GEORGETOWN, Tx., Nov. 6 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — As a graduate student working on her Ph.D. in Chinese literature, Patricia Schiaffini made several trips to Tibet to learn more about Tibetan authors. During these visits, she also learned many Tibetans were becoming less fluent in their own language because they tended to speak more Chinese in day-to-day life.
Schiaffini also found there were very few children’s books written in Tibetan. “Tibetan children are losing their own language and their own culture because they don’t have resources in their own language,” says Schiaffini, who now teaches Chinese as a part-time assistant professor at Southwestern University.
When she returned to the U.S. after completing her dissertation research in 1999, Schiaffini started to brainstorm how she could help the Tibetan people, but it was not until she had her own children that she realized the importance of children’s books.
As a Spanish woman married to a Chinese man raising children in the United States, Schiaffini says it is very important that her children learn all three languages and cultures.
“If you are going to try and teach your children a language other than English in the home, you need entertainment in that language,” Schiaffini says. “Children receive literacy through entertainment.”
Schiaffini formed the non-profit Tibetan Arts and Literature Initiative, or TALI. When she returned to Tibet for a visit in 2006, the commune of writers and artists she had lived with agreed this was a good idea, and started to send her ideas for children’s stories.
Schiaffini faced numerous obstacles in getting the stories into print, however. The loss of the Tibetan language is not just a trend among the youngest generation. Schiaffini had a hard time finding people who were both fluent in written Tibetan, and technologically adept to get the books into print.
Eventually, those challenges were overcome and the books went to press.
The first was ‘A Small Frog and A Crow,’ based on a Tibetan folktale about a little frog whose resourcefulness allows her to escape the tight claws of a hungry crow. The book is intended for children 3-6 years old
TALI also has published ‘The Prince and the Yogin’s Daughter,’ a classic Tibetan love story about two lovers forced to overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles to be together. This book was written for children ages 10 and older.
Schiaffini says 10,000 copies have been distributed so far. Volunteers take the books with them on their travels into rural Tibet. For many children these are the first books they have seen.
TALI also is exploring the possibility of producing a series of television and radio programs that would bring literary works to Tibetan children.
In addition to the books, Schiaffini is working on several other projects to increase understanding between the peoples of the United States and Tibet. She has organized exchanges of artwork and letters by children in Austin and Lhasa, the capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR).
For more information on TALI, visit www.talitibet.org. To see pages from some of the books TALI has published, visit www.southwestern.edu.
Southwestern University is a selective, nationally recognized undergraduate liberal arts college with an enrollment of 1,260 students. It is the oldest institution of higher learning in Texas. For more information on Southwestern, visit www.southwestern.edu
Southwestern University
