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Coming Home to Tibet: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Belonging
In this beautifully written memoir, a daughter travels to her mother's Tibetan homeland and finds both her own deep connections to her heritage and a people trying to maintain its cultural integrity despite Chinese occupation.
After her mother dies in a car accident in India, Tsering Wangmo Dhompa decides to take a handful of her ashes back to her homeland in Tibet. Her mother left Tibet in her youth as a refugee and lived in exile the rest of her life, always yearning to return home. When the author arrives at the foothills of her mother's ancestral home in a nomadic village in East Tibet, she realizes that she had been preparing for this homecoming her whole life. Coming Home to Tibet is Dhompa's evocative tribute to her mother, and a homeland that she knew little about.
Dhompa's story is interlaced with poetic prose describing the land, people, and spirit of the country as experienced by a refugee seeing her country for the first time. It's an intriguing memoir and also an unusual inside view of life in contemporary Tibet, among ordinary people trying to negotiate the changes enforced on it by Chinese rule and modern society.
After her mother dies in a car accident in India, Tsering Wangmo Dhompa decides to take a handful of her ashes back to her homeland in Tibet. Her mother left Tibet in her youth as a refugee and lived in exile the rest of her life, always yearning to return home. When the author arrives at the foothills of her mother's ancestral home in a nomadic village in East Tibet, she realizes that she had been preparing for this homecoming her whole life. Coming Home to Tibet is Dhompa's evocative tribute to her mother, and a homeland that she knew little about.
Dhompa's story is interlaced with poetic prose describing the land, people, and spirit of the country as experienced by a refugee seeing her country for the first time. It's an intriguing memoir and also an unusual inside view of life in contemporary Tibet, among ordinary people trying to negotiate the changes enforced on it by Chinese rule and modern society.
304 pages, Paperback
First published September 20, 2013
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682 people want to read
About the author
Tsering Wangmo Dhompa
14 books33 followersTsering Wangmo Dhompa’s parents fled Tibet in 1959 and she was raised in India and Nepal by her mother. She has published three collections of poetry and two chap books. A Home in Tibet is her first full-length book.
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Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews
January 1, 2015
Tsering Wangmo Dhompa learnt all about her homeland only through the stories told by her mother. After death snatched her mother away, cruelly in a road accident, Tsering vowed to see for herself the land, the home, and the family, she had come to love through her mother. A deeply poignant read, this lovely book is all about a lost home in eastern Tibet, and is Tsering's tribute to both her homeland and her mother. The writing is beautiful. One is transported to the snow laden peaks of Kham in Tibet, where the nomadic khampas set up their homes in tents and fend for themselves, their cattle being the only means to a livelihood. They lost their home in 1958 after the Chinese invaded Tibet, and despite the losses and immense suffering, they do not bear any grudges. Indeed, Tsering's mother left her home, and started her journey towards Nepal, on foot, reaching only after a year or so. She had lost everything, and yet refused to succumb to hatred. This philosophy is at the core of the book, and I found myself thinking about how many times my ego was hurt when someone paid me the slightest disrespect. How difficult it is to maintain a dispassionate approach to life when you have lost everything! Whilst this may seem like a fatalistic and rather helpless attitude to many, I believe this is the Middle Path that the Buddha spoke about.
I loved reading this book, for it not only gave me a glimpse into Tibetan history and Buddhist philosophy; it also made me think deeply. Growing up in the Nilgiri Hills of southern India, I remember a classmate who was also named Tsering. She didn't speak Tamil, like many of us did, and I came to know that her home was in a faraway place called Tibet. We were then too young to know anything else. As I read this book, I think back to my old classmate and wonder what her thoughts would have been, growing up in a land so far way from her own.
This is one line from the book which profoundly affected me:
She disciplined her memory to give up counting her losses. She gave her suffering one name: exile.
I loved reading this book, for it not only gave me a glimpse into Tibetan history and Buddhist philosophy; it also made me think deeply. Growing up in the Nilgiri Hills of southern India, I remember a classmate who was also named Tsering. She didn't speak Tamil, like many of us did, and I came to know that her home was in a faraway place called Tibet. We were then too young to know anything else. As I read this book, I think back to my old classmate and wonder what her thoughts would have been, growing up in a land so far way from her own.
This is one line from the book which profoundly affected me:
She disciplined her memory to give up counting her losses. She gave her suffering one name: exile.
January 18, 2022
A beautiful, picturesque and spiritual book but at the same time melancholic too.
A newly wed 18 year old lady had to flee along with a group of people including her husband from her country Tibet due to Chinese invasion in 1959. When she reached Nepal only a few from her group were alive; rest were devoured either by the difficult terrain or by the bullets of Chinese army. And then started her life in exile in india and Nepal. She became mother of a girl and worked for her livelihood. She had a feeling that her family members left behind in Tibet must have been killed by Chinese and hence she and her daughter, only two of them, are alive from the big extended family of erstwhile local chieftains of Dhompa in Tibet.
When her daughter was 12 year old she came to know that some of her relatives are alive in Tibet and that changed the things. She explained about all the relatives who are in Tibet to her daughter. She disciplined her memory to give up counting her losses and waited to return home one day when things will be OK. That 'one day' never came in her life, she died, in exile, in a road accident in 1994.
