Far From the Rooftop: Tibetan Identity & Exile in Amy Yee’s New Book

Amy Yee’s 2023 book “Far From the Rooftop of the World: Travels Among Tibetan Refugees on Four Continents” emerged from an unexpected encounter with the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, India, following the 2008 Lhasa protests and crackdown. The award-winning journalist and former Financial Times foreign correspondent spent 14 years documenting the lives of Tibetans in exile across four continents, exploring themes of cultural identity, life in exile, and the injustices faced by Tibetans since China’s 1950 invasion.

The book, published by UNC Press Books on October 12, 2023, is not an academic history or memoir but rather a close-up examination of ordinary Tibetans navigating life far from their homeland. Yee’s reporting spans from India to Australia to New York City, following refugees who fled Tibet under life-threatening conditions.

The Project’s Origins

Yee’s journey began in 2008 when she found herself covering a press conference with the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, his exile home in India. The 2008 Lhasa protests and subsequent crackdown resulted in the deaths of at least 100 Tibetans and some 19 Chinese people, including civilians. At the end of a crowded press conference, Yee received an unexpected hug from the Dalai Lama that helped set the project in motion.

When I was in Dharamsala that week, I was completely amazed by what I was seeing. It was like a parallel universe of Tibet. People were marching and demonstrating nonviolently, thousands of people in the streets of Dharamsala, holding signs and the Tibetan flag and pictures of the Dalai Lama to support their compatriots within Tibet. Inside Tibet people had tried to do the same thing and were arrested or worse, being shot and killed.

Amy Yee

Yee noted that Tibetans in exile in India were in some ways more Tibetan than those in Tibet, where they face severe repression. This observation sparked her interest in how identity is preserved even in exile.

Immersion in Dharamsala

After deciding to pursue the project, Yee lived in Dharamsala for about a year, residing in a Buddhist nunnery. She continued visiting every summer from 2010 until around 2015, creating what she described as a longitudinal study told in a narrative way. The nunnery offered a rich sensory experience, from sunrises visible from her bed to the sounds of donkeys on the road, monks debating, nuns chanting, and the lunch bell clanging.

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Yee recalled one religious festival celebrating the birthday of the founder of a Buddhist sect, when the nunnery and Dharamsala were lit up with candles overnight. Despite Dharamsala being dirty, that night it appeared stunning, like a beacon during a dark time for Tibet and Tibetans.

Personal Involvement in Reporting

Yee described her approach as trying to strike a balance between journalistic objectivity and unexpected personal involvement. She wrote that she mostly wanted to be a fly on the wall, but sometimes became a fly in the soup.

In one chapter titled “Money Matters,” Yee wrote about meeting a couple named Deckyi and Dhondup who fled Tibet as a direct result of helping someone photocopy flyers used in the March 2008 protests. The couple, fluent in Mandarin, found work at a call center in Delhi making calls to China. When the manager didn’t pay them months’ worth of wages, Yee helped them recover the money through a legal battle.

Similarly, Yee rescued an injured cat she later named Shimmy, which led to meeting Topden, a young basketball-playing monk who fled Tibet in his teens and became a veterinary assistant in Dharamsala.

Stories of Refugees

The book features several individuals whose stories illustrate the Tibetan exile experience. Norbu was just 13 in 1988 when he was rounded up in Lhasa by authorities during protests, beaten, and detained for three months of interrogation. He fled to India and cannot get a visa to return home. The chapter about him is titled “Since Then I Lost My Chance,” a direct quote from Norbu.

My wish is to go to Tibet to see my mother. I wish we could meet again before she dies. Every day I go to temple to pray.

Norbu

When Yee visited Norbu in 2015 in Australia, he was working in a nursing home as a chef, still unable to see his mother but helping aging people. Yee noted that thousands have fled Tibet as children, sometimes walking for weeks to the border under life-threatening conditions, including crossing glaciers without proper equipment.

The book also includes the story of Kelsang Namtso, a 17-year-old Buddhist nun who was shot at by Chinese troops just 400 meters from the Nepal border. When asked what kept her going, her reply was an audience with the Dalai Lama.

Identity and Motivation

Yee observed that Tibetans fleeing Tibet are probably not going to have better economic prospects in India and will likely make less money. Their migration is ideological and spiritual rather than economic, distinguishing them from many other immigrants.

Yee, who is Asian American, expressed interest in how people balance different facets of identity and navigate between worlds. She noted that tens of thousands of Tibetans weren’t born in Tibet but are still Tibetan, even though they haven’t been to Tibet, while some feel influenced by India where they grew up.

Nonviolence and Resistance

In the book’s foreword, the Dalai Lama writes about the values of the Tibetan people, which include pacifism and nonviolence. Yee noted that nonviolence is not necessarily the same as pacifism, and historically Tibetans have battled, though nonviolence is generally valued.

Yee quoted the Dalai Lama from her prologue: “We are not writing a novel. We are facing life and death.” She also referenced Gene Sharp’s study of nonviolent movements, noting that peaceful protest is best not for moral reasons but because violence provokes autocrats to crack down.

Hope and Preservation

Despite the difficult subject matter, Yee emphasized that the stories in the book are inspiring rather than depressing. She pointed to the settlement in Bylakuppe, Southern India, which was wilderness when Tibetans settled there in the 1960s and is now full of farms with monks on tractors in cornfields.

The head of the Tibetan Children’s Village in Dharamsala stated: “The Chinese are destroying Tibetan identity. If Tibet is to survive as a race and a nation, our hope is our children.”

Yee concluded her reporting in New York City, where she met Topden in his new home. She witnessed Tibetans in Australia learning to swim and becoming Australians, and attended a Losar Tibetan New Year celebration in Melbourne that incorporated traditional dances with modern elements like “Gangnam Style.”

As journalists, we often only talk or write about human rights when there’s a violation, when something terrible has happened. We forget about the human part of the human-rights conversation.

Amy Yee

The 280-page book weaves a sweeping travel narrative with intimate on-the-ground reportage, telling stories against the backdrop of milestones and events in Tibet’s recent history. The resulting portrait illuminates the humanity, strength, and perseverance of a people whose homeland is in crisis.