Meanings in Hoarding?
My thoughts of the possible meaning/s behind “Hoarding” by some of our elders in our community.
I remember sometime back, a Tibetan girl was telling me how the older Tibetans, the pola’s and mola’s, in our community are “kanchoos“, Hindi for “cheap, སེར་སྣ་ཅན།”. How they would rather hoard the money then to spend it on something as basic as health. She was not being vicious and said she didn’t understand why they hoarded all their money (and things) away in their small homes instead of using it to help themselves.
At the time, I didn’t know how to respond to this. I had also known elders who hoarded everything and I had also wondered why. After some time thinking about it, I thought maybe this had something to do with elders in the community having led a very poor life as new refugee’s in India after escaping Tibet during China’s invasion in the 1950’s. Most worked on building roads to earn a meager income during the early phase of the refugee experience. I remember hearing grandmothers and grandfathers sharing stories of the traumatic work they endured and the many that perished as the result of road building, over Tea’s with each other. They spoke of the combination of the Indian heat and the vigorous work they were not accustomed to as the reasons behind the many that died.
The other day, some friends and I were having a discussion on Jewish elders who were former victims of holocaust. Studies by psychologists have found the problem of “hoarding” as one of the symptoms of trauma due to the holocaust experience. This made me think about our elders in the Tibetan community in Exile. I came across this article that talks about hoarding as a result of trauma. I wonder if this gives a small insight into the reasons why our grandparents hoard. Is this due to the trauma of loss, escape and intensive labor in unaccustomed conditions? We can never be too sure unless studies are done, but I have come to the assumption that trauma could be a reason that could explain the excessive hording of some of our elder community members. I believe hoarding is also linked to their need to provide their children with proper education. I remember the mola’s in their little groups chatting about the hard work and the money they saved to provide their children with the education they did not have. It is interesting how the significance of hoarding holds the possibilities of many stories and meanings.
On a side note, recently, a friend of mine shared an inspiring story with me. During the road building phase of the Tibetan community as fresh refugee’s in India, a group of Tibetan road builders in the Massuri area pooled together enough money from their collective income, to get His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama a car (first possible car?). They felt he should have one since other leaders of the world had cars.
Dear writer la,
Tibetans are generally extremely generous in their giving to the poor and offerings to monasteries and high lamas. And as opposed to certain other societies that have a culture of saving pennies to grow wealth, Tibetans are generally very ‘lakpa shangpo’ as we say, when it comes to giving gifts, throwing parties and serving guests lavish and abundant foods. That is what and who we are as a culture. But you seem to be writing about elder Tibetans in exile only, and so you’re remarking on the behavior pattern of being poor in exile, which is what many of us have become in India and Nepal.
Therefore rather than using a word like ‘hoarding’, which implies some sort of disorder and an inability to part with something, it would be much more accurate to use terms like ‘frugal’, ‘saver’, and ‘fiscally prudent’ to describe what you’re talking about. When you have little or no income to speak of and are living a precarious life in a poor settlement in the middle of nowhere , and with your hopes and dreams a million miles away in some place in Tibet, the situation is hardly conducive to going on shopping sprees even if one had the money. Calling Tibetan elders in exile ‘hoarders’ is like saying that a cage bird is ‘flight challenged’.
I suggest you speak to some of the Polas and Molas and ask them if they were so worried about money before 1959.
And I sincerely hope that none of these elder Tibetans hear that they are being described as ‘hoarders’!
Gendun la,
The point of this was not to call our elders “hoarders” but rather an attempt to ponder why, for those who do. This is also not meant to reflect “hoarding” in a negative light, I am merely trying to understand the complexities of people who hoard. Also, I do not claim Tibetans are cheap, that is not my point.
I understand and respect your sentiments to defend our elders. But I assure you, you do not need to worry about me targeting our elders in a negative light. I hope you will give this post a read beyond the first paragraph.
interesting post. Art Spiegelman’s awesome graphic novel Maus about the Holocaust depicts survivor Vladek (author’s father) as obsessively frugal, saying at one point: “You always pick up trash! Can’t you just buy wire”
On behalf of dl08, thank you drokpa la.
Two separate issues being discussed here. Frugality is one thing that is not specific to the Tibetans or particular demographic. So nothing more to add on that issue.
I can speak about hoarding though. I have seen serious hoarding issues with my grandmother who did suffer immensely in Tibet and I suspect often went without food. We have seen her ‘hoard’ food even though there is always plenty of food around the house all the time. We will find food in her pockets or in her bed or in her room. It is almost as if she is afraid of running out of food. Definitely post traumatic/hunger/starvation issues and probably same issue that holocaust survivors are suffering from.