"When there are just two of you, you try to prepare for that time when there will be just one, even if it is not possible to guard against such sorrow."
The kid had received kind of picture presentation about relatives in Tibet, about their village in Tibet, about the flora and fauna of native place and the customs of her native place. Once the kid grew up she decided to visit Tibet for her late mother, to see the life there, to feel her mother's presence there and thus came this book, authored by that kid who is now a lady and currently living in the US.
In the book the readers will visit the mesmerizing beauty of Tibet and at the same time will feel the hardships due to harsh weather and difficult terrain.
"There is an uncommon harsh beauty to the Tibetan landscape. Its nakedness makes it seem incapable of deception, but under its calm deportment it conceals winds so brutal that yaks are known to die while their jaws are in masticating bliss."
Readers will see :
●The social and religious customs and beliefs of Tibetan nomads. ●Impact of teachings of Tibetan Buddhism in the life of nomads.
●The gradual changes taking place in the name of development and modernization in this place which was untouched by any external influence.
●Peoples longing for freedom from Chinese.
●Young generation getting uprooted from their language and culture and adopting Chinese education and culture.
"Tibetan elders speak often of their own end; it is as though once they turn fifty they are close enough to death. They prepare for death with prayers, with circumambulation around the stupa. Death is the vehicle to their new journey. "
The author, who lives in the US, feels that the land and the customs should remain unchanged. She feels pain when she finds everytime that things have changed since her last visit. But she is well aware that it's nothing but nostalgia. She says, "I'm aware that nomadic life itself will undergo more changes. My attachment to the land makes me want for it to remain unchanged but I know this world is desirable because I can leave it anytime I want. It is a world I can escape to but not live in. Why should the nomads live without electricity, roads, bathrooms, shopping centres and heating? Change is inevitable and it will come just as it always has in the past."
Author is mesmerized with the beauty of her land. She says, "There is no land more beautiful than our land." But she is well aware of the harsh winter too. She accepts, "Of all my four visits to Dhompa, I have left before the arrival of winter. If I were to live through the winter in Dhompa, I would write a different book. One that says nobody should have to endure such poverty and such travails. Soon, the nomads will return to their winter base and hide there. The animals will live indoors, they will eat the grass stored for them and the grasslands and flowers of summer will slip away from their memories. They will become lean and some of them will die. If the snow is heavy, there will be more deaths."
The author wants to know about the view of Tibetans on the issue of freedom. She wishes to know about the influence of Buddhist teachings on the issue of freedom. She talks with one of her mother's cousin who is a Lama and was put in Jail for many decades by Chinese.
"He asks me if I know the meaning of freedom. He asks me if I'm really free if I am acting on my desires. The world is essentially like paper. It is impermanent and alterable. Real freedom exists in the mind, he tells me."
The conversation makes her ponder that whether she is free in a free country like the USA.
"In my solitary existence in San Francisco I think of his question and ask myself if I am free. What does freedom mean in a capitalist country? In the West my aspirations are towards building structures of permanence. I'm surrounded by fear. Fear precedes the way I plan for the future, in the way I surround myself with commodities, in the way I speak of my body as though I will live till I'm old. In this free country to build a life on the premise of impermanence is to invite failure."
She concludes,
"Ashang, the Lama, understands impermanence as a key to freedom and to a life light of fear and want. I have yet to learn to be free in a free country."
A newly wed 18 year old lady had to flee along with a group of people including her husband from her country Tibet due to Chinese invasion in 1959. When she reached Nepal only a few from her group were alive; rest were devoured either by the difficult terrain or by the bullets of Chinese army. And then started her life in exile in india and Nepal. She became mother of a girl and worked for her livelihood. She had a feeling that her family members left behind in Tibet must have been killed by Chinese and hence she and her daughter, only two of them, are alive from the big extended family of erstwhile local chieftains of Dhompa in Tibet.
When her daughter was 12 year old she came to know that some of her relatives are alive in Tibet and that changed the things. She explained about all the relatives who are in Tibet to her daughter. She disciplined her memory to give up counting her losses and waited to return home one day when things will be OK. That 'one day' never came in her life, she died, in exile, in a road accident in 1994.
"When there are just two of you, you try to prepare for that time when there will be just one, even if it is not possible to guard against such sorrow."
The kid had received kind of picture presentation about relatives in Tibet, about their village in Tibet, about the flora and fauna of native place and the customs of her native place. Once the kid grew up she decided to visit Tibet for her late mother, to see the life there, to feel her mother's presence there and thus came this book, authored by that kid who is now a lady and currently living in the US.
In the book the readers will visit the mesmerizing beauty of Tibet and at the same time will feel the hardships due to harsh weather and difficult terrain.
"There is an uncommon harsh beauty to the Tibetan landscape. Its nakedness makes it seem incapable of deception, but under its calm deportment it conceals winds so brutal that yaks are known to die while their jaws are in masticating bliss."
Readers will see :
●The social and religious customs and beliefs of Tibetan nomads. ●Impact of teachings of Tibetan Buddhism in the life of nomads.
●The gradual changes taking place in the name of development and modernization in this place which was untouched by any external influence.
