Published by: World Tibet Network News, Monday, July 15, 1996

The Seattle Times

July 15, 1996

by Ruth Schubert

Seattle Times staff reporter

It was 1992 when Tsering Chamatsang Yuthok returned to Tibet.

The physical changes struck her first - visual signposts like the graceless brick buildings that rose jarringly in Lhasa, the capital city her family left behind more than 30 years earlier.

But the most striking change was in the eyes of the people. Eyes, riveted to the ground, refusing to meet hers.

"You saw a whole group of people whose spirit was so broken," Yuthok said. "They would look down on the ground to talk to you, almost bend their bodies down in half to talk to you. To me, that was the saddest thing."

The Bellevue woman's two-week visit was her first since Chinese troops crushed the Tibetan rebellion in 1959. The Dalai Lama, spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, and 100,000 Tibetans fled.

Her father, Somphe Chamatsang, a Tibetan guerrilla leader, barely made it out alive. He was found crumpled on the ground, injured by a mortar blast, and was carried to safety in India.

"Remember you are a Tibetan," Yuthok's father would tell her. "Behave yourself. Do not disgrace the Tibetan nation."

As Yuthok repeated her father's admonitions, her voice shifted into a firmly enunciated tone of authority. " `When you grow up, do something for Tibet. We are relying on you. It is up to you to rebuild our nation.' "

Through her teenage years in Taiwan, and her journey to America, Yuthok did not forget her father's words.

This month, the Ethnic Heritage Council honored Yuthok with the 1996 Spirit of Liberty Award in recognition of her efforts to preserve the cultural heritage of Tibet. The council, a nonprofit group that promotes preservation of cultural traditions in the Northwest, draws nominations from 900 ethnic organizations around the state.

"I can relate totally to what she's done in her own Tibetan community," said Alma Plancich, executive director of the Ethnic Heritage Council and a Croatian-born American. "I realized we felt a lot of the same pain from leaving our own countries. You end up with a sort of divided heart."

Although she supports the movement for Tibetan independence, Yuthok's focus is cultural rather than political. She works in the realm of customs and history, ritual and dance.

Among other things, Yuthok is a founding member of the Nyechen Thangla Tibetan Dance Troupe, which performs traditional folk dances. Most recently, the group was at the Chinatown/International District Summer Festival on Saturday.

Beneath the scorching sun, the eight performers danced in traditional garments that were ordered from India about two years ago. The men wore billowy white blouses and sunny yellow silks woven with gold flowers. The women wore black kimono-like robes over scarlet blouses and striped aprons.

Stepping and kicking to a three-count beat, the folk dancers moved in meditatively rhythmic circles and lines, arms flowing in slow windmills, to a chant-like song about two lovers parting.

Yuthok had learned some of the same dances as a child.

She was born in Lhasa in 1946 and remembers the Tibet of her childhood as a peaceful land of New Year's celebrations and pilgrimages to Buddhist temples. But Chinese authorities had been urging Yuthok's mother to send the girl to school in Beijing. To protect her, Yuthok's mother, Dolga, sent her to relatives in India in 1956, three years before her father fled Tibet.

Yuthok was 12 years old when a classmate shattered the illusion that her father was nothing other than a peaceable import-export businessman.

"Yes, there's a war going on," her mother admitted when Yuthok confronted her with the friend's tales. "There's fighting going on, and your father is involved."

After he was carried out of Tibet, Yuthok's father took the family to Taiwan, in search of help for the Tibetan refugees. They remained through Yuthok's high-school years and graduation from the National Taiwan University.

In 1977, Yuthok, her husband and children emigrated to Bellevue.

One evening in Lhasa during their 1992 visit, Yuthok, who works as the City of Seattle's international-programs coordinator, and her husband, Dondul Yuthok, followed the sound of music to an outdoor festival, held under the watchful eyes of Chinese security agents.

A group of young Tibetans approached the table. "How is the Dalai Lama?" they asked. "Please tell him that our hopes are all with him."

Yuthok's voice dropped to a whisper as she told the story, imitating the secrecy of the exchange. "Please don't do this," she told them. "The security people are watching. . . . You'll get in trouble."

One young man replied, "I've been in prison so many times, it doesn't matter."

Yuthok carried the memory of the young man's defiant voice home with her. It joined that of her father, reminding her: "We are relying on you. It is up to you to rebuild our nation."