AHP 61: GOOD BOYS NEVER CRY

Gu ru 'phrin las གུ་རུ་འཕྲིན་ལས། (格日成立 Gerichengli). 2022. Good Boys Never Cry སྟག་ཤར་རའི་མིག་ཆུ་གསེར།. Asian Highlands Perspectives 61.

archive.org/details/ahp-61-good-boys-never-cry

 

Good Boys Never Cry སྟག་ཤར་རའི་མིག་ཆུ་གསེར། by Gu ru 'phrin las གུ་རུ་འཕྲིན་ལས། (格日成立 Gerichengli) is a collection of stories grappling with worlds separated by time and space but all joined by Tibetans of pastoral backgrounds facing challenges ranging from starvation and flashfloods in pre-modern times in tribal communities; horsemen with rifles chasing yak rustlers; pastoral women enmeshed in endless chores, marriage arrangements, spousal abuse, challenges, disappointments, and childrearing; university student life in urban settings; entrepreneur experiences in cosmopolitan Shenzhen; relationships beyond hetero; vibrant descriptions of bars, gyms, cafés; and the theater of city streets. The author's insightful creativity observes commonplace life and occurrences in inner and external worlds contextualized and expressed in remarkable literature. The stories of this collection are rooted in a nomadic tribe experiencing a rapid social transition from mobile pastoralism to a partially sedentary way of life where black yak-hair tents are replaced with permanent housing and manufactured tents. A new mundane emerges with motorcycles and automobiles replacing walking and horse- and yakback riding and smartphones and television, further defining a newfangled normal. The details of the circumstances of these collective memories and experiences are fresh enough to be vividly described, especially by a writer with a lived Tibetan pastoralist background such as Gu ru. His important Remembering Tomorrow and its collective memories of Tibetans in herding groups raised in black yak-hair tents testify to his background and qualifications to authentically portray Tibetan pastoral life. --Gengqiu Gelai (Konchok Gelek, Dkon mchog dge legs དཀོན་མཆོག་དགེ་ལེགས།) University of Zurich

 

When we want to learn about a community of people, i.e., their life and culture, we frequently turn to documentary films and written accounts in academic and popular readings as sources of knowledge. In the case of Tibetans, it is more challenging to locate and access short stories, especially in English, to learn about the community and its history and people. Good Boys Never Cry by Gu ru 'phrin las perfectly exemplifies the fluidity, porousness, and interplay between fictional narratives and life stories. Although framed as fictional accounts, Gu ru informs us that these stories are inspired by his memories and observations of people and their lives in his home community and beyond. Most of the selections in this anthology deliberately lead us into a calm, peaceful rural life, heightened by his up-close examination of quotidian, everyday details that were once familiar yet now removed from the author and potential Tibetan readers whose social reality continues to transform rapidly. The past held memorable fun moments the author must have felt in invoking nostalgia. He predicts and expects his potential readers to savor these moments as he does. Still, other stories narrate sorrow and pain in community life - death, violence, illness, poverty, feuding, divorce, compulsory education, unemployment, and gendered inequality. Who is to blame when Shangri-La is not all it seems to be? Who is to offer a verdict? -Rin chen rdo rje རིན་ཆེན་རྡོ་རྗེ། Lanzhou University

 

Good Boys Never Cry illustrates the sourness, sweetness, bitterness, and spiciness of daily life in Amdo's pastoral hinterlands in its chronicling of life in a Tibetan community, spotlighting unique local realities. The Tibetan Plateau is renowned for its magnificent natural and cultural landscapes with an extreme climate challenging life, particularly for herders who spend much time outdoors. While livelihoods may seem as simple as tending, herding, selling, and slaughtering livestock, suffering is far more pronounced than in many elsewheres. Pastoral communities are marred by natural disasters, transportation accidents, tribal conflicts, honor fighting, alcoholism, illnesses, and tragedies. Women bear the bulk of all burdens, rising early to hobble and milk female yaks and to collect and dry fresh yak dung for cooking and heating fuel. Dreading rumors, they obey their parents in everything, enduring the abuse of drunken spouses, the stigma of tradition, lovers' betrayals, the burden of fatherless children, arranged marriages, undesired divorce, and unequal relationships. Today, as the stories show, traditional communities are altering, and tribal bonds are on the verge of shattering. People are engulfed in an ocean of information bombarded by TikTok livestreams and instant messaging applications such as WeChat. These new technologies facilitate novel patterns of romantic relationships and behaviors of youth born and raised in traditional pastoral communities but educated in China's major cities, where they speak Chinese, frequent gyms and cafés like city boys and girls, and watch Game of Thrones on their tablets. Gu ru 'phrin las' Good Boys Never Cry is a must-read of an enthralling constellation of diverse stories defying a single theme. -Nyangchakja (སྙིང་ལྕགས་རྒྱལ། Snying lcags rgyal) SOAS University of London

 

Good Boys Never Cry, Gu ru 'phrin las' much-awaited sequel to Remembering Tomorrow, is a valuable contribution to better understanding Tibetan life focused on first-hand accounts and personal life stories of various narrators. Revealing complex nomad community life and local patterns of thought and behavior, it succeeds magnificently in revealing aspects of communal living that have remained intact for over a millennium and are now undergoing dramatic changes amid the rapid social and economic changes characterizing China. Essential reading in Tibetan Studies, Himalayan Anthropology, and Women's Studies.

