Original subtitles

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(drums beating)

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(woman speaking in foreign language)

- [Jack] I have a name and a face that few recognize.

I prefer it that way.

And I have a history with Tibet.

Years ago, I was in prison there called Drapchi.

I was accused of spying by the ruling government.

For 12 years, I lived in that bleakest of jails.

A place of horror and violence.

But I survived.

I survived, perhaps, because my will to live was strong.

But in my heart, I know I survived because of her.

Yiga.

It was a night I shall never forget.

I was in despair.

And I was about to put a dull razor across my wrists.

Just then, through the ancient stone walls

on that moonlit night, as clear as light, I heard her voice.

I heard her sing a magnificent song.

(woman singing in foreign language)

- [Jack] She had been mercilessly beaten that night

for singing aloud.

I found out about her the next day.

I was told that she was a famous opera singer.

She was in transit to be taken to a secret cell.

I thanked her.

Wished her well.

Prayed for her release.

Hoped she would make it.

(woman singing in foreign language)

(gong ringing)

(static buzzing)

- [Woman] In the furthest regions of China,

inhabited by the country's Tibetan minority,

a full uprising is underway.

- [Man] Trapped there by the military police and army.

- [Woman] The locals assume their spiritual leader--

- [Man] But behind these cloudless seas,

there's the Indian-based Tibetan government-in-exile.

- [Woman] State-run media have blamed the Dalai Lama--

- [Man] Witnesses are taking shocking and extreme force.

One comments he seen the most number of suicides.

Hard to imagine the desperation...

(fire crackling)

(woman singing in foreign language)

- [Yiga] In Tibet, in my country, we pray.

My people have lived so high up in the world,

close to the heavens.

We are spiritual by birth.

For centuries, we have been people of prayer.

Full of the belief that compassion is the key

to infinite knowledge.

(woman singing in foreign language)

- Pull over, huh?

(speaking foreign language)

Kathmandu, three people.

Three.

Three people.

(woman singing in foreign language)

- Is this okay, here?

It's Kathmandu.

(speaking foreign language)

Pull over.

You'll be okay here, huh?

(Jack speaking foreign language)

She's in search of something to hold on to.

For at this moment, she has nothing.

Owns nothing.

But she is alive,

and she knows that's all that matters for now.

She has escaped, survived.

She walks the streets, lost,

yet with a strange sense of belonging.

At this point, only her instincts work.

She's receptive, observant, careful.

She knows her life depends on it.

She allows herself to think that perhaps,

the worst is over.

This new, noisy, strange world elicits no fear

compared to where she has been.

She is infinitely patient, measured,

rekindling the fire within bit by tiny bit.

Connecting, touching, feeling again.

The fears return often, always unannounced.

They linger, creep in, confuse, disturb.

But she battles on in her stubborn way.

Often, she loses.

But sometimes...

Sometimes, she has her way.

(dramatic music)

(birds chirping)

(traditional Tibetan music)

(dramatic music)

- [Jack] Things changed.

Seasons came and went.

And Yiga found contentment.

Perhaps even happiness.

Just as her teacher had said,

Yiga needed to let go of her past and embrace the present.

(both speaking in foreign language)

(plane engine roaring)

(people shouting in foreign language)

- [Jack] In March, 2008, mass riots devastated Lhasa,

and spread to other areas.

Tibet was in the grip of horrific destruction.

And Tibetans inside were on the edge.

(wings fluttering)

(slow dramatic music)

(bell chiming)

- Hey!

Hey!

- What? - Remember me?

- Oh, so scared...

Oh. - On the border?

What's your name?

- Yiga.

- Yiga? - Yes.

- I went to Tibet and I got this.

- Oh!

You brought this from Tibet? - Yeah.

(off-key music)

- It doesn't sound that good.

- [Jack] Doesn't sound very good with me playing it either

but, I thought maybe we could--

- It's a little untuned. - Yes.

(Yiga laughing)

- This thing, you have to tune this.

