Their Giving
by Sabrina Liu, 2018
Authentic --- otherworldly --- primitive --- all of these words describe the third world region of Tibet. A place my family and I have visited throughout the years, not for vacation, but for a chance to give and receive. A chance to benefit Tibetan school children with their education, life, and future. A chance to acquire knowledge from their way of life without first world necessities. A chance to commit to a work of charity not many can experience. A chance to absorb the feeling of gratitude from living more fortunately than most of the world. Our work is a charity. Yet, somehow, such a charity manages to also cause us to feel indebtedness and gratitude. The emotion of joy when seeing that we have caused the lives of other individuals to drastically change for the better is a mere part of how the Tibetan people have also changed our lives. A change that I once thought was impossible, as if written in a fantastical story. A change that opened our eyes, not just to gratitude, but also to the world. The many cultures, practices, lives, beauties of the world. What was supposed to be a foundation to brighten up less fortunate Tibetan children’s lives has turned into our platform of giving and receiving.
More than 7,000 miles away from Tibet, I am online in the bustling city of Los Angeles in the first world country of the United States...shopping. Buying gifts and goods online to donate to the people at the Tade Temple Hope Primary School in our next trip to Tibet. This time, I focus less on the necessities such as toothbrushes and clothing, as they have already been distributed numerous times throughout the previous years of my journeys to the temple. Instead, I focus more on aspects of my childhood that brought me joy as a child. I figured that if we are all children, then they, as in the Tibetan children, should also experience some slimmers of the outside world. So, I buy hundreds of color pencils, markers, highlighters, paints, crayons, dozens of sets of legos, multiple, heavy bags of candy consisting mostly of chocolate and gummies, and hundreds of cars and dolls. And books written in Mandarin, the standard language in China; thousands of kids’ novels, Anderson tales, coloring books, fictional stories, activity sheets, and educational sets. It would be safe to say that I bought the Tibetan children a whole library.
Sure, I am giving a lot to these Tibetan children. It is as if I am making a whole playground on the dangerous cliffs of their mountains. However, even though I have yet to travel to the Tade Temple Hope Primary School in Tibet, I am already sure that the experiences they give me will be much more than my gifts to them. My gifts, although materialistic, are sure to cause much more than just these money-orientated aspects; they will hopefully give these Tibetan children joy emotionally and spiritually. Yet, at the end, it will be these Tibetan people who will cause the most gratification in me. They are the ones who give back the most.
