Following is a fictitious |diary of a nomadic boy reflecting the impact of China's nomad resettlement program on the Tibetan nomadic lifestyle.
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At the age of
85, my grandmother suddenly grew weak and unhappy since moving into this
concrete house few months back. She gazed at the faraway vast rangeland where
small herds of yaks were grazing on the hills, gasped a long breath and
whispered in her final voice "Why aren't we in the summer pasture?"
The joyful
days of laughter echoing from the numerous holy peaks and valleys were gone.
I remember once when father playing a flute while mother singing in her
eloquent voice a song in praise of nature echoing from three different peaks, I
was so amused and excited listening to their songs that I actually began to
sing it thereafter.
The days of my
father reading Gesar Epic in his dramatic tenor with three generations of
nomadic family listening and laughing under a giant black tent has suddenly
become a distant past like the Gesar epic itself. The Gesar Epic is a glorious story
of nomadic kingdom extending throughout the three river head regions where most
nomads have been expelled in recent years.
The days of
me and my friends playing with calves, riding on yaks and running on grassland have
vanished somewhere. These days we do nothing but chase trucks and happily pose
for pictures to Chinese tourist in return of some chocolates. I miss those days
when grandparents narrate endless folk stories of how nomads and nature live in
harmony, how King Gesar conquered eighteen kingdoms, how deity of one peak in
war with another, how Nomads fought illegal poachers and miners destroying our mountains.
For us nomads every valley, every lake, every mountain and every peak represents
something sacred and their preservation is our traditional duty.
We nomads
pride ourselves as the children of nature, where we respect nature and believe
that nature protects us. But suddenly we are forced to become a sedentary
community confined in these concrete walls, away from our home, our pastureland,
our herd, our way of life and our happiness. My father fears that Chinese
government would carry out extensive mining on our sacred mountains, resulting
in unending natural calamities and epidemics.
"Nomads
are never poor" is a nomadic saying so true until today, however first time ever
in the history of a nomad's life we are faced with abject poverty.
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