Xinhua Insight: Dalai Lama's birthday celebrations bring hardship to Tibetan family

As the Dalai Lama clique prepares for his upcoming 80th birthday on July 6 this year, Ondrangkyi, a Tibetan woman who will soon celebrate her own milestone birthday, has been ticking away the days depressed and restless in a small adobe brick room on a pasture in Qinghai Province.

According to Tibetan custom, celebrating an 80th birthday is an important life event. However, as her birthday draws near, Ondrangkyi' s family is in no mood for such activities.

A PHONE CALL FROM INDIA

It all began with a phone call from her younger son, who was studying Buddhism in "Drepung Monastery" in India, about three years ago. The son said he was about to graduate from the Buddhist college and he needed some money to thank his tutors and fellow monks.

"Drepung Monastery" in India was built with the same name as the renowned Drepung Monastery in Lahsa, capital city of Tibet Autonomous Region, after the Dalai Lama fled China in the wake of a failed coup in March 1959.

"My younger brother asked for about 100,000 yuan (about 16,100 U.S. Dollars), which was the least sum for such an event," Ondrangkyi' s elder son Khagyado told Xinhua, since the woman had difficulty communicating due to old age.

"Those who are from wealthy families prepare at least 200,000 yuan for that event," Khagyado said, adding if the requirement was not satisfied, his younger brother would be unable to obtain a diploma.

This deeply worried Ondrangkyi.

The living standard of her once poverty-stricken family has improved remarkably over the years with assistance from the government, with the annual income of her family averaging 20,000 yuan, much higher than in previous years.

The family owns about 100 sheep and an affordable house in town with a courtyard, which was financed mostly by a government program in 2009 to help build affordable houses for herdsmen so they could enjoy a more comfortable winter on the frigid Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.

Since Ondrangkyi's income could hardly cover her son's required graduation amount, she was forced to consider selling the family's belongings. The move could once again plunge the family into poverty, but she was determined to take the risk, because her son promised to come back home after getting the diploma and reunite with her and other family members.

The family saw a ray of hope when the price of their house soared in last winter, reaching a value of 90,000 yuan. Ondrangkyi gave the order to put it on sale.

BACK TO POVERTY

After a private agreement was signed between the family and a local buyer, Ondrangkyi had no choice but to move back to the family' s pasture home with Jamokyi, her elder daughter, who has been taking care of her.

Compared with the brick and concrete house supported by the government, the adobe brick rooms on the pasture are old and cold. When it rains, the roof leaks. When the wind blows, it howls through the cracks.

Even worse, Ondrangkyi has been suffering from arthritis and cardiac diseases, which left her almost paralyzed. When they first moved into their new home in 2009, the family held celebrations, because they thought they had said goodbye to the life in adobe brick rooms.

Still Ondrangkyi was happy because her younger son would be able to come back home after the money was remitted to him.

What Ondrangkyi did not know was that part of the sum the younger son demanded would also be used for the celebrations of the Dalai Lama' s 80th birthday. Jamokyi said once her younger brother told her in phone if the family could commit some money to the birthday celebrations, they would receive high recognition.

Such a plan was aborted and the family' s struggle was put to an end after their home sale was not approved by the government. Regulation governing the affordable houses program forbids such transactions for the sake of protecting people' s livelihood.

CRUEL BIRTHDAY CELEBRATIONS

Ondrangkyi's near tragic loss of property and wealth at the hands of the Dalai Lama clique is nothing new.

In the Archives of the Tibet Autonomous Region, there is a letter from the Tibet local government dating to the early 1950s saying that to celebrate the Dalai Lama's birthday, sutras should be chanted by monks.

What then followed was a gruesome set of instructions.

"To successfully complete this ceremony, special food must be thrown to the animals. A wet intestine, two skulls, many kinds of blood and a full human skin are urgently needed, all of which must be promptly delivered," the letter read.

In recent years, the Dalai Lama clique has intensified their attempts to collect money for birthday celebrations from the Buddhist followers on the Chinese mainland, including the herdsmen who were lifted out of poverty in recent years, according to reports from the China Tibetology Research Center.

Analysts with the center said the move only reflected the fall in the Dalai Lama' s international standing.

In recent years, fewer figures, including foreign leaders, were meeting with the Dalai Lama during his international trips, said Zhu Weiqun, head of the Ethnic and Religious Affairs Committee of the CPPCC, China's top political advisory body, at a press conference in March.

Ondrangkyi' s hard decision to fulfill the Dalai Lama clique' s intention for "decent" birthday celebrations might be a footnote for the fall.

Luckily, in this case, with the interference of the government, Ondrangkyi might be able to move back to her house in town before the winter comes. Endi