Published by World Tibet Network News - Tuesday, July 29, 1997

Far Eastern Economic Review, July 31, 1997

November 1, 1981 letter to his brother and two sisters:

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When Deng Xiaoping later published his opinions in the newspapers, it became very clear that I was "the chicken killed as a warning to the monkeys." When your goal is to warn the monkeys, you don't care what attitude the chicken has; even if I were to slobber with regret like Yang Guang did, the outcome would still have been the same. I just congratulated myself for not getting duped by them . . . It's just like Old Mao once said: "All men must die, but death can vary in its significance." I don't want to be a hero, but I don't want to be condemned by history either. Why should I let others point to our family's descendants and say, "There's a relative of that spineless so-and-so!"

June 15, 1989 letter to Deng Xiaoping following the Tiananmen Massacre:

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An evil reputation can only be brought on oneself-nobody else can help another gain such "glory," except perhaps one's own subordinates. I've long known that you are precisely the kind of idiot to do something foolish like this, just as you've long known that I am precisely the kind of idiot who will remain stubborn to the end and take blows with his head up. We know each other well; probably better than anyone can imagine.

March 21, 1982 letter to his brother and two sisters on breaking off his engagement to a Tibetan woman, Ping Ni:

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If you see her, you can pass on my wishes to her and tell her she doesn't need to come anymore. I wrote a poem entitled "Encouragement" and some parting words for her, but unfortunately they were confiscated with the last letter. Please tell her to study hard and to overcome her bad habit of always paying too much attention to the past and the future instead of seizing the present. Tell her to help her father [a Communist-Party official] do meaningful and good things for the Tibetan people as well as for the people of China and the world. Wish her happiness.