●Peoples longing for freedom from Chinese.
●Young generation getting uprooted from their language and culture and adopting Chinese education and culture.
"Tibetan elders speak often of their own end; it is as though once they turn fifty they are close enough to death. They prepare for death with prayers, with circumambulation around the stupa. Death is the vehicle to their new journey. "
The author, who lives in the US, feels that the land and the customs should remain unchanged. She feels pain when she finds everytime that things have changed since her last visit. But she is well aware that it's nothing but nostalgia. She says, "I'm aware that nomadic life itself will undergo more changes. My attachment to the land makes me want for it to remain unchanged but I know this world is desirable because I can leave it anytime I want. It is a world I can escape to but not live in. Why should the nomads live without electricity, roads, bathrooms, shopping centres and heating? Change is inevitable and it will come just as it always has in the past."
Author is mesmerized with the beauty of her land. She says, "There is no land more beautiful than our land." But she is well aware of the harsh winter too. She accepts, "Of all my four visits to Dhompa, I have left before the arrival of winter. If I were to live through the winter in Dhompa, I would write a different book. One that says nobody should have to endure such poverty and such travails. Soon, the nomads will return to their winter base and hide there. The animals will live indoors, they will eat the grass stored for them and the grasslands and flowers of summer will slip away from their memories. They will become lean and some of them will die. If the snow is heavy, there will be more deaths."
The author wants to know about the view of Tibetans on the issue of freedom. She wishes to know about the influence of Buddhist teachings on the issue of freedom. She talks with one of her mother's cousin who is a Lama and was put in Jail for many decades by Chinese.
"He asks me if I know the meaning of freedom. He asks me if I'm really free if I am acting on my desires. The world is essentially like paper. It is impermanent and alterable. Real freedom exists in the mind, he tells me."
The conversation makes her ponder that whether she is free in a free country like the USA.
"In my solitary existence in San Francisco I think of his question and ask myself if I am free. What does freedom mean in a capitalist country? In the West my aspirations are towards building structures of permanence. I'm surrounded by fear. Fear precedes the way I plan for the future, in the way I surround myself with commodities, in the way I speak of my body as though I will live till I'm old. In this free country to build a life on the premise of impermanence is to invite failure."
She concludes,
"Ashang, the Lama, understands impermanence as a key to freedom and to a life light of fear and want. I have yet to learn to be free in a free country."
September 15, 2020
A remarkable book. Beautiful, brave, unflinching.
August 27, 2014
so poignant. as a tibetan, i'm riding on her waves of inherited nostalgia. every thought is beautifully put into words, every page is relatable. i'm thoroughly impressed and extremely proud!
August 7, 2023
I'm listening to a soothing piano theme from the early 00's Barbie films and thinking about this book I recently read.
Tsering Wangmo has lived in India, Nepal and San Francisco, but Tibet is the only home she has ever known. Her mother seeks refuge in India due the Chinese invasion in Tibet. The daughter, Tsering has never been there. But she has learnt to love Tibet through her mother's stories, just as she has learnt to love relatives she has never known. When her mother dies in a tragic accident, Tsering decides to take a handful of her ashes to Tibet. This book is a memoir about her love for the land, her love for Tibet.
No book has taught me more about Tibet than this one. In a series of 27 chapters, the author takes us on a journey through an unknown land. She describes the landscape, the people and the geopolitical situation of the country. She talks about the sufferings of her people when the Chinese ravaged their lands, which is somehow a forgotten chapter in our history lessons. She dreams of a free country. She talks about how the people who were left behind do not like to talk about their trials. They do not realise how much they endured, and owe it all to fate and circumstance. It reminds us that history is, for the most part, not what took place but what we choose to remember.
Tsering's mother is with her in spirit in her homecoming. Her love for her mother merges with the love for her country; the two become closely intertwined. On the way back home, when Tsering shouts in the Tingsikha vale, "May the Gods be victorious," it's almost as if we hear her mother's voice in the echo.
Tsering Wangmo has lived in India, Nepal and San Francisco, but Tibet is the only home she has ever known. Her mother seeks refuge in India due the Chinese invasion in Tibet. The daughter, Tsering has never been there. But she has learnt to love Tibet through her mother's stories, just as she has learnt to love relatives she has never known. When her mother dies in a tragic accident, Tsering decides to take a handful of her ashes to Tibet. This book is a memoir about her love for the land, her love for Tibet.
No book has taught me more about Tibet than this one. In a series of 27 chapters, the author takes us on a journey through an unknown land. She describes the landscape, the people and the geopolitical situation of the country. She talks about the sufferings of her people when the Chinese ravaged their lands, which is somehow a forgotten chapter in our history lessons. She dreams of a free country. She talks about how the people who were left behind do not like to talk about their trials. They do not realise how much they endured, and owe it all to fate and circumstance. It reminds us that history is, for the most part, not what took place but what we choose to remember.
Tsering's mother is with her in spirit in her homecoming. Her love for her mother merges with the love for her country; the two become closely intertwined. On the way back home, when Tsering shouts in the Tingsikha vale, "May the Gods be victorious," it's almost as if we hear her mother's voice in the echo.
