Tibet, My Story: An Autobiography

by Jetsun Pema

Jetsun Pema is the youngest sister of the Dalai Lama. Her family was one of exceptional destiny. Her description of the finding of the new Dalai Lama is unique because she was there as a young girl when the old Lamas arrived to see if her brother had knowledge of the sacred texts from a previous incarnation, and when they announced to the world he would be the next spiritual leader. The book is also an account of the eternal Tibet before the invasion, a story of a hidden world which will never be the same again, and the events which overtook it.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, History, Buddhism

272 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1997

About the author

Jetsun Pema (རྗེ་བཙུན་པདྨ་) was born in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, on July 7, 1940. She is the living sister of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama.

She came to India in 1950 and studied first at St. Joseph's Convent in Kalimpong and later at Loreto Convent in Darjeeling from where she completed her Senior Cambridge in 1960. In 1961, she went to Switzerland and then to England to do further studies. She returned to India in April 1964. In June 1964, she was directed by His Holiness the Dalai Lama to take over the responsibility of running the Tibetan Children's Village in Dharamsala. Since then, she has been the moving force and mother of thousands of destitute and orphaned Tibetan children. The children call her "Ama La" (Respected Mother). With her dynamic leadership and untiring dedication, coupled with her sense of urgency and clarity of purpose, the Tibetan Children's Village has become one of the most successfully flourishing Tibetan institutions in exile. She became the President of the Tibetan Children's Villages in June 1964, and held that position until her retirement in August 2006. She held this position for more than 42 years, dedicating her life to educating Tibetan children in exile.

The story of the Tibetan Children's Villages is very much a part of Jetsun Pema's life. Today, TCV projects include 5 Children's Villages with attached schools, 7 Residential Schools, 7 Day Schools, 10 Day Care Centers, 4 Vocational Training Centers, 4 Youth Hostels, 4 Old People's Homes, and an Outreach program for over 2,000 children in exile. All in all, the TCV overlooks the well-being of more than 15,000 children and youths.

In 1970, at the first General Body Meeting of the Tibetan Youth Congress, Jetsun Pema was elected as its Vice-President, and at the 1984 first General Body Meeting of the Tibetan Women's Association, she was elected as an Adviser. In 1980, she was sent by the Dalai Lama to visit Tibet as the leader of the third Fact Finding Delegation and for three months traveled extensively all over the country. Jetsun Pema is also the Governing Body member of the Tibet House in New Delhi and the trust of His Holiness the Dalai Lama Charitable.

In May 1990, the Dalai Lama convened a special Congress of the Tibetan People-In-Exile in Dharamsala to elect the Kalons (Ministers) of Central Tibetan Administration. This was a first in the history of Tibet. Jetsun Pema was one of the three Ministers elected and became the first Tibetan Woman Minister. In 1991, she was again elected by the Assembly of Tibetan People's Deputies (Tibetan Parliament) as one of the Ministers and was allocated the portfolio of Minister-In-Charge of the Department of Tibetan Education. In July 1993, she resigned from the Kashag (Cabinet) and is today the President of the Tibetan Children's Villages. In 1995, the Assembly of Tibetan People's Deputies awarded her the title, "Mother of Tibet," in recognition of her dedication and service to Tibetan children.

Her autobiography, Tibet: My Story, published by Editions Ramsay in 1996, is now available in 10 languages. Jetsun Pema, at the invitation of Tibetan supporters and various organizations, has traveled widely to speak about her people and her work for Tibetan children in exile.

In the 1997 movie Seven Years in Tibet starring Brad Pitt and David Thewlis, a film based on the book by Heinrich Harrer, Jetsun portrayed her real-life mother in the film as the mother of the young Dalai Lama.

Reviews

[Gary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jetsun Pema is the younger sister of the Dalai Lama, and has played a major part in the care and education of refugee Tibetan children.
This book tells the story of Jetsun Pema's childhood in Tibet before the ruthless Chinese Communist invasion of 1949, and her subsequent flight and education in India, Switzerland and England.
It also tells of the oppression by the Chinese Communist occupation of Tibet and the genocide and cultural destruction of the Tibetan people in which 1 200 000
Tibetan men, women and children have been ruthlessly exterminated by the
Chinese Communists.
Children were forced to kill their parents and parents forced to applaud the execution of their children on pain of death, during thamzing (Chinese Communist public punishment sessions). Very young children were forced to see their parents being dragged through the streets of the village or town and then beaten, stoned and finally executed, simply because they had worked for the previous government or were heirs to landed property.Millions of Chinese who have been brought into Tibet to demographically swamp the indigenous Tibetans. Nuns were raped and monasteries and landmarks destroyed.
Millions of Tibetan children have starved to death in the Chinese created famine and food taken from the Tibetans and transferred to the Chinese or exported to Arab countries.
This is all told in this book by Jetsun Pema.
Pema also tells of her love for and education and care of the thousands of Tibetan children who have passed through SOS children's villages in India.
What results is a compassionate and passionate account by a great woman, and a cry for action on behalf of the Tibetan people before they are completely destroyed.
The world is clearly not listening, the international media and universities preferring to condemn Israel for self-defence and the USA for the war against terrorism, while real atrocities and genocide go on without a single word of protest.

