(2/4) Just after my father was put in jail, the monks all signed a petition, which we photocopied and threw everywhere in the streets, asking for our freedom and for genocide to stop in Tibet. Because the Chinese didn’t know exactly who put the petition on the street,...
(1/4) I am the only boy in my family, and I have 5 younger sisters. When I was 10, I became a monk. It was my mother’s idea – she thought it would be an easy life, but my father argued against it. He said, we have only one son, why should he be a monk? In the...
(4/4) I was still only able to communicate in English a bit, just enough to say what I wanted, so I started at an English only school. On my first day, I felt awesome – my dream of going to school had come true. I was actually sitting in a chair and listening to...
(3/4) Six months after arriving in Melbourne, I was called from my room at 9:00 in the morning. I had just woken up so I was shocked, and I didn’t know what was going to happen. My case manager said, Bashir you look very worried and I said, I am worried, I’m very...
(2/4) One day, they took us out of the detention centre for a drive around the city for an hour. I remember stopping at a traffic light and seeing some children playing in a schoolyard, and thinking, I wish I could be like these kids, with freedom, just playing on the...
