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Tibet has "remained a mysterious country," says the Dalai Lama, and the mystery extends even to himself. Ever since the spiritual leader fled to Dharamsala, India, after being forced by the Chinese to leave his home country in 1959, his only information about Tibet has come from eyewitness accounts. He tries to meet with every refugee who makes it through the Himalayas.

And therefore it was neither the photographer York Hovest, nor the reporter Jrg Eigendorf, but the Dalai Lama himself who asked the first questions during their interview in Dharamsala. He wanted to know the details about Hovest's time in Tibet. Whether there were still monks in the monasteries where the Dalai Lama once studied and took his exams. How exactly the surveillance cameras of the Chinese worked. And whether it was not somehow possible to plant a few trees 5,000 meters above sea level. Page by page, he went through Hovest's book, 100 days in Tibet.

But in the end it was still an interview.

Your Holiness, do you think that you can return to your homeland one day?

Yes, I am sure of that. China can no longer isolate itself, it must follow the global trend toward a democratic society. I can already feel that change among Chinese students. I heard there are more than 200,000 Chinese students studying abroad nowadays. A few years ago when I met students, they were serious and reserved. Today they smile. Those are signs of change.

Is this the reason you have become almost conciliatory toward China during the past few months?

A new era has begun with the presidency of Xi Jinping. He wants to create a more harmonious society than the one under his predecessor, Hu Jintao. In former years, it was the era of economic growth, which has created a lot of resentment and envy.

“ Deep down in their hearts, 95 percent of all Tibetans still feel and think very Tibetan. They are strongly connected to their culture.

- The Dalai Lama

If China reforms, what happens to Tibet?

Whoever wants a harmonious society can't rely on violence and suppression. Harmony comes from the heart. It is based on trust. Harmony and distrust are mutually exclusive. This is good for Tibet.

How Tibetan is Tibet these days?

The Chinese did not manage to destroy our culture, which is 3,000 to 4,000 years old. Those who criticize different beliefs and cultures actually make them stronger. Deep down in their hearts, 95 percent of all Tibetans still feel and think very Tibetan. They are strongly connected to their culture. This even applies to those who work for the Chinese.

What do you mean by "thinking and feeling Tibetan"?

This is to practice and internalize Tibetan Buddhism, which is the teaching of compassion, wisdom based on intelligence and interdependence. We believe in being reborn over and over again, until we attain enlightenment.

Do you need to be anxious about the Tibetan culture?

We still have a big problem: Without proper teachers and proper training, keeping up a religion is very difficult. Prior to 1959, there were outstanding scholars in Tibet. But most of them were arrested, some were killed, some fled.

So there aren't enough scholars in Tibet who could train new monks?

We have trained some monks here in India who have returned to Tibet. But this is rare. The danger is that religion becomes a mere ritual. It's not sufficient to ring a bell, you know. Monks have to master the doctrine and the meditation. They need to be good in both. This requires thorough training.

“ Without proper teachers and proper training, keeping up a religion is very difficult. ... The danger is that religion becomes a mere ritual. It's not sufficient to ring a bell, you know.

- The Dalai Lama

Why do you think Chinese President Xi Jinping is serious about the change he began?

He resolutely fights corruption. And corruption is the main source of mistrust. Xi Jinping is brave. He has alienated large parts of the old cadres. Some high-ranking Chinese officials have been arrested. The president seriously thinks about values. During his visit to Paris in March this year, he even referred to Buddhism as an important part of the Chinese culture.

Could Buddhism play an important role in China's transformation?

Maybe. The leader of the Communist Party saying something positive about Buddhism is definitely new. He has Buddhists in the family; his mother even practices Tibetan Buddhism. And many Chinese people are fascinated by our religion.

But monks are still burning themselves in Tibet, human rights are still violated blatantly.

Yes, that's terrible. And it hurts to see that. But we have to accept that Tibet will always be in the neighborhood of China. We cannot move it anywhere else. Although the two countries have a bad relationship at the moment, that wasn't and will not always remain this way. I hope for change being carried from outside into China. It is good that China was integrated into the world economy. I've always said so. What matters now is that the modern world supports China becoming a democratic country — with rule of law, human rights and freedom of press. So integration is good, for Tibet as well.

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The Dalai Lama, shown here as a child, says in his dreams he dies at the age of 113. He also says he wishes to be reborn "as long as sentient beings' suffering remains." Bettmann/Corbis hide caption

itoggle caption Bettmann/Corbis

The Dalai Lama, shown here as a child, says in his dreams he dies at the age of 113. He also says he wishes to be reborn "as long as sentient beings' suffering remains."

Bettmann/Corbis

You are now 79 years old. Can you imagine that you won't have a successor?

