"Tibetan chinese are well educated"
Take some time and read through some of the following. You may want to re-think that statement:
School curricula is uniform throughout Chinese schools and Tibetans have no freedom to select the subjects or contents taught. Chinese is used as the medium of instruction with the
present exception of primary schools and selected "special" secondary schools. By refusing to educate the Tibetan students in their mother tongue the Chinese authorities are violating both the educational and cultural rights of the children.
"My primary school was a Chinese government school. The school had 200 Tibetan students and 37 teachers of whom 22 were Chinese. I received lessons in Tibetan, math and Chinese. The main teaching language in school was Chinese. I did not understand the Chinese language well enough so I had to ask the teacher again and again. If most of the Tibetans did not understand his explanation in Chinese he used to scold us, calling us 'dirty Tibetans' or 'stupid Tibetans' because we did not understand Chinese. " (A43)
"I was able to follow the lessons in Chinese, but my knowledge of Chinese was not good enough to pass all the exams in Chinese. As a result of having failed Chinese I had to repeat grade 3 and grade 5 of primary school. Although I was very good in all the other subjects, my Chinese was not good enough." (A25)
"The general teaching language at our school was Chinese. There were Tibetan students who could not speak any Chinese and were not able to communicate with the teachers. Since the Chinese teachers refused to speak Tibetan, Tibetan students who spoke Chinese had to translate what the teacher was saying." (A6)
In some cases the Chinese teachers did not trouble themselves with the language problems of the Tibetan students. The following extracts from testimony cases reveal that the
Chinese-speaking teacher cared little for the fact that some of the Tibetan students were not able to follow the lesson.
"In the first two grades maths was taught in Tibetan. When I entered school I did not speak any Chinese and in the Chinese language class they only taught us little words. So
when I entered grade three I only spoke a little Chinese. Still the maths class was held in Chinese. I did not understand anything that the Chinese teacher said and could only sit idle in class and wait for the class to finish. As a consequence I used to fail all of my maths tests. The teacher did not do anything to change the situation of the Tibetans. He just said that it was good luck for the students who spoke Chinese and that it was bad luck for those who did not speak any Chinese. In Chinese class I just passed; in Tibetan I was quite good." (A27)
"In my class there were 40 students of whom one was Chinese. Most of our teachers were Chinese and the main teaching language was Chinese. We had Tibetan language class
two periods a week but even in the Tibetan language classes we had to speak Chinese." (A25)
The most crucial form of discrimination was the reported practice of teachers placing far more effort on the teaching of the Chinese students at the expense of the Tibetans.
"The teacher explained more to the Chinese students than to the Tibetan students." (A36)
"The Chinese teachers gave the Chinese students more attention. When we asked the Chinese teacher questions, he would not answer us. When the Chinese students asked questions, he responded." (A13)
"The Chinese teachers taught the Chinese classes better than the Tibetan classes. The Chinese teachers taught always in Chinese and of course the Chinese students understood the teacher much better than we did. Also, when the Chinese students did not understand something, they could ask the teacher questions and the teacher would repeat what he had
said to the students. When the teachers spoke Chinese in our Tibetan classroom, most of the students did not understand him. Yet no one dared to ask him questions for fear for
punishment and the teachers never repeated anything to the Tibetan classes. Naturally the Tibetans failed more often than the Chinese and the Chinese teacher would then say that he
did not understand why the Tibetan students could not understand such simple things. He also said that the Chinese were more intelligent than the Tibetans." (A27)
Forms of corporal punishment
The interviewed students reported horrifying forms of corporal punishment endured in Tibet.
Even primary school students, children between 6 and 12 years, were subjected to beatings using rubber clubs, whips, belts, electric wires, chair legs, whole chairs, bamboo sticks and
other instruments. The students were beaten all over the body.