December 23, 2025
This book is a love letter to Tibet. The author captures such nuance of Tibetan culture in her writing as she shares her experience of growing up in exile and visiting a home has never really lived in. I really felt I was there as I read her descriptions of her country - the people, daily life, religion, food, nature. I enjoyed how she writes about how Buddhism shapes Tibetan culture in ways that are beautiful but sometimes also challenging.
October 12, 2015
Roots of a person is something that you can't take out of him.
The book is story of Tsering Wangmo Dhompa who is out on to discover the life of her mother in Tibet, after her death. Good story teller takes you to different phases and life style of Tibetan. Their pride,suffering,devotion,bluntness,love,affection,dumbness,blind following. The girl living in US finds its very difficult to come to that fact such people exists in the world today and they are the same people who are her cousins/aunts and some of which have been brought up with her mother.
The book also tells you in detail about Tibetans, their life style,their story, Chinese suppression they have faced and still facing. Still many of them don't retaliate. The pride they have about their customs/culture.
Very good book to read.
The book is story of Tsering Wangmo Dhompa who is out on to discover the life of her mother in Tibet, after her death. Good story teller takes you to different phases and life style of Tibetan. Their pride,suffering,devotion,bluntness,love,affection,dumbness,blind following. The girl living in US finds its very difficult to come to that fact such people exists in the world today and they are the same people who are her cousins/aunts and some of which have been brought up with her mother.
The book also tells you in detail about Tibetans, their life style,their story, Chinese suppression they have faced and still facing. Still many of them don't retaliate. The pride they have about their customs/culture.
Very good book to read.
August 11, 2014
Beautifully written book. Humorous at places. Sheds much light on the language, culture and lifestyle of the religious tibetans. Reflects authors' confusion of her identity, her anxiety towards the future of Tibet, and the constant changes being forced upon its landscape and people. I would easily rate this work 5+ stars, as this book makes me bow to all those people living a life in exile, sometimes never being able to return back.
January 21, 2015
It was beautifully written and gave me much to think about.
February 11, 2021
Tibet was forbidden to me as a child. It was a country to which I could not go because I was Tibetan. (224)
Dhompa was born and raised in exile: her mother fled Tibet when China overtook the country, and it was not until Dhompa was a teenager that they learned that some of their family had survived in Tibet.
Wikipedia tells me that Dhompa is the first female Tibetan poet to be published in English, which is kind of staggering for me. Says so much about what voices don't get heard in the English-speaking world, no?
Dhompa was born and raised in exile: her mother fled Tibet when China overtook the country, and it was not until Dhompa was a teenager that they learned that some of their family had survived in Tibet.
All of her exiled life she waited to return home. She spoke of exile as something that would be expunged over time. When this is over, we can go home.
She waited from year to year. She carried a hope that if we waiting long enough, this would end.
This is not a simple story. (1)Dhompa's mother ultimately died young, in an accident, before she had a chance to return home for good. Coming Home to Tibet is Dhompa's story of visiting her family in Tibet after her mother's death. It wasn't her first visit, but it takes on a new resonance in Dhompa's search for her mother's roots and stories of her younger self.
I am full of sadness at the thought of leaving my family. I cannot choose to live freely in my own country and yet if I were given a choice, I would not leave the life and places I have come to know to live under Chinese rule. I have come to rely on Dhompa with the foolish comfort that comes in knowing there is a place in the world where generations of my family have lived and died. That thought serves to ground me when I feel unmoored by my transnational nomadic existence. (292)It's a wonderfully complex portrait of a place and a family and a history: somewhere that is home and not home; a people in transition, not always by choice. Dhompa is aware of her own limitations in this place: that she is better able to love Tibet for not being through through its harsh winters; that her legal right to be in Tibet is contingent on getting tourist visas from the Chinese government; that one of the reasons she can ask so many questions and cross gender boundaries in Tibet is that she did not grow up there.
Wikipedia tells me that Dhompa is the first female Tibetan poet to be published in English, which is kind of staggering for me. Says so much about what voices don't get heard in the English-speaking world, no?
December 29, 2024
"A Home in Tibet" by Tsering Wangmo Dhompa is a deeply personal memoir that explores the complexities of Tibetan identity and the enduring impact of the Chinese occupation.
Through intimate conversations with family, friends, lamas, elders, nomads, and younger people, Dhompa weaves a tapestry of Tibetan life, from the nomadic herders' unique diet and their seasonal migrations across the breathtaking Tibetan landscape to the profound spiritual practices that shape their lives, such as prayer and circumambulation.
Dhompa doesn't merely describe these traditions; she critically engages with them, questioning the role and status of women in Tibetan society and challenging Buddhist beliefs like karma as an explanation for hardships and praying as an action plan for a better future. She explores the changing dynamics of Tibetan society, examining the growing influence of Chinese culture, the emergence of new economic opportunities like Tibetan Mastiff breeding, and the challenges to preserving the Tibetan language and cultural practices.
The book poignantly recounts the hardships faced by Tibetans under Chinese rule, including the imprisonment of lamas and the forced displacement and death of countless Tibetans. Dhompa vividly portrays the resilience of the Tibetan people in the face of adversity, drawing upon her own experiences as an exile and her enduring love for her family, instilled by her mother despite their separation.
