Historical or fiction?
6.
The Chinese invasion and brutal conquest of Tibet is hardly any different from the iniquities of Hitler's invasions of European nations, and, arguably, even more brutal.
Yet, a
pattern established from WWII, the mitigation and the attempt to hide communist atrocities, continues.
"Almost a half a century ago, Chinese troops invaded Tibet, bringing to sudden and violent end Tibet’s centuries old isolation beyond the Himalayas.
Tibet’s unique brand of Buddhism formed the core of Tibetan culture and society, a radical contrast to the materialist anti-religion dogma of the Chinese communists."
Invasion & After -
The results of the Chinese occupation of this gentle country followed the same pattern as depicted by Deaver in 'The Stone Monkey." (post #2 above.)
In the following, an elderly Tibetan widow describes the result of the Chinese Communist invasion, and the effects on her civilization.
"We had beautiful farms once, she finally began, my family and that of Jamyang's father. For as long as memory could reach each generation gave a son who became a great lama. We had many happy years. Even after the Chinese entered Lhasa it was years before they found us.
When they did it was just a lot of
Chinese teenagers in military trucks. They put all the fathers and mothers on trial,
accusing them of being landowners. The Chinese said that was a crime against the people. In some places landowners just lost their lands and became laborers, but here our people were proud. They declared the trial a sham. They said they were free Tibetans who could not be judged by Chinese children.
The Chinese laughed and said see if our bullets are a sham.
They executed them all. Jamyang's parents. My husband. I was sick in bed or they would have killed me too."
"...his Chinese teachers said he was too bright to stay here. They sent him away, gave him a Chinese name. After college he visited, very excited. They were going to let him become a monk after all, to work in the Bureau of Religious Affairs.
Leshe sipped her tea and offered a bitter smile. I told him to be a monk you have to go to a monastery, have to study many years. He said he would be going to monasteries, to explain about the new order of things. I said he had become a puppet of those who had killed his own parents and he yelled at me, said I was just a backward old hag who knew nothing of the way of the world.
My brother visited him, tried to get him to leave the Bureau, to go to his gompa and become a real monk. A few weeks later my brother was thrown into prison, one of those gulag camps. They said he was a traitor to China. The Motherland they called it, she added in a melancholy tone." p. 248
It was nearly three years before Jamyang visited again. He was troubled. He kept staring at the tiger rug. He couldnt sleep. I found him up in one of the pastures. We sat in the moonlight and he confessed his shame. Not long after his last visit
he had been offered a big promotion, but they had required him to prove his loyalty. So he had turned in his uncle. Jamyang had assumed he would be sent to some reeducation camp for a few months at most. .... Ugen had been sentenced to twenty years hard labor.
I explained to him that Ugen did not speak Chinese, did not write Chinese. I lifted the gau, [a unique type of ornamental charm, frame or box that almost every Tibetan uses. Usually pieces of prayer scarves, pictures of deities or other precious items are kept inside] that one you see there on the altar, and told him to study it.
He stared as if he had seen a ghost. I told him the truth then, for he knew that gau had been in the family for centuries, that it had been Ugens. It had been sent home to me six years before when Ugen killed himself in prison."
"Mandarin Gate," by Eliot Pattison, p.247-248
