Talking China and Dalai Lama over momos with a Tibetan refugee in Paris
Situated on a busy thoroughfare close to the Pantheon and the Jardin du Luxembourg is a cosy and comfortable restaurant called Kokonor. Its patrons include loyal locals and tourists who, looking to savour culinary fare beyond the ubiquitous crepe or croissant, are led to its doors by the 4.5 star Yelp rating.
As I walked in, grinning ochre masks, vivid Tangkha paintings and multi-coloured red, saffron and green brocade drapery bore silent testimony to the pride and unmistakably Tibetan provenance of the owner of Kokonor, Nyi Ma Jun.
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As I settled down to peruse the menu - a wide offering of familiar and new Tibetan dishes (a Mongolian section in the mains is conspicuous) - the next table's plat chauffant (sizzler) arrives, gurgling a waft of tenderised beef in a spicy sauce.
I place an order of pork momos, the chef's special chicken and a piece of steamed Tibetan bread (Go ré). A sociable man, Nyi Ma was easy in his role as a host, making sure to connect with all his customers; regulars or first-timers, and I was no exception to this rule. So as I ordered and ate, Nyi Ma sat down next to me and started chatting.
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Guessing correctly, he began speaking with me in strained Hindi, then attempted some English, and seemed relieved when I attempted to speak in French.
The rest of our conversation continued in French, with the odd English or Hindi word from time to time, and with Google image search results when all three languages failed. It is through this patchwork of tongues that his incredible history emerged.
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A political activist opposing the communists in his youth, Nyi Ma would help refugees from Tibet escape into India via Nepal, arranging the logistics of ferrying, including paying off the Nepalese authorities to look the other way and not report movements to the Chinese.
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He eventually fled Tibet in 1987, arriving first in India where he spent his time between Dharamsala, the seat of the Dalai Lama, and Delhi, and eventually made his way to Paris in 1988, via Hong Kong, Thailand and Singapore.
During his brief time in India he worked closely with the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan refugee community.
Apart from looking after the community, helping them get access to the right paperwork to enable their stay in India, he also conducted some surveillance work for the Tibetans - to see if any of the refugees were maintaining contact with the communist regime in China. He also briefly worked in a restaurant in Majnu ka Tila - Delhi's Tibetan neighbourhood since the first wave of refugees arrived in India following the 1959 uprising.
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Nyi Ma claims that he was the first Tibetan political refugee in France who arrived directly from Tibet (the earlier brief stint in India notwithstanding). Earlier Tibetan political refugees in France had been allowed in after they had spent substantial time in India as refugees.
Practical considerations dictated his move to France, rather than continuing to stay on in India. He knew he wouldn't be able to go back to Tibet in the foreseeable future, and India, despite hosting thousands of refugees, did not offer longer term citizenship rights. France, on the other hand, allowed him the possibility of making the country his home.
Now a French national, Nyi Ma continues to visit India - Dharamsala and New Delhi every few years to pay his respects to the Dalai Lama and to reconnect with the community. His parents and siblings are in Tibet and he has no expectation of meeting them anytime soon.
Yet they often speak on the phone and chat online, always ensuring they don't say anything controversial - Dalai Lama, independence, and the like - to invite the scrutiny, and the wrath of the Chinese authorities.
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After doing a number of odd jobs in Paris, Nyi Ma finally set up Kokonor in 1996. His inability to speak French well made it very difficult for him to land a stable and secure job. Starting a Tibetan restaurant was the obvious option, and since 1996, there has been no looking back. I asked him if setting up Kokonor was also because of any passion for cooking.
Not really, he said, hastening to add that he still developed the original recipes and ensured they served authentic Tibetan food. He is now joined by his partner, a Mongolian lady whom he met in Paris and with whom he has three children, in running the restaurant.
He also told me of a child he has from his partner back when he was in Nepal. He found out about his then partner being pregnant only a few years after the birth of their son. Mother and son have now migrated to Germany, and are in occasional contact with Nyi Ma.
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Nyi Ma is very proud of serving authentic Tibetan food at Kokonor, with a strong adherence to the traditions of the Amdo region in Tibet to which he belongs. His wife's Mongolian influence is restricted to the few dishes I spotted in the menu earlier on. The clientele includes both, the quartier (neighbourhood regulars), and foreign tourists - the English, Americans, Canadians, occasionally Indians, and also Chinese.
