‘They have built a machine that pulls out their mother tongue’: why Tibet’s children think they are Chinese

Parents say the insistence on Mandarin in schools is eroding the country’s language and culture right from early childhood Weeks after a Tibetan-speaking five-year-old started preschool, she had “completely stopped speaking Tibetan”, according to her mother. Nine months later, although the child could still understand Tibetan, she only answered in Mandarin, and at best a few single-word answers in Tibetan after some time. Instead the girl “keeps saying that she can only speak Chinese … that s...

By Kris Cheng