Yes, indeed, I can. The institution of the "Dalai Lama" was important mainly because of its political power. I completely gave up that power in 2011, when I retired. Politically-thinking people must therefore realize that the more than four centuries of having a Dalai Lama should be over.

But isn't your spirituality more important than political power?

Tibetan Buddhism is not dependent on one individual. We have a very good organizational structure with highly trained monks and scholars. Over the past five decades, step by step we have built up a strong community here in India.

So the Tibetans do not need a Dalai Lama anymore?

No, I don't think so. Twenty-six hundred years of Buddhist tradition cannot be maintained by one person. And sometimes I make a tough joke: We had a Dalai Lama for almost five centuries. The 14th Dalai Lama now is very popular. Let us then finish with a popular Dalai Lama. If a weak Dalai Lama comes along, then it will just disgrace the Dalai Lama. (The Dalai Lama laughs.)

How old do you want to become?

The doctors say I could become 100 years old. But in my dreams I will die at the age of 113 years.

You have written and said that you can affect your rebirth.

I hope and pray that I may return to this world as long as sentient beings' suffering remains. I mean not in the same body, but with the same spirit and the same soul.

It is said that whoever has achieved enlightenment will not return.

The first Dalai Lama became 80 years old. There his disciples said that he was ready for a place in heaven. He replied: "I have no desire for any of these heavenly places. I want to be reborn, where I can be of use." This is my wish, too.

Jrg Eigendorf writes for the German newspaper Die Welt.

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I watched the season premiere of Law & Order SVU, and I was excited to see that it covered a topic I've reported on for the last year — sex trafficking of women in Mexico — and that a very rich cast of Latino actors were featured on the show. But man, that good feeling stopped almost as soon as I heard them speak.

The Spanish and Spanglish used in the show was embarrassing. When it comes to Latinos on the screen, Hollywood keeps missing the mark on the way we speak.

One of the SVU story lines focused on a young Mexican prostitute who has been trafficked to the U.S. a year or two ago. Somehow, she speaks fantastic English, just with an accent, to the NYPD detective during a long interrogation. After that, she spontaneously starts talking in very dramatic Spanish to a non-Latina detective she just met.

As someone who regularly speaks English, Spanish and Spanglish (that mix of English and Spanish), this made no sense. For American Latinos, there are certain unspoken rules about what language you speak, and to whom. I know if I ever speak to my parents (native Argentines) in Spanglish, I will get immediately corrected with the word I'm looking for — but can't remember — in Spanish. And if I ever speak to my mom in English — well, I don't do that (she pretends she can't hear me over the phone.)

I'm not alone. Other NPR listeners have chimed in on how they navigated the family politics of language. Twitter user Yvonne Hennessy wrote: "Abuelitos [grandparents] = Spanish. Nuclear family & primos [cousins]= Spanglish or English.

Gisela Castanon wrote in to say, "My parents were from Mexico & both were bilingual in Spanish and English... the rule was cuando te hable en espaol me contestas en espaol, y cuando te hable en ingls,e contestas en ingls. When I talk to you in Spanish, you reply in Spanish, and when I talk to you in English, you reply in English."

Listener Marly Perez wrote, "I speak Spanglish with my sister, but not with my relatives. It's Spanish only. They don't get annoyed if I do — they just call me out on it."

If you're a Spanglish speaker, it's not just your family calling you out. Anti-immigration activists in the U.S. are also fervent critics. They point to Spanglish as a symbol of everything that's wrong with Latino immigration. Look! They aren't assimilating! Hispanic invasion! Destruction of the English language! Gah! Interestingly, that distaste is shared by plenty of Latin Americans, who wrinkle their noses at the mere mention of "Spanglish."

As a South American myself, I've heard plenty of snide inside jokes about "those" Latinos in the U.S. who don't fully master the Spanish. In certain circles, Spanglish is seen as a "contamination" of the Spanish language. A few years back, the Spanish Royal Academy created a small controversy when it inducted the word "Spanglish" into its dictionary, but defined it as "deformed elements of vocabulary and grammar from both Spanish and English." Ouch.

But for some Latin cultures, losing Spanglish would also mean losing their identity. Listener Paola Cap-Garca wrote, "it's definitely a part of everyday living in Puerto Rico, not just the US Latino experience....I think we're taught to think Spanglish is a failure, that it's 'imperialist' or that it's 'uneducated' or 'unattractive,' but I've come to accept/appreciate it...I like the hodgepodge."

I like the hodgepodge too, but only when it's done right. Too many U.S. movies and television shows get it wrong, even when they pride themselves in being authentic. Many people singled out the show Breaking Bad, and the character Gustavo "Gus" Fring, for falling flat on language. Tamara Vallejos writes, "Gus' Spanish and accent were so painful