-Dpal ldan bkra shis དཔལ་ལྡན་བཀྲ་ཤིས། Humboldt University zu Berlin

 

Good Boys Never Cry is a collection of detailed, intimately observed narratives informed by Gu ru 'phrin las' life in an Amdo Tibetan pastoral setting - and beyond. Morality, integrity, and betrayal are emphasized in multiple stories, as are gender differences, domestic violence, and complex childrearing environments. Indispensable reading for better understanding Tibetan life and culture, particularly during rapid cultural and social transitions. -Sangs rgyas bkra shis སངས་རྒྱས་བཀྲ་ཤིས། University of Colorado Boulder

 

Gu ru 'phrin las' Good Boys Never Cry is a valuable, intensely informed collection of stories providing readers with rare insight into the actualities of Tibetan herding life and challenges encountered in experiencing modern formal education in metropolitan environments. This life becomes very real with yak enclosures, hobbling yaks, milking, riding horses and yaks, driving yaks out of family enclosures into the mountains in the morning and back in the evening, collecting fresh yak dung, children and their games, husbands maltreating wives, women's low social status, marriages, births, child-raising, love, theft, animosity and quarrels between tribes, clothing, religion, folk songs, daily life, the Plateau climate, flowers, birds, animals, and herders moving camps. Requisite reading for learning more about life on the Plateau. -Limusishiden (Li Dechun李得春) Qinghai University Affiliated Hospital

 

Good Boys Never Cry, a collection of twenty-one attention-grabbing stories reflecting Tibetan pastoral life, captures traditional and modern intersections and their consequences in Tibetan society. Born and raised in a traditional Plateau pastoral family, Gu ru phrin las' formal education and lived experiences amid powerful social and cultural transformations sharpen observations and reflections on his community's changes and conflicts. Tibetan women's social status and roles and the changes in education and employment in towns and cities are central to several stories, suggesting that well-educated and financially independent Tibetan women have more control over their lives.The stories portray richly detailed traditional herding life illustrating social hierarchy; concepts of family and family structure; marriage systems; child-raising; expressions of affection and discipline; and values of kindness, loyalty, and diligence before transitioning to modernization and the multiplicity of all that it brings to pastoral communities with changes and challenges, e.g., brick houses in towns and fabric tents replacing yak-hair tents, choosing the monkhood or public schools for sons, and so on. Gu ru begins with "A Pregnant Boy," reflecting the early childhood of a grandfather in his eighties, who often recounts memories of early times, including a period of extreme malnutrition (explaining the title). In vividly bringing locals' historical recollections to contemporary life, this narrative illustrates cultural ties between the past and present, creating a shared understanding between generations. The collection ends with "The Painting," presented as a script focusing on a Tibetan female university student pursuing an art degree in painting and her turbulent, tentative romantic liaisons. Reading Good Boys Never Cry with Guru's earlier Remembering Tomorrow is a splendid, at times unsettling overview of Plateau pastoral life and the interior worlds of those who live there. Highly recommended. -Lhamodrolma ལྷ་མོ་སྒྲོལ་མ།

 

Good Boys Never Cry reflects Gu ru 'phrin las' observations, experiences, and creative literary energies. An important voice from the pastoral community in which he was born and reared, twenty-one narratives offer authentic, vibrant links to Tibetan pastoral life in its joys, sorrows, and turbulent transitions during the early twenty-first century, enriching the contemporary Himalayan story-scape.

-Tshe dpal rdo rje ཚེ་དཔལ་རྡོ་རྗེ། Qinghai Minzu University

 

Good Boys Never Cry, Gu ru 'phrin las' second collection of narratives, presents stories depicting many aspects of my life because, in part, we are from the same region and share the same natal culture. Splash marks on the narrator's sister's robe from fetching Yellow River water, telling folktales and deciphering riddles, a child born and placed on dried sheepskin, catching birds with a plastic basin propped up by a string tied to a short stick, using wool ash to stop bleeding from a dog bite, and a lottery system to select children to attend school all resonate powerfully with my childhood memories. As time in the stories progresses chronologically, nomads become small-town residents, e.g., one drives a secondhand blue ISUZU truck instead of riding yaks and horses, and confusion over identity - nomad or town worker? Such details transport me to my past, remind me of the present, and lead to profound contemplation of the future. This important text of authentic Tibetan pastoral life and its challenges and uncertain future in the twenty-first century is indispensable reading.