All in all, "A Home in Tibet" is a fascinating memoir, despite some meandering and repetition here and there, due to its intimate tone and insight into Tibet.
Through intimate conversations with family, friends, lamas, elders, nomads, and younger people, Dhompa weaves a tapestry of Tibetan life, from the nomadic herders' unique diet and their seasonal migrations across the breathtaking Tibetan landscape to the profound spiritual practices that shape their lives, such as prayer and circumambulation.
Dhompa doesn't merely describe these traditions; she critically engages with them, questioning the role and status of women in Tibetan society and challenging Buddhist beliefs like karma as an explanation for hardships and praying as an action plan for a better future. She explores the changing dynamics of Tibetan society, examining the growing influence of Chinese culture, the emergence of new economic opportunities like Tibetan Mastiff breeding, and the challenges to preserving the Tibetan language and cultural practices.
The book poignantly recounts the hardships faced by Tibetans under Chinese rule, including the imprisonment of lamas and the forced displacement and death of countless Tibetans. Dhompa vividly portrays the resilience of the Tibetan people in the face of adversity, drawing upon her own experiences as an exile and her enduring love for her family, instilled by her mother despite their separation.
All in all, "A Home in Tibet" is a fascinating memoir, despite some meandering and repetition here and there, due to its intimate tone and insight into Tibet.
January 28, 2024
Tsering Wangmo's mother had came from Tibet to India through the Himalayan mountains and settled down in Dharamshala, a small town in India where other Tibetans in exile like her lived. Tsering Wangmo was India born and was also brought up there with her mother reminiscing about Tibet and her hometown there. Her mother talks a lot about her home in Kham and describes a lot to her daughter and Tsering Wangmo is left dreaming about such a prettily described place. However, their mother and daughter bond was short-lived when her mother got into an accident.
With no-one to call her family in India, Tsering was brought to Tibet where her mother's younger sister, aunt called Tashi was there to take care of her. On being brought to Tibet, she shares the wonders of the beautiful, magnificent place and compares it with how her mother had described it. She visits Lhasa, the main and modern city of Tibet and also her hometown, Dhompa in Kham. To find what happens after that, you should check out the book and read her next journey to San Francisco.
Before ending the short summary, we can notice some blue poppies and flowers on the book cover. This came from a conversation she and her mother had shared during their stay in India. When her mother was reminiscing about those old days in Tibet and described the beauty of those poppies and flowers of Tibet. Tsering had caught sight of a poppy in their yard in Dharamshala and had pointed at it asking if Tibet's flowers were like this. Her mother had denied saying no flower could compare to the beauty of Tibet's flowers.
With no-one to call her family in India, Tsering was brought to Tibet where her mother's younger sister, aunt called Tashi was there to take care of her. On being brought to Tibet, she shares the wonders of the beautiful, magnificent place and compares it with how her mother had described it. She visits Lhasa, the main and modern city of Tibet and also her hometown, Dhompa in Kham. To find what happens after that, you should check out the book and read her next journey to San Francisco.
Before ending the short summary, we can notice some blue poppies and flowers on the book cover. This came from a conversation she and her mother had shared during their stay in India. When her mother was reminiscing about those old days in Tibet and described the beauty of those poppies and flowers of Tibet. Tsering had caught sight of a poppy in their yard in Dharamshala and had pointed at it asking if Tibet's flowers were like this. Her mother had denied saying no flower could compare to the beauty of Tibet's flowers.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 26, 2023
I read this book for my Master's Thesis. I was hesitant to read what seemed like a slow, artsy book, but Dhompa's prose was like poetry. I never really understood why 90s Indian cinema can sometimes make me think that "This is where I came from." Because I did not. I came from the 2000s era of box-Computers, Tele-tubbies and Microsoft Paint. From commonplace objects to the central struggle of the characters, it all seemed to be some trigger to introspect about what I see around me every day.
Tsering Wangmo Dhompa makes clear how a place you have never visited or even been to can still have such a powerful hold on you. Apart from making observations on the socio-economic landscape of Tibet that we may not see in other narratives, it reveals how we may always be searching to understand the people and places we came from. To understand the people close to us, and in so doing, make peace with ourselves and our present. The adage goes, 'you can't go home again,' and this cannot fit more in the changing Tibetan landscape. But this book makes clear that denying people the right to come home is essentially denying them complete knowledge of themselves.
Tsering Wangmo Dhompa makes clear how a place you have never visited or even been to can still have such a powerful hold on you. Apart from making observations on the socio-economic landscape of Tibet that we may not see in other narratives, it reveals how we may always be searching to understand the people and places we came from. To understand the people close to us, and in so doing, make peace with ourselves and our present. The adage goes, 'you can't go home again,' and this cannot fit more in the changing Tibetan landscape. But this book makes clear that denying people the right to come home is essentially denying them complete knowledge of themselves.
July 30, 2022
The story of Tibet is beyond just the beautiful landscape, Buddhism, and mystic culture. It's a story of an occupied nation waiting for its people to return home, regardless of how and where they live. Tsering Wangmo Dhompa takes us through her journey of returning to Tibet, introducing us to her family and friends in Nangchen (eastern Tibet) and giving us perspectives of how it feels when returning to the home that is still under the control of the invader. And the perspectives are highly engaging because of compassionate and considerate questions that Tsering manages to get through to people of the occupied land.