- Do you know how to play this?

- Yes. - You can help me?

- But we can't hear anything here.

- There's this place down here--

- Yes?

- Which is a tea shop.

And you can see the whole of Kathmandu.

(off-key music)

So where did you learn to speak English then?

- Oh.

In Tibet.

- In Tibet? - Yes.

I used to have private teacher.

A lady from France.

She used to teach me English.

- Okay, so you had a French teacher.

- Yes.

- It reminds me that I had a clarinet teacher,

who taught me how to play the flute.

- Oh, that's strange.

- So--

- Still he taught you? - It's very strange.

He taught me, but he couldn't play the flute.

He just sort of told me how to.

- That's very strange. - It's kind of weird, but--

- And did it worked out?

- It worked out, yes, so I can play flute.

- So you're a musician?

- Yes.

When I was in England,

I used to play in

rock bands.

- So you're a rocker?

- I used to be a rocker.

Now I'm a free spirit in Kathmandu, you know?

- Oh!

But you used to play guitar and sing together?

- I can do that.

So what about you?

- Me?

I used to an opera singer.

- [Jack] Wow!

- Tibetan opera singer.

- Sounds much more impressive than a rocker.

- Well, it's very different than Western style of singing,

of course.

- [Jack] I'd love to hear you sing.

- Well, I am doing some recordings in Kathmandu.

So if it comes well, then you can listen later, maybe.

- That'd be amazing. - Yes.

- So good.

Such a good view here, huh?

So...

So which direction is Tibet?

- [Yiga] It's over there.

- [Jack] Yiga?

- [Yiga] Yes?

- I wanted to ask you When I met you at the border,

what were you doing coming across and,

do you travel a lot that way or...

- Sorry, I got some unfinished rituals to do.

Right now I must go to Boudha.

Thank you for the tea.

- [Jack] And so they swapped stories and philosophies.

And each found in the other an unlikely friend.

"How odd", she had thought,

"That he looks for answers outside.

"Maybe he'll find himself on Freak Street.

"Maybe in India.

"Maybe in the jungles of Vietnam.

"But", she had told him over and over,

"The answers lie within.

"Salvation must be earned.

"Bit by tiny bit.

"Step by tiny step."

(woman singing in foreign language)

(bells clanging)

(Yiga and Tashi speaking foreign language)

(wings fluttering)

- Hi. - Hi!

Yiga, it's you!

- Yes. - Who's this?

- My Lama brother.

(Tashi speaking foreign language)

- What he's saying?

- He said you are going in the opposite direction.

- [Jack] All right.

- See, everyone is going this way.

- All right, what's wrong with that?

- As you see, we Buddhists, we go this way.

Clockwise.

- Right.

So I've got to do,

I've got to do the same thing as everyone else?

- Yes, yes.

Our traditional way is to go this way always.

Never other way around.

- Right. - Yes.

- And do you,

do you both think this all, this works?

- He says, of course.

- [Jack] Is there something specific that you're,

you come here for, to get peace of mind for?

- [Jack] She was watched, marked.

As a cause of insecurity and concern to the authorities,

from the day she resisted a cultural makeover.

The day she refused to stop singing.

She was a threat because of her music.

A medium considered both potent and dangerous.

Hers was a voice that could take the hidden stories of Tibet

to the world at large.

(woman singing in foreign language)

(Yiga speaking foreign language)

(gun firing)

(dramatic music)

- [Yiga] The gunshot that killed my spiritual teacher

killed a part of me as well.

It wasn't the first.

And unfortunately shan't be the last.

There were others.

Many of them were either kidnapped like I was,

or else snatched during the midnight raids

that had become so common across Tibet,

like some cruel echo from Nazi Germany.

The main Drapchi Prison in Lhasa

used to be a peaceful monastery.

And they turned it into this horrid place of torture,

where under the guise of a prison,

crimes against Tibetans would go unnoticed.

This is where I got the first taste of what it feels like

to be physically broken down.

