4 Adolescence

Zhang Wan: How to get through adolescence?

Tsering Dondrub: During this period, there are particularly many issues for girls. In the grasslands, many herders aged 15 and 16 are already married. In schools, girls aged 15 and 16 are criticized in front of everyone for having relationships with boys. Many people from society sneak into the girls' dormitories at night for affairs, and those caught by teachers are numerous, while those who aren't caught are even more. Most of these are herders, but there are also young officials. Some girls, after becoming pregnant, return home to give birth and become herders, as there weren't many options for abortion at that time. Most of these relationships do not lead to marriage. In our area, this situation is not discriminated against at all; these children are regarded as treasures.

There are also some who run away, including boys and girls, which is a problem with the education system. For example, I remember very clearly that when we just entered the first year of middle school, there was a girl in our class who got a zero on her exam. The students didn't care, but the teacher mocked her. When the teacher walked up to her, he jokingly said, "Why do I smell eggs?"

Later, this girl couldn't stand the teacher's mockery and dropped out to go home. Looking back now, the teacher's actions were very damaging to her self-esteem, and as a result, she lost her education.

At that time, such things were particularly common.

We liked to tease each other to show closeness. We would give nicknames or use each other's flaws as nicknames, like "big ears" or even physical defects could become nicknames, even using your genitals as a topic. We had a classmate who was particularly handsome, and there was nothing wrong with his appearance, but since his genitals were a bit larger, we always called him "big genital." Interestingly, this boy liked to pull down his pants and play with himself. Even in his twenties, we still called him by that nickname. He was quite used to it.

Ears, teeth, mouth, body, behavior—any flaw could become that person's nickname. Some would even use childhood names. To this day, at over 60 years old, many people do not know my full name, Tsering Dondrub; they only know my childhood nickname, Tsai Ba. Tsai Ba doesn't have any special meaning; it's just a nickname for Tsering Dondrub.

Privately, teachers and principals also had nicknames. The most vicious was a teacher who was particularly dark and not very good-looking; we called him "pig dung." This "pig dung" teacher was a very competent teacher, teaching Chinese very well and being very strict. At that time, teachers were only required to perform well politically; they didn't have to teach well. This teacher was Tibetan, and in our township, which was called Zhihoumao Township, he worked as a secretary and an official, having memorized the "Xinhua Dictionary." When he taught us, he was the best teacher.

Our Tibetan language teacher was very smart and clever, although he later became an official and did not become a scholar. However, at that time, his Tibetan was probably the best in the entire Tibetan region for his age group. His teaching methods were also very rich. At that time, there were no standardized textbooks, so he used some of his own "forbidden" materials, like Tibetan grammar, and took out his own collection, carving it onto wax boards to distribute to students. He was our homeroom teacher in middle school, named Lobsang.

At that time, I liked to draw, so my handwriting was also quite good. After I made mistakes, he didn't punish or criticize me; he just called me to his office, placed the steel plate and wax paper in front of me, and that was it. This was the most troublesome thing for me, as I spent all day copying and carving the steel plate.

Later, we became old friends. There was no longer a sense of distance, and I was no longer restrained around him. At this time, he said he looked forward to me making mistakes every day so he could find an excuse to have me carve the wax board. Now, we are still very familiar, often meeting and talking about everything. When reminiscing, he would also mention who was caught in the girls' dormitory at that time. There was someone in our class who was a year younger than me, and he liked to sneak into the girls' dormitory at night; this person was particularly alert.

Tsering Dondrub was born in October 1961 in Henan County, Qinghai. From the age of 7 to 13, he worked at home herding. 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 languages, 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་རྙིང་སོགས་ཡིག་རིགས་དུ་མར་བསྒྱུར་ཡོད་པ་དང་བོད་སོག་སློབ་གྲྲིང་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་།