Here is my favourite para: "...My attachment to the land makes me want for it to remain unchanged but i know this world is desirable because i can leavit anytime i want. It is a world i can escape to but not live in. Why should the nomads live without electricity, roads, bathrooms, shopping centres and heating? Change is inevitable......"
Here is my favourite para: "...My attachment to the land makes me want for it to remain unchanged but i know this world is desirable because i can leavit anytime i want. It is a world i can escape to but not live in. Why should the nomads live without electricity, roads, bathrooms, shopping centres and heating? Change is inevitable......"
July 8, 2016
This is a story love and loss, and about finding a home you thought you’d never have. Tsering Wangmo Dhompa has grown up in exile with her Tibetan mother who raises her as a single parent after leaving her husband. She loses a mother at twenty-three to a car crash in India, Dhompa tries to come to terms with her loss and undertakes to travel to her ancestral village with her aunt Tashi. She discovers family she’d been lost to after the silence of the Cultural Revolution. A poet, this memoir is suffused with beautiful, poetic writing, evoking the landscape with its skies and vistas: “The faces of tall rocks are painted with images of deities or with the ubiquitous prayer om mani padme hung or om benza guru padme hung. Like sacred scroll paintings and frescoes on the walls of monasteries, these images bear no name or biography of the artist. The art is an offering to the deities and to all beings who see them. They are a reminder to travellers of our impermanence.”
This is also a story of Buddhism, accepting suffering as the fate of life; about the fate of rural women, tied to multiple births and the labour of looking after these children, cooking, hauling water, working from dawn till evening. A hard life, which ages the nomads who live it. Dhompa also shines a light on the lives of the nomads of her family, following them through a summer and stopping short at spending a winter. Unmarried, Dhompa talks about a man who could not be with her, and her pragmatic aunt says she should marry a sensible man. Now living in San Francisco, Dhompa is between two worlds: the ancient world of Tibet, where modernity is beginning to fray the ancient ties, and the world of San Franscisco where Dhompa works, and lives alone as few do among the Tibetan nomads.
This is also a story about the oppression the Tibetans have suffered under the Chinese, but it is not an oppression that is remarked on all that often, taken with a kind of Buddhist acceptance that is foreign to most Westerners. “They preface their lives by speaking of time as before the Chinese and after the Chinese. This rupture is contained in their use of the term ngabchu ngabgay, which means “1958,” or simply ngabgay, “’ 58.” They also refer to the change in Tibetan history with the term dhulok, which means “when time collapsed” or “when time overturned.” Dhulok signifies a change from good to bad. The elders say they can exhale now; they did not think they would survive the Cultural revolution.”
Dhompa is an elegant, prosaic guide through the worlds, revealing a land and a people that is both unchanged from the centuries past, while adapting slowly to the modern world and all that it’s bringing in. Her writing is poetic, vivid, evocative, thoughtful. I loved the seemingly slow journey through this story, savouring the moments, the writing, the descriptions.
In this closed world, news takes weeks to reach her, electricity unknown, a closed world: “I wonder if Tenzin and Yungyang enter into discussions of identity when they are among their own families. They are where they have always been. There are no outsiders here and so they do not feel burdened by definitions and obligations of belonging or not belonging to one location. They have not met anyone in Dhompa who speaks of belief in other religions and other deities. Perhaps identity will enter their thoughts in the future when more of their young leave, and people who are not known to them come to stay on their land.”
But it’s also a changing world – but Dhompa is able to glimpse strands of the past as the future moves slowly forward. This is as much a personal story as a look into the lives of nomadic Tibetans, and Dhompa intersperses her stories with memories of her mother, and the unique love and bond they shared, a tight bond unique to single mothers of only children. But there’s healing in getting to know her family, in travelling, in dreaming: “And because beautiful daydreams are made of mountains, home and freedom, I dream a different ending.”
Other quotes:
Instead of selling or killing their animals in the middle of summer when the demand is often higher, nomads wait until late autumn when the pastures lose their color and their potency and when their herd is at its healthiest . Tashi tells me nomads want the animals to enjoy the summer after the long incarceration of winter. She says they feel the happiness of their animal and they can taste in its milk the warmth of the sun and the sweetness of the flowers. The hills around Tingsikha are full of wildflowers, purple, yellow, and white. Part of the hillside looks like it is covered in snow. I take morning walks bearing a heart already in love with the land. I smell juniper even though juniper is growing on the other side of the hill. The flowers are abundant and when the wind blows the hills look like dancing magicians in resplendent robes. I stare at the waves of undulating flowers for a long while and enter a moment of clarity when nothing else exists. It is a moment separate from thoughts, cravings, and regrets. I feel awash with bliss and contentment. Then, that too passes.
Tashi says nomads keep to the routines and customs they learned from their parents and they know the basic truths: that life is full of suffering, that suffering can be understood and lived through, that their actions and intentions will determine their future lives just as the past has allowed for this present life. They do not assume this life of suffering is particular to Tibetans; they think the rest of the world, as humans, must suffer too and that their spiritual practice, if not Buddhism, must speak of it.
