By Indira Guerrero
Dharamshala, India, July 6 (EFE).- When asked where she is from, Tseyang’s answer defines a generation of Tibetans born in exile: “I was born in India, but I am from Tibet.”
The next question is almost always the same: “Where is Tibet?” For her, it’s not an offense, it’s a chance to explain why she wasn’t born there.
Tseyang and her sister, Jamyang, both delegates of Tibetan youth now living in Canada, traveled to India for the Dalai Lama’s 90th birthday. They are the heirs of a nation without a country, guardians of a memory they never lived.
Tseyang told EFE that it was their father, who “has always instilled in us the importance of Tibetan culture, the language, the history.”
In Toronto, home to one of the largest Tibetan diaspora communities, traditions endure.
“For Losar, our New Year, we always wear the chuba (traditional Tibetan robe), we go to a gumba (a Tibetan Buddhist monastery), we dance the gorshe (group circle dance),” she said.
“And even in Toronto…there are traditional temples, we have gatherings, the huge culture centre that does all our different events that we have.”
The connection is sustained by the stories of the last generation to see a free Tibet.
“Grandpa, luckily enough, he’s still alive and he has always been telling us stories about Tibet and we’re always eager to listen and just imagine what it would be like,” said Jamyang.
Their grandfather’s story is the chronicle of exile’s beginning. “He fled through the night with his father on his back and then he walked through the mountains with his wife and his newborn child,” Tseyang recounted.
But tragedy struck them. His wife was shot by Chinese officials and died. The baby didn’t survive either.
He completed the journey with his father on his back and the weight of his loss, without food, money, or knowledge of the language of the land he hoped would offer refuge.
They met other Tibetans along the way, it became a group fleeing together. Their only hope lay in news that the Dalai Lama had requested asylum in India, where help might await.
The first large wave of Tibetan refugees fled in 1959, after the failed uprising against Chinese control, following Beijing’s occupation of Tibet in 1950.
Since then, many have continued to risk their lives crossing the Himalayas, fleeing what human rights groups describe as severe religious repression, forced cultural assimilation, and the denial of basic freedoms.
Though Tseyang and Jamyang have relatives in Tibet, they say contact is impossible as they are not allowed stay in touch.
When they once tried, harsh reprisals followed, so they stopped to avoid making their relatives’ lives “even harder.”
This week, American actor and activist Richard Gere, addressing the young exiles, captured their unique condition: they “hold two passports — one to the past and one to the future — in an extraordinary way.”
Gere urged them to prepare for that future, warning that the Dalai Lama “cannot carry you all on his shoulders forever.”
For this generation, the Dalai Lama, who turned 90 on Sunday, is a living bridge to the past. His birthday offers a chance to wear the chuba in public, to dance the gorshe, and to honor the history their 94-year-old grandfather carried out of Tibet on his back. EFE
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