(woman screaming)

Some people they keep in the main prison.

But there are also remote underground cells,

for those who won't break down so easily.

Their methods of torture are brutal.

Inhuman.

And very effective.

It would have been much easier for them

to have just shot me or the others.

It didn't make sense.

Slowly I realized that what they actually planned

was far worse than I had imagined.

Months passed and I was still breathing in and out

in a rhythm I could no longer understand,

or even really care about.

I had good days where everything was too clear and too real.

But mostly, I had terrible insane days.

Hatred and fear burning me away inside,

wasting what God had given me.

I wrote songs in my head.

But they weren't songs of hope or of joy.

They were songs of violence and hate.

On my better days, I would sometimes think of my friends

who had disappeared.

Now seen only on missing person posters,

used to get international attention or sympathy.

Perhaps, the people who did this meant well.

All I knew was, they couldn't help me.

(gun firing)

(somber music)

(dog barking)

- [Yiga] And then one day just like that,

I discovered a hollow tile.

In that instant, my life changed completely.

And I started to plan for my escape.

To run away.

To be free.

My life had purpose again.

I discovered the melting snow and begun to feel

the warmth of freedom stir inside me.

To the southwest was Nepal.

I'll try to reach there.

It is not the easiest route.

But it is the shortest.

Or at least, it is the one I knew about,

had heard of or had sense of.

In the silence of my prison,

I had often thought about, who I was, what I was here for?

Would I survive?

I wanted to sing again.

I needed to sing.

Would I ever get out of here?

(doorknob rattling)

(man speaking foreign language)

- [Yiga] I was not afraid of mountains.

Their spirits would guide me.

I was not afraid of hunger or thirst.

My father once told me,

"What doesn't kill you, only makes you stronger."

My body was weak, but idea of freedom gave me strength.

But it was my mind I had to be careful about.

It was there that I must not let fear enter.

For if that happened, all would be lost.

Shen often told us that there were soldiers

everywhere outside, guarding the house.

They lurked behind the boulders, and near the tree line.

And had orders to shoot anyone who dared to step outside.

There were prisoners before me who tried escaping.

But none of them were ever heard of again.

The doubts and fears were slowly killing me.

I was terrified.

But eventually, I did manage to stop thinking about

what could go wrong.

Then, it was time.

Old Gonpo had been watching me plan and prepare

for weeks now.

He was the only one I would say goodbye to.

- [Yiga] And I suddenly realized

he did hear and he did speak.

But only when he chose to.

That was his middle path.

(dog barking)

(dramatic music)

(gate creaking)

(woman screaming)

I was free of fear.

No soldiers sprung out of the bushes and shot me down.

No one saw me or followed me.

It was all a cruel game that they played on us.

I saw it all now.

Shen had lied to us.

There were no soldiers with guns guarding that house.

But we had believed him.

And he had used our own fears to keep us caged like animals.

I had stopped thinking.

I was in the middle of nowhere.

But I knew, if I just kept going,

I would find help, sooner or later.

(dog barking)

I had to get to the border.

It might take me months on foot.

But somehow, I would get there.

So I just kept going.

I just kept moving.

Always moving.

Further and further and further and further and further...

(somber music)

And suddenly, I was in the lap of my beloved mountains,

under the protection of my gods.

(people conversing quietly)

Well, the past is just a dream, so don't worry about it.

Just nothing than a dream, the past.

I want to give you this.

This is for you, one of my tracks.

- Thank you so much.

- You are welcome. - It's pretty good.

- Yeah.

(dramatic music)

(upbeat music)

(woman singing in foreign language)

(keys jingling)

(dog barking)

(dramatic music)

(intense music)

- [Jack] She moves further away now.

Far away from all the familiar sounds

and smells of the East.

Leaving on a secure unlisted flight.

She, and others like her, away from the persecution

they can still face if caught.

But she leaves behind a piece of her soul.

A slice of her healing process.

A tantalizing hope of a kinder world.

For every person who has found something,

or is on the verge,

one still seeking will be left behind.

