By Namse Namgyal

My name is Namse Namgyal. The lack of knowledge behind the pairing of these two names would make many a Tibetan smile. My mother, as happened with many Tibetans brought up in Switzerland, grew up quite disconnected from the traditional Tibetan ways and only became aware of the ‘strange combination of names’ she had chosen for her daughter when other Tibetans pointed it out. As a child, it had rather upset me that my mother ‘messed up’ on such an elementary matter as my name. But she laughed and said: “Well, when you go to Tibet, you’ll just have to say that you’re called Jean-Jacques!”[1]. Although I appreciate the joke, I haven’t reinvented a name for myself yet. But I have to confess that the revelation of my full name to a ‘real Tibetan’ is often an uncomfortable reminder of the distance between me and this culture to which half my origins bind me nonetheless. I am indeed half-Tibetan (on my mother’s side) and half-Dutch (on my father’s).

Between 1960 and 1964, following the Chinese invasion of Tibet and its ensuing oppression, and in response to the Dalai Lama’s desperate request to host and educate Tibetan children-in-exile in Europe, the Aeschimann action, a private Swiss program, organised foster carers for 158 Tibetan children. Among them was my mother, Sernya Pema-Yudon. Thus, she was, in 1962, at the age of four, taken into care by a Swiss couple who I call, and consider, my grandparents.

I was raised in the south of France, where my parents moved to when I was five years old, to open a family-type guesthouse. My younger brother, Kelsang Tsering, was born there, two years after we had settled. We both grew up aware that we were part-Tibetan, even if only by our names and looks, but we were never immersed in the Tibetan culture and do not speak the language. Although we knew about the ‘Tibet issue’, its recent past and the Buddhist religion; and there was always the smallest of connections to it, whether by occasionally attending the Losar festivities in Switzerland or wearing the ‘yak yak yak’ t-shirts we always seemed to have; and we still request our mother’s delicious momos for birthdays and special occasions, my brother and I grew up away from the Tibetan culture and would not consider ourselves Buddhists.

It is strange how, when people expect you to know everything about something, you tend to take a step away from it. I guess it is the disappointment of people’s expectations and the consequential shame or guilt that make you react thus. I know that Tibet has had this effect on me as a teenager: the more people expected me to speak Tibetan, to have visited Tibet and be a Buddhist, the more I felt the distance between Tibet and myself grow. I never wished not to be half-Tibetan, but I did wish to be able to study, for example the Aborigines without feeling that I was ignoring or turning my back on my own origins and culture.

I don’t know whether my multi-cultural origins have drawn me to anthropology or if my interest in the study of cultures is an independent one, but I think that when I shifted my academic interests to it is also when I turned my gaze a little more towards Tibet. It also coincided more or less with my mother’s second trip to Bylakuppe to visit her Amala (mother). The will to learn more about it all became stronger in me and started to materialize in a paper on modern Tibetan politics that I wrote for my master’s thesis in International Relations. After that, it became clearer: I wanted to dedicate more time and study to the Tibetan topic and did not hesitate in making this the subject of my current anthropology research. This second master’s program felt like the ideal frame in which I could dive deeper into the Tibetan topic: it would permit me to dedicate another paper to it and, most interestingly, it would allow me to go ‘into the field’.

As my interests were still focused on Tibetan politics, it only made sense that my ‘field’ was to be the Central Tibetan Administration, in Dharamsala. Thus, I applied for an internship at the department of Information and International Relations, partly to conduct my research as concretely as possible, and partly because I had always felt that, beyond my personal attachment to it, that the Tibetan cause  was one worth supporting and I wanted to be of some help to its government.

Beyond representing a fantastic context to my research, as the CTA staff members are incredibly helpful and always seem to find time in their busy schedules to answer my many questions, I have found myself, for the first time, immersed in a Tibetan community. I am not sure whether I am trying to bridge the gap that I feel between myself and the ‘Tibetanness’, but I have to admit that every time a Tibetan encourages me to buy and wear a chuba or say tuk je che instead of thanks, explains the rules of dice or the Buddhist understandings of compassion, informs me about my mother’s birthplace and teaches me the significance of Tibetan names; thereby creating a space for me in this culture and community, it gives me a warm and comfortable feeling. I cannot say whether this is a more general sentiment that one feels when welcomed and included in any sort of group or if it is related to a nascent connection with one’s origins, but I can say that when the welcoming group corresponds to the one of your origins, it is very pleasant indeed.

My trip to India had however, another, more personal motivation too: I wanted to search for my mother’s Amala, my Mola. The rare letters my mother had received over the years became fewer and fewer and eventually ceased. So, I arrived in Dharamsala, with my laptop and notebooks, and with my grandmother’s last known address and the hope that the CTA would be of help in such an investigation. When Jigme la offered to help in the search, I did not realise just how easily he could it. It only took a phone call for him to provide me with the information. My grandmother had passed away. Although aware of this possible outcome, the news still took me by surprise and I too suddenly found myself fighting back tears. I didn’t know what to feel. My first thoughts went to my mother and how I would have to share with her this dreadful knowledge. I then thought of my grandmother, this woman I had never met and only knew through the pictures my mother had brought back from her visits; I thought of how this woman had lost her husband during the Chinese invasion, how she had waited for him before deciding to flee with her three children, how she had lost her two eldest ones during the long and deadly march into exile. How she had settled in the south of India, how her daughter was then sent to grow up in Switzerland, how she had remarried and given birth to her last child, how she had lost her second husband, and her last son too. And my mother recounted how joyful she had always been… I felt so spoiled, so selfish, and so late in my search for this woman who had been through so much! I think Jigme la tried to explain the Buddhist conception of reincarnation to me, but I am not sure; I was confused and couldn’t assimilate his words of comfort.

A short while later, Tenzin la, who I had planned to meet the same evening, told me he would bring me to the temple, so that I could make an offering for my Mola. “It will make you feel better”, he assured. And before I had time to process any of this further, I was climbing the hill to Namgyal monastery. On the way up, Tenzin la told me about the Buddhist beliefs on such matters and I found myself hanging onto his words and asking for additional information. As I mentioned earlier, I wouldn’t consider myself a Buddhist; but, somehow, Tenzin la’s explanations, which my conscience does not apply to my own existence, seemed to apply to my grandmother’s. I knew that she had been a religious person; and it was as if, defying all logic, as she had belonged to that culture, these beliefs, her beliefs, did indeed apply to her. That, I think, made me feel better.

Maybe the will to belong to a culture or a community has grown smaller and less meaningful as the world has grown more interconnected and multi-cultural, and certainly every experience is unique and thereby different from all others. So, all I can say is that, for me, whether intentionally or not, bridging the gap between the Tibetan culture and myself, even on a small level, has been a very warm adventure. An adventure in which I failed to meet my Mola, but successfully got to know the community she had belonged to.

I cannot say that I feel more Tibetan, but I am more familiar with the Tibetan ways. I cannot say whether my experience has impacted on my identity or brought me closer to my origins, but I can say that I will never regret my decision to come here and to finally take the time to give it the attention it deserves.