-Rig grol རིག་གྲོལ། Qinghai Normal University

 

Good Boys Never Cry is the second collection of short stories (plus one script) by young Tibetan writer Gu ru 'phrin las. Remembering Tomorrow, his first book, narrates the lives and memories of older Tibetans, such as his parents and grandmother. Good Boys Never Cry features the lives of young Tibetans in China, some told in the first person, living in pastoral areas and beyond in about 2010. Importantly, local natural disasters such as flooding and social issues related to abuse, rumors, and misjudgments offer valuable raw materials to those interested in Tibetan culture and social studies. -Tshe dbang rdo rje ཚེ་དབང་རྡོ་རྗེ། (Caixiangduojie 才项多杰) Qinghai Normal University

 

Gu ru 'phrin las' life experiences provide plentiful resources to write about Tibetan herders' life. Good Boys Never Cry, his second collection of stories (after Remembering Tomorrow), uses plain but vivid language to describe the daily lives of ordinary men, women, and children on the Plateau and rich ethnographic information. Nomad yak tents, grassland childhoods, herding yaks and sheep, maturing, romance, marriage and responsibilities, disputes over grasslands, and more, form a permanent context for the author. In this new collection, he also includes stories of individual herders abandoning traditional pastoral lives and attempting to make a living in towns and young Tibetans attending universities in cities. Between the lines, readers feel the author's nostalgia for childhood life and concern about urbanization that brings inevitable change to the distinct culture that nourishes him. This wonderful book is an important resource for understanding Tibetans experiencing rapid change. -Kelsang Norbu (Gesang Nuobu, Skal bzang nor bu སྐལ་བཟང་ནོར་བུ།)

 

Guru 'phrin las writes brilliantly from the perspective of a local observer and participant in Tibetan traditional pastoral family life increasingly influenced by modernity. On the surface, it is painful to read about nomadic families in the Mgo log Tibetan area. At a deeper level, readers are confronted with choices and fates the stories' characters must confront, strengthening and broadening perspectives on the realities of traditional pastoral families transitioning to more modern lifestyles. -Li Jianfu 李建富 (Libu Lakhi, Zla ba bstan 'dzin ཟླ་བ་བསྟན་འཛིན།) Qinghai Normal University

 

Gu ru 'phrin las' Good Boys Never Cry is a fine collection of beautifully written stories providing incisive, richly detailed accounts of Tibetan social, cultural, and economic transformations (re)shaping Tibetan pastoralist lives and livelihoods in Amdo on the northeastern Tibetan Plateau. Gender inequality, men abusing their wives, the social status of Tibetan women, family reputation, and arranged marriage are among the critical social issues the stories powerfully engage. Detailed thick description gives entrée to the lives of ordinary Tibetan herders at a time and space, providing valuable first-hand accounts authentically depicting encounters between tradition and modernity. -Duojie Zhaxi རྡོ་རྗེ་བཀྲ་ཤིས། Qinghai Minzu University

 

Good Boys Never Cry is a continuation of unfinished accounts in Gu ru 'phrin las' Remembering Tomorrow. I strongly recommend reading both books together since the focus is on a nostalgic memory of Tibetan nomadic life's recent past. Arguably, authentic nomadic life on the Tibetan Plateau and elsewhere is diminishing fast since settled life has gradually become a new "lifestyle" for nomads. Questions now become: If nomadic life, often embodying idealized Tibetan mobility, freedom, spirituality, happiness, and masculinity, withdraws from the historical stage, what will the "Tibetan spirit" be? What will make Tibetans Tibetan? If social change is inevitable in pastoral and Tibetan regions, what are the chances of Tibetan cultural continuity? These questions weigh heavily on the minds of many Tibetans and, possibly, the author's mind. The last two decades have witnessed growing anxieties about Tibetan culture survival and continuity in various sectors of Tibetan society (nomads, peasants, monks/lamas, intellectuals, cadres, businesspeople, college students, and so on). This explains burgeoning "ordinary" Tibetan memory projects centered on an irreversible past and nostalgic sentiments during this period. I say "ordinary" Tibetan memory because (auto-)biographical writing is no longer limited to the elites (religious and political figures), as found in the Tibetan literary tradition of namtar or sacred biography. Good Boys Never Cry and Remembering Tomorrow exemplify "ordinary" Tibetan memory. With this context in mind, readers may gain fresh or different perspectives on the messages conveyed in the books and their significance. -Tenzin Jinba བསྟན་འཛིན་སྦྱིན་པ།, National University of Singapore

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