Introduction of Zhang Wan, Tibetan writer Tsering Dondrub:
Tsering Dondrub has always lived in Henan County, Qinghai Province, which is a Mongolian autonomous county where the daily language is Tibetan. Tsering Dondrub is a Tibetan writer with international influence.
Henan County is a small county in the middle of the grassland, at the junction of Qinghai, Gansu, and Sichuan provinces, with an average altitude of over 3600 meters. It has an ecological environment that is different from urban areas. At least before 2018, it was a region with underdeveloped media.
Tsering Dondrub's life experience is vastly different from that of writers in China in the 1960s. He has never left his hometown, working at the county archives while experiencing the changes of the times, observing the people and events around him, and writing stories about the grassland and the county town.
Tsering Dondrub:
Born on October 13, 1961, this date is relatively accurate because life was difficult at that time, with food rationing (supply system). When I was born, my family registered my household to gain a little more food supply.
My father was adopted into my mother's family. My mother was an only child, with only her father and mother. My maternal grandfather was named Wangjie, a Mongolian, who went missing during the 1958 incident, and his body was never found. My grandmother was Tibetan.
My father used to be the royal blacksmith for the Mongolian prince's court. Although he was royal, he had personal freedom and could choose his residence at will, and he was still paid for his work at the prince's court.
In our area, which is pastoral, being adopted as a son-in-law is completely different from in agricultural areas. Being an adopted son-in-law does not affect one's low status in the wife's family. Family members have equal rights as children, and there is no favoritism in terms of property and emotions, unless the adopted son-in-law has particularly bad character. Our family's economic situation was at a moderate level at that time, with a few cattle and sheep, and the family had no problem with basic needs.
When I started to remember things, I only had my grandmother. My grandmother lived a very long life; she passed away when I was 21, and by then she was as old as a child. She lived to be around 100 years old.
My mother passed away in 2009 at the age of 90, also a long life.
Like my father, I was adopted into the Dugji family in 1987. They had many children, each starting their own families. Here, the youngest generally stays with their parents, but we later lived separately. Whether living with her parents or alone, except for my wife's father, I held the highest position in her family, being the decision-maker. My wife is the eldest in her family, and I am the oldest in this generation of her family.
In pastoral areas, it is different from agricultural areas; we do not have the concept of male superiority and female inferiority. Parents treat boys and girls equally in terms of emotional and property distribution, fairly.
Although there is no explicit hierarchy, the low status of an adopted son-in-law in the wife's family also depends on the person's social abilities, with character playing a significant role. People with poor character find it hard to earn respect. In our pastoral area, emotional matters place the greatest emphasis on character rather than money.
In terms of blood relations, it is very strict, following the traditional customs of Mongolian and Tibetan herders. As long as there is a legendary kinship, no matter how distant, whether maternal or paternal, ambiguous relationships are not allowed, and even jokes about male-female relationships cannot be made. In our agricultural areas, it is different; maternal relations are not taken seriously, and it seems to us that the male-female relationships are very chaotic and frightening. Such things are unthinkable for us.
I am the youngest child in my family, with five older brothers and sisters. One sister is from a different mother, the oldest in the family, a child of my father's first wife, nearly 20 years older than me.
Next is my eldest brother, then my second brother, followed by my second sister, third sister, and I am seven years younger than my third sister. My second sister graduated from elementary school at the age of 13, which was quite young among the graduates at that time; others were generally older when starting school. My second sister was particularly good at studying. I officially started elementary school at the age of 13, just when my second sister graduated. She graduated in 1964 and was then sent to the Northwest Minzu University in Lanzhou. At that time, because she was too young, my eldest brother went to school in her place.
My second brother started working in 1965; he was the type who worked first and then learned knowledge.
After I was born, my mother and second sister took care of me; my second sister was 7 years old and could already take care of children. When I was born, our family, because my father was a blacksmith and a craftsman, was concentrated in small workshops. I was born on the grassland. At that time, the pastures were migrating, and our family did not migrate for 3 or 4 years because craftsmen were concentrated in workshops and did not graze.
My mother is 12 years younger than my father; she has a better vision and stronger independent thinking ability. My mother is particularly beautiful, and my father is also a handsome man. Although my father is skilled, he does not have a broad perspective and is more emotional, handling things based on his temper, being quite stubborn and not very friendly to children or adults. However, he is a person who values loyalty.
