The Best Thing I Can Do For My Country: Part Six

This is the sixth and final part of the series “The Best Thing I Can Do For My Country.”

Read Part One.

Read Part Two.

Read Part Three.

Read Part Four.

Read Part Five.

The Best Thing I Can Do For My Country: Part Five

This is part five of the series “The Best Thing I Can Do For My Country.”

Read Part One.

Read Part Two.

Read Part Three.

Read Part Four.

The Best Thing I Can Do For My Country: Part Four

This is part four of the series “The Best Thing I Can Do For My Country.”

Read Part One.

Read Part Two.

Read Part Three.

The Best Thing I Can Do For My Country: Part Three

This is part three of the series “The Best Thing I Can Do For My Country.”

Read Part One.

Read Part Two.

The Best Thing I Can Do For My Country: Part Two

This is part two of the series “The Best Thing I Can Do For My Country.” To read part one, click here.

The Best Thing I Can Do For My Country

“Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.”

As I’ve mentioned before, a majority of my students wished to become teachers or work for the Tibetan Government in Exile after graduation. This was how they conceptualized “doing something” for their country, a country many had escaped from as children and others had never seen.

But under the surface, there were other things they deemed as “good” for their country, and those things fascinated me more than their educational or pseudo-political goals. They ranged from taking up arms to fight the Chinese to marrying Tibetan and having eight children (“a minimum” a friend once told me).

It was those responses I was trying to elicit from my students when I wrote the topic, “The best thing I can do for my country is…” on the chalkboard. The responses I received did not mention any of these aforementioned things, although when I asked the students what they thought about having eight children, the men in the classroom usually said they wanted to have a lot of children, and the women had looks of quiet terror on their faces.

Instead, the responses showed a deep sense of responsibility that does not seem to match up with the external options within reach of a Tibetan refugee. At the same time, their concerns include the preservation of their language, customs, and culture at large– things that most of us will never have to worry about.

Over the next few days, I’ll be posting scanned versions of my students’ responses to the topic “The best thing I can do for my country is…”, along with a transcribed and slightly edited version.

The World’s First Tibetan Astronaut

photoshopped by Stephanie

“Hey, I know you.”

I looked over at the teenage boy sitting beside me in the computer lab.

“You do?” There were a ton of little kids running around Sarah’s campus for their winter break.

“Yeah. You stayed with my dad and me. I go to TCV Suja. You have a black camera.”

“Ugyen!” I smiled, remembering how I had stuffed a bag of M&Ms into his NASA backpack before he left to walk back to his home, telling him not to check his backpack until he got there. Apparently, when he discovered the candy, he and his sister plowed through the bag before dinner-time.