A Lone Tibetan Voice, Intent on Speaking Out

I see the footprint of our ancestors in the mountains of the Plateau.

An Unlikely Dissident

In many ways, Woeser is an unlikely dissident. She was born in Lhasa to members of the Communist Party. Her father was a deputy commander of a local unit of the People's Liberation Army, making his family well-positioned to benefit from China's control of the region.

"I used to believe the army came to Tibet to set Tibetans free," Woeser said.

When she was 4 years old, her family moved to a Tibetan area of Sichuan province. After the worst ravages of China's Cultural Revolution had passed and schools reopened, Woeser and her friends were educated in Chinese. No studies were offered in the Tibetan language. Although she can speak Tibetan, Woeser, like many of her generation, never learned to read or write her native tongue.

She returned to Lhasa after getting her college degree in Chinese literature. "My way of thinking was not based on reality," she said. "All I wanted to do was write poems."

She had not thought much about Buddhism before returning to Lhasa; as party members, her parents practiced no religion. But once she was back in Tibet, Woeser said, she was drawn to the teachings of Buddhism and began to cherish its culture.

Her politics, too, began to change. After a friend returned from Hong Kong with an autobiography of the Dalai Lama, Woeser devoured it. When China intervened in the selection of the 11th Panchen Lama and named its own candidate as the second-highest figure in Tibetan Buddhism, Woeser felt the same insult as her Tibetan friends. "China controlled the monks so strictly," she explained. "When you live in Tibet and you hear and see these things every day, you will change."

In 1999, Woeser published her first poetry collection, which explored Tibetan identity and dealt with sensitive issues indirectly, using lyricism and metaphor. Her next book, a compilation of prose essays, was direct, and it did not take long for authorities to ban it. Woeser was told to leave her job at a state-supported literary journal, unless she repented for her political mistakes. She lost her income, her pension, her security.

"My writing became very obvious," she said. "My father always taught me that I have to listen to the Communist Party when it talks, and that when I write, I have to balance between what I feel and what the party says. But I've found that that's impossible to do."

She moved to Beijing and, the following year, married dissident writer Wang Lixiong, who supported her through what she sees as the turning point in her life. She would not admit political mistakes, but rather would give voice to truths about Tibet. If she couldn't publish in China, she would publish in Hong Kong or Taiwan. If China would not listen, maybe the outside world would.

By the time Woeser left Lhasa, she was already well into another sensitive topic -- an account of the atrocities of the Cultural Revolution in Tibet, based on interviews with 70 participants. The work, which became the topic of two books she published in Taiwan, was actually inspired by photographs her father had taken of temples being smashed and people targeted as class enemies being beaten and humiliated in public struggle sessions. Little has been recorded about the experiences of Tibetans during that time, and scholars are eager to translate her books into English. One volume has already been translated into French.

Woeser has applied many times for a passport, but has always been denied the right to travel overseas. Until now, it has not really mattered, she said. Her small apartment in Beijing is a warm place, decorated in Tibetan style, and she feels comfortable there, spending her days in front of her computer except when she travels to Tibetan areas on reporting trips.

But since March 14, she said, life in Beijing has become very hard. "There are so many extreme nationalists who know so little about Tibet, who are so shallow about a lot of things," she said. "I really resent it."

When she's inspired, she writes a little poetry. But mostly she is documenting as best she can the situation inside Tibet. According to her reporting, at least 150 Tibetans were killed in the Lhasa riot, not just the 22 mostly Han Chinese deaths the government has acknowledged.

"Sometimes I'm scared, especially when I hear my friends have been beaten up," she said. "But I feel I have a responsibility to do this. Some things are really hard to know now, but if I know something, I will write it."

Researcher Liu Liu contributed to this report.