Scholar Recalls His Work in Tibet

I recently paid a visit to Song Xiaoji at his home in Longyou， a mountainous county in southern Zhejiang Province. The scholar of the Tibetan Language and culture， now 77， was engaged in Tibet affairs for 40 years until his retirement in 1995.

At one moment during my visit， Song related his impressions of Lhasa， the capital of Tibet. The poetic description was vivid and touching: “Abundant and powerful sunshine everywhere in the tranquil city; Tibetans and Han people mingle amicably; everyone has swarthy complexion and honest smile; streets in Lhasa at noon time are full of people， but there is madding noise at all; Tibetans walk past， quietly spinning the prayer wheel in their hands. For half of my life， I worked in Tibet to promote national solidarity. I have a lot of Tibetan friends in Lhasa. In dreams I go back to Lhasa frequently and experience the past again and again.”

Song Xiaoji graduated in 1949 from a middle school in his home town Chun’an， a mountainous county under the jurisdiction of Hangzhou and joined a troupe of Zhejiang Military Command in September 1949 before New China was founded. In 1952 he entered the Oriental Languages Department of Beijing University after successfully passing the entrance examination. The department later was absorbed into the Central Academy of National Minorities. He was instructed to study the Tibetan language spoken by the Tibetan people in Lhasa. He gladly started his new pursuit.

The first National People’s Congress convened in Beijing in 1954. Tibetan representatives including the Tenth Panchen Lama attended the congress. Song Xiaoji and some classmates were assigned to work as interpreters for the Tibetan deputies. Fifty-six years later， Song still remembers the first time he met with Panchen Lama at the Xijiao Park in western Beijing. The 14-year-old Panchen Lama was tall， handsome and quiet， spending a lot of time studying Buddhist scriptures. Panchen Lama was elected vice president of CPPCC in 1954.

Song Xiaoji also recalls how he first met with Ngapoi Nagwang Jigme. The famous Tibetan was the chief negotiator in 1951 Beijing Peace Negotiations between the central government and Tibet. A peace treaty was signed as the result of the successful negotiations. Song recalls that Ngapoi Nagwang Jigme was tall and lanky， energetic and amicable. He says， “My heart went out to him when I learned about the critical role he had played in bringing the 1951 negotiations to success.” Song interpreted for a meeting between Ngapoi Nagwang Jigme and Premier Zhou Enlai. The Premier praised Song’s mastery of the Tibetan Language and encouraged him to work toward national solidarity and serve the Tibetan people.

After the congress， Song and other service people accompanied the Tibetan delegation to tour the country. After the tour， he traveled by automobile along the newly constructed Sichuan-Tibet highway to Lhasa. The team crossed 14 steep mountains at more than 5，000 meters above sea level and a few torrential rivers before they reached Lhasa. Song recalls that the road to Tibet was treacherous but the exotic features of Lhasa were amazing.

He was assigned to teach in a school where local Tibetan cadres came to study the basic theories and practices. Song suffered from the extreme conditions of Tibet. He had a serious case of altitude disease and lost his weight by 15 kilograms in a short period of time. In the winter of 1956， he came back to the college in Beijing for advanced studies.

After graduation from the college in 1958， Song was assigned to work at the Research Institute of Minority Languages under the China Academy of Sciences. But he decided to go and work in Tibet. Despite the objection of his relatives， he left his home county Chun’an and set out to Tibet. He traveled five days by train and then eight days by truck before he reached Lhasa. He became a teacher at Renmin Middle School， the first secondary education institute established by the Communist Party in Tibet. He literarily taught everything from mathematics， physics， history， geography， politics and translation. He was also a homeroom teacher and an advisor to Young Pioneers. He worked his grueling workload whole-heartedly and slept four hours per night.

In March 1959， Song was assigned to work for the Military Control Committee after the rebellion was put out. He was a member of the taskforce when the Jokhang Temple came under the government’s control. He took part in Democratic Reform in the county. After his assignment was completed， he came back to the school and resumed teaching. He was transferred to a program of putting together textbooks in the Tibetan Language for schools. He also assisted in editing A Tibetan-Chinese Dictionary， which was later published by Beijing Press.

In 1982 Song was transferred to the organization department of the CPC committee of the Tibetan Autonomous Region to Tibetan Academy of Social Sciences. When Tibetan University was founded in September 1985， he was appointed director of national religion studies at the university. He worked there until he retired to Longyou in 1985. He is a recipient of a Medal of Honor， which he was awarded for his brilliant contribution to “Peaceful Liberation of Tibet， Tibetan Reconstruction， and Consolidation of Border Defense”.

Song remembers his visit to Ngapoi Nagwang Jigme at his home in Lhasa in 1985. Ngapoi Nagwang Jigme and Song chatted and reminisced about the past happily. Moreover， his son and daughter-in-law were once his students. They had a great time together.

Song says he grieved when he learned about the death of Ngapoi Nagwang Jigme in Beijing in 2009. Song praises Ngapoi Nagwang Jigme as a great patriot， an excellent son of Tibetan people， and an outstanding leader of China’s national work. Song says his demise is a huge loss to the national solidarity. Song points out that the 100-year-old Ngapoi Nagwang Jigme is a perfect testimony to a popular belief that kind-hearted people enjoy longevity.□