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Tim Xue
A Talk About Tibet 10/26/10
I see him in our dorm hall, in the bathroom, and occasionally out on campus. He always seems to be wearing a blue Duke cap and a loose-fitting jacket, black earphones securely humming into his head as he flops from place to place in his sandals. He lives in the basement of Crowell CC, in a block with some of my closest friends. I live in a separate block directly above. Everyone on our two floors knows each other very well, but none of us can profess to know him well at all—he is the only one who did not live in Blackwell with us last year. His name is Duojie Cairang, and I have not spoken to him until now.
As I sat down to prepare my interview questions, I discovered I only knew three things about Duojie: he is from Tibet, China; he is older than the average sophomore (by how much I did not know); and he is roommates with Nevin, one of my good friends. In fact, since I had never spoken with him before, I actually first described my assignment to Nevin, who then asked Duojie if he would do the interview. He consented, and I went down to their room clipboard in hand, eager to learn more about this mysterious character.
I was immediately struck by how well Duojie’s English is for an international student—he speaks in a measured, humbled, and sincere tone with hardly any trace of an accent. I asked him some shorter questions and learned some fascinating things about him right away. He is from the Qinghai Province in Tibet and to get to Duke, he takes a twenty-five hour train ride to Beijing, flies to New York, then transfers to RDU—over forty hours of travel time altogether. He is one of nine international students from Tibet here at Duke. And he is twenty-two years old, two to three years older than the “standard” college sophomore. While this was all very interesting, the heart of our interview lay in our discussion regarding the uniqueness of the Tibetan people and their economic, social, and political tensions with the Chinese government. I have recorded our conversation below, to the best of my memory.
Duojie, I was born in China, moved to the United States when I was four, and visit family in the Chengdu and Shanghai areas every year. My understanding of Mandarin Chinese would classify as advanced, though not fluent, and I identify myself as a Chinese-American. Still, I confess I know very little about Tibet. What is it like?
That’s a very general question.
Sorry. Can you talk about Tibet’s geography and culture?
Well I can’t speak for all of Tibet, just for where I’m from.
That’s fine, go ahead.
The Tibetan plateau has cities, but they not like the big cities of Beijing and Shanghai. There are no skyscrapers or very tall buildings. Most of the land is farmland and nomadic area. I am from the farmland.
As for Tibetan culture, it revolves around Buddhism. You can’t separate the two. We pray every day, worship every day. We celebrate holidays with respect to Buddhism.
Have you ever been to the big cities of coastal China like Beijing or Shanghai? If so, what was it like?
Yes, I went to Beijing to take the TOEFL exam.[1] It was a huge difference, because there are only maybe 5,000 people in my town.[2] When I went to Beijing, I didn’t know anything. I was by myself, too. I needed to get to a university to take the exam, so I asked people for directions. Half of the people I asked didn’t know where it was, and the other half just ignored me. This kind of made me depressed. If an outsider came to my town and asked for directions, it would be different. I can’t guarantee that any person he asked would help, but most of the villagers would.
While we’re on the subject, how does education in Tibet compare with the rest of China?
Education in Tibet is pretty bad compared to the rest of China. I’m sure you know that most of the primary schools in the developed areas of China are very rigorous and competitive. You have to test into middle school, place into high school, and score very high on the 高考 (gao kao),the “Chinese SAT,” to get into a top university. In Tibet, the universities are not very good. I have many friends there, and all day they just play video games, spend time with their boyfriends or girlfriends, and don’t do any work. That’s why I didn’t want to go to a Tibetan university.
That’s why I enrolled in a four-year English training program after my second year of high school. I learned English and Mandarin Chinese[3] there under foreign teachers from the United States, United Kingdom, and other places.
This is a controversial subject, but I’m going to dive right in anyway because I want to hear what you have to say about this. If you feel uncomfortable, you don’t have to answer. What do you think of Tibet breaking away and becoming independent from China?
Well, what do you think?
I can’t say I know too much about the history and the current situation, so I’m not sure I’m qualified to make a proper judgment. The way the western media portrays it, the Tibetan people are a unique, culturally rich ethnic minority in danger of being wiped out by the unbending, authoritarian Chinese government. Tibet is the victim, while the Chinese government is the bully.
Let me ask you something. Think of all of the people you know back home. If I said they hated the Chinese government, would this be accurate?
Yes, of course. Very few Tibetans have good things to say about the Chinese government. The Chinese government is guilty of so many human rights violations that are just shoved under the carpet.
You remember the 2008 protests, right? When all the Tibetan people were protesting, my teachers in school told us not to join them. My teachers were Tibetan, and in their hearts, they wanted us to protest and even to protest with us. But their higher-ups were Chinese officials, and they warned my teachers not to encourage dissent. If they did, they would be fired.
Okay, let’s look at the other side of the situation. Can you talk about the good things the Chinese government has done for Tibet, such as improve infrastructure or build schools and hospitals?
Sure, they’ve done good things for Tibet. They have built new roads connecting Tibet to the rest of the country. However, we give them much more.
Tibet is rich in minerals, coal, and other natural resources. The Chinese government mines these, and uses the new roads to transfer what they mine back to the cities so they can use it.
Is there a sense of exploitation, similar to a colony feeding the mother country?
Absolutely. It only looks good on the surface. Also, employment is unfair for Tibetans. There are many very good jobs in the city [in Tibet]. To get these, though, you must speak Mandarin very well. For people like me, Tibetan is our first language. We speak it with our parents and are taught it first in school. No matter how hard a Tibetan studies Mandarin, it is extremely difficult to get to the same level as a native Mandarin speaker. That is why all the high jobs in the city are almost always held by outsiders, and not Tibetans. We work the labor jobs, at the bottom of the ladder.
So back to my original question, do you think Tibet should be independent?
Let me tell you a short story. For Tibetans, it is nearly impossible to get a passport and visa. They reject all Tibetans for any reason. For me, it was different. I was accepted to Duke University, and had the official documents, so they couldn’t refuse me.
When I got to Duke and told some international students from coastal China this, they did not believe me. For them, the idea of not being able to get a passport was crazy!
So you see, it is difficult for me to say whether or not Tibet should be independent. It is such a complicated issue. But you can tell from all that I’ve said that Tibetans are treated differently, unfairly. I’m not a crazy separatist calling for independence, but at the same time, they have a point.
[1] Test of English as a Foreign Language, taken as an admissions requirement for non-native English speakers
[2] Beijing’s population: 22,000,000
[3] The official language of the Tibet, and what Duojie grew up speaking, is Tibetan