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Rebecca Novick
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Rebecca Novick has conducted hundreds of interviews with exiled Tibetans, particularly with elders, exploring their experiences and life histories. She has written and edited six books on Tibetan Buddhism and culture, and has produced and edited numerous radio documentaries. Before founding The Tibet Connection, radio program, she co-hosted and produced the weekly radio show Experience Talks. She went on to co-found a video production company dedicated to creating promotional films for NGO's. She is currently based in the Tibetan community of Dharamsala, India.

Blog Entries by Rebecca Novick

Why Is Beijing Leaking the Revolution?

(10) Comments | Posted March 27, 2013 | 1:36 PM

A book written in 1856 on the causes of the French Revolution has apparently gained popularity among Chinese intellectuals. China is known more for banning books than recommending them, but according to Business Insider, last year senior Party officials began suggesting Alexis de Tocqueville's The Old Regime...

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Guns, Monks and Magic: Tibet's Greatest Escape, Part 2

(0) Comments | Posted May 1, 2012 | 5:10 PM

You can read Part 1 of this post here.

In April 2010, I interviewed a Tibetan monk named Yidam Kyap as part of the Tibet Oral History Project that documents the life stories of Tibetan elders living in exile. The main aim of the project is...

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Guns, Monks and Magic: Tibet's Greatest Escape, Part 1

(6) Comments | Posted April 27, 2012 | 1:56 PM

In April 2010, I interviewed a Tibetan monk named Yidam Kyap as part of the Tibet Oral History Project that documents the life stories of Tibetan elders living in exile. The main aim of the project is to explore what life was like in Tibet for Tibetans from...

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Global Warming: The Un-tellable Story

(48) Comments | Posted February 1, 2012 | 1:10 PM

The following is a transcript of a talk by British biologist Dr. John Stanley based on an interview with Rebecca Novick. It was presented at the Global Buddhist Congregation in New Delhi, Nov. 29, 2011. Dr. Stanley is co-author of A Buddhist Response to...

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Protest Or Sacrifice? China's Anti-Imperialist Propaganda Backfires In Tibet

(13) Comments | Posted December 9, 2011 | 2:30 PM

With TIME magazine hoisting the self-immolations in Tibet as the top most underreported story of 2011, just one day after the 12th Tibetan set himself on fire, suddenly there is a window of attention on this disturbing trend. Many Tibet activists are hailing these young men...

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When a Basketball Match is an "Anti-China Activity"

(3) Comments | Posted March 30, 2011 | 10:58 AM

Zamling sits in a dank concrete hall in a Tibetan slum in the cramped backstreets of Kathmandu. But with his upright urbane confidence, he could just as well be in an office on Wall Street. This 25-year-old Tibetan is the Treasurer of Gyanchen Youth Association -- a humble initiative that...

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Nepal's Violent Crackdown on Tibetan Anniversary

(35) Comments | Posted March 18, 2011 | 11:22 AM

2011-03-18-_MG_1753.jpg PHOTO: Kevin Bubriski

The Boudhanath Stupa in Kathmandu has for centuries been a holy place for Tibetans. It is also where Tibetans in Nepal have often demonstrated against Chinese rule in Tibet. On the morning of March 10, 2011,

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A Loyalist and a Tiananmen General Win China's Peace and Harmony Awards

(1) Comments | Posted December 8, 2010 | 10:38 AM

In a typically sour grapes gesture, China has invented its own peace prize. The ceremony, held on December 9th, is a day ahead of the Nobel Peace Prize function honoring jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo.

It's called the Confucius Peace Prize, but it's actually the second such award created...

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Tibetan Students Reveal China's Identity Crisis

(54) Comments | Posted October 20, 2010 | 10:01 AM

"Language shapes the way we think and determines what we can think about." So said the late American linguist Benjamin Lee Whorf. China's Communist Party seems well ahead of the game.

On October 19th, Tibetan students in Eastern Tibet, many barely in their teens, took to the streets...

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Is Nepal China's Client State?

