My summer job has finished for the day, but work for my visa and other document has just begun. I often feel that there is always another burden blocking my way after climbing over the previous block. It is a worldly problem for every refugee who has lost his or her land. Unlike the avg. college student, I have to carry extra bags on my shoulders. That is why I decided to go to Oslo tonight. I phoned my Tibetan friends living there, who had been nice, kind and helpful to me during my previous visit. So I feel safe, secure and free.
After I collected all the required documents for my visa, I opened my computer to watch Kungleng Television (VOA). Tonight, the topic was about addressing China to release Filmmaker, Dhondup Wangchen. I had watched his film Leaving Fear Behind (www.leavingfearbehind.com/film-makers.html) last year. His loyalty and fearless sacrifice for Tibet and its issues touched me deeply. I was so moved that I had shown a part of his film to the audience during the “World Today” debate between the Tibetan and Chinese students in the United World College, in Norway. Tonight, his wife, lhamo Tso, was the guest speaker on Kunleng (VOA). I hadn’t seen or met her in person, but I had known only this much about her: she was struggling to make a living for her family by selling Amdo Palae (Palae means bread in English) in Dharamsala.
This was the first time I had seen her or heard her voice. She answered the first question with an anguished cry that caught my attention. I listened to the following questions carefully and silently. When The Kunleng reporter questioned the validity of the report, which claimed that Dhondup Wangchen suffered from lung cancer while in prison, she raised her cracking and crying voice and said that “he is very healthy and has no problem with his health, but it is like sticking a sharp knife in my heart when I hear that unbelievable news.” Again she cried, her voice deepening, but she didn’t stop to answer. This time, I reacted to her tears with my own. I swept my tears, kept my eyes on her continuously. As she spoke, I felt her strong courage, her feelings of isolation, and her sorrows.
Dhondup Wangchen’s wife has so many burdens to carry upon her shoulders: sending her children to school, worrying about their future, caring for her parents- in- law, waking up early in the morning to sell bread to meet her family’s basic necessities. In addition, she worries about her husband’s health and living condition in the Chinese prison. Every single moment when she thinks of his sufferings, she feels like beating her own heart. She has to swallow her tears and stand tall to confront all the difficulties in her daily life. When I think of these difficulties chasing this exiled and lonely lady, I start to cry. Even though we can’t boil down the sorrows in her heart, we can try to support and encourage her and her family.
interesting