men all carry a sword. I was quite beautiful at that time, and doing all this singing, and he fell in love with me, and he was doing a small business close by, and that's how he met me there.

At a small festival, women could perform, or sometimes at a small party and in some particular locations. And I was so crazy about singing and dancing that anytime I had a chance to perform, I did so. And there were some big stars in Tibet, too, and anything that they did, I copied that. There were big stars who were women, but they weren't in the Lhamo group. I only had to hear a song once, and the next week I still remembered it because I was so crazy about songs. That's how my husband met me. He saw me singing many times, and then he went to my mother's house and told her, "I want your daughter, and you cannot deny me. I want your daughter, and you can't keep her for anybody else. Tomorrow when I come, you're not supposed to tell me she has disappeared, or tell me she flew up into the sky or went underneath the ground, there can be no excuse like that. I want her only, and she has to stay with me."

But I didn't have to go to my mother-in-law's house like most brides do because I was my mother's only child and could stay at my mother's house. That was how it worked. I was about 24 years old then when I got married. We didn't have a big grand celebration with fancy things and everything, just a small ceremony. For a marriage, we don't need a monk and everything. We didn't need a church and all that like Christians do, we just get married in the house and call a few friends, we don't need any lamas or monks and all that. It's just simple, and you're done, you're married.

So before I got married, I had a really good life. I did embroidery, I visited with my friends, and I sang and danced any chance I got. And there was no school, and I had two or three good friends, so I really enjoyed my life. Then when I married, my husband was very busy with business. He used to go to Kalimpong in India and buy some stuff there and bring it back to sell it here. He did all this work. Before the Chinese came, he was going to India regularly and coming back and forth. It took him a whole month to reach India and come back.

We were in Shigatse before the Chinese came, when we first heard about all of this with so many Chinese people coming into Tibet. After that we had to get permission from the Chinese people to go anywhere. We weren't supposed to leave Tibet just like that. So we asked for fifteen days' leave and said we wanted to go to one region, Tepa, for a pilgrimage. I'll show you on the map there. So we said we just wanted to go there for a pilgrimage for fifteen days. They didn't give freedom to the people. They said that we were not supposed to go to India.

There were three men in our group, all together. On the way, the women spoke to each other and we told the men, "If you see any Chinese soldiers, then just run away. Don't worry about us. You three try to escape, and don't worry about us, even if we are caught and sent back. You three just escape and don't worry about us." It was like that. All of the women said that same thing, not to worry about them. If the men are caught, the Chinese soldiers give more punishment to the men. They didn't do very much to the women, a little less, so we told them just don't worry about us because you should escape. That was a big sacrifice we were ready to make. There were Chinese troops all around, but we stayed off the roads and didn't see any of them, only Tibetans. We prayed a lot, and the Dalai Lama and Palden Lhamo and Green Tara protected us. We were very afraid, it was cold, and we had very little to eat, but nothing really bad happened to us. We were very lucky.

One of the families who came together with us is now in Hunsur, close to Bylakuppe, and we're close to them. Only one lady is still alive. The husband and the wife died, but one lady is alive. Only one friend is left from the trip. But my mother came together with us, and she lived for a long time. She was even more active than me. Her name was Tundu Dolma. She was even more active than me, and I'm quite active, more active than my daughter. I am quite healthy and walk a lot, but my daughter would rather take a rickshaw, and she gets tired. My husband was carrying my oldest child, my son on his back, and I was carrying my daughter on my back, who was two or three years old. My son Wangyal, who is now a monk at Sera Je, was born in the forest near Assam, in a place called Baksar, after we got to India.

The first Sera Je monks were all in Baksar, and in Kalimpong. We had one of our relatives in Baksar, and that's how we went to Baksar. That was when the Bangladesh War was going on, and Bomdila was captured. We could hear guns firing. The Chinese and the Indians were fighting back then.

Second Interview, recorded July 2, 2005 in Bangalore:

When we first reached Dharamsala, we had no work.   Later, people were able to put their names on a list if they wished to go to a settlement somewhere else in India. But we were in Dharamsala for seven or eight years. Even now when I go there for the opera festival most years, I see the old house where we stayed, right there near McLeod Gang. At that time, the sister of His Holiness, Tsering Dolma, who is no longer alive, gathered the women together and created the Tibetan Women's Association.   With help from others, she organized work for many of the women in Dharamsala. Mostly, we did carding and spinning of wool. But there wasn't that much work, so we might get ten rupees and some rations, together with some food for cooking.   When we were working, lunch was served there at the workplace.