They tell their stories as a series of events that unfold over time so that the process of understanding a life takes a lifetime.
This is also a story of Buddhism, accepting suffering as the fate of life; about the fate of rural women, tied to multiple births and the labour of looking after these children, cooking, hauling water, working from dawn till evening. A hard life, which ages the nomads who live it. Dhompa also shines a light on the lives of the nomads of her family, following them through a summer and stopping short at spending a winter. Unmarried, Dhompa talks about a man who could not be with her, and her pragmatic aunt says she should marry a sensible man. Now living in San Francisco, Dhompa is between two worlds: the ancient world of Tibet, where modernity is beginning to fray the ancient ties, and the world of San Franscisco where Dhompa works, and lives alone as few do among the Tibetan nomads.
This is also a story about the oppression the Tibetans have suffered under the Chinese, but it is not an oppression that is remarked on all that often, taken with a kind of Buddhist acceptance that is foreign to most Westerners. “They preface their lives by speaking of time as before the Chinese and after the Chinese. This rupture is contained in their use of the term ngabchu ngabgay, which means “1958,” or simply ngabgay, “’ 58.” They also refer to the change in Tibetan history with the term dhulok, which means “when time collapsed” or “when time overturned.” Dhulok signifies a change from good to bad. The elders say they can exhale now; they did not think they would survive the Cultural revolution.”
Dhompa is an elegant, prosaic guide through the worlds, revealing a land and a people that is both unchanged from the centuries past, while adapting slowly to the modern world and all that it’s bringing in. Her writing is poetic, vivid, evocative, thoughtful. I loved the seemingly slow journey through this story, savouring the moments, the writing, the descriptions.
In this closed world, news takes weeks to reach her, electricity unknown, a closed world: “I wonder if Tenzin and Yungyang enter into discussions of identity when they are among their own families. They are where they have always been. There are no outsiders here and so they do not feel burdened by definitions and obligations of belonging or not belonging to one location. They have not met anyone in Dhompa who speaks of belief in other religions and other deities. Perhaps identity will enter their thoughts in the future when more of their young leave, and people who are not known to them come to stay on their land.”
But it’s also a changing world – but Dhompa is able to glimpse strands of the past as the future moves slowly forward. This is as much a personal story as a look into the lives of nomadic Tibetans, and Dhompa intersperses her stories with memories of her mother, and the unique love and bond they shared, a tight bond unique to single mothers of only children. But there’s healing in getting to know her family, in travelling, in dreaming: “And because beautiful daydreams are made of mountains, home and freedom, I dream a different ending.”
Other quotes:
Instead of selling or killing their animals in the middle of summer when the demand is often higher, nomads wait until late autumn when the pastures lose their color and their potency and when their herd is at its healthiest . Tashi tells me nomads want the animals to enjoy the summer after the long incarceration of winter. She says they feel the happiness of their animal and they can taste in its milk the warmth of the sun and the sweetness of the flowers. The hills around Tingsikha are full of wildflowers, purple, yellow, and white. Part of the hillside looks like it is covered in snow. I take morning walks bearing a heart already in love with the land. I smell juniper even though juniper is growing on the other side of the hill. The flowers are abundant and when the wind blows the hills look like dancing magicians in resplendent robes. I stare at the waves of undulating flowers for a long while and enter a moment of clarity when nothing else exists. It is a moment separate from thoughts, cravings, and regrets. I feel awash with bliss and contentment. Then, that too passes.
Tashi says nomads keep to the routines and customs they learned from their parents and they know the basic truths: that life is full of suffering, that suffering can be understood and lived through, that their actions and intentions will determine their future lives just as the past has allowed for this present life. They do not assume this life of suffering is particular to Tibetans; they think the rest of the world, as humans, must suffer too and that their spiritual practice, if not Buddhism, must speak of it.
They tell their stories as a series of events that unfold over time so that the process of understanding a life takes a lifetime.
January 12, 2019
This memoir about the writer’s time in Tibet was fascinating. It is written by a Tibetan who grew up in exile in India and Nepal and then later moved to the US.
Prior to reading this I was aware of Tibet but most of my knowledge was confined to its struggle for freedom. The book painted a very real picture of life in Tibet. The writer’s love of the land and family, in particular her mother, show through and help to provide detail. Through the writer’s reflection we are able to see and understand her own struggle with identity, which also in turn give further insight into the struggles of the people.
Prior to reading this I was aware of Tibet but most of my knowledge was confined to its struggle for freedom. The book painted a very real picture of life in Tibet. The writer’s love of the land and family, in particular her mother, show through and help to provide detail. Through the writer’s reflection we are able to see and understand her own struggle with identity, which also in turn give further insight into the struggles of the people.
November 2, 2024
The book Coming Home to Tibet by Tsering Wangmo Dhompa is a memoir that reflects on the author's journey to honor her late mother's wish to return to their Tibetan homeland. Dhompa, a Tibetan poet based in San Francisco, travels to her mother's village in East Tibet to spread her mother’s ashes. Along the way, she learns about her mother’s deep-rooted connection to Tibet and its culture. The memoir explores themes of exile, love, family, and the emotional impact of being separated from one's homeland. Dhompa, the first Tibetan female poet to publish in English, has also written 'Rules of the House', 'In the Absent Everyday', and 'My rice tastes like the lake'.