Yiga rested in India for a few weeks,

and was joined by other Tibetans en route to Europe.

All of them were from Lhasa.

All were to remain in exile.

(insects chirping)

(knocking)

Tashi!

Have you seen Yiga?

- She's gone.

- [Jack] And so, Yiga did let go of her past, and present.

(dramatic music)

(bell clanging)

It was September When Yiga finally left

for an uncertain future.

Leaving behind her a precious gift;

A relationship that was to remain, for her, impossible.

(upbeat music)

- [Woman] Like Tibet loves us, we love our country.

But we have a strong spirit.

(people applauding and cheering)

(woman singing in foreign language)

(people applauding)

- [Jack] I attended many of her concerts.

I often thought of meeting her.

But for all these years, something held me back.

But that was then.

A Tibetan cafe in Paris was to be our meeting place.

And all we spoke about was hope.

Do you still have hope?

- There is a saying in Tibetan.

"Tragedy must be utilized as a source of strength."

We believe in karma.

What goes around, comes back.

And everything changes.

Nothing is forever.

We don't hate our enemies.

Just because we want to be ourself.

To speak our own language.

To have our own books.

To sing our own songs.

Tibetan people pay...

Too high a price.

Too high.

(dramatic music)

When you see suffering close to you,

only then you know what is real suffering.

Monasteries are surrounded by army and police.

Cities are surrounded by them.

They will mark you and then they'll come to get you

in the night.

How can you hurt each other?

Especially for no reason.

If the Dalai Lama will not teach, who will teach?

To feel compassionate towards each other and to everything?

We don't have to wait until all the people self-immolate.

- And you still have hope?

- Yes, I do.

It might take time, but we don't have the luxury

of giving up hope.

One day, Tibet will be free.

(dramatic music)

- [Jack] She believes with her formidable conviction

that her cries will not always fall short.

The frequent periods of utter despair,

no match against her quiet inner strength.

She wants, needs even, to forgive.

But not forget.

Never that.

It is that need that helps keeps her music alive.

The passion she feels,

combined with the compassion she practices,

the truth she seeks, it's beyond any reproach.

I don't believe I'll ever meet her again.

But I will always follow her in the shadows.

That is my way.

As she walks that tenuous path of hope.

She travels the world.

Her voice carries within it

the surreal sounds of her home country.

The whispering high winds.

The murmuring still waters.

The fluttering of a million prayer flags.

She holds on to her roots and values

with a steely determination.

She prays.

As she prays, even for those who are unaware

of the future they are creating for themselves.

Often, she looks back at her life.

She tries to unlock the mysteries of her turbulent past.

She wonders about divine intervention.

She gives thanks for the teacher who invoked hope in her,

beyond even his own death.

(gun firing)

- [Yiga] Why did my master ask me to visit

that particular place if I needed help?

How often did little Tashi repeat my master's exact words?

How did I miss that playful, broken-toothed smile?

That level of wisdom in one so young?

Did I listen to him carefully?

Or was I too busy being free to care?

Why haven't I thought of all this before?

(woman singing in foreign language)

- [Yiga] Maybe my gods were watching over me,

giving me strength.

Maybe they watch over all of us.

Don't they?

(woman singing in foreign language)

- [Yiga] As long as wise spirits live, Tibet will live.

As soon as the wise spirits deem it fit,

Tibet too will be free.

I believe in that future.

My songs will celebrate that future,

where my people will live free

in the land of their ancestors.

- [Jack] Drapchi continues to be Tibet's most feared prison.

It houses nearly 500 prisoners,

in conditions I can only describe as inhumane.

Most of them, political prisoners.

All of them Tibetan.

The spirit of her voice still echoes within its walls.

She still prays for them.

(woman singing foreign language)

- [Jack] And Yiga sings.

Her songs are her strength and her reason to be.

Her songs are testament to her struggle to live free.

Some voices can never be silenced.

Hers is one of them.

(woman singing in foreign language)