I took pity on her because she seemed to have been completely swayed by anti-China propaganda. I told her that all the Tibetans I had met earlier knew very well what the central government of China had done for them and appreciated it.

"I'm sorry to tell you," I said, "that you fool yourself if you think that your Tibetan fellows inside the country think the same way you do and support your efforts for independence."

She stared at me, her eyes wide open. "Have you ever been to Tibet?"

"Of course! If not, how could I speak like this?" She remained silent a moment, then said: "Every year on March 10, the Tibetans of the world march for independence. If you go to Tibet on that day, you'll see the Chinese army killing so many people in the streets."

If there was any truth in her words, I thought, I must have been transported to another planet.

"We have seen photos, and videos," she continued. "Every year we see them."

"Who took these photos?"

"Foreigners. From other places."

I calmed down, before asking: "Are you sure these photos and films were taken recently? They may be from the 'cultural revolution' period when Tibetans just as other Chinese suffered and were treated badly. Or during the civil rebellion in 1959? Might you not have been deceived? Maybe they show you the same pictures year after year? Maybe the photos were altered?"

As a spokesperson of her group, she turned around, and said: "It's possible, but we have no means of checking."

"Might these activist friends of the Dalai Lama," I continued, "be the authors of the photocopied letters on the board at the village entrance, issued by 'His Holiness Dalai Lama's office'? And the inscription 'Chinese, leave', who do you think wrote it?"

I explained to them all the changes that had happened in Tibet and talked about all the money invested by the central government into reconstruction and development, the progress in education, the religious freedom, the improvement of health, society, life, and they were astonished. Apparently, no one had ever spoken to them like this.

"Do you believe me?" I asked.

"I believe you because you are a foreigner," said the woman, "not a member of the communist party. Are you?"

"You can trust me. I tell you only what I have seen. Tibet is a beautiful and peaceful place where people sing while they work, where people smile and enjoy life."

The younger ones among them were born in Nepal; others had fled Tibet to go to Nepal in the 1950s and never returned to Tibet. They have no passports; of course they cannot enter China.