Talk:Tibetball/@comment-35484902-20200809062831

tldr; a person with some blood connections gives a way too hearty practical essay about what they know about tibet in case anyone might be confused or maybe just want to be a bit open minded to possibilities.

I'm speaking as the great grandchild of a Tibetan runaway, and as a family friend of a kind Tibetan monk currently residing in the US.

The Dalai Lama was a teenager around the 1940s. At the time, the Chinese military was passing on through in order to go fight with the USSR during WW2. The Dalai Lama wasn't actually there when TIbet gave itself up to China, in fact he had nothing to do with the signing, it was just a group of negotiators, and the reason why they were meeting wasn't even to sign away there country. If I remember correctly, it was specifically about the war itself. Just defending a man who became the leader of a country at the age of 15 due to familial "issues." (lack of a better term, sorry) (also, 1951 would be around the time he's in his early twenties (maybe 19?), I don't think he would have studied anything about military too much and that's a bit young to be completely in charge of the mess the place got into.)

At any rate, when news reached the Dalai Lama, there wasn't much they could do. However, they were planning at the time to resist using cavalry, but due to the fact they were a pascifistic country, they never really had any reason to create advanced weaponry. A lot of the people scattered. My great grandfather ran on to Kazakhstan and grew a family there, since there was no turning back. (But hey, apparently he settled there because of the fact the mountains reminded him of home, and because the minority uhygur population there was also familiar, (yes, there were uhygur people in Tibet. I don't know too much about demographics, just the stuff my family clinged onto about the situation.)

I also want to mention that, apparently, the US, the UK, the USSR, and I think China signed a kind of pact regarding Tibet, and more specifically it was something like "Don't drag Tibet into this shit! They just sitting there being buddhists, not like they have military power of a thousand suns, just leave them alone for fucks sake. It's not even their war." <-- I think it was Russia specifically who suggested it, but I can't recall. Just stuff from researching for a few days, and asking my family about it. I do know that the US was 100% part of the situation, because there is recorded footage of the tibetan people sometime in the early 1930s, talking with some of the more "planted" people (planted like they are more well known, like a village's chieftan or something strange like that, very bad wording I apologize.) Hell, the US even has footage of their customs and festivals, and as well as chinese soldiers just sitting around and having fun at the festivals, and enjoying some banter with the people there. (<--- just wanna point out that the chinese are not monsters, the government can be a real ass in decisions, and that goes for all countries. The soldiers at the time in the footage were on their way to Russia, and they were just chilling before going on a literal death trek.) I don't remember if there were more countries who were involoved in this treaty, but from what the US government documented it gave a basic layout of the general time in its history. I wished I remembered what it was called so I could link it to y'all.

As for the monk friend, Tanzhin(<-- don't know how to spell his name, he always makes this nice salted butter tea I'm super fond of, his house smelled like incense, and was a particularly old small cheap thing. Well kept, and he had a huge map of the Tibetan mountains, and he would from time to time sit down and tell me and my family about how when he was a teenager, and he had to climb over the mountains. Scary shit guys, I gotta tell ya. The chinese militia apparently with some kinda assault rifles shot at the group of people he was with when they were being practically forced out of their homes. Hell, they were being forced up and over the cold mountains, and there were some casualties along the way. (and no, they did not have food for the trip, just sandals climbing up the cold ass mountain, hoping to see the light of day in a less war/kinda genocidal stricken zone.)

The most interesting thing to me when hearing about this, was the fact that my great grandfather was a very isolated man, in the sense that he never wanted to get too indulged into the details of his running away. And most of my family, due to poor English, can't truly explain all the details that I wish I had. But from what I could get from my family, it's the same as our monk friend's case. Guns pointed at them they were considered "defectors" and were forced to leave. Just an unfortunate mark on history I suppose. (side note: there are stories where they aren't shot and killed at, they were just forced to leave their homes. some of them got to stay for whatever reason, they were just some of the more unfortunate, and no they didn't really do anything to warrent it either. just war and imperealism)

If you guys wanna ask or feel there's something to be stood corrected, then feel free to try and put what you know in the comments. I just want people to know more about the quietness of a situation that could go far south really quickly. (And no political arguements either kindly? Just, I don't want people to be plain rascist assholes in the serious way. Jokes are fine when the moods right lol, but for now, let's keep it a lil down to earth, keep well!)