"I think the great fear of every Tibetan is that our story will...

"I think the great fear of every Tibetan is that our story will die out. It’s been over fifty years now since Tibet lost its independence. Our monasteries have been destroyed. The Chinese language curriculum is being mandated in our schools. More and more Han Chinese are moving into Tibet— building homes, building malls. I think now we are all starting to think that the Chinese are too powerful and that the dream of returning home is fading away. I think our mistake was that we didn’t keep up with the world. We held on to the monastic tradition too tightly. We didn’t embrace modern education, and so we weren’t connected with the outside world. Because of that, we lost our freedom silently. I think our challenge now is to educate our children in a modern way, so hopefully they will be better at sharing our story."

(Dharamshala, India)