When Tibet Loved China

Rare photos of the Cultural Revolution in the Land of Snows.

JANUARY 22, 2013

Students called themselves "Red Guards"-- defenders of Mao's revolutionary thought. The sign reads "Tibet Autonomous Region <<Serfs Rising Up With Halberds in Hand>> Red Guard Rebel Main Headquarters." The serfs line references a 1959 Mao poem about heroes and sacrifice.

 

Tsering Woeser is a Tibetan poet, writer, and blogger living in Beijing. The photographs were taken by her father, Tsering Dorjee, and published in Woeser's 2006 book, Forbidden Memory: Tibet During the Cultural Revolution. Text by associate editor Isaac Stone Fish.