[Arlitia Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this book in 1997 after listening to an interview with Jetsun Pema when she first published this autobiography. I was taken with the way she spoke from her heart with commitment and hope about her lost country. This is her story of Tibet, the individual life consumed and enlarged by the struggle for her people and her list homeland. This book is about her duty and her unwavering faith as a daughter of Tibet and the sister of the 14th Dalai Lama to serve her people in their exile. I remember listening to the interview I was struck with the sound of hope in her voice. Also the interviewer asked her about traditions in Tibet before the Chinese invasion, specifically those surrounding women, if she was fighting to get all of their old lives reinstated. She answered that life in Tibet for women wasn't perfect before their exodus, and change needed to happen. I was awestruck by this. Even in exile when everything had been taken from them, the Tibetan people seemed to thrive in a kind of resiliency that allows them to evolve and change and yet they still remain true to their identity as Tibetans. She was fighting so hard for a way of life that she admits wasn't perfect. But it was theirs. I knew almost nothing about Tibet before I started reading, I still have much to learn. She tells us the story of tragedy on a grand scale. Twenty years later this book still speaks with an urgent voice. In her own words: The Tibetan cause must take precedence over everything else and remain at the centre of our preoccupations. I often talk about this with children at the TCVs (Tibetan Children's Village). As both individuals and Tibetans, they must recognize their responsibility to Tibet and to the 1,200,000 Tibetans who died and all those who still suffer there.

[Alan Kelley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jetsun Pema, Virtuous Lotus, given her name by her brother the 14th Dalai Lama, puts across her view of how events unfolded around her, being born just prior to the Chinese occupation. The way she has lived her life, dedicating it to the service of her brother, who is in turn serving the Tibetan people, brings to mind another strong female, Aung San Suu Kyi.

I found this autobiography compelling reading, leading to research on subjects as diverse as "Thamzing","Thanka's" and "Bon". Although Jetsun was born into a 'peasant family', this family did own ten properties prior to the Dalai Lama being discovered, so I think there were 'landlord' peasants, as well as 'renting' peasants back in those days. Being younger than her famous brother, the family had been relocated into the official residence in the capital from her earliest memories.

The book has given me some insight into the scale of suffering endured, not just by those Tibetans that made the arduous journey to India, but also by those that remained, to this day, under the Chinese yoke. Also the goodwill of various individuals and organisations that have stepped forward to enable the resettlement and education of the refugees.

Thoroughly recommended reading.

[Cy · Rating 2 out of 5]

All passion, no technique. An editor would have helped the book's readability and served its political goals better. As such, it is a personal narrative with some beautiful passages but a lot of unsupported opinions and a scattershot structure that make it a frustrating read and less effective in its political goals.

[Tania Chowdhury · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was waiting for a book to change my life, and this one did. As I was reading it, I found answers to many questions in my mind.
The story is written in a way that can appeal to many, you can see a considerable amount of truth that is attached to memories. Overall a good book to savour.

[Ingrid Hansen · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book worth reading.
It moved me greatly to read about Jetsun Pema's journey.

[sologdin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Reasonably effective propaganda related to the Tibetan independence movement, from the Dalai Lama's sister. The presentation comes however from a place of assuming that Tibet is a sovereign state that has been ruthlessly crushed by invading Maoists. This narrative leaves out the small bit that Tibet was a province of the Qing Empire for over a hundred years and unilaterally declared independence during the chaos of the dynasty's fall. That the Maoists delayed in dealing with Tibet until after handling the civil war and the fascist invasion shouldn't be considered an example of laches. Similarly, the implication that the problem is communism, rather than imperialism, is a bit difficult to take seriously, considering that Chiang Kai-shek wasn't about to let Tibet go, and I'm sure a victorious Japanese empire would've been even worse.

Other items that overstate the case: that many hundreds of thousands of Tibetans died in the years of the great famine does not necessarily mean that Tibetans were targeted with genocide, say, nor should we assume an anti-Tibetan motive if religious properties were destroyed during the years of the Cultural Revolution. These examples show that the Maoists fucked up badly in general, rather than that they acted with discriminatory animus--and we can certainly support the cause of Tibetan independence along side the sympathetic claims of other groups (Kurdish, Palestinian, Uyghur, and so on). It's apparent that the anti-communist items are a rhetoric meant to appeal to western McCarthyists--though we know that this sort of instrumental use is something that the Dalai Lama didn't much appreciate when the CIA supplied Tibetan guerrillas out of purely geostrategic concerns, rather than on the basis of their cause's intrinsic merit. The cultural/theological cause does have merit, of course. Returning an aristocratic theocracy to power, however, as the governing body of a sovereign state is by contrast not high on my list of priorities. So when this text talks about 'democracy,' it is impossible to know what it might mean.

Generally informative about the exile experience, Tibetan Buddhism, and so on.

[Heidi Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Moving and heartfelt. There’s nothing quite like hearing the experiences of someone who has been so personally affected by the tragedies in Tibet and who has, alongside His Holiness, encountered such horrors.

[Stanley Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unless you're related to Tibet somehow, not the best use of time. Although interesting stories of facing adversaries during the exile.

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jetsun Pema is the sister of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. She recounts her life growing up in exile. Her story reveals many horrors and provides the reader with insights into the Tibetan people's anguish and suffering. Although I enjoyed learning about the sacrifices made and the amazingly noble and selfless acts of the Dalai Lama himself and his people, I could not help feeling this story was slightly self indulgent and felt that even throughout the descriptions of extreme suffering, pain, loss and humility that Pema comes across as immensely privileged, which is in stark contrast to the harsh backdrop.
That said her work with the education of exiled Tibetan children should be recognised and applauded. Her advantages do not detract from her writing.

[Leila Danielsen · Rating 3 out of 5]

The history of Tibet is a fascinating one - important for the world to learn more about - and Pema is certainly someone who can speak with authority on the actual situation. However, this book could have done with some serious editing. While Pema has a lot of interesting things to say, she is not a storyteller and the order in which she strings things together is sometimes quite chaotic and occasionally hard to follow. There are also a lot of what I assume are meant to be self-reflections thrown in that are quite dull and unnecessary to the overall story. I would like to learn more about Tibet, but I would not bother reading anything more by this author.

[Jilly · Rating 4 out of 5]

"read"