Tibet & Vietnam

"What do you think about the Dalai Lama?"
(Being super careful with my words.) "I almost saw him twice."
"Where?"
"In India and Nepal."
"You think he's good?"
(Again guarding my words.) "What do you think?"
"I think he's not a real man."
"What do you mean?"
"Real men wouldn't run away from an argument."
"Do you know his religion believes in not fighting?"
"But they believe in having slaves. They had a lot of slaves living there."
(No comment at all.)
My husband continues by telling me that Tibet has always been part of China as has Mongolia, the British just stole Tibet away from China for a while.

It's really interesting how much something can be drilled into your way of thinking. Chinese have been drilled from birth basically to believe that any place that China has ever conquered (in any of the past dynasties) is really part of China. Some people mean this includes Mongolia, Tibet and Taiwan but others include all of Southeast Asia and there are a few people who go to extremes like believing Germany is part of China (I've only ever heard one person I know say this). Throughout my time spent in China and throughout my relationship with my husband I have learned that when he asks me these kind of questions the only thing I can do (without getting us into a fight) is to keep my mouth shut. Thus the three T's during teaching in China have become the three T's of my life - Taiwan, Tibet and Tiananmen (specificially Falun Gong). These are things that I can only discuss with people who are not from China.

Interestingly I am currently taking a class entitled the Peoples and Cultures of Southeast Asia. It talks about how China really never conquered any part of the area except Vietnam and says "The more they [the Vietnamese] absorbed of the skills, customs, and ideas of the Chinese, the smaller grew the likelihood of their ever becoming part of the Chinese people. In fact, it was during the centuries of intensive efforts to turn them into Chinese that the Vietnamese came into their own as a separate people with political and cultural aspects of their own." I find this fascinating but it's the kind of thing I could never discuss with my husband.