In the tiny Swiss mountain village of Unterwasser, near the Austrian border, live people with names like Tsering Ken-chock, Tashi Samdup and D'Olma Doji. Instead of being apple-cheeked blonds, they are brown-faced, black-haired, almond-eyed, and smell faintly of rancid yak butter.
All 23 of the new villagers are Tibetan refugees who were flown in to Zurich two months ago by chartered plane. Their Unterwasser home has an elevation of 3,000 ft., only about one-fourth that of Tibet, but Switzerland lies 15° north of their Asian homeland and the climatic conditions are much the same. Explains Lama Wangyal about the extraordinary transplant:...
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