My son was usually on my back with a pacifier in his mouth. Because I was sick at that time, I didn't have mother's milk. In Tibet, we say that babies who don't get their mother's milk won't care that much for their parents when they grow up. So Tibetan mothers always try to give their own milk so the children will be closer to you. Even nowadays, he's a little more distant, and I say that's because I couldn't give my milk to him. I had become sick with some food poisoning, and for a long time after that I had problems with my bowels. Lobsang Wangyal is now a Geshe, a senior monk at Sera Je Monastery here in Bylakuppe.

My daughter Tsetin Palke wasn't such a young child while we were living in Dharamsala. She was six or seven years old at this time, so she was put in a boarding school there in Dharamsala. Children that age or up to eight or nine were put in a boarding school, and ate and slept there as well as going to class. His Holiness' sister took them there.   We didn't have to pay anything for them to go to this school. That was good, because we didn't have any money anyway.

The Tibetan Women's Association was started in Bylakuppe while I was there.   The association here in Bylakuppe now is quite unique. People here are separated into different camps, but there's one association for Bylakuppe, and it really helps to keep all the people together so we don't feel separated from one camp to another. Originally our activities were mostly for work and mutual support, but now the Tibetan Women's Association has many political activities too, and sometimes organizes marches.

But there in Dharamsala, when we would work with wool and things like that, the women would come together for work. Most of the men would be away, maybe selling sweaters. Whatever profits came from selling sweaters and the things we made would be given back to us.   Other than this work organized for us, there was no work for us in Dharamsala.   We were poor, but we had enough to live.

The work site was in McLeod Gang itself, up above Dharamsala. Our house was down the hill, but not very far. It was down a bit from where the main bus stop is now for McLeod Gang.

Some time after we arrived, the Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts (TIPA) was started. Occasionally, I would go up there and do some teaching. Of course, they do lots of things at TIPA, not just opera, so I wouldn't help with those other kinds of singing and cultural activities. However, when I had time I would go up to help teach opera to people at TIPA. The other older people who were also helping to teach the younger people are all gone now.   They have all died, at least all the ones I can remember.

Many of the neighbors there where we stayed were Indians. There were Tibetans and Indians all mixed up there, and people mostly got along very well. The owner's family stayed up on top, and we were on the ground floor, there on the main road.. We didn't pay any rent where we were staying. The owner let us stay for free. That was good, because we really didn't have money, and the owner knew that. There were six of us, because my parents were with us too, and we couldn't afford to pay any rent. When the owner of the house where we stayed in Dharamsala heard that we might be moving south, he asked us not to go.   He told us we had a place to stay there forever. We had gotten very close after staying for so many years, and he didn't want us to leave Dharamsala, and felt sad.   But we didn't completely trust him. Because he was Indian, we couldn't always understand everything he said or why he did some things. We were a little worried that if we stayed, some kind of problem might develop later, and then we would wish we had gone south.   So we did decide to go to Bylakuppe, where other Tibetans would be living, and where we could have our own settlement.

It wasn't too far up the road to the top of the mountain where the children were in school. I went up there many times to visit them, because later both children were there. When I went, I would always try to bring something special for them.

During the war with Pakistan over Bangladesh, there was lots of chaos. There were lots of rumours flying around, and people were very scared, but we didn't really know what was happening. We didn't really know exactly what countries were involved, and which country was on which side, and that sort of thing.   Mostly that was because we didn't understand the Indian language so we couldn't read the newspapers or listen to the radio. Also, we were really busy just taking care of things.   The war wasn't actually happening in or near Dharamsala, but there were lots of stories.   One bomb was thrown in Bhagsunath, near to some Tibetan people. Three buffalo were killed, and stories were flying around everywhere. People were running around scared, blindly, not knowing anything really. People drove by on motorcycles yelling out that there was going to be bombing, so everybody scattered and ran off to hide somewhere. Several times we ran to hide in a cave in the mountains at night. Rumours were flying everywhere, sometimes even coming from officials. Nobody was allowed to use a torch or a candle in the cave, and it was very dark. Police were put on duty at night in Dharamsala to be certain that thieves or vandals didn't steal anything or do any damage.   And my children at school also had to go and hide several times after announcements were made.   This would last for two or three hours, and then somebody would whistle that it was all clear, and we would come out.   This lasted about a week, but no bombs ever came near to Dharamsala. Now when I think about it sometimes, I really laugh a lot, together with my daughter. We both remember those days.

I didn't meet anybody in Dharamsala whom I had known from Tibet before. Although lots of people had escaped, it was very dangerous and very difficult. It's still difficult, but not as bad as it was back then.

Like many of the men, my husband was often gone somewhere selling the things that we had made. Usually, because we were making sweaters and scarves and caps and things like that, they would go to places in India like Mussorie, where winter was harsh and the weather was cold. Then, at the end of a trip, we would all share the profits. His Holiness' sister Tsering Dolma had given us all some money to start with, because we didn't have anything at all. But still, there wasn't very much work or money, and not much to do, so we were thinking that we wouldn't stay in Dharamsala but would go south.

