Tibetan escape.

• Author: Yellin, Todd S.
• Position: Journal Entry

First, I have to get into Tibet. Thousands of Tibetans make an extraordinary journey each year, a journey to freedom. My goal as a documentary filmmaker is to capture on video this desperate crossing over the highest mountains in the world.

The Chinese have ruled the once-independent nation of Tibet since 1950, brutally repressing the Buddhist theocracy. Tibetans are second-class citizens in their own land, discouraged from practicing their religion, denied a full education, imprisoned for even mentioning the cause of Tibetan independence.

For a long time, the Chinese rulers prevented Western tourists from going to Tibet. But China's embrace of capitalism has periodically pried open the doors to some American dollars, German deutschmarks, and British pounds.

Thus I am able to enter, Sony handicam in tow. I explore around Lhasa, Tibet's ancient capital, for a couple of weeks, then head west into the Himalayan region aboard a Landcruiser.

I hop off in Tingri as the other passengers head west out of Tibet via the one road that crosses into Nepal. This is the only legal overland route across the Chinese-Nepalese border.

A remote village lying at 14,000 feet on the desolate Tingri Plains, Tingri is situated north of the magnificent Himalayas, the natural barrier that separates Tibet from Nepal.

Tingri is also one of the tensest places in this occupied land. On the forbidding landscape, a battalion of bored Chinese soldiers lives amidst a couple of hundred seething Tibetans.

Though the specter of imprisonment hangs over all Tibetans, in Tingri, the villagers dare to mutter three words in English, perhaps the only English they know: "We hate Chinese."

It's just another day in Tingri when a trivial argument leads to bloodshed. Two Chinese soldiers need a lift and wave down a truck. The two Tibetans in the truck say there's no room and apologize. The Chinese insist. The Tibetans offer them the back of the truck, atop the cargo. Not good enough. The Chinese seize the truck's crankshaft, a necessity for starting the vehicle. Some locals stand up for the drivers, and the conflict escalates.

I wander onto the dirt road and see ten or twelve Tibetan men brandishing sticks and rocks, facing off against a couple of gun-toting Chinese soldiers. I run back to my dormitory to retrieve the Sony handicam. While fumbling with a fresh tape, I hear three to five gunshots and sprint into the melee, the video camera clicked into record mode.

One Tibetan man staggers...