Narrator
Child Panchen Lama—wears lama (pointed) hat and robe/scarf
Monk—wears monk’s garb
Chinese officer—wears army jacket and hat. Prop (toy) gun
Tibetan man—wears Tibetan chuba, a belt, and a traditional knife

Music: Either recorded or live Tibetan longhorns, and a live drum beat.

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Narrator:

When the 10th Panchen Lama of Tibet died, the search for his reincarnation began. After an appropirate period of time, the lamas found the rebirth.
From his exile in India, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet announced the happy news—the new Panchen Lama
had been found!

Tibetans everywhere rejoiced.

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(Monk enters from downstage right leading Child. Joyful music (taped or live longhorns and drums). He leads the child slowly across the stage, working his way toward downstage left, showing him to the audience.

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Narrator:

The Chinese, however, were not amused.

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Menacing drumbeat.

Enter Officer from the audience at the front of stage right. He is surly with the crowd, swaggers onto the stage and strides across to downstage left.

Monk turns at drumbeat, sees Officer, and quickly whisks Child away to downstage left, where Tibetan Man meets him. When Officer approaches, Monk hides the child behind him.

Dialogue begins. Throughout, child remains hidden. He peeks out every so often to see what is going on, especially when they get loud.
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Officer:

Where is the boy?

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Tibetan:

Boy? What boy? I have no son....ask anyone.

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Officer:

Don’t play dumb with me! The boy! The fake Panchen Lama!

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Tibetan:

Fake Panchen Lama? (to audience) Do you know anything about a
fake Panchen Lama?

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Officer:

The real Panchen Lama, chosen officerly by the People’s
Government, is being enthroned as we speak! The boy you
are hiding is a poor, misguided child. We have come to take him
to safety—we already have his parents under our protection.

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Tibetan:

Protection? From what?

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Officer:

From the evil splittists who wish to use him to undermine the great motherland.

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Tibetan:

Splittists? There are no splittists here, only patriots! For thousands of years, we Tibetans lived in peace, harmony and freedom. Until you Chinese came here with your tanks and airplanes and occupied our country! You killed our people, destroyed our culture, and forced many of us into exile. Ever since you came here, we have lived with death, destruction and genocide. We wish to split nothing—we just want you to go home.

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Officer:

Splittists! The Dalai Clique. Those who follow that exiled criminal who
dares to interfere in the internal affairs of China. He has named a fake
Panchen Lama, to confuse the people!

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Tibetan:

Now I am confused. You and your government are still communists, yes?

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Officer: Of course.

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Tibetan:

But you believe in Buddhism? You believe in rebirth?

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Officer:

(Snorts) Don’t be ridiculous. There is no such thing!

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Tibetan:

Then how can you say the Chinese government has found the true
rebirth?

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Officer:

The people’s government has found the true rebirth! Yes! He is being
enthroned now!

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Tibetan:

But if you are Communists and don’t believe in rebirth, then how can you
say this?

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Officer:

Silence, you dog! (Raises his hand)

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(Tibetan reaches for his knife. Officer points his gun at him. Tibetan smiles widely and pretends he was going to scratch himself.)

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Officer:

(Patronizingly) It is not your fault. You are just a superstitious, ignorant, inferior man, raised in this backward, uncultured place. (Looks around distastefully.)

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(Tibetan scratches openly, eyes of steel)

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Officer:

(As if speaking to a child). Only the Communist Party is qualified to name
a rebirth.

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Tibetan:

Not the Dalai Lama, the foremost Buddhist in the world?

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Officer:

(Spits) Pah! That splittist! He thinks Tibet belongs to Tibetans!

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Tibetan:

(Eyes the audience) What a strange idea!

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Officer:

Before we came here to rescue you, what was Tibet?
A backward land of poverty and ignorance!

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Tibetan:

(Getting angry) Before you came here, we Tibetans were free and happy! Tibet never had a famine until you Chinese took over our country! Our great monasteries and universities flourished! Today, in the rest of the world, our culture and philosophy are respected and our history studied by scholars! Tibet is a great culture and was a proud nation until you Chinese destroyed us with your bombs and tanks!

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Officer:

All lies, spread by outsiders!

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Tibetan:

You are the outsiders!

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Officer:

We are all Chinese. This is not Tibet, this is China. We are all Chinese. (waving his hand inclusively to everyone).

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Tibetan:

But you said we are ignorant and inferior. If we are all Chinese, then you are saying that Chinese are ignorant and inferior!

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Officer:

How dare you insult me! You are nothing like us! You are barbarians!
You are all barbarians! (Waving his hand inclusively to everyone)

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Tibetan:

Finally you have shown us your true mind.

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Officer:

(Angry) Where is the boy?

(He pushes past the Tibetan and pulls the boy from behind the Monk.
The Tibetan pulls out his knife. The officer drags the boy away crying,
and exits off upstage right, through the audience and away. The Tibetan
keeps his knife out. Monk comes to the Tibetan, puts his arm around his
shoulder. They stand watching as the soldier and the child disappear.