Wintertime in Dharamsala was also quite difficult. It snowed, and it was cold. We couldn't cut down the trees in Dharamsala or close by, so it was difficult to get enough firewood. On holidays and festivals, we would all go out to the woods further away and gather firewood and bring it home.

It wasn't really that we chose to go to Bylakuppe instead of one of the other settlements. All the people in Dharamsala who decided to go to a settlement were sent to Bylakuppe. That was our choice, to stay in Dharamsala or to go to Bylakuppe. It was similar in other places where Tibetans were staying. For example, the refugees in Kalimpong could choose to go to Mundgod, a camp that was also built in Karnataka, but much further north than Bylakuppe. Bylakuppe was quite new, but the first camps, what we now call the "old camps," had been built and were mostly settled.   A large group of people had been sent earlier, and they now occupied the old camps, especially Old Camps 1, 2 and 5. Although the old camps were pretty well settled then, the new camps were like a jungle.   When we first arrived, we stayed in a very small huts, just like everybody else. There was a small hut for each family, made out of bamboo. We stayed near the new camp's office, in that area. At that time Camp Six, where we now live, was just a jungle. Clearing the land was a big job. The largest trees were cut down by large machines.   The men usually cut the biggest branches, but for the most part the women did all the same work as the men.

On the journey down, when we first reached Mysore, it was Independence Day, so there were bands and marching and lots of music. This was around 1969. Some Indians gave us lunch and tea, and then they gave us injections to prevent us from getting the local diseases.   On the train ride down, starting from Pathankot in the very north of the Punjab, we didn't carry much with us, not much more than a blanket, so we didn't have to worry about things getting lost or stolen - we didn't have anything very valuable. Because there was a large group of Tibetans going together, we had our own car on the train. About two or three busloads of people would be sent at one time. Then each new camp was made for 32 houses. During the construction, wild elephants would come very close to the house, and we would stay very quiet. Two or three people were killed in Bylakuppe by wild elephants while they were working in the forest. There were also some working elephants that were provided by the government. They were managed by their government keepers. We lived in our hut for more than a year. It took a long time to clear the forest branch by branch, and clear the land stone by stone, and then to build a home.

The next big job was to clear the land and start growing food. The earlier settlers at Bylakuppe had tried growing several different crops and had found that corn was the best thing to grow in that area.   It does well here, it isn't too much work, and isn't expensive to grow. When the rainfall is good, we grow rice sometimes too, but we haven't grown any for the last four years because it hasn't been good weather for it. With corn, we can feed it to our cows. Most Tibetan families keep a cow or two.

There were a few of us from Tibet who knew something about Lhamo, about Tibetan opera. Whenever we would get together and talk and gossip, the subject would come up. So finally we decided we really wanted to make an opera group in Bylakuppe, and bring in some new people and teach them. At first, it wasn't too formal, but pretty soon we were organized. Without a proper costume, the opera isn't very grand. At first, we made our opera dresses out of bed sheets, but it wasn't very good. Nobody had been able to bring any authentic opera costumes from Tibet - if we couldn't even bring a cup for our own tea, we certainly couldn't be carrying opera costumes with us through the mountains at night. But some of us remembered how to make the costumes, and we raised funds from other people in the community and were able to make proper costumes for the opera.

In those days, when we did a real production, I would often take a major role. Nowadays, I just stay by the side and support them with signing. But before I got so old, I would often take a mother's role, and then a grandmother's role in the productions.   We were doing the traditional old Tibetan operas.   There is a book that has all the opera stories in it, and we were using this book, not making up our own stories or anything like that.   The book only had the words and story, but not the music, so we would make the music and dance to go with the story.   So we met regularly and practiced, and then gave a performance for the people.   The performances were free, but we got donations so that we could travel sometimes, and improve our costumes and buy musical instruments and things like that. There's a fixed number of 30 for the group. That is standard. His Holiness always says that we should preserve our own culture, especially the opera. Our Tibetan opera is unique, especially the singing. Chinese people and even some Indian people have copied the dancing and the costumes, but nobody knows how to successfully imitate the Tibetan style of singing. It is very difficult and takes much training.   The tunes themselves are unique and are very difficult to perform, and it's not easy to know where in a song the pitch goes up or down.   And an opera takes a full day. Sometimes various non-Tibetans have been able to imitate the dancing fine, or even do it better than us, or make better costumes than us. But nobody can really copy the singing. His Holiness will always take time to see the opera, no matter what. He won't miss it for anything else.

