Urgent Blogpost by Woeser; Lhasa Public Security Bureau Summon Her High Peaks Pure Earth has translated an urgent blogpost by Woeser describing how she was summoned on the phone by the Lhasa Public Security Bureau. The blogpost was written approximately one hour ago. “Urgent: Someone on the Phone Claiming to be from Lhasa City Public …

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A hurried farewell to Lhasa,
Where the fear is in your breathing, in the beating of your heart,
In the silence when you want to speak but don’t,
In the catch in your throat.

Earlier, I had heard from JM that there was a Tibetan like this who had come from Lhasa and seldom went out of the house. He also hadn’t gone to parties held by fellow Tibetans. The reason is that his very typical Tibetan looks caught everyone’s attention in present-day Beijing.

When I was in Lhasa during Losar (Tibetan New Year) last year, my friend said that now we should not use “Tashi Delek” ) to greet each other because we are neither “tashi” (auspicious) nor delek (fortunate), so what we should use to admonish others is “zab zab je”.

(REVISED & UPDATED)
Woeser’s TIBET UPDATES provide invaluable detailed information on all that has happened and is happening in Tibet now. Her writing provides a stark immediacy to events and brings them up-close and personal as no report by foreign journalists or “experts” can, not even the scribblings of exile writers like myself.