Did he have to adapt the recipes over time to suit the Parisian, or more international tastes of his customers? A little bit, he confesses. For example, for the red chilli sauce, the essential accompaniment to momos as we know them in India, he doesn't use the hottest chillies. But that apart, the French seem to like Tibetan food as is, without much fuss.
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Unlike Indians, he chuckles. In India, he recalls how Tibetan food has been adapted to accommodate local tastes: adding more "curry" items, making dishes hot and spicy, replacing beef and pork momos with chicken.
He also shows me a distinct Indian influence the first page of the menu: under "Soupes" is listed Dal avec viande - dal (lentils in Hindi) with meat. I enquire if the curry dishes on the menu are also an Indian influence. He thinks carefully and replies that while the recipes are authentic Tibetan, the word curry helps connect with many customers - including the French - who then immediately know what to expect.
I fish for any trade secrets he'd be happy to part with. Sensing my love for momos, he tells me that chives, a Chinese culinary influence, bring a very strong flavour to momos. But while preparing the filling, one should take care not to mix them in early on. First mix the meat, onions, spices and salt, and add the chives only before filling the mix into the rolled out dough. Otherwise, he warns, the stuffing will get all watery if the chives mix with the salt for long. He also adds that the best red chilli sauce has to be made with peanut oil.
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Nyi Ma tells me about his current level of involvement with the Tibetan movement. While he is no longer very active, he's in touch with people who are. There is a huge underground movement, in Tibet, he says. The news of self-immolations doesn't reach the world, but he knows of them.
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He is part of a secret chat group, where only known and trusted people are added by existing members. No one signs in or discloses their real names, sticking to aliases instead. But he knows who the people behind a few IDs are, he says with a smile.
These chat groups on online platforms - each of which may include hundreds of people, serve as media to exchange information ranging from news of demonstrations and their subsequent "consequences", and videos of the Dalai Lama's spiritual messages to news report clippings (from Chinese, American, even Norwegian channels) and Tibetan songs. Someone even recently added the entire video of Dhoom 3 the 2013 Bollywood hit, he tells me.
I ask if he felt the Tibetan movement is dying down, internationally and back home. He disagreed, saying that young people in Tibet are as committed to independence as earlier generations.
"They know more, they read more. Moreover, even the young Chinese are better informed these days." He tells me that when visiting Chinese students come into the restaurant (and many do), they often wonder why he displays a photograph of the Dalai Lama. He explains that the Dalai Lama is not only their political, but also their spiritual leader. This opens up debates on the position of Tibet vis-à-vis China and he finds that over the years, Chinese students have become a lot more aware and open-minded.
Sympathetic too? He smiles and swiftly shakes his head to indicate a "no". He recounts an incident when a Chinese diplomat stationed in Paris came to his restaurant on the recommendation of a visiting Chinese student who had been there earlier and praised the food in front of the diplomat. Not expecting to be greeted by the photograph of the Dalai Lama (somewhat naively of him, I thought), the diplomat got into a long debate with Nyi Ma on why he is sullying the image of China, why is he supporting the political rebel, and so on.
Nyi Ma stuck to his guns, defended his political position, and reminded the diplomat that he was a political refugee. That was the first and the last time that any other Chinese diplomat visited Kokonor. Such confrontations must infuriate him, I suggest.
He replies that these are nothing compared to what people in Tibet go through. As a young man it used to anger him when authorities barged into people's homes and destroyed pictures of the Dalai Lama. Now, he says, he has a different perspective. Destroying the Dalai Lama's photos over the years has not reduced the respect and regard he commands among the Tibetans. That, he believes, is true respect, unlike the kind which is feigned out of fear.
I probe about what he thinks of India's attitude to the Tibetans. His eyes widen with amazement. "They saved our lives, so many of us. We will always be grateful to the Indians." But has the Indian political support for Tibet not diminished over time, I persist. Do the Tibetans feel "un peu déçu" (a bit disappointed/ let down), by India? He gives me a half-smile, and says, "But we can't say that."
I ask Nyi Ma if he feels he will ever go back to Tibet. He doesn't think so. He laments that his children will not connect with Tibet or their Tibetan lineage when they grow up. Then again, once they grow up, Nyi Ma would like to return to Dharamsala. Which is what he also calls home.