From A Tibetan Town To A German City

I was born in a small town called Litang. It was part of the ancient and historic Tibetan province of Kham and now belongs to Garzê Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan province, southwest China. It is also one of the highest-located places in the world, at an elevation of over 4000 meters. Almost every summer we moved to tents for the horse racing festival, which enabled my childhood with a lot of fun and freedom to just play around tents, enjoy hot springs, horse racing, and get lost in the grassy plains.

My adventure started in 2004 when I was 12. My parents sent me to Chengdu the capital city of Sichuan province. They aimed at having me receive the best education that I could get in this region. So I ended up enrolling at a boarding school. Unlike other local students who could go back home during the weekend, I would stay 24-7 at the school until school holidays. That’s basically twice a year. It normally would take 5 to 7 hours to drive to my parents from Chengdu.

The first year was very difficult, I had no family or any friend around, I did not speak Chengdu dialect, I hardly caught up in school. My classmates laughed at my accent, my bad grades, my ‘remote’ culture, and my darker skin. Apparently I was bullied. They gave me ugly nicknames, shouted it out loud whenever they saw me, they throw my things around and made ‘threw up’ faces when touched my things. No one wanted to be my friends, because that would make them isolated & bullied as well.

I could not tell my parents the difficulties I had been going through, because I knew how hard for them to send me away and to afford my education. I did not want to or dare to complain. I was very much confused not knowing what I did wrong to be treated like that.

Those two years were very tough for me. Luckily, It did not remain tough. I met some amazing teachers who spent extra effort to teach and train me. They provided me with a lot of help and guidance like my parents would offer if they were close to me. They really made a huge impact on me, especially my English teachers. Since I did not learn English at all in Garzê before I came to Chengdu, I needed to spend much more effort in learning than others.

The moment when I felt I grew up was when I realized that I could not rely on anyone to understand me. I could only rely on myself to be strong, independent, tough, positive, and work hard for myself.

At the age 14, I knew alreay that one can not change other people, but oneself in order to alter the situation. So I listened others carefully in order to mimic their accent afterwards, I spent the weekends I had at the school to study harder in order to improve my grades. I tried to ignore how others thought about me and accepted that I did not have any friends. I did not give in, knowing that I can change and develop myself.

Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. – Dalai Lama, Haruki Murakami, and M. Kathleen Casey

Things slowly changed, at some point I started to have friends, less and less students treated me badly. Before graduation, a lot of classmates who have bullied me all wrote down apologies on my class books. I graduated from the junior high school after 3 years, ranking at top 10. I was really proud of myself. I guess I finally made it through, and the world is changing for me

In 2010 after graduating from the senior high school, I decided to stay in Chengdu, and make a Bachelor’s degree in English Language and Literature. I was influenced so much by my English teachers.

When I was a sophomore, I signed up for a 4-week summer camp program organized by my university to University College Birmingham in the United Kingdom (U.K.). That was actually during the London Olympics time, when I visited London, Liverpool, Manchester, Bath, Warwick, and some other cities in the UK. It was a 4-week study trip, every time when we visited a new city, we needed to do an assignment related to cultural difference or tourism. I was able to use English to communicate with the locals, express my thoughts, and discuss the cultural differences. It was amazing when I realized English was no longer the subject I studied but a communication tool that I could use to access and explore the world.

The funny thing was, the culture shock and difficulties that I had experienced when I just moved from the Tibetan region to Chengdu in 2004 were way bigger than from Chengdu to Birmingham in 2012. I wanted to experience more after seeing the possibilities and diversity abroad. Thus, I enrolled myself in a double degree program in Finance after coming back from Birmingham. In the mean time, I started to prepare applications for a Master’s studies in UK.

I have imagined myself thousand times to be back in England as a master student. But in the end, I did not make it in UK but came to Germany. The truth is I have never thought about studying in Germany before until a friend of mine shared with me her motivation to study in Germany. Like a door to a new world opens in front of me. I did some research on Master programs in the UK, in Germany, maybe also in other countries. Germany turned out to be the best option, where studies can be taught in English, semesters are longer, exchange semester opportunities available, looking-for-job VISA after graduation potential, and much cheaper. Two weeks later I ended up signing up for a German course with my friend and sending out my applications for the university in Germany.

On August 15th, 2014 I carried two 23kg suitcases and flew to Germany, I was no longer the scared and confused little girl, instead, I was confident and independent.

Every time when I think back how I made all the decisions to be able to stand here right now, I need to trace back to the time at the boarding school. It seems to be a coincidence how things happened, yet somehow it was an inevitable path as well. Guess that is why life is so amazing with such potential and uncertainties. I am grateful that I was open enough to embrace the change of myself.

To be continued.