My Fieldwork in Tibet
Wang Peipei, Sun Yat-sen University, China
From May to July 2007, I conducted fieldwork in Tibet, an amazing and magical place that many people want to venture to for research but are prevented by its tough conditions, especially mountain sickness! It was an honor to have the chance to do research for the non-profit organization, Women and Gender Study Center in Guangzhou, China with the support from the ASIL Helton Fellowship Program. My destination for my fieldwork was a so-called "Burmese" village in Zhu-Wa-Gen located in Southern Tibet.
The Original Goals of My Fieldwork
My project was mainly focused on the human rights of women and children that I thought were Burmese refugees living in Tibet. I had heard that these people had decamped to Tibet because of the tough living conditions they faced in Burma. I wanted to try to offer them some legal support and try to obtain information that could help their current situation and further protect their human rights that were being infracted. In order to do this, I had to first find the answers to the following questions: How were they living? Were they living peacefully with the local people? How has the Chinese government and Burmese government treated them? Have their legal rights been protected? What have they done to deter violations of their human rights?
| The Challenges I Came Across When I started my fieldwork, the biggest challenge for me was definitely the language. I didn't know the language of the "Burmese refugees"-it was a language that combined Tibetan and Burmese-making it very hard to communicate with the residents at first. Luckily, I met a girl who was a middle school student that seemed to have the highest educational level in the village. She knew a little Chinese and helped me with the translation. The living conditions were also very difficult. I lived with the residents of the village. There were no beds, strange food, a lot of bugs, and it was very inconvenient to take a shower. In addition, there were no cars and everything was very far away from the town, I had to walk for hours to buy something and walk a long way to visit the residents. When I was leaving to return home, I was trapped by the bad weather. And lastly, it was difficult to get information from the Burmese or Chinese government. |  Photo Courtesy of Peipei Wang, 2007. |
My Results
Groups of Tibetans escaped to Burma between the 1920s to 1950s in an effort to flee heavy taxation from the Tibetan government. They lived a very hard life in Burma. The Burmese government didn't treat them as Burmese citizens and only gave them the poorest and piece of land. They were not allowed to have Burmese citizenship, so they had to pay heavy taxes and were discriminated against by the local population. About 60 people escaped and came back to Tibet in the 1980s (the majority were still living in Burma, about 200 people). The Chinese government allowed them to live in Zhu-Wa-Gen village. Twenty years later there are 135 people remaining.
At first, the Chinese government didn't know how to treat these so-called Burmese people. They didn't have Chinese citizenship nor Burmese citizenship; they were stateless people. However, the local people called them "Burmese." They could not get the same treatment as the natives and the Chinese government could only give them some basic living assistance, for example, agricultural and educational facilities, in the name of humanitarianism. These "Burmese people" had to stay in their village and lived on the things they planted. They could not have the same education or medical treatment and were much poorer than the locals. In 2002, the personal average income in Cha-Yu, a neighboring area, was $245, but for the "Burmese" people, it was only $55. In 2006, their income improved to $140, but it has still been far behind the local people, who three times outnumber them. Yet, for the past 20 years they have lived peacefully with the locals despite these distinctions.
 Photo Courtesy of Peipei Wang, 2007. | Compared to how the Burmese government treated them, the "Burmese" that I interviewed said that the Chinese government was much better. For many years, they had been trying to communicate with the Burmese government to negotiate some kind of reasonable arrangement. It has been only recently that they were able to finally reach an agreement with the Burmese government and now they have the right to chose which citizenship they want to have. However, all of the "Burmese" people that I met did not want to go back to Burma and all had applied for Chinese citizenship. During my time in the village, they were happily waiting for their ID cards that they were told would be arriving soon. |
Prior to coming to Tibet, I had thought that these people were Burmese refugees, but after my fieldwork I realized that they could not be called refugees and that they were a stateless people. I realized how much more complicated their situation was than my original expectations. Yet it made me more interested in finding the truth of what happened to them. Their history, their living conditions, and how they were treated by the government and local people, all of these things were very different from my expectations. But that is part of the allure of doing fieldwork, you never know what you will find.
How the Experience Effected My Professional Goals
My professional goal has been to study abroad for my PhD degree and to become a professor of law. I really want to use my professional knowledge to provide legal aid to those in need. During the several months in Tibet, I tried my best and enjoyed helping the villagers. The experience of doing direct fieldwork gave me the chance to put my skills into practice and learn how to better manage it. Even now, after my experience, I find that I am still lacking some of the skills to do efficient fieldwork, but at least now I have a stronger understanding and a stronger desire to pursue further research to become a better professor.
Bringing My Experience Back Home
My college has invited me to give a lecture to law students at Sun Yat-sen University. The students are interested in my fellowship experience and I am eager to share with them what I learned in the program. I plan on writing a more detailed paper to describe my experience and will publish it in my community's newspaper and on the Internet to give more people the chance to learn of my experience as well as the ASIL Helton Fellowship Program. What I did in Tibet was very limited and I hope that more people will have the opportunity to learn more about Tibet, and more importantly, bring help to the Tibetan people.
Conclusion
To captivate "a moment" that I had during my fellowship, I would like to quote Victor Hugo ---"Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face." Though I experienced many difficulties in Tibet, I always tried to see through them with laughter. In the end, I have to thank Mrs. Lu of the Women and Gender Research Center, who gave me many suggestions in my fieldwork, and thanks to all of the ASIL staff in charge of the Helton Fellowship Program for their efforts in trying to keep in contact with me while I was in Tibet. Last, but certainly not least, I would like to thank all the people of Tibet who allowed me into their lives.