I am simply a man like any other. As the sun rises every day over the Himalayan Mountains of Tibet that I have come to call home, I cook a breakfast of eggs over a fire of sweet-smelling cedar logs. Every evening, I pull down the door of my shop and count the day’s earnings that always seem to be just enough. There is much to be grateful for. Even as I walk down streets littered with trash, I look for the flowers creeping out of the cracks in the sidewalk to brighten my day. When I stumble and fall over the obstacles in life, I do not let it break my spirit. It is this spirit that I cradle in my arms like a baby, new from its mother’s womb. For now as I write this, my spirit is coming under attack. China can take my family, my culture and my identity away from me, but I refuse to give up my spirit. My spirit is what makes me a man, a man like any other indeed. This is the story for the word selection competition. I didn't know anything about Tibet 's history with China before I wrote it. I was just inspired by what's been on the news and what I see as the classic struggle of the opressed. I got some info today from these two sites though: http://cc.purdue.edu/~wtv/tibet/history.html#iif09 http://time-blog.com/china_blog/2008/03/a_little_more_tibetan_history.html?xid=rss-china To make progress in the short-term, the two sides certainly need to have a pow wow and hammer some things out with some serious mediators involved. I don't think China will ever let Tibet go out of pride, but I think the government could be persuaded into some concessions, especially concerning religion. That seems to be the main issue. Tibetans weren't free to practice Buddhism and still aren't really. Religion is not a popular thing to have, but that's a whole other can of worms for my next post. However, the government has made statements recently about encouraging its citizens to have a religion. We'll see how that actually is going to play out. If Tibetans could handle still being under the Chinese banner for a while, but getting to do things more their way, maybe that would be better for everyone. Complete forced Tibetan freedom right now might just lead to WWIII.