Holding out against the Chinese Communist Party’s harsh policy of cultural assimilation in Tibet, a small group of Australian Tibetans have come together to form a school, in an effort to keep their culture alive.
Volunteer teachers gather the 20 children in a Baptist church in Dee Why on Saturday mornings and offer lessons on Tibetan customs, family structure, literature, writing and grammar, as well as on the nation’s ancient religion of Buddhism.
“It’s important to know your own culture and tradition,” says Dorjee Dadul, who began the school as a group with four or five kids in his house. “Tibet is a vast country. Each region, within that region there are different dialects and different costumes. It’s very very rich, even I’m finding how different it is and how rich it is,” he says.
In 1949, Chinese troops moved into the independent nation of Tibet, forcefully assimilating the populace to China. Since then, according to the Australia Tibet Council more than 1.2 million Tibetans have perished as a result of the occupation and less than 40 of more than 6000 original monasteries remain standing. Immigration incentives have diluted the Tibetans to less than half of the population and Tibetan schools are forced to teach Chinese as a first language.
Dorjee came to Australia from Canada in 1980. He barely remembers fleeing Tibet with his parents in 1959, but he remembers well his childhood in India. After being educated in a wool shack that had been converted into a school, he became involved in helping the CIA-backed Tibetan resistance movement transport messages between Indian provinces, playing himself off as a local kid to avoid the hassle of government travel approval.
He says the school faces a lot of difficulties, only one of which is keeping the kids interested in the heritage of a country that most of them have never been to. Dorjee puts a lot of time and money into the establishment himself, as well as relying on donations by parents and the efforts of the other volunteers.
Lobsang Lungtok Rhalo, is one of the volunteers and the school’s only qualified teacher. He fled over the Himalayas to India after three months of solitary confinement as a political prisoner in Tibet.
Lobsang, like Dorjee, feels Tibetans have a lot to contribute to Australian society. “Fundamental Buddhist teachings are about how to treat other people, how to respect the natural environment…” he says.
Dorjee is positive about the future of the school. “I think it’s going to get better and better. To see some of those children, most of them were born here, and now they can read and write [in Tibetan script], it’s very encouraging.”
In several weeks time about 50 Tibetan immigrants are due to arrive in Sydney, boosting substantially Australia’s Tibetan community of 200-odd people.
“Among them, I’ve been sort of inquiring, you know, apparently there is one teacher, and there could be more.” he says.
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