TIBETAN MAN and OFFICER take positions to either side of the throne.
Each reads in turn as specified below, then each gives a final
monologue.


NARRATOR READS:

December 8, 1995—Associated Press
BEIJING -- Amid clouds of incense, a Communist official marched a seemingly bewildered 6-year-old boy to a bed-like throne Friday and declared him Tibet's second-ranking Buddhist leader.

The ritual was not only religious, but political. It was aimed squarely at the authority of the exiled Dalai Lama, Tibetan Buddhism's top figure, who opposes China's control of Tibet and approved another 6-year-old boy for the same post.


January 15, 1999
China has turned down a United States request for access to a boy spiritual leader designated by the Dalai Lama.

The US assistant Secretary of State said he had asked to see the Tibetan boy, named as the reincarnation of the previous Panchen Lama. The boy, who disappeared with his family in 1995, is now nine years old.

A senior Chinese Foreign Ministry official told a news conference that the boy and his family did not want visits and that precautions were necessary for the sake of their safety.

The Chinese authorities have designated their own Panchen Lama, but few Tibetans recognize the child as legitimate.

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OFFICER READS

JUNE 27TH, 1999—Xinhua News Service
The 9 year old 11th Panchen Lama attended a summer thangka-exhibition ceremony at Tibet's Tashi Lungpo lamasery today.

During this ceremony, a giant Tibetan thangka, a satin embroidered icon roughly 15 stories high, was unfurled by horn-blowing monks behind the monastery, which houses the world's biggest bronze Buddha.

NARRATOR READS

JUNE 28TH—REUTERS
The 9 year old boy picked by Beijing as Tibet's second
holiest figure is under heavy police protection because of fears for his safety on his first return to the Himalayan region.

On Monday, the Panchen Lama was escorted in a 21-vehicle police motorcade to a sacred Buddhist ritual in his own monastery in Shigatse, Tibet's second city. Monks with walkie-talkies patrolled the grounds of the Tashi Lhunpo monastery, and Buddhist pilgrims were kept at a distance.

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OFFICER READS:

The 11th Panchen Lama went up onto a roof of a hall and waved to the crowd of worshipers who paid their respects to the 9 year old lama.

He had returned to Tashi Lungpo Lamasery on June 20 after religious activities in Lhasa, capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region, southwest China.

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NARRATOR READS

According to accounts by witnesses and interviews with
monks, security precautions have been elaborate and the reaction of Tibet's devout Buddhist population has been wary.

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TIBETAN MAN READS:

In Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, troops with machine guns ringed the Jokhang temple when the Panchen Lama visited earlier this month under cover of darkness early in the morning, one monk said.

The main road to Lhasa's international airport was sealed off.

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OFFICER READS:

Wang Dui, the second ranking administrative official at the Jokhang temple, told foreign reporters the 11th Panchen Lama was welcomed "very warmly and with great pomp."

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TIBETAN MAN READS:

But a red-robed monk, speaking out of earshot, said: "Of course he doesn't have any support. He came at night and there were troops everywhere. He just sat there looking uncomfortable. I really felt sorry for him. He's being used as a pawn," the monk said.

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NARRATOR READS:

On Monday, a group of western reporters was allowed to watch the Panchen Lama's motorcade arrive at the Tashi Lhunpo monastery, but were barred from seeing him in the flesh. He was apparently in a black Toyoto Landcruiser, but it was impossible to see him through the heavily tinted windows.

It was the closest foreign journalists have ever got to the Panchen Lama, hailed as the "soul boy" by state media.

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TIBETAN MAN READS:

Asked what he thought about the Panchen Lama, one monk jabbed his thumb towards a thickset official in a trenchcoat then pressed a finger to his lips.

"I don't know," said another monk when asked the same question.

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(Officer and Tibetan Man face audience and speak, do not read, the following:)

OFFICER SAYS

So you see, there is really no problem here. The true rebirth of the Panchen Lama, chosen by the Chinese communist people's government, has been enthroned in his temple in Tibet, and is being well trained for his position. So when the present Dalai Lama dies, our Panchen Lama will be prepared for his responsibilities in choosing--uh--identifying--the rebirth. And the Tibetan people rejoice in this, knowing that it is according to ancient tradition, and that we are, and have always been, all part of one great, powerful motherland—China!

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TIBETAN MAN SAYS:

So you see, in my country, Tibet, there is a BIG problem. A huge, powerful, invading force, the People's Republic of China, is using two Tibetan children to advance its political agenda. One is a child selected by the Chinese to be their puppet. The other, identified by the lamas and His Holiness the Dalai Lama as the rebirth of the 10th Panchen Lama, lives with his family under house arrest in China.

Both children deserve our compassion, and their captors deserve our contempt.

Because although China is big, and China is powerful....