This account was sent to me by Christa Grenawalt, who is traveling in India right now. Recently, she spent several weeks studying under the Dali Lama. She also participated in marches there supporting Tibetan monks who are protesting Chinese persecution of monks in Lhasa, Tibet. While Christa was sitting in a café near Dharamsala, Tenzin gave her his story of fleeing China in 2000.
Some background: In 1959, the Chinese occupied Tibet and the Dali Lama was forced to flee to India. Since the beginning of March, monks in Lhasa have been staging huge demonstrations calling for more Tibetan autonomy. Reports detailing a harsh crackdown by Chinese authorities, including bloodshed, have been filed by some journalists. But because of state censorship, very few media reports of the situation have made it into the western world.
– JB Powell
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“My name is Kunchok Tenzin. I was born in 1981 in the Khansu province, Shahog County in Tibet. I became a monk at the Lhabrang Monastery near Lhasa when I was 14 years old.
In 1997, I had to undertake the Patriotic Re-education Campaign started by the Chinese government. Monks are made to denounce his holiness the Dali Lama as a separatist. Many Tibetans are arrested and do not denounce His Holiness. They are often not released and sent to work in labor camps; on the roads, railway, fallen trees or elsewhere.
On top of that, I was only 17 at the time. As part of the Campaign, any monk under the age of 18 was forced to leave the monastery ending the education of young monks. Due to these difficult circumstances, I decided to come to India with a pure aim to receive blessings from the Dali Lama and pursue education. I was not able to tell anyone about my plan to go to India, including my parents.