Now, both men and women perform in the operas.   About ten years ago we started going up every year to perform at the big Shoten Festival that TIPA has in Dharamsala every spring.   At first, there were only two groups that performed, the TIPA group and the Bylakuppe group. Slowly, however, each settlement has started its own group, and now each group takes one day during the festival to perform an opera. I believe there are eight or nine groups. The Mussorie group was taught by the Bylakuppe group, and members of our group also taught the Mundgod group.

Once the house was finished and we had really moved in, my husband started a business. He was a very good businessman. He bought and sold not only clothing but also fabrics and materials.   He was very good with numbers and arithmetic. He could calculate things very quickly without any help from a calculator or anything like that.

We went to Bodh Gaya for the Kalachakra. I think it was five years ago, in 2000.   My husband had been a very energetic man, very nice and very straightforward. He had a good personality, and was quite popular, and was very good at making and telling jokes.   So that year, together with my husband, my son who was a monk at Sera Je, my daughter and one of my grandsons, we planned to go to Bodh Gaya for the Kalachakra Initiation with His Holiness.   We were supposed to leave at eight o'clock that morning, but when my husband got up that morning at seven o'clock, he fell off the bed. His mouth was turned to one side. I saw it and was screaming that grandpa had fallen down, so everybody came into our room. When you get a problem with fainting and that kind of thing, we Tibetans usually say that a female shouldn't touch the patient.   If there's paralysis, a woman shouldn't touch the patient or it might get worse. So I told my daughter and granddaughter not to touch him, and called my son-in-law to come and hold him.   We Tibetans keep special pills for serious problems like this, so we gave these to him.

At that time, I decided that I would not go to Bodh Gaya. My husband's mouth was really twisted to one side, and he was doing quite poorly.   I decided that I would stay back home with my husband, along with my son-in-law, and that my daughter and son and grandson would go for the Kalachakra at Bodh Gaya.   After the medicine, he improved a little bit. His mouth was still turned, but then he could speak a little.   He said that he didn't want to stay home, but that he still wanted to go ahead to Bodh Gaya. He didn't think anything more would happen during the four days journey, and that once he reached Bodh Gaya it would be okay if he died. We believe that if you die while on pilgrimage, that it's auspicious and nothing to worry about.  

We went ahead to Mysore by bus, and from there took the train. Two different people held him up and helped him whenever he needed to move, one on each side, during the long train journey.   The whole compartment was filled with Tibetans going to the Kalachakra. So they helped us, and it wasn't so difficult because we didn't have to change trains or anything, but just stayed on the same train all the way, because it was a special train. Friends of ours who had gone ahead early to Bodh Gaya had booked a house there for us, so when we arrived at Bodh Gaya we went straight to the house.

I told many people what had happened to my husband, and described it to them, and asked them if they knew somebody who would be able to help. I heard about one Rinpoche who had great healing powers, and went to meet him. He then did a special puja with water for my husband. The next few mornings he came to the house quite early and did the same prayers again. Three or four days later, my husband was a little better, and was able to walk again. He surprised us when tried to walk on his own, and I told him not to try, that he wasn't supposed to walk. But he insisted that he was fine, and that he could walk - and he could, even if it wasn't so well. Although he was certainly not fully cured, he was definitely a bit better for the time being, and we were able to participate in the teachings.   When the Kalachakra happens, things are very well organized, so there were clinics set up in various places, staffed with different kinds of doctors. We took him for acupuncture treatments every day for a week, and that helped him too. The house where we were staying was near to where the teachings were being given, so all of us were able to participate, even my husband.

When we got home, we brought him to a good acupuncturist in Hunsur, a Tibetan settlement only about an hour from Bylakuppe. I stayed there with him for about twenty days while he continued with treatments, staying in a relative's house. All these treatments definitely helped him. Getting good medical help at the beginning made a big difference. There are many other elderly people here in Bylakuppe who had the same problem, who had a stroke, and who are in much worse condition than him. Many still have their mouth turned to the side, and parts of their body shake a lot, and many can't walk. So we feel that he's much better because of this good early treatment, and that it was very fortunate that we did go to Bodh Gaya for the Kalachakra Initiation, even though it was so far away.   Actually, we went again the following year, because the first year we went, His Holiness became ill during the teachings that were being given prior to the initiation, so the Kalachakra was postponed until the following year, and we returned.   The very first Kalachakra given in India was done here in Bylakuppe, in the outdoor pavilion up the hill from our home, where the Karmapa gave teachings just a month ago.

It does make me sad sometimes to see how he is now. He's much better than he was right after the stroke, but his memory is bad. He can remember things from a long time ago quite well, but not recent things. He can walk slowly, and likes to sit in the sun. But compared to how he was before the stroke, when he was so lively and funny.

To the young people, I would like to ask you to follow in the footsteps of the older Tibetans and keep the Tibetan culture strong and healthy, because one day we will get our country back.