ABSTRACT
This chapter tells of Tharab Tsering Yudun, born in 1943 to a family of physicians who had for generations practised traditional Tibetan medicine. She came of age when the Chinese Communist Party was recruiting young Tibetans as cadres, in the 1950s, and worked for many years under extreme and dangerous conditions in the remote north of Tibet. Of necessity, she assumed a largely male identity to carry out her administrative tasks in areas where women were excluded from many aspects of daily life. Retiring by choice at the age of fifty from her prestigious administrative post, she pursued her first love: Tibetan folk tales and folklore. Under the penname Tazhen, over the next few years, she recorded and published a great deal of Tibetan folk literature. The harsh conditions of her working life took their toll, and she died at the age of 57 after several bouts of surgery.
