(TibetanReview.net, Jun26’26) – Chinese authorities in Gade (Chinese: Gande) County of Golog (Guoluo) Prefecture, Qinghai Province, have on Jun 24 ordered immediate shutdown of a Tibetan language and culture education centre established by the late abbot Tulku Hungkar Dorje of the early 19th century Lung-ngon Monastery as China implemented its law ostensibly for promoting ethnic unity and progress.
The abbot had died in highly atrocious circumstances in Ho Chi Minh City, in Mar 2025, just after a team of visiting Chinese police took him into custody from its Vietnamese counterpart. The abbot had fled there as he was being subjected to severe political persecution by the Chinese for refusing to carry out its colonial and dictatorial orders.
Some two years ago, the authorities banned the school – the Gangjong Nadheng Sherig Lobling (Snowland Traditional and Modern Education Centre) – after the abbot refused to comply with their orders to teach courses that promoted the ruling ideology of the Communist Chinese government. The orders were antithetical to the very basis of the school’s founding. The shutdown action came as the last around 30 of the sprawling school’s students graduated this year, said the Tibetan-language Tibettimes.net Jun 25.
The report cited the late abbot as having said of the school in his time: the establishment of this school is the result of the exertion of the power of altruism and hard work, devotion of diligence and sense of loyalty, spending of time, money, and other resources. Teachers and construction workers, as well as adhering to rules and strict discipline have also played their roles. In short, it is a product of great endeavours marked by hundreds of efforts and hardships. The Gangjong Nadheng Sherig Lobling embodies my sense of Tibetan commitment and ancestry.
Students and alumni of the school are stated to have expressed sadness and grief in their social media posts over the shutdown order. They are stated to have quoted the above remarks of the late abbot as well as posted photos of the abbot and his monastery alongside their messages.
The school, located near Lung-ngon Monastery, was established on Jul 6, 2008, by the late abbot. This school, which specialized in Tibetan language and culture, also offered courses in English, painting, thangka, calligraphy, and other traditional Tibetan arts and crafts.
Chinese authorities across Tibet have carried out the closure of a number of such privately run Tibetan schools in their efforts to Sinicize the Tibetan Plateau region.
On Jul 1, 2021, China ordered the shutdown of the Sengdrug Tagtse School network in Golog county, which included the Sengdrug Tagtse boarding school in Darlag (Dari) County, three schools in Machen (Maqin) County, one school in Gade County, and two schools in Chigdril (Jiuzhi) County, all totalling seven privately-run Tibetan schools, the report said.
Also, on Jul 14, 2024, the Ragya Gangjong Sherig Norbue Lobling was coercively ordered to shut down, the report added.
These shutdowns reflected a drastic change in Chinese government’s policy as they had been established with its full approval and in compliance with all its prescribed legal formalities.
The report said Tulku Hungkar Dorje had also established a Gesar Charitable Foundation in Qinghai Province in 2004 and undertaken numerous activities for the preservation of the Gesar folklore, which reportedly the world’s longest epic.