 I was born and raised here. I'm third generation San Franciscan, Chinese-American. When I was in my 20s, in 1986, when Tibet first opened, I visited there and I was taken in right away to live with a Tibetan family, so my trippers revolved around Tibet for a year instead of China. And a few years later, I started an oral history project of Tibetan women. So this reading is from one of the very first women I met, I interviewed. This took place in 1994 outside Zurich, Switzerland, which has the biggest population of Tibetans outside Asia. She was a woman in her mid-60s, kind of stout, and she had been, the only thing I knew about her was she had been separated from her husband for 20 years. She was in Tibet and he was in the West. Let's see. Mr. and Mrs. Paljor both sat down after us, attentive, waiting for me to initiate the interview. Why had he greeted us with such animation and formality, pumping our hands and welcome while she had stayed in the background? Was he going to sit through her entire interview? Her appearance, traditional, right down to the coral and turquoise earrings and jade bracelet displayed few clues of her living in the West, a pink polo shirt instead of a silk blouse under her chuba and a Swiss watch. Was he going to talk for her? I asked how I should address them and they said to call them Mola and Bola, grandmother and grandfather. They lived in an area an hour's horseback ride northwest of Lhasa. She'd been born into a poor tenant farmer's family and married her husband, a wealthy landowner a few years later, a few years after her sister became his wife. Her sister had bore two babies but neither lived, so Bola married Mola in hopes of producing a male heir to inherit his considerable land holdings. I asked Mola if she'd been in town in March 59, the critical month when the People's Liberation Army invaded Tibet and the Dalai Lama fled into exile. She nodded. The Chinese had been there for many years, she said they gave interest-free loans to the needy, built roads, and said they were there to help develop the place. She spoke in a low mumble. She was nothing like the Tibetan women I knew, lighthearted, easy to laugh, didn't smile or meet the eye. So in 1959, she said, when the townspeople realized, the Chinese were seriously taking control, they rejoiced. I was surprised. Bola nodded in agreement. They were jubilant. Why, I asked, what were they happy about? She explained that the Chinese had promised for years that under their governance, taxes would be abolished, debts forgiven. The population was mostly tenant farmers and many carried crushing debt owed to landowners. The Chinese had told them, it always said that land and wealth would be redistributed equally. Bola interjected. I had ridden to Lhasa that week on business. I saw the troops, thousands of Chinese troops, marching in formation through town. I saw machine guns, their tanks, their cannons ringing the city jeeps. I remember it was a full moon. I thought, it is really happening. The Chinese are taking our country. I heard in town, once they took Lhasa, they planned to use it. He raised his hand in the air and drew a circle, like the hub of a wheel. They planned to push out in every direction to take the whole country. I rode back home to get my family. We had to leave. We could only hope to escape with our lives. We didn't have time to take anything. But first I stopped at the Rinpoche's house. I thought I'd take him with us. I interrupted. Who's the Rinpoche? Dorje, my translator, exchanged some words with Bola. As the family had large land holdings, they knew they'd be prime targets for the communists. Dorje explained his best friend was the Rinpoche, the local monastery. He knew the Rinpoche would also be targeted because the monastery owned vast tracts of land. The Rinpoche asked me to come in for tea. I had tea with him. He was talking, talking. A lot. Bola shook his head, puzzled. I didn't know what he was talking about. It went on such a long time. Finally, I rode home. Tea was often a very formal occasion in Tibet. Highly placed monastics such as Rinpoche's had so much clout that one could hardly decline an invitation to tea. Everyone deferred to them. On his horse racing home, Bola explained it suddenly and he struck him what the Rinpoche had been saying. He would not travel with women. He said that, I asked. Not exactly. I knew Tibetans in polite society never directly refused or made imposing requests. Everything was indirect. This saved face for all. Why was that? Was it against his vows? Bola shrugged. Bola looked on intently, silently. His ordination vows. He shrugged again. Was it just personal preference? Did he not get along with your wives? Was it a practical reason? He shook his head. I don't know, Bola murmured. You never found out? No, but it was clear. You mean that's why he kept you for tea? He nodded slowly. The Rinpoche had made his views firmly known by holding forth informal tea. The full implication of this started to dawn on me. So you had to decide between saving your wives and saving the Rinpoche? He shook his head. Lips pulled tight, gazing into space. A chill crawled up my spine. Not to aid a high reincarnation such as a Rinpoche would draw tremendous negative merit or karmic consequences in Tibetan Buddha's thinking. He could not abandon a Rinpoche to what would be certain suffering and maybe death. At the hands of people who considered religion poison, he could not save both his wives and the Rinpoche. What did you do, I asked. We rode to the border. After I left at the Rinpoche, everything went wrong. Thank you. This is called Sky Train, Tibetan Women on the Edge of History. Thank you.