The language he was using seemed nothing more than a murmur. There were no hissing sibilant sounds, more the sound of a river babbling in a brook repeatedly. His voice was low as if it belonged not to the element of the air but to the element of the earth. His name was the Venerable Sangye and he was speaking at length, while his patient interpreter nodded and waited for him to finish his long stream of thought.
When the interpreter spoke it was a shock to hear the meaning of the monk’s words. The lulling voice of the saffron robed monk who had seemed to be speaking of poetry and music was instead speaking of persecution. The soft drone of his voice had not been telling of snow capped mountains and sweet scented valleys but of poor peasant farmers in Tibet who are being forced to leave their land. His gentle soft cadences were speaking not of love but of the slow strangulating death of oppression.
He spoke of the Tibetan peasants whose harvest is overtaxed forcing them to move to urban areas. He told how once they were there they were rounded up and placed in detention centres before being removed back into the country. It seems that the Chinese find begging Tibetan peasants to be something of an eyesore in their modern cities. To work you have to be able to speak Chinese the native language marks you out as a second class citizen.
His gentle rippling voice which should have been reciting prayers and meditations was instead speaking of betrayed Tibetan children. Children who had tried to escape from poverty by getting a good education; only to find that their final grades are worthless and that the best grades have been awarded to the Chinese students.
He called it grade fixing.
He spoke of the despair of parents, their dreams for their child’s future falling into dust, when their child finally returned home with nothing. Of how these parents then sometimes would turn against their own child accusing them of being worthless and lazy for failing to achieve. He told how such parents, angry that to find that all their scrimping and saving had been for nothing, would then refuse to listen to their child protestations that they’d been cheated of their rightful grades. They found it incomprehensible that the education system in which they’d placed such faith and hope could be corrupt.
In an unending stream of words he told of how some children too frightened to return home with the news of their ‘failure’ turn to drugs, or commit suicide.
As a monk people had turned to him for help, telling him of their despair and he in turn told us of how simply changing the grades on a piece of paper could lead to family breakdown, poverty and despair.
With gentle sounds like the murmurings of a hundred bees, he told of how the poor in Tibet can not access hospitals because they do not have enough money to pay. The sick have to rely on unskilled practitioners of medicine, often discovering that more harm is done than good. Thus the health of the Tibetan native population is weakened.
He spoke of how there is no freedom to practice your religious beliefs in Tibet. To become a monk the Chinese authorities, who have limited the number permitted so that a monk has to die before the next can join the monastery, ensure that the successful applicant is one who denounces the Dalai lama, the Panchen Lama and any claims for Tibet to be free. Many monks and nuns who are unable to agree to these conditions attempt to flee Tibet. In the mountains are Chinese soldiers who shoot at unharmed women and children. Kelsang Namtso was such a nun who was killed as she tried to cross the Himalayas. She was seventeen.
The Tibetan flag was raised today in memory of Kelsang Namtso by the Mayor with over a hundred people watching and applauding. Perhaps as the Olympic flag is raised there should only be empty stadiums and no sound of applause to be heard in China until Tibet is returned to its people.
When the interpreter spoke it was a shock to hear the meaning of the monk’s words. The lulling voice of the saffron robed monk who had seemed to be speaking of poetry and music was instead speaking of persecution. The soft drone of his voice had not been telling of snow capped mountains and sweet scented valleys but of poor peasant farmers in Tibet who are being forced to leave their land. His gentle soft cadences were speaking not of love but of the slow strangulating death of oppression.
He spoke of the Tibetan peasants whose harvest is overtaxed forcing them to move to urban areas. He told how once they were there they were rounded up and placed in detention centres before being removed back into the country. It seems that the Chinese find begging Tibetan peasants to be something of an eyesore in their modern cities. To work you have to be able to speak Chinese the native language marks you out as a second class citizen.
His gentle rippling voice which should have been reciting prayers and meditations was instead speaking of betrayed Tibetan children. Children who had tried to escape from poverty by getting a good education; only to find that their final grades are worthless and that the best grades have been awarded to the Chinese students.
He called it grade fixing.
He spoke of the despair of parents, their dreams for their child’s future falling into dust, when their child finally returned home with nothing. Of how these parents then sometimes would turn against their own child accusing them of being worthless and lazy for failing to achieve. He told how such parents, angry that to find that all their scrimping and saving had been for nothing, would then refuse to listen to their child protestations that they’d been cheated of their rightful grades. They found it incomprehensible that the education system in which they’d placed such faith and hope could be corrupt.
In an unending stream of words he told of how some children too frightened to return home with the news of their ‘failure’ turn to drugs, or commit suicide.
As a monk people had turned to him for help, telling him of their despair and he in turn told us of how simply changing the grades on a piece of paper could lead to family breakdown, poverty and despair.
With gentle sounds like the murmurings of a hundred bees, he told of how the poor in Tibet can not access hospitals because they do not have enough money to pay. The sick have to rely on unskilled practitioners of medicine, often discovering that more harm is done than good. Thus the health of the Tibetan native population is weakened.
He spoke of how there is no freedom to practice your religious beliefs in Tibet. To become a monk the Chinese authorities, who have limited the number permitted so that a monk has to die before the next can join the monastery, ensure that the successful applicant is one who denounces the Dalai lama, the Panchen Lama and any claims for Tibet to be free. Many monks and nuns who are unable to agree to these conditions attempt to flee Tibet. In the mountains are Chinese soldiers who shoot at unharmed women and children. Kelsang Namtso was such a nun who was killed as she tried to cross the Himalayas. She was seventeen.
The Tibetan flag was raised today in memory of Kelsang Namtso by the Mayor with over a hundred people watching and applauding. Perhaps as the Olympic flag is raised there should only be empty stadiums and no sound of applause to be heard in China until Tibet is returned to its people.
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