the situation was not good. As usual, I had no particular negative feeling towards him. I just felt that he held these views due to ignorance. With openness, I continued our conversation. I argued that those Tibetans who had joined the Chinese Communist Party as early as 1930 and who had participated in the Sino-Japanese War and had welcomed the Chinese invasion and enthusiastically collaborated with the Chinese Communists did so because they believed that it was a golden opportunity to develop Tibet, from the viewpoint of Marxist ideology. These people had collaborated with the Chinese out of genuine hope. Then around 1956 or 1957 most of them were dismissed from the various Chinese offices, some were imprisoned and others disappeared. Thus I explained that we are not anti-Chinese or anti-Communist. In fact, I sometimes think of myself as a half-Marxist, half-Buddhist. I explained all these different things to him with sincere motivation and openness and after some time his attitude completely changed. This instance gives me some confirmation that even if there is a big difference of opinion, you can communicate on a human level. You can put aside these different opinions and communicate as human beings. I think that is one way to create positive feelings in other people’s minds.
