摘自09年4月号杂志: DOLMA
1.Where were you born?
Zhu Rui: Northeastern China.
2. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood and schooling in China?
Zhu Rui: I was still a school girl when the Culture Revolution swept across China. The most enduring memory in my mind of that time was a public campaign called "Recalling the Bitterness and Recalling Sweetness". A "liberated serf" was invited all the way from Tibet to speak, and standing on stage, recited how prior to the Communist Party's Liberation of Tibet, serfs' lives were worse than that of animals. He spoke of the inhuman treatment received by serfs at the hands of the three biggest representatives of serf owners, of how serfs would be skinned alive, their flesh stripped from their bones. He spoke of how the Dalai Lama was the representative of those bad people, of how He and the exploiting classes are attempting to restore His lost paradise and bring all the masses back again into hell. He spoke of how all the serfs hated the rich, how this feeling went deep into the marrow of their bones, and how they were always on alert, in a fight to the end with the exploiters headed by the Dalai Lama. At the end of the meeting, we also had to eat the kinds of food that serfs eat.
3. Prior to visiting Tibet, how did you view Tibet and Tibetan people?
Zhu Rui: I imagined Tibet as a very backward, remote and even barbaric place. I imagined Tibetans as a group of people who loved the socialist mother nation, felt grateful to the Communist Party, and all held the deepest hatred for the Dalai Lama. However, in the mind 1980s, I had the rare opportunity to read some books on Tibet written by foreign authors, which, to some extent, enriched my understanding of Tibet. However, this was only the kind of understanding that remains on the surface level in terms of the environment, local traditions and culture. A deeper understanding in terms of the real history of Tibet, the sufferings facing Tibetans since the 1950s, the killings and the destruction wrought by the Communist army were things I never knew of.
4. When was your first visit to Tibet?
Zhu Rui: In 1997.
5. What were your impressions? And how did they conflict or correspond to your previously held views?
Zhu Rui: The first thing that caught my eye was the landscape of Tibet, so totally different from that of China, and the totally unique Tibetan architecture, language, and customs;it was as if I was in a foreign country. Tibetans, be it the ordinary Tibetans, or the Tibetans that we used to criticize as representatives of serf-owners, all have a strong inner nature based on compassion, and almsgiving and helping others are traditions deeply rooted within them. What is more important, is that almost everyone misses the Dalai Lama, and think that his exile is akin to the sun not rising in Tibet, a sentiment which forms a very striking contrast to the propaganda of the Chinese Communist Government.
6. What originally inspired you to become a journalist and author? What drives you now?
Zhu Rui: Writing is my life. Before I went to Tibet, I was a journalist and my writing then concentrated on the day to day life of the Chinese in Northern China. However, starting from the time I saw Tibet, my focus shifted, and my writings about Northern China became fewer and fewer. Increasingly, I wrote on Tibet, the Tibetan landscape, the Tibetan spirit, and especially following the March protests of 2008, more and more about the sufferings of Tibetans.
7. Could you tell us a bit about your work prior to your re-location to Lhasa? Why did you leave?
Zhu Rui:I was a teacher and later I became a journalist in a news agency in Northeastern China. Because of my passion, my love for the unique culture of Tibet that is on the verge of extinction, I chose to work in Tibet, and I gave up the environment I had back home that was materially superior to that of Tibet.
8. When did you begin working in Tibet? What were your motivations for doing so?
Zhu Rui: In 1999. People say that Tibet is a world of spirituality, a world of giving, while the world of the Chinese is a world of demanding. As a writer, it came naturally to me to choose a world of spirituality.
9. Can you tell us about your experiences working with Woeser?
Zhu Rui: We are good friends, with very similar aesthetics. Quite often we both would have a common liking and appreciation of certain things, such as a Thangka, an old song, an article. At the same time, we share a mutual appreciation and respect for the other's works. She was my editor, and many articles that I published were edited by her. Before I immigrated to Canada, I specially wrote an article called Woeser's Home.
10. How did the time you spent working in Tibet and Lhasa effect you? How did it impact your thinking or your opinions?
Zhu Rui: As an editor and journalist myself, I had the opportunity to interview Tibetans from all walks of life, of all ages. I could genuinely feel that harmony, peace and freedom that existed previously in Tibet. Many Tibetans who grew up during the time of "old Tibet" are writers with abundant knowledge and are highly respected by the world. The truths have been distorted by Chinese propaganda. Fifty years of killings, destruction and plunder carried out by the Chinese Communist Party in Tibet have caused unprecedented suffering for the Tibetan people, and this government has, at the same time, fooled whole generations of Chinese as well. As a Chinese, I am obliged to tell the world the sufferings of the Tibetans and the beauty of their spirituality that has been blotted out, and at the same time I feel repentant to the Tibetan people.