"... the Chinese teacher made us stand on a chair with bricks on our head and in our outstretched hands. When a brick fell, we were beaten. The Chinese teacher used different things to beat us with: a rubber whip, an electric wire or the leg of a chair. We were beaten all over the body. Many times I had to go to the hospital after being beaten by the Chinese teacher and two or three times I had to be hospitalised. I know of a boy who had to stay two weeks in hospital because of his beatings and another boy who had two legs fractured. Girls
were beaten the same way." (A1)
Children interviewed reported that Tibetan students were punished more harshly than the
Chinese students:
"If a Chinese and a Tibetan made the same mistakes, the Tibetan received more punishment." (A9)
"The Tibetan students were beaten more severely than the Chinese students." (A13)
"For the same mistake a Tibetan student would get three whips, while the Chinese student only received one whip." (A1)
Suppression of Tibetans' minority rights also took the form of denying students their religious rights to visit a temple, prohibiting Tibetans at boarding school from consuming Tibetan food, and forcing Tibetan children to renounce Tibetan history or the Dalai Lama. Sometimes Tibetan students were not even allowed to read books in Tibetan language. Students also recalled the name-calling by teachers; being told that Tibetans were stupid, dirty or inferior human beings.
"At school we were never allowed to wear Tibetan clothes. We had to wear Chinese clothes. If we wore Tibetan clothes we were punished. Only when we had to present some dances to Chinese officials were we allowed to wear Tibetan clothes. Another thing was that we were not allowed to celebrate any Tibetan holidays. The only Tibetan holiday we were
allowed to celebrate was Losar, the Tibetan new year. But we had to celebrate Chinese holidays. This was OK since we got free from school." (A15)
"During winter time, when it was very cold, we were allowed to wear our Tibetan clothes. The teacher often called us bad names when we were wearing them, telling us that we looked backward and stupid." (A46)
"We always had to drink Chinese tea. We were never allowed to have Tibetan (butter)tea." (A5)
"If most of the Tibetans did not understand his [the teacher's] explanation in Chinese, he used to scold us. He called us 'dirty Tibetans' or 'stupid Tibetans', because we did not understand Chinese." (A43)
"At school the teacher asked us to renounce the Dalai Lama. If we did not do so, we feared that the authorities would arrest our parents." (A35)
The students who had attended a middle school were asked what history they had been taught. All responded that they were taught only about Chinese history, with no reference to a
Tibetan history. Some also said that they were told that Tibet had no history of its own and was always an integral part of China.
None of the children, except for the one who went to a
clandestine school, received any education about the religious heritage of Tibet.
"In our Tibetan book all the stories were about Mao and his great doings. There was nothing about Tibet, the Dalai Lama or our history. The fact that I had to learn so much about Mao made me feel awkward; I knew that Mao was not a good man and that he had done a lot of cruel things to the Tibetans, but I had to learn these things anyway. In school we had to repeat those lies word for word or we were punished. Once in a while our Tibetan teacher taught us a little about Tibet, but he was very afraid and made us promise that we would not talk to anyone about this. Once in a while I read a Tibetan book about great Tibetan men and Tibetan kings, but I had to hide these books because if I was caught both myself and the author would have been punished severely."(A27)
"In our Tibetan language book it said that 'our capital is Beijing'. Once I crossed out Beijing and wrote Lhasa. When the teacher read this he beat me severely."(A 7)
"Neither my parents nor my Tibetan school teachers had ever told me anything about Tibetan culture or history. Suddenly my parents told me that it was time for me to leave Tibet and go to India. My first contact with Tibetan culture, history and religion was in the Tibetans Children's Village (TCV) in Dharamsala, India."(A 12)
"The only Tibetan histories we read were fables about Lhasa."(A 13)
"I did not have any subjects related to Tibetan history, culture or religion. The subjects for our Tibetan language classes came directly from Chinese books, translated into Tibetan. I would have liked to learn something about Tibetan culture; that's why I came to the TCV in India."(A 25)
"The Rinpoche [a high lama] opened a private Tibetan school in my place. I had the opportunity to study Tibetan politics and Tibetan opera in this school for three years. After three years the Chinese authorities closed the school, telling us it was because this school made us serve Tibetan authorities as we did before 1959. The Chinese also told us that the Rinpoche who started the school was a fake Rinpoche and that he worked together with the Chinese. The Rinpoche was later put in prison by the Chinese. Two months after the school's
closure I was put in prison for three days because, the Chinese told me, I had attended a very bad school. My parents had to pay bribes to get me out of prison."(A 31)
Topics of indoctrination varied. Most students reported that they were constantly taught about the greatness of Mao Tse Tung, Li Peng, Chinese socialism and China's achievements
in general. Even the Tibetan language books covered Chinese subjects almost exclusively.
