During my junior high school years, my scores in Chinese and Tibetan were slightly better, but my math scores were the worst in the class.
As graduation approached, I was looking forward to graduating early and starting work so I could get my salary sooner. At that time, we had a teacher named Wanma Ben, who called me during lunch and in the evening, urging me to go to school. Teacher Wanma Ben encouraged me to continue to high school and worked on my mindset. He also told me that after entering high school, I shouldn't be as mischievous as I was now and should study hard. After endless persuasion, just to please Teacher Wanma, I went on to continue my studies in high school.
This teacher is now in the United States, and we still maintain a very good relationship. I feel that the reason this teacher has a special affection for me is that he was both my elementary school teacher and my junior high school teacher.
High school was in the capital of Huangnan Prefecture—Regong, but it was actually not called high school; it was called a vocational school.
My first impression was that the food there was particularly poor, and at first, I could hardly fill my stomach. Sometimes I would be hungry and have no appetite. Often, we would have a few slices of cabbage and a few slices of pork boiled in hot water. The food we were used to was always tsampa, but there, for breakfast, we had cornmeal, which I particularly disliked and was not used to; eating that made me feel nauseous. At that time, I missed my previous school a lot, where there was a pasture, and the food included yogurt, meat, and everything I liked.
When we were in junior high, if we couldn't finish the steamed buns, we would throw them into the gaps of the A-frame ceiling, which were filled with buns thrown by students. That gap was a special little world where children who got into trouble would hide to escape punishment from their parents or teachers, keeping company with the discarded buns. It was a nostalgic refuge.
There was also a memorable incident from the third grade of elementary school. Once, I got into a fight with a student from the Chinese class. When that student ran away, his fluffy winter hat fell on the street, and he didn't dare to pick it up, running away desperately. We pinned that student down on the street, lying on his back.
At that moment, I picked up his hat, and there happened to be a puddle of wet cow dung. At that time, there were people riding horses and cows coming and going on the street. I used the hat to wrap the cow dung and covered it on that student's face. That student looked like he had fallen into muddy water, with bubbles seeming to come out of his eyes and mouth.
At that time, I could come up with all sorts of nasty ideas.
An hour later, that student's father came to the school with two armed men to find me and the other student who bullied him, and they took us away. Later, I found out that the student's father was the captain of a militia squad. His son was also the most mischievous child in the Chinese class.
After being taken away, when we were brought to the street, our school teachers followed us and insisted on taking us back. At that time, I couldn't understand the Chinese spoken by the adults. The teachers meant that you took the students without going through the school, which was too authoritarian. While the adults were arguing and negotiating, we two took the opportunity to slip away.
Looking back now, I feel very scared. If we had been taken to a strange place, it would have been terrible. I started school in 1974, and this incident should have happened in 1975.
Tsering Dondrub was born in October 1961 in Henan County, Qinghai. From the age of 7 or 8 to 13, he worked at home herding livestock, 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 various Mongolian scripts, 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་ལས་ཀ་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་རྲིང་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་།