Revelation of my one (male) (Tibetan) coworker.

The other week, my one (male) (Tibetan) coworker and I were talking during our staff meal, and I asked him what his parents did when he was growing up in India.

He said they were farmers, and from that it emerged that his dad was dead now.

(His dad had a beard, by the way, so whenever he thinks of trying to grow a beard, he thinks of his dad... He doesn't like my attempts at a beard, too, he said.)

Anyhow, suddenly, it struck me and I asked him if he'd ever been to Tibet.

The answer was no, he was born in India, which his parents had fled to in 1959.

I asked him if he still had relatives there, and he said maybe, then he said he didn't think so, his parents were alone when they fled.

I asked him if he could go back, and he said no, the Chinese government would kidnap him at the airport.

I said I knew someone who's French and studies the history of philosophy in Tibetan Buddhism and has studied Tibetan in Tibet with people, and he said that was the difference, he studies the history of philosophy, not politics.