11. You stress in your writings that both Tibetan and Chinese people suffer under the current Communist regime, that it is the government that is the culprit, and not Chinese people as a whole. What steps do you think can be taken to ensure greater understanding and unified cooperation between both dispossessed groups?
Zhu Rui: Writing articles, initiating research programs and establishing Chinese-Tibetan Friendship Associations are some ways to promote a true Chinese understanding of the real historical facts of Tibet, in particular, the facts of the last fifty years and the Chinese Communist Government occupation of Tibet. This understanding will include recognition of the tragedies faced by Tibetans and the fact that the very identity of Tibetans is dying out. It will allow more and more Chinese people to genuinely understand the sufferings of Tibetans and promote the realization that both ethnic groups are equally suppressed by the Chinese Communist Party. It is only where ethnic groups can stand together in a solidarity based upon equality and respect that ethnic groups can co-exist in this world.
12. In your opinion, what concrete measures can be implemented now for the practical realization of this goal? What steps can be taken from Dharamsala, by the Government-in-Exile or Tibetan NGOs?
Zhu Rui: To create a dialog with the Chinese people, it is necessary to show the world the facts of Tibet, to allow the Chinese people to see through the Red Propaganda of the Chinese Communist Party. Since the Chinese Government thinks that Tibet is an inseparable part of China, and the Tibetan Government-in-Exile also would like to discuss the issue under the framework of People's Republic of China, I personally think that both sides can set about establishing some practical initiatives in the next dialogue to come. For example: overseas Tibetans should be allowed togo back to see their families and relatives like overseas Chinese from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan-they should be granted the right to visit China. A detailed plan of cultural exchange should also be proposed including initiatives such as academic exchange, folk traditional exchange etc so as to enrich the understandings of both sides.
13. Do you think that the current regime in power actively discourages the dissemination of knowledge and actively undermines understanding? And if so, what can be done to change this situation short of a systemic change of government?
Zhu Rui: Yes obviously. First of all, it is necessary to break down the blockages on the flow of information. Although there are large numbers of internet police monitoring and filtering the information on the net, this is, however, the IT era, and they can never block everything.
14. From a personal political standpoint, how would you like to see the political situation in Tibet resolved?
Zhu Rui: As a Chinese, I totally respect and support the decisions made by the Tibetans themselves, be it for independence or autonomy.
15. Given genuine autonomy, do you feel that Han Chinese and Tibetans can co-exist peacefully in Tibet?
Zhu Rui: For thousands of years in history, the overwhelming majority of the time, relations between the two ethnic groups have been very friendly. It is only since the start of Chinese Communist rule over Tibet that Han-Tibetan relationships became sensitive. Therefore, I think that it is only when genuine autonomy is given to the Tibetan people and when the poisons of Han chauvinism, Great Power imperialism and ethnic discrimination are reduced and eliminated that both ethnic groups can live in genuine harmony and equality. The Middle Way Approach is unquestionably based on the mutual benefit of both Han and Tibetans.
16. History abounds with situations of continued inequality, oppression, and conflict between former colonizers and those colonized. As a colonized nation, do you think Tibet will fall victim to similar conflicts?
Zhu Rui: No not at all, Tibet is different from other areas. The obvious stories of success in fifty years of exile are a case in point. Under the leadership of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the establishment of a democratic system has laid a solid foundation for Tibetans to manage their own affairs in the future.
17. Do you ever fear for the safety of yourself or your family back in China as a result of your political writings?
Zhu Rui: In China or in Tibet, it is highly likely that I may lose the rights that I am supposed to enjoy, and it is even possible that my visa application would be rejected. However, if telling a lie is the price I have to pay to get the fundamental rights that I am supposed to have, I would rather not have them at all. This is my basic principal as a human being: empathize with those vulnerable, and speak the truth.
18. Is there anything else that you would like to say to our readers?
Zhu Rui: Please protect Tibetan culture. As long the Tibetan culture is here, Tibetans as an ethnic group will exist, and as long as Tibetans as an ethnic group are here, there will be a solution to the issue of Tibet at the end.
