Photo: raggedbanner.com

Tsering Woeser ཚེ་རིང་འོད་ཟེར།

Woeser is a Beijing-based Tibetan poet and writer who is under watch by the authorities because of the critical content of her Chinese-language blog http://woeser.middle-way.net/. Many translations of Woeser’s writing can be read on the blog High Peaks Pure Earth and collections of her poetry, along with more biographical details, are available on the website Ragged Banner. The following poem was written after a short visit to Lhasa (where Woeser was born), weeks after the 2008 uprisings began.

·唯色·

匆匆告别拉萨——
拉萨已是一座恐惧之城；

匆匆告别拉萨——
拉萨的恐惧，比59年、69年、89年之后所有的恐惧加起来还多；

匆匆告别拉萨——
拉萨的恐惧，尽在呼吸之间、心跳之间，尽在欲说还休之间、无语凝噎之间；

匆匆告别拉萨——
拉萨的恐惧，正由无数持枪的军人、无数持枪的警察以及不计其数的便衣日夜制造，更由他们身后庞大的国家机器日夜制造，但绝不许把镜头对准他们，否则会被枪口对准，或被带往无人知晓的角落；

匆匆告别拉萨——
拉萨的恐惧，以布达拉宫为界，愈往东，愈更多，因为许多藏人聚居在那里。到处回响着可怖的脚步声，阳光下却不见他们的身影，犹如阳光下的魔鬼无影无踪，却更加疯狂。有几次，我与他们手中冰冷的枪，交错而过；

匆匆告别拉萨——
拉萨的恐惧，已被那些布满大街小巷、机关单位以及每一座寺院、每一座佛殿的摄像头尽收眼底，已被所有从外界转移到内心的摄像头尽收眼底：“瑟瑟其（注），他们在盯着我们呢，”这是窃窃私语的藏人说得最多的一句。

匆匆告别拉萨——
拉萨的恐惧令我心碎，容我写下！

2008-8-23，离开拉萨的路上

注：瑟瑟其，藏语，意思是千万小心，这是如今藏人之间最盛行的叮嘱。

【8月17日-8月23日，从未如此短暂地，在拉萨，又不得不离开拉萨……是为记。并且，要说的是：你有枪，我有笔！】

[Taken from: http://woeser.middle-way.net/2008/08/blog-post_24.html]

“The Fear in Lhasa”

A hurried farewell to Lhasa,
Now a city of fear.

A hurried farewell to Lhasa,
Where the fear is greater than all the fear after ’59, ’69, and ’89 put together.

A hurried farewell to Lhasa,
Where the fear is in your breathing, in the beating of your heart,
In the silence when you want to speak but don’t,
In the catch in your throat.

A hurried farewell to Lhasa,
Where constant fear has been wrought by legions with their guns,
By countless police with their guns,
By plainclothesmen beyond counting,
And still more by the colossal machinery of the State that stands behind them night and day;
But you mustn’t point a camera at them or you’ll get a gun pointed at you,
maybe hauled off into some corner and no one will know.

A hurried farewell to Lhasa,
Where the fear starts at the Potala and strengthens as you go east, through the Tibetans’ quarter.
Dreadful footsteps reverberate all round, but in daylight you won’t glimpse even their shadow;
They are like demons invisible by day, but the horror is worse, it could drive you mad.
A few times I have passed them and the cold weapons in their hands.

A hurried farewell to Lhasa,
Where the fear is now minutely scanned by the cameras that stud avenues and alleys and offices,
and every monastery and temple hall;
All those cameras,
Taking it all in,
Swiveling from the outer world to peer inside your mind.
“Zap zap jé! º They’re watching us” — among Tibetans this has become a byword, furtively whispered.

A hurried farewell to Lhasa:
The fear in Lhasa breaks my heart. Got to write it down.

Zap zap jé (Tibetan): “I beg you, be careful.” These days, a very common expression among Tibetans.

[I was in Lhasa from August 17 to August 23, my shortest stay ever, and I had no choice about leaving . . . these words were to remember it by.

And there’s something I want to say: You have the guns? I have a pen.]

[Translation: Ragged Banner Press at http://raggedbanner.com/pTFIL.html]