By Huazejia
I knew nothing about birthday celebrations in my childhood, nor even of the concept of “birthday” itself. I only have one name, which is དཔའ་རྩེ་རྒྱལ in Tibetan, no middle name, and no last name. In fact, most of the ordinary Tibetans only have one name, and we don’t have a tradition of celebrating birthdays as many people do in other parts of the world, although we have a tradition of celebrating birthdays for high Lamas or Rinpoches.
I was born in a remote nomadic area in Amdo, Tibet, and my parents do not remember the exact date of my birth, but they do remember the month and the year—April 1989. Celebrating birthdays was a foreign concept for me when I was in elementary school because no kids around me celebrated their birthdays. At the age of 12, I was one of the six kids who graduated from the elementary school in my village for the first time, and proudly attended a middle school at a County town, which is located around 45 miles away from my home.
Right before I attended middle school, I had carved this beautiful image of my middle school as a place where kids wear clean uniforms, study in clean classrooms, respect one another, and study hard because I had learned from my elementary text books about how kids in cities keep them clean, keep their classrooms tidy, and respect their teachers and classmates. My classmates and I were oftentimes encouraged by our teachers to raise our qualities (Chi. 素质) to the same level as students in cities. As the start of my middle school approached, I imagined beautiful pictures of my school, my classmates; I daydreamed that I would greatly enjoy my life with studying many kids at the County. I was so happy that I had no longer need to herd naughty baby Yaks on the grassland.
My middle school as well as my classmates turned out to be not as nice as I had imaged. Since I was the only nomadic kid in a class of 47 students, it was very hard for me to integrate into the new social environment. My dark face, red cheeks, old clothes, and even my Tibetan nomadic accent became clear markers of my nomadic origin in the eyes and ears of kids who are from urban or semi urban areas. I still remember that I was bombarded by satirical jokes about “stupid” nomads by my classmates in the first few days of my school. For example, one of my classmates whimsically said, “One day, a nomad man (Tib: Aa khu ‘brog pa) comes down to the County town to run some errands. He wears a sheepskin Tibetan robe (Tib: rtshag pa) in a hot summer day. When he sees people at the county eating ice cream, he goes to a shop to buy a bar of ice cream. But then he mistakes ice cream for candles, so he buys a candle and starts munching on it.” People started bursting into laughter, my face turned red.
Since my parents were busy with herding sheep and yaks back in the village, I did not have anyone to lament my classmates’ discriminations against nomads and me, so I had to live with it. It was also this period of my life when I actually heard (oftentimes not invited) a few of my classmates celebrating their birthdays. I was curious about celebrating birthdays, but not really envious of it. Month by month, semester by semester, year by year, I finished three years of middle school with good grades and got into a very good high school in a nearby town. More kids in my high school celebrate their birthdays, but I never really went to anyone’s birthday parties. Honestly speaking, I just thought it was a Chinese thing to do.
In 2008, I was accepted into a well-known English language associate degree program at Qinghai Normal University in Xining, where some of my male friends celebrate the birthdays of their sweetheart. Out of peer pressure and mostly out of my affection for a girl in my class whom I was falling in love with, I celebrated her birthday with some other friends. I really enjoyed it. There was a lot of care and love. In 2009, I came to study at Reed College in the U.S with fully funded by Reed’s financial aid program. Although I have many good friends here at my school, I had never really celebrated my birthday during my school years till yesterday, when my amazing neighbors Molly and Laramie, and my best housemate, Kaatje celebrated my birthday with some of my best friends—it was a surprise, the best surprise!! I genuinely felt their love and friendship for me.
I wrote this story with the aim of genuinely showing my gratitude and appreciation for the affection, kindness, and care of Molly, Laramie, Kaatje, and my other best friends at Reed by reflecting on my life trajectories. I also wish this story has some value in bridging cultural misunderstandings, although it sounds like somewhat a self-congratulatory story mostly about myself.
With a lots of love,
Huazejia