In comparison, my mother has foresight. For example, she believes that going to school can help one learn skills, which is different from my father. When I was going to school, my father firmly opposed it; he wanted to pass on his blacksmith skills, which were among the best on the grassland, to me and keep me by his side forever. Because I was the youngest, my parents and siblings treated me as a precious gem and were reluctant to let me leave home to live. My mother insisted that this child would definitely gain knowledge from school, strongly advocating for me to go to school. She believed that going to school had a better future and persuaded my siblings to join her in convincing my father, which allowed me to go to school.
During that period, in 1958, 1959, and 1960, it was the time of reclamation, trying to turn the grassland into farmland. After some land was opened up, nothing grew due to the high altitude. I learned about these things later; I was not aware of them when I was young.
The clothing at that time was very different from now. I particularly disliked wearing shirts when I was a child; many children did not have shirts, just a leather robe and long boots handmade by my mother.
2 Early Childhood.
Zhang Wan: What is your first memory?
Tsering Dondrub: In my early childhood memories, besides the domesticated animals like cattle, sheep, and dogs, I also raised many wild animals. I raised wild rabbits and red-billed choughs. The red-billed choughs have particularly bad tempers and peck at people. At that time, there were flocks of them, probably hundreds. When people approached, they would fly away, but the one I raised did not fly; it was a very smart little bird. I also raised a grass owl. Its temper was not very bad. The grass owl is a raptor, very large and hard to catch; I can't remember how I caught it. My friends often exchanged pets; I remember once a boy who was 5 or 6 years older than me exchanged one of his larks for a wild bird I had. It was a type of bird that liked to dig holes and lay eggs in them. After we exchanged, my bird accidentally fell into hot tea while he was making tea and got scalded to death. The lark I got in exchange was accidentally crushed to death by my brother with a saddle. Those two poor birds.
Tsering Dondrub was born in October 1961 in Henan County, Qinghai. From the age of 7 or 8 to 13, he helped with household herding, and from 13 to 21, he attended school. He has worked as a middle school teacher, in judicial documentation, and in compiling historical records. He retired early in 2013 to focus on literary creation. Since 1982, he has published over two million words of novels in Tibetan and Chinese. Some of his novels have been translated into English, French, German, Japanese, Swedish, Dutch, Hungarian, and both old and new Mongolian, and have been included in textbooks for universities in Tibetan and Mongolian regions as well as some overseas universities. He has won numerous domestic and international literary awards.
ཚེ་རིང་དོན་གྲུབ་ནི1961ལོའི་ཟླ་བཅུ་བར་མཚོ་སྔོན་རྨ་ལྷོ་སོག་རྫོང་དུ་སྐྱེས། རང་ལོ་བདུན་བརྒྱད་ནས་བཅུ་གསུམ་བར་གནག་རྫི་བྱས། རང་ལོ་བཅུ་གསུམ་ནས་ཉེར་གཅིག་བར་སློབ་གྲྲིམས། སློབ་འབྲིང་དགེ་རྒན་དང་སྲིད་གཞུང་ལས་བྱེད། དེབ་ཐེར་སྒྲིག་འབྲི་སོགས་ཀྱི་ལམ་གཉེར་ཏེ2013ལོར་རྒན་ཡོལ་བྱས་ནས་ཆེད་དུ་གསར་རྩོམ་ལས་ལ་གཞོལ་བཞིན་ཡོད། 1983ལོ་ནས་ད་བར་དུ་བོད་རྒྱ་ཡིག་རིགས་གཉིས་ཀྱི་ལམ་ནས་བརྩམས་སྒྲུང་ཡིག་འབྲུ་ས་ཡ་གཉིས་ལྷག་སྤེལ། བརྩམས་ཆོས་ཁག་ཅིག་དབྱིན་ཇི། ཧྥ་རན་སི། འཇར་མན། འཇར་པན། སི་ཝེས་དན། ཧོ་ལན། ཧང་གྷ་རི། སོག་ཡིག་གསར་རྩོམ་སོགས་ཡིག་རིགས་དུ་མར་བསྒྱུར་ཡོད་པ་དང་བོད་སོག་སློབ་གྲྲིམས་ཆེ་འབྲིང་དང་ནུབ་གླིང་གི་སློབ་ཆེན་ཁག་ཅིག་གི་བསླབ་དེབ་ཏུའང་བདམས་ཡོད་ལ། རྒྱལ་ཁབ་ཕྱི་ནང་གི་རྩོམ་རིག་བྱ་དགའ་ཐེངས་མང་ཐོབ་མྱོང་།