"Only This Useless Poem, Dedicated to Lobsang Tsepak" By Woeser

High Peaks Pure Earth has translated a poem by Woeser that was posted on her blog on April 17, 2011. Woeser's poem is dedicated to Lobsang Tsepak, a monk of Kirti Monastery, Ngaba, who was studying at Beijing's Central University for Nationalities and was arrested on March 25, 2011 for unclear reasons.

Woeser has previously written poems dedicated to Tibetans who are missing or imprisoned, see these "Two Poems for the Panchen Lama" and also "Secret Tibet".

"Remembering The Young Monk, Phuntsog, Who Died from Self-Immolation" By Woeser

High Peaks Pure Earth has translated a blogpost by Woeser written on March 22, 2011 for the Tibetan service of Radio Free Asia and posted on her blog on April 19, 2011. 

Woeser writes about the tragic self-immolation of young monk Phuntsog from Ngaba, Eastern Tibet, who self-immolated on March 16, 2011. As Woeser points, it is an incident reminiscent of the self-immolation of Tapey in February 2009.

Meanwhile the situation in Ngaba remains tense, see recent media reports such as this one from the BBC.

Blessings for Yushu

Popular photo on Tibetan blogs commemorating the earthquake of April 14, 2010

Replaying the Film “Serf” Won’t Brainwash Anyone! By Woeser

High Peaks Pure Earth has translated a blogpost by Woeser written on March 30, 2011 for the Tibetan service of Radio Free Asia and posted on her blog on April 10, 2011.

The Chinese government proclaimed in January 2009 that a festival called "Serf Liberation Day" was to be celebrated in Tibet on March 28 every year to commemorate the "liberation" of Tibetans by the People's Liberation Army. Woeser takes this festival as her starting point and in particular the replaying of the 1963 propaganda film "Serf" on Tibetan TV. Amongst Tibetans, the film is more commonly called "Jampa", the name of the protagonist.

A Tibetan Blogger Asks: "Can I Call 110?"

High Peaks Pure Earth has translated an anonymous blogpost titled "Can I Call 110" that was posted on February 28, 2011 on a Tibetan website Rangdrol.Net.

Rangdrol.Net is a relatively new Tibetan language website and is based in Xining, provincial capital of Qinghai Province. Interestingly it carries the same name as Dhondup Gyal's penname and, as we wrote before on High Peaks Pure Earth, Rangdrol means "self-liberated".

This bold blogpost describes the situation that Tibetans find themselves in today and cites, even though supposedly hypothetically, several concrete examples of injustice and inequality. The phone number for the police in China is 110 (Ch: yao-yao-ling) and is equivalent to 911 in USA or 999 in UK. A subtext to the blogpost is the general impression amongst Tibetans is that the police are overly concerned with splittism whilst criminal acts are rampant and go unpunished.

Two Poems Posted on March 10, 2011

Continuing with poetry for the month of March this week, High Peaks Pure Earth has translated two poems from TibetCul blogs that were both posted online on March 10, 2011. As reported previously, TibetCul was suddenly taken offline on March 16, 2011 and mysteriously came back online on March 25, 2011. Fortunately, these two poems are not back online for those who'd like to see the original posts.

The Year 2008 "Field of Experiments" - A Poem by Gade Tsering

High Peaks Pure Earth has translated a poem by young Tibetan poet from Amdo, Gade Tsering, that was originally posted on his blog in two parts on June 28 and June 30, 2010. The posts were removed on July 15, 2010.

Gade Tsering

Now that the turbulent month of March is coming to a close, it seemed like an appropriate time to post this translation. Readers may remember two poems by Gade Tsering that we translated last summer, "My Tibetanness" and "I Am Tibetan", follow this link to read the poems and a short introduction to Gade Tsering: http://www.highpeakspureearth.com/2010/07/i-am-tibetan-and-my-tibetanness-two.html

Although Gade Tsering's blog appears to be unavailable at the time of writing, Gade Tsering is very active on his Sina Microblog: http://t.sina.com.cn/tibetpoem

"I Remember, Therefore We Are" By Woeser

High Peaks Pure Earth has translated a blogpost by Woeser written on January 16, 2011 for the Mandarin service of Radio Free Asia and published on their website on March 14, 2011. 

In this blogpost, Woeser reflects on the importance of collective memory for Tibetans and focuses on the autobiography of Naktsang Nulo which has been translated into Chinese and was published in Taiwan on March 10, 2011.