The possibility of children dissenting from opinions provided in school books was completely unknown. Students reported that, if they chose not to answer ideological questions "properly², they risked failure or beatings.
"I definitely felt indoctrinated. The Chinese history classes mainly dealt with the stories of the Chinese courageous kings and their kingdoms and how great China was. We always had
to sing the Chinese anthem. If you did not sing, you would be severely punished."(A 41)
" I felt indoctrinated at school because it was always Mao and Li Peng this and Deng Xiaoping that. Always the stories of their lives and how great they were. Every Monday morning we had to sing the Chinese national anthem. The singing of the anthem started at grade one. At that time I didn't know the Chinese national anthem at all and for this the teacher forced me to stretch out my lips and then he would hit my lips with a stick. We also had to wear red scarves when we went to school and so I would tie it a bit loose and then lose it at a certain time. My mother used to scold me when I lost my red scarf . Sometimes there was an announcement at school that on a certain day there would be a school assembly about Li Peng and then we were made to stay longer at school and listen to more stories
telling us how great Li Peng was."(A 25)
"The teachers told us that China is the power country and that China is a good country. Once I asked my teacher to explain to us more about Tibetan history and he got so mad at
me for asking this question that he hit me with a big stick on my legs and head. If you failed the political questions asked in class you would not progress to the higher class. My parents
also refused to explain anything to me about Tibet because they were afraid that the Chinese would get mad. My parents told me that the things to occupy myself with were not Tibetan
politics. Politics was too dangerous; I had to be satisfied with talking about clothes, food and yaks."(A 42)
"During the music lessons we had to sing more Chinese than Tibetan songs. We were made to sing texts like 'Long live Communist China' or 'The teachers are good people and
they are here to help us'. Most of the Tibetan students did not sing these songs in class and we would be punished by the teachers, even the Tibetan teachers. They hit us on our backs
and heads with wooden sticks. When Deng Xiaopeng died, the teacher put his picture in front of the class and told us that we had to mourn the death of the great Deng Xiaopeng. We
were told that we had to cry in class but, when most of us did not cry, the teacher hit us badly with a wooden stick."
Students reported that they were asked by their teachers to spy on their parents and to report back as to whether the parents talk about political issues or the Dalai Lama, or whether they
have Dalai Lama pictures in their home. Sometimes children were promised rewards and given money if they related negative information about their parents. Such actions are capable
of destroying the child's family structure.
"After 4.30 p.m. there were no more classes and we had to sit idle in the classroom. Three or four times a week we were asked during this time whether our parents talked about
Tibetan politics or the Dalai Lama. When the children admitted that their parents spoke about these things, they were rewarded with presents - money or food. The parents were later
called to meetings and sometimes then fined or put into prison." (A 1)
"My Chinese teachers regularly asked me to go home and spy on my parents. I was supposed to see if my parents were talking about Tibetan policies or religion. I would pretend
to walk home and then turn back after 3 hours in order to tell the teachers that I had not heard any talk from my parents about Tibetan matters. Or I would walk home, play around
for a couple of hours and then go back to school and tell my teachers that there was no proof against my parents. In both cases the teacher would beat me because he did not believe me... They promised us 200 yuan if we found any evidence against our parents that proved they talked about subjects relating to Tibetan culture, history or religion." (A 10)
"I remember that when I was about 10 years old my teacher asked me to go home and see if there were any pictures of the Dalai Lama hanging in our house. I couldn't find any and had to tell the teacher the result of my search." (A 34)
Extremely sad.
Nuff said
Tom |
