Local hero provides shelter for 106

(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-04-11 07:33

 

Four Tibetan children play yesterday on the Barkhor Bazaar in Lhasa, a major business street, as life returns to normal in the regional capital following last month's riots. Zhao Yanzhi

On the afternoon of the March 14 riot, the courtyard and rooms of Losang Shandain's house in downtown Gama Gunsang neighborhood in the capital of the Tibet autonomous region were crowded with 106 terrified people he was sheltering.

Li Xingyou, whom Losang had taken in, said: "That day, rioters stormed my rented house, smashed everything and drove my wife and me out.

"We were frantically running down the street when we saw Losang Shandain beckoning to us, offering us refuge in his home."

The government later said 18 civilians were killed and hundreds of others were injured in the riot.

Chao Hua and Lu Bingmei were among those Losang Shandain rescued. The two mothers were worried about their children, who were in school when the riots began, and Losang volunteered to escort the children from their schools to his home.

Tears welled up in the mothers' eyes when they recalled how Losang braved flying stones and assaults, walking for more than two hours on the streets to bring the children back safe and sound "when things were most dangerous".

"It's not that I wasn't afraid of the rioters, most of whom were fellow Tibetans," Losang said.

"But as a husband and father of two, I felt responsible" for the children's safety.

Losang's neighbors warned that offering refuge would entice the wrath of vengeful rioters and bring unwanted trouble to their neighborhood.

"No normal person could just sit back watching hundreds of vandals roving the streets, beating people, smashing things, looting and setting fires," the monk said.

"My Buddhist beliefs just wouldn't let me."

There were six children among those he took in that day. He stayed up all night with his brother Soinam Zhaxi consoling people in his home.

"Word of Losang's heroism has spread throughout our community, and all of us regard him as a true hero," Nyixar Lhamo, an elderly woman living in Losang's neighborhood, said.

The public spotlighting of the man after March 14 brought to light many other kind deeds he had previously performed, such as supporting 13 impoverished elderly people who lived alone near the Chuguo Temple in Tibet's Ali prefecture, where Losang had worked as a monk 13 years ago.

He also set up a small mineral water plant in Ali prefecture to create jobs for local herdsmen.

He became secularized after he was in a traffic accident in 1993 that killed several of his friends and relatives. He still has a scar on his forehead.

After the accident, he said he wanted to do something more active than sit in the temple.

The people of China's 56 ethnic groups are members of one big family, and family members help each other, he said.

Xinhua

(China Daily 04/11/2008 page5)



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