(12) Comments | Posted October 5, 2010 | 10:52 AM

2010-10-05-Nepal_China_sign.jpg
The sign that greets visitors as they leave Kathmandu airport. Photo: Tenzing Jigme

On October 3rd, police in full riot gear confiscated ballot boxes in Kathmandu and effectively shut down an attempt by 9,000 Tibetans to participate in the vote for their...

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You Have Been Warned: China's "Pressure Issue"

(17) Comments | Posted October 1, 2010 | 6:36 AM

Am I the only one getting tired of headlines that begin, China Warns....?

2010 is already thick with them. China kicked off the year by warning Switzerland against accepting Uighur Guantanamo detainees and then warned Hong Kong over a proposed referendum on democracy. China also warned the US that Secretary...

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Murder in the Himalayas: A Story that Had to be Told

(1) Comments | Posted September 26, 2010 | 7:38 AM

"There will always be people willing to risk everything for freedom."

It's been four years since video footage of the fatal shooting of a teenage Tibetan girl by a Chinese border patrol made international news, before slipping into its final resting place on YouTube. But human rights journalist Jonathan Green,...

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The Speech That Portended the Tibetan Uprising Made Public

(7) Comments | Posted August 6, 2010 | 2:54 AM

It could be argued that the Tibetan uprising of 2008 actually began several months earlier with what appeared to be an impromptu public address by a middle-aged Tibetan nomad. Until now, no one had seen footage of his defiant speech that was released this week for the first time by...

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Chinese Media Courts the Youngest Hero of the Tibet Quake

(0) Comments | Posted May 4, 2010 | 5:57 AM

Amidst the accusations of China's belated response to the devastating earthquake that hit Yushu county in Eastern Tibet in the early hours of April 14, the downplaying in the Chinese media of the key role that Tibetan monks played in the rescue efforts and mourning ceremonies, alongside reports of Chinese...

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Obama and the Dalai Lama: Image vs. Reality

(7) Comments | Posted February 22, 2010 | 7:40 AM

After snubbing him during his Washington DC visit last October, President Obama finally met with the Dalai Lama on February 18th this year. Predictably, China's leaders warned of damage to Sino-US relations if the administration went ahead with the meeting (while making the rather bizarre claim that by doing so...

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Tibetans Take to the Streets Over "Terrorist" Monk

(4) Comments | Posted December 11, 2009 | 2:23 PM

2009-12-11-http:-blogger.huffingtonpost.com-mt.cgi?__mode=view&_type=entry&id=388755&blog_id=3&saved_changes=1#livepreview_iframe_container-TenzinDelek.jpg
"I have always taught people that one should not harm any life, not even that of an ant. How could I then possibly be responsible for such an act?" Tenzin Delek Rinpoche

Last week, hundreds of Tibetans, young and old, began gathering...

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Technology of Liberation? Activists Get their Own Smartphone

(1) Comments | Posted December 9, 2009 | 7:23 AM

You're in a jail in a remote region of southwestern China. The men who arrested you have confiscated your mobile phone, which contains photos of a Public Security Bureau official brutally beating a young man who organized a protest over the working conditions in a local salt mine. No one...

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The Will to Survive: One Man's Harrowing Escape from Tibet

(1) Comments | Posted July 30, 2009 | 12:49 PM

As a child growing up in a remote village in the mountainous region of Kham, Tsewang Dhondup loved to listen to the heroic fables recounted by the local elders. But Tsewang's own story is the stuff of legend, and might well end up woven into local lore and marveled at...

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China's Civil Rights Lawyers: The New Enemies of the State

(0) Comments | Posted July 20, 2009 | 12:44 PM

Apart from crackdowns in its ethnic minority regions of Xinjiang and Tibet, in recent months Beijing has been busy targeting home-grown adversaries--Chinese civil rights lawyers--in a series of moves that has been described by the group Human Rights in China as "an all-out attack."

On the morning of Friday,...

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The Tibet Question: A Chinese Think Tank Dares to Ask

(7) Comments | Posted June 10, 2009 | 10:45 AM

Sometimes bravery comes in heroic cinematic moments. Sometimes it takes on a far more modest guise. A group of legal scholars from a Chinese think tank fall into the second category, putting their careers and reputations on the line by daring to try to shed some reasoned light on the...

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