November 7, 2021
Hauntingly beautiful account of the author’s visit to her native Tibet. She was born in India to a Tibetan mother who had been exiled. Her mother kept the love for her homeland alive in her young daughter.
The author is a poet and this memoir is part poetry, part anthropology and part a loving tribute to her mother and to a culture that is fast fading.
I highly recommend this.
The author is a poet and this memoir is part poetry, part anthropology and part a loving tribute to her mother and to a culture that is fast fading.
I highly recommend this.
July 17, 2023
The author's personal journey of going "home" to a country she'd never before seen offers a unique and valuable perspective. I learned so much culturally from the daily lives and banter of her relatives. History was interwoven and never felt like an interruption. I'm inspired to learn more.
July 13, 2022
3.5 stars
October 15, 2022
A gem I stumbled upon in the library. It took me to Tibet and I fell in love with the land and the people.
May 12, 2023
This memoir of a woman who returns to Tibet is written in a poetic prose that makes it a delight to read.
June 17, 2023
Beneath the lines, something indescribable
August 10, 2025
This book is like a window to the lives, culture and struggles of Tibetans. I hope this gets made into a documentary, someday.
October 26, 2024
A Home in Tibet paints a lucid picture of the country through the author's narrative. Tibet, being the author's motherland holds a special place in her life and she keeps returning to this place which is familiar through her mother's memories. Her mother had fled from Tibet during the Chinese invasion and lived in India(where the author was born) and Nepal as a refugee. She always had a longing to return back to her country, but she loses her life in an unfortunate car accident.
The forlorn author, unable to handle the grief of losing the most important person in her life, keeps returning to some of the relatives who are still alive and lives in Tibet near the ancestral house.
This is a story of the nomadic land of Tibet and its people, the ardent and true believers of Buddhism and who still foolishly believes that the Chinese will return the land back to them without force or coercion. Hence the country still does not have an army of their own to fight nor protect their own people.
The forlorn author, unable to handle the grief of losing the most important person in her life, keeps returning to some of the relatives who are still alive and lives in Tibet near the ancestral house.
This is a story of the nomadic land of Tibet and its people, the ardent and true believers of Buddhism and who still foolishly believes that the Chinese will return the land back to them without force or coercion. Hence the country still does not have an army of their own to fight nor protect their own people.
Read
December 20, 2022At 194 pages, I am convinced of the wonderful writing style of Tsering Wangmo. The book has also given me a new insight into the Chinese invasion of Tibet and how it turned Tibet into one of the most oppressed regions in the world.
There is a personal angle to this book, the relationship that Tsering has with her mother, her aunt, and her relatives. It is interesting, but I can't go further due to several reasons.
I have a liking for mountains. I know life there is hard. But, Tibet is a different mountains world of its own. The most inhabitable and brutal places humans can live in. yet, the Tibetans find the inner strength and physical endurance to lead a life there.
They have their lands, herds of sheep and horses, and their Lamas to look up to for a direction in life. It is a slow, peaceful life where concepts of freedom do not really matter. But, family relationships that date back centuries are top of the priorities for Tibetans.
After turning the last page of the book, I feel like I have a fresh perspective on Tibet, Buddhists, and their disturbing relationship with China. Tibet may or may not attain self-rule. I wish it happens, or their living conditions improve by some strange miracle from the part of the Chinese administration.
There is a personal angle to this book, the relationship that Tsering has with her mother, her aunt, and her relatives. It is interesting, but I can't go further due to several reasons.
I have a liking for mountains. I know life there is hard. But, Tibet is a different mountains world of its own. The most inhabitable and brutal places humans can live in. yet, the Tibetans find the inner strength and physical endurance to lead a life there.
They have their lands, herds of sheep and horses, and their Lamas to look up to for a direction in life. It is a slow, peaceful life where concepts of freedom do not really matter. But, family relationships that date back centuries are top of the priorities for Tibetans.
After turning the last page of the book, I feel like I have a fresh perspective on Tibet, Buddhists, and their disturbing relationship with China. Tibet may or may not attain self-rule. I wish it happens, or their living conditions improve by some strange miracle from the part of the Chinese administration.
July 18, 2024
i always return to this book to weave some coherence out of the //gestures// situation. when I first returned to the motherland, this was the only thing that helped me emotionally reconcile the (im)possibilities of rematriation.
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my cute lil review from like 2019 or something, clearly a million genders ago:
This book made my homesickness so incredibly vivid. Every moment felt indulgent -- I could imagine the feelings of standing on the land, being stirred by the land. This book is a beautiful reflection on the elders, spirit, and the soil that shape our conditions.
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my cute lil review from like 2019 or something, clearly a million genders ago:
This book made my homesickness so incredibly vivid. Every moment felt indulgent -- I could imagine the feelings of standing on the land, being stirred by the land. This book is a beautiful reflection on the elders, spirit, and the soil that shape our conditions.
Read
November 30, 2017For being a poet herself, her maiden full work, non-fiction so much in the memory of her great mother, every line is a piece of poetic euphony, sweetly, sadly dithyrambic. A great work by a seeing Tibetan woman born in exile.
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