Defying China: A powerful memoir of Tibetan resistance under Chinese rule

A Tibetan nun's memoir chronicles the persecution she faced under Chinese rule while giving voice to those still suffering in Tibet

Defying China: A Memoir

By Tsultrim Dolma and Rebecca Wei Hsieh

Published by Dial Books

352 pages  $20.99

  On July 2, a Tibetan activist named Lobga Rangzen (aka Lobsang Palden) set himself on fire in front of the United Nations Headquarters in New York City. Born in Tibet, he migrated to India in the 1990s, where he trained as a monk at the Gaden Jangtse Monastery in Karnataka, and had been living in the United States for the last two decades,where he also served as president of the New York and New Jersey chapter of the Tibetan National Congress. 

An official statement released by Sikyong Penpa Tsering, the leader of the Central Tibetan Administration in Dharamshala, Himachal Pradesh, noted that the “unfolding genocide inside Tibet and the enforcement of the draconian Ethnic Unity and Progress Law” led to this act of self-immolation. He added, “[Lobga Rangzen] joins at least 157 Tibetans inside Tibet who have offered their lives to draw global attention to the brutal repression endured under Chinese rule.” 

China’s mandate to bring about forced assimilation and social cohesion through this new law is being opposed by Tibetan activists as it threatens to stifle Tibetan culture, language and religious freedom even further. Those who are unfamiliar with human rights violations in Tibet under Chinese occupation would find an eye-opener in Defying China: A Memoir by Tsultrim Dolma, who was born in eastern Tibet, co-authored with Taiwanese American writer Rebecca Wei Hsieh. 

The book presents gut-wrenching descriptions of how compulsory education in Mandarin Chinese and Han Chinese culture is inflicted upon Tibetan children and youth, and how they are pushed to “hide evidence of their faith”, including prayer beads, scriptures and photographs of the Dalai Lama, who is a spiritual teacher for Buddhists but a separatist in the eyes of the Chinese government. Writing from her experience as a nun, she mourns the systematic destruction of Buddhist stupas, monasteries, statues, and religious objects by communists. 

It counters social media images of Buddhist nuns that tend to focus on their participation in rituals and fetishise their quest for enlightenment but make no reference to their political beliefs and advocacy against Chinese rule. Ms Dolma, who was arrested at the age of 16 for joining protests for a free Tibet, bears witness to the atrocities faced by monks and nuns that not only violated their bodily autonomy but also complicated their relationship with their own community. 

Ms Dolma notes, “According to my faith, I could no longer be a nun after having been sexually assaulted. It was a bitter thought, to have been robbed of my nunhood. It had been my life’s purpose. It was what motivated me to protest in the first place.” These honest reflections also expose the patriarchal structures that exist alongside the egalitarian doctrines of Buddhism, reinforcing scholar-practitioner Rita M Gross’s arguments in the book Buddhism After Patriarchy: A Feminist History, Analysis, and Reconstruction of Buddhism (1992). 

What makes this memoir stand out is its refusal to let Dolma’s story turn into a personal saga of victimhood or heroism. She never loses sight of her responsibility to speak for the collective. The book also lays bare the startling incongruence between China’s appropriation of Buddhism as a tool of soft power — through funding of pilgrimages and temple construction in Buddhist-dominated countries —and its oppression of Buddhists within Tibet. 

Indian readers, whose interaction with Tibetan refugees might be limited to people in the hospitality and tourism sector, will have a chance to deepen their understanding of the hardships that Tibetans have to face every step of the way before they reach India and find safety. Ms Dolma arrived in India via Lhasa, Mount Kailash and Kathmandu. 

Even when she assumed that she was out of danger, her past caught up. She narrates, for instance, how unsettling it was to be at the refugee camp in Kathmandu when she learnt that people recognised her as one of the nuns from a British documentary film about Tibetans being beaten, tortured, interrogated and assaulted in a Chinese detention centre. She recalls, “People snuck looks at me before turning back to their companions, speaking in hushed tones.” 

Her vulnerability in response to their giggling is understandable because a Tibetan man in Lhasa, who was her childhood friend, tried to rape her while she was asleep. In a book about violence under Chinese occupation, Ms Dolma is candid about violence within Tibetan society itself. 

Ms Dolma, who grew up in a remote Tibetan village called Pelbar Dzong, eventually settled down in Amherst, Massachusetts in the United States. Her commitment to continue speaking up for those who are still facing persecution within Tibet is a reminder of how faith can give people the strength to endure their own suffering and support others. This book deserves to be read widely. 

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The reviewer is a journalist, educator and literary critic. @chintanwriting