Thank you, Chair.
Today I plan to give follow-up testimony on what is happening to Tibetan children through China's colonial boarding schools in Tibet.
In 2016 my two grandnieces were sent to a colonial boarding preschool. After three months, they both became strangers at home. Let me share my personal experience with those two grandnieces.
One year before, when I was visiting my home, those two kids jumped on me without hesitation. But in late November 2016, after just three months, my brother asked me to come home and check on the cause of the change in my two grandnieces. I went to the school gate to pick them up. The first time they gave me eye contact, but then there was no more emotional exchange. When I took them home, they did not exchange any emotion with their grandparents or parents. During dinner time, they were silent. They kept their distance from family members. It seemed they had not already lost their ability to engage in conversation with their family members, but at the same time, they seemed uncomfortable. They were starting to feel uncomfortable sharing the same identity with their parents and family members.
That's where I see serious change. One, the lost language means the cultural genocide starts with them, from home. The second part is the racial genocide. I can see that it's not physical but cultural. They start rejecting or hesitating to share a common identity with family members.
After 10 years, the kids who have been in boarding schools in Tibet start criticizing their family members who are not able to speak Chinese Mandarin. That's a serious shift in a generation, because those boarding school policies are implemented across Tibet as part of a compulsory education.