MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
When the Dalai Lama fled Chinese-controlled Tibet, he eventually came to the Indian town of Dharamshala. For decades, Tibetan refugees followed him there. 91ÖÆƬ³§'s Diaa Hadid reports that that is changing.
TENZIN NORDEL: (Vocalizing).
DIAA HADID, BYLINE: Music teacher Tenzin Nordel leads kids through a Tibetan song in a classroom overlooking an alpine forest.
UNIDENTIFIED STUDENTS: (Singing in non-English language).
HADID: This is how the Tibetan Children's Village teaches students their language, culture and faith in a place vastly different from their homeland.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
HADID: Here, theater kids practice Tibetan operas.
UNIDENTIFIED STUDENTS: (Singing in non-English language).
HADID: They wear Tibetan clothes, even while they shoot hoops.
(CHEERING)
HADID: The Dalai Lama set up the Tibetan Children's Village with his sisters after he fled to Dharamshala amid a failed uprising against China's rule more than 60 years ago. The school expanded as thousands of Tibetans followed the Dalai Lama. Then there were people like Tindup Galpo.
TINDUP GALPO: My father and me crossed the Himalayas.
HADID: Galpo guesses he was 7 when his father left him at the school and then returned to Chinese-ruled Tibet. He hasn't seen his father since. He was raised by his teachers, who also supervise the school's boarding houses. Now Galpo is a schoolteacher and...
GALPO: After class, I'm a father of 32 children.
HADID: He works at the boarding school that raised him, helping kids with their homework, reading, bedtimes, at least for now.
GALPO: Everything is - I don't know (laughter).
HADID: Changing.
GALPO: Changing.
HADID: The Tibetan Children's Village is shrinking. The school has capacity for about 9,000 kids across India. Only about half that number attend. That's partly because Tibetans are having fewer kids these days. And China has hardened its borders dramatically in the past two decades, so fewer kids have reached Dharamshala. One person who did make it across is 27-year-old Namkyi. She only goes by one name.
NAMKYI: (Speaking Tibetan).
HADID: She'd been trying for nine years to find a way to flee ever since she was released from a three-year prison sentence, she says, for brandishing a picture of the Dalai Lama.
NAMKYI: (Speaking Tibetan).
HADID: But since reaching Dharamshala last year, Namkyi says she's been noticing the change.
NAMKYI: (Speaking Tibetan).
HADID: Her friend Sonam (ph) translates. He also only goes by one name.
SONAM: Those in India, like, many of them are migrating to the West.
HADID: Migrating to the West. The Tibetan government-in-exile estimates there were about 100,000 Tibetans in India. That number began falling as migration to the West stepped up in the '90s. Now India hosts about 70,000 Tibetans and about the same number live in Europe, the U.S. and Australia. Sonam, who's translating for Namkyi, describes it like...
SONAM: It's like throwing rice in a cotton field.
HADID: Like throwing rice in a cotton field, where it's scattered, where it doesn't belong, where it won't flourish because, he says, the institutions that keep Tibetan identity alive are here in Dharamshala.
At the Children's Village, some of the brightest kids are looking for the exits, like Gawa. He's 15 and a minor, so we aren't using his full name. We met at the school library. He speaks four languages.
GAWA: French, Hindi, English and Tibetan.
HADID: And he loves Lana Del Rey.
GAWA: The song that goes like, dear Lord, when I get to heaven, please let me bring my man.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "YOUNG AND BEAUTIFUL")
LANA DEL RAY: (Singing) Dear Lord, when I get to heaven, please let me bring my man.
HADID: Gawa loves poetry but figures he's got a better future as a doctor. He's vying for a scholarship to study in the U.K.
GAWA: There's more opportunities. There's everything.
HADID: This westward drift comes at a precarious time. The Dalai Lama turned 90 in July. Beijing insists it will select the next Dalai Lama, against the wishes of the Dalai Lama and Tibetans.
LOBSANG SANGAY: That's our most volatile period.
HADID: Lobsang Sangay is the former head of the Tibetan government-in-exile. He says Tibetans were heartened when President Trump, during his first administration, signed into law an act that sanctions Chinese officials who interfere in Tibetan religious matters. But in Trump's second administration, the secretary of State, Marco Rubio, halted some $12 million of aid earmarked to Tibetan exiles in the spring. He then restored just over half of it. Amid these worries that many Tibetans express about this moment, Sangay says Tibetans cling to a simple truth.
SANGAY: Our job is simple. That is, we have to survive.
HADID: As long as we survive, he says, Tibetans will have the opportunity to meet this changing moment.
Diaa Hadid, 91ÖÆƬ³§ News, Dharamshala.
(SOUNDBITE OF RED HOUSE PAINTERS SONG, "MEDICINE BOTTLE") Transcript provided by 91ÖÆƬ³§, Copyright 91ÖÆƬ³§.
91ÖÆƬ³§ transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an 91ÖÆƬ³§ contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of 91ÖÆƬ³§â€™s programming is the audio record.
