Born in 1941, Tubten Khétsun is a nephew of the Gyatso Tashi Khendrung, one of the senior government officials taken prisoner after the Tibetan peoples' uprising of March 10, 1959. Khétsun himself was arrested while defending the Dalai Lama's summer palace, and after four years in prisons and labor camps, he spent close to two decades in Lhasa as a requisitioned laborer and "class enemy."
In this eloquent autobiography, Khétsun describes what life was like during those troubled years. His account is one of the most dispassionate, detailed, and readable firsthand descriptions yet published of Tibet under the Communist occupation. Khétsun talks of his prison experiences as well as the state of civil society following his release, and he offers keenly observed accounts of well-known events, such as the launch of the Cultural Revolution, as well as lesser-known aspects of everyday life in occupied Lhasa.
Since Communist China continues to occupy Tibet, the facts of this era remain obscure, and few of those who lived through it have recorded their experiences at length. Khétsun's story will captivate any reader seeking a refreshingly human account of what occurred during the Maoists' shockingly brutal regime.
- Contents
- Translator’s Introduction
- Preface
- 1. The Story of My Family
- 2. My Childhood
- 3. The March 10th Uprising
- 4. The Chinese Fan the Flames of War
- 5. Imprisoned at the Tibet Military District Headquarters
- 6. Imprisoned at the Norbu Lingka Barracks
- 7. At the Nga-chen Power Station Construction Site
- 8. In Téring Prison
- 9. In Drapchi Prison
- 10. The Trong-nying Prison Farm
- 11. Back Home from Prison
- 12. The Agitation by the Muslims of Woba-ling
- 13. The Fall of the Panchen Lama
- 14. The Misuse of Education
- 15. The Establishment of the Tibet Autonomous Region
- 16. The Onset of the Cultural Revolution
- 17. The June 7th Massacre
- 18. A Disastrous New Year
- 19. Old Tsampa in Old Méru
- 20. The Sino-Soviet War Brings Increased Oppression
- 21. The “One Smash and Three Antis” Campaign
- 22. The “Great Massacre”
- 23. PLA Soldiers Destroy the Fruits of the People's Labor in the Marshes
- 24. The Systematic Destruction of Ganden Monastery
- 25. Sent to Kongpo for the Second Time
- 26. The Xichao Dachang Timber Yard
- 27. The Tölung Power Station Construction Camp
- 28. The Lin Biao Affair
- 29. The Defamation Campaign
- 30. “Socialist Transformation”
- 31. The Banak-shöl Production Cooperative
- 32. The Farmer’s Life
- 33. The Death of Mao Zedong and Subsequent Developments
- 34. The Rewards of My Hard Work
- 35. Working in the Potala Palace
- 36. At the Tibet Academy of Social Science
- Epilogue: Leaving Tibet
- Index
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