Tibet is a long way from Rosendale. But Visions of Tibet, a recent storefront addition to Main Street in the little town of Rosendale, has residents welcoming handmade products from craftspeople living in Nepal and supporting efforts toward human rights for Tibetans.
Sonam Zoksang and his wife Kathryn Culley, who live in Kingston with their two children, use Rosendale as a business location and base to further their efforts to help publicize the plight of Tibetans under Chinese rule and also to get the word out on their exiled compatriots in Nepal and elsewhere.
Sonam Zoksang was born in Kyirong, Tibet, in 1960 after the Chinese invasion of Tibet. His parents escaped to India when Zoksang was 1 month old. He grew up in refugee schools, got a degree in Buddhist dialectics and taught himself photography. In 1985 Zoksang visited New York City to meet an American friend he had met while studying Buddhism in India. He moved to the U.S. shortly thereafter.
He began working in a Tibetan goods shop in New York City to augment his work in photography and eventually took over ownership of the shop, Vision of Tibet, selling one-of-a-kind hand crafted goods from artisans living in Nepal and India.
“We work with small businesses,” he said. “These goods are not manufactured, but primarily come from family businesses.”
Zoksang is a quiet man with a ready smile that suggests a turbulent life can forge an inner tranquility even as things remain difficult in one”™s homeland.
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Zoksang and Culley used to visit Tibet regularly, but in recent years Chinese authorities have prohibited their entry to either country, a reaction to their efforts to promote Tibetan freedom. The couple still imports authentic Tibetan goods, but no longer from inside Tibet. “Now, cheap Chinese goods have flooded Tibet,” said Culley. “All that cheap stuff from China in Tibet discourages Tibetan crafts because they are not allowed to export and market their work.”
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Instead, the Tibetan refugee community in Nepal and India keeps up the tradition of producing beautiful jewelry, clothing and cloths and scarves, handmade paper and ritual items. Zoksang travels frequently to the Himalayas and India on buying trips and says the business end of such trips is “very convenient,” with good travel and shipping connections between Nepal and India at one end and Rosendale at the other.
Clearly the trips produce an abundance of goods. The shop on Rosendale”™s historic Main Street is cornucopia of colors and textures greeting a visitor entering the store. Foot traffic is far less than in the New York City storefront they left last spring after a huge rent increase, but Zoksang is happy in his new store.
“There are fewer people passing the store, but there is also less pressure for paying the rent,” he said. “In this area people are very open minded, so we decided to take a chance for a couple of years and see how it goes.”
Active in the Tibetan community in this country and abroad as an advocate for human rights and political change, he is on the board of directors of the U.S. Tibet Committee and has been president of the Tibetan Association of New York & New Jersey. He seeks to tell the story of his homeland through photography, documenting Tibetans and Tibetan life, both in and out of Tibet.
Though he is no longer able to travel to Tibet, he still has slide shows he presents at universities schools and community centers wherever invited, showing how difficult conditions had become inside Tibet under Chinese rule and takes pictures of Tibetan refugee communities in India, as well as in the U.S. and other countries.
But he says that working in the store offers its opportunities for changing the world as well, one curious customer at a time. “The fun thing is people come in and ask questions about Tibet and Buddhism and our goods and the ritual objects we have,” he said, adding, “There is more interest than 15 years ago and more chances to talk to people and educate people.”
The store”™s web site is VisionofTibet.com.
