Letter to the Editor San Jose Mercury News Printed 1/7/97

The gift given to me this Christmas was the terrible revelation of just how wonderful my life is. Three days after Christmas the internet crackled with the news that a young man from Tibet had been sentenced to 18 years in prison. On December 28, The Mercury News reported " Tibetan Gets 18 years as anti-China Spy"

His crime? Videotaping Tibetans performing traditional songs and dances.

My wife and I learned about this man as we made a film about his life. We had done other volunteer film work for the International Campaign for Tibet and they asked if we could help again.

Ngawang Choephel started with nothing, escaping from Tibet and the Chinese invasion when he was just two years old. He grew up in India, he played music, he studied. He eventually won a Fulbright Scholarship to a prestigious U.S. college to complete his musical education.

He traveled back to Tibet to make a film about the music he had studied.

He vanished.

Several months later, a man released from a Tibetan prison told of seeing this young man, Ngawang Choephel, in prison.

16 hours of his footage surfaced. It had been shipped out of Tibet prior to his arrest by the Chinese authorities.

We saw his work in Tibet. We saw him recording young children singing, elders dancing, experts passing down the meaning of the old songs. We talked to people he grew up with. People he studied with. People he traveled with.

The Chinese say he is a spy.

He is a young man now sentenced to 18 years in prison. We have never met Ngawang in person. We have researched his life. We have looked at his face for countless hours in the edit room. We see a young man being crushed by the Chinese government. They are using him to say they don't care what the world thinks. They are crushing him to say that no one can tell them what to do.

Ngawang is not a spy. Ngawang needs our help.

On Christmas, Ngawang slept on a concrete floor. He ate a ball of rice and maybe drank a cup of warm tea.

I now know how wonderful my life is.

The film we made, Missing in Tibet , will be broadcast in Australia in January and is currently being considered for viewing across the U.S..

Dan Griffin

Garthgrif@aol.com