“Tibet As I Knew It” – New publication by my Late Uncle Dr. Tsewang Y. Pemba

At the end of 2022, a tweet of mine about the publication of my late Uncle’s book “Tibet As I Knew It” unexpectedly drew a lot of attention. At the last count, the tweet below had over 20,000 views, so I thought I’d take that as a sign that there might be interest in knowing a bit more about the book!

https://twitter.com/_DechenP/status/1608528650495791109

As is already quite well known, my late Uncle Dr. Tsewang Yishey Pemba was the first Tibetan to be trained as a western medical doctor. He was born on June 5, 1932 in Gyantse, Tibet and passed away on November 26, 2011 in Siliguri, India. 

“Tibet as I Knew It: The Memoir of Dr. Tsewang Yishey Pemba” is therefore a combination of his memories of his formative years growing up in Tibet and school in India, along with an overview of Tibetan history and society from his perspective. He wrote this book in the 1990s after he had formally retired as a surgeon and my cousin Acha Lhamo Pemba la discovered his unpublished manuscripts in their Darjeeling house several years after his passing. There is a short foreword to the book written by His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

Publications by Dr. Pemba: Young Days in Tibet (1957), Idols on the Path (1966), White Crane, Lend Me Your Wings (2017) and Tibet As I Knew It (2022)

Much credit has to go to Lhamo Pemba la and all the family members who have helped on the journey from getting the original typewritten manuscripts digitised, to seeing the project through to publication by Lexington Books. Special thanks must also go from my whole family to Shelly Bhoil, without whose help, guidance and advice, this publication would not have seen the light. Shelly has put in a countless number of hours working on both this and also “White Crane, Lend Me Your Wings”, so we are extremely grateful.

On a personal note, my father Tsewang Norbu Pemba and I made our contributions by helping to choose the family photographs published in the book. It was amazing to go through photographs of Tibet taken in the 1930s and 1940s and then the fun started identifying people and places. My father also was tasked with proofreading and made helpful suggestions for light edits. Included at the end of “Tibet as I Knew It” is a biographical note on my late Uncle which I put together.

Finally, another publication by my late Uncle to look forward to is “Journal of a Doctor to Tibetan Mystics and Masters” from Blackneck Books. It will be launched in Dharamsala on March 7, 2023 and my cousin Acha Lhamo Pemba la will be representing the family in person. 

Growing Up Tibetan in 1980’s England

This article was written for the booklet celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Tibetan Community in Britain. It was wonderful to see it in print, thank you to Pema Yoko and the whole TCB Council for all your work surrounding the anniversary.

(Photo Caption: My brother Jigme and I at Woking Fairground in 1982)

There are not many people who could write about growing up in a Tibetan family in Woking, Surrey, in the 1980’s. There were so few Tibetans in the UK at that time in general and in Woking we were two or three Tibetan households at the most! My older brother Jigme and I were both born in St Peter’s Hospital in Chertsey, Surrey and many years later, my cousin Riga was born there too. Although it has been a long time since we moved from Woking, I look back on my childhood with very happy memories, it was both very ordinary and at the same time, unique.

In some ways, it was a typical English upbringing that many will recognise, our green school uniforms, our Friday afternoon trips to the sweet shop with 10p at the ready and holidays involving camping in the rain and stopping at Happy Eater. Entwined with those memories however are the many times we boarded the train to Waterloo to attend 10th March demonstrations, Losar parties, Tibetan language Sunday school lessons and also those exciting days we were taken out of school when His Holiness might be in the UK giving an audience to the tiny Tibetan community.

Being Tibetan wasn’t something we actively discussed or talked about, but it was embedded within our everyday lives. It was just natural that we would speak Tibetan at home, eat Tibetan food at home, and be involved in Tibet related activities that were happening, usually in London. During the summer holidays we could catch up with our relatives in Germany and extended family in Switzerland that had much larger Tibetan communities. During those days it wasn’t so easy to travel to India and Nepal but we were able to go on family trips there in the 90s and be exposed to the exile communities there.

My parents told me that when I started going to school, I didn’t speak any English at all but I soon caught up. My brother and I were the only Tibetans in the school and I would regularly be asked if I knew how to meditate to which my answer would be, no. I think the first time that people seemed to have heard of Tibet was when it began to make some early appearances in pop culture. When “The Golden Child” starring Eddie Murphy came out in 1987 we went on a family outing to the cinema to watch it just because we had heard that it had a Tibetan theme. Prior to that the only cinematic claim to fame we had was that we could understand what the Ewoks in “Return of the Jedi” were saying!

Ever since I was little, I loved books and I loved reading. Woking Library kept me stocked with all the Enid Blytons and Roald Dahls that filled my free time. I can’t say that I remember reading much in the way of Tibetan stories apart from perhaps a Milarepa comic book that had somehow made its way from India. I’m fortunate that my family supported my interests in literature and language from an early age. I went on to read English and German at University College London and am now the founder and editor of a translations website called High Peaks Pure Earth which translates essays, poetry and music videos from Tibet into English. The website was started at the end of 2008 primarily to give an English language forum for Tibetan writer and poet Tsering Woeser, one of our most important contemporary Tibetan voices. 

Included below is one of my favourite poems by Tsering Woeser that she wrote in 2018, inspired by a surveillance camera she saw in Lhasa that was disguised as a Tibetan prayer wheel.

Image by Tsering Woeser

“Eye of the Empire”
By Tsering Woeser
Translation by Palden Gyal

What kind of eye is that?
Yet, it must be an eye of utmost desires:
An eye of greed, anger, ignorance, jealousy, and pride –filled with wisps of blood.
Among the Six Paths, this eye of all beings neither save itself nor saved by,
And such is then accordant with the image of a powerful empire!
That day, he arrived without any invitation, the pale-faced scholar.
Keeping an overtly chastened smile
Yet his movements are not at all that modest,
As he quickly occupied the seat in the center
Exposed his fangs like the glittering of frost and snow,
Revealed his claws like that of an eagle’s sharp claws.
I dare not look into his eyes anymore,
His eyes are blazing with the five poisons
And it can easily control and capture souls.

January 19, 2018, Beijing

Translation published on High Peaks Pure Earth

“White Crane, Lend Me Your Wings” – My Late Uncle Dr Pemba’s Book Launches in Delhi and Dharamsala

On 26 November 2011, my Uncle Dr. Tsewang Yishey Pemba passed away at the age of 79 in Siliguri, India. It was a great loss to our family but his distinguished life and career was honoured all over the world by those who remembered him.

Even though we still feel his loss, it is heartening to be able to announce that his novel “White Crane, Lend Me Your Wings: A Tibetan Tale of Love and War” has been published posthumously in India by Niyogi Books and will be launched at an event in Delhi this coming Friday, 17 February 2017. For the full details of the launch, see this link to the Facebook Event Page: https://www.facebook.com/events/1220255771396207/

Even though my Uncle was a distinguished surgeon and had a long medical career, he had a huge passion for literature and the arts and spent a considerable amount of his free time furiously tapping away on his typewriter. His memoirs “Young Days in Tibet” were published in 1957 and Idols on the Path, the first Tibetan-English novel, came out in 1966.

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It was always his dream to publish more of his fiction so this makes the publication of “White Crane, Lend Me Your Wings”, after more than a 50 year gap since “Idols on the Path”, all the more special and poignant. The novel is a work of historical fiction set in the Nyarong Valley of Kham, Eastern Tibet, in the first half of the twentieth century.

As the book description says:

The novel begins with a never-told-before story of a failed Christian mission in Tibet and takes one into the heartland of Eastern Tibet by capturing the zeitgeist of the fierce warrior tribes of Khampas ruled by their chieftains. This coming-of-age narrative is a riveting tale of vengeance, warfare and love unfolded through the life story of two young boys and their family and friends.

The personal drama gets embroiled in a national catastrophe as China invades Tibet forcing it out of its isolation. Ultimately, the novel delves into themes such as tradition versus modernity, individual choice and freedom, the nature of governance, the role of religion in people’s lives, the inevitability of change, and the importance of human values such as loyalty and compassion.

For those who can’t make it to the Delhi book launch, there will also be a launch event in Dharamsala on 23 February 2017.

I’d like to take the chance to thank in particular my cousin Acha Lhamo Pemba La who has been working hard to see her father’s wish realised. Special thanks must also go to Shelly Bhoil for all her help and to Trisha De Niyogi and all at Niyogi Books too. I’d also like to take a moment to remember my dear Aunt, Dr Pemba’s wife Tsering Sangmo La, who passed away on 8 September, 2016 – they had been married for over 50 years.

For more information on the novel please visit: http://niyogibooksindia.com/portfolio-items/white-crane-lend-me-your-wings-a-tibetan-tale-of-love-and-war/

If anyone would like to get the ball for the book rolling over on GoodReads, please head to: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34208098-white-crane-lend-me-your-wings

Finally, you can order the book from Amazon India – please feel free to rate and review it! Follow this link to Amazon: http://bit.ly/DrTYPemba

 

My First Piece for Huffington Post Published for the Dalai Lama’s 80th Birthday

Just over a week ago I received an email out of the blue asking for a contribution to The Huffington Post to be published on the occasion of His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s 80th birthday on 6 July. Initially I had no idea what to write, after all, what is there left to be written about the Dalai Lama? What could someone like me possibly have to add to all the books, articles and posts about him?

But the more I started to think about it, all these memories started to come to me that were related to the Dalai Lama. Strong memories from my several trips to Tibet over a span of almost 15 years and also childhood memories of getting days off school just so we could go to London for the day for an audience with him.

I somehow combined these few things for my Huffington Post contribution, throwing in some references to songs and writings from Tibet as well. The final piece is online here:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dechen-pemba/kundun-the-presence-of-an-absence_b_7739666.html

A big thank you to everyone who made this happen! Thank you to the Huffington Post editors for extremely quick work.

Dr TY Pemba’s Obituary in The Times

The Times published a full page obituary of my late Uncle Dr Pemba today. Saturday will mark the 49th day of his passing, there will be a prayer ceremony all day in Darjeeling where many of our close relatives are gathered.

Dr TY Pemba’s Obituary in The Daily Telegraph

Despite the sad end to last year and start to this one, it means a lot to my family that an obituary for my late Uncle Dr Pemba was published in the Daily Telegraph in the UK on December 28, 2011.

To read the full obituary, follow this link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/8981393/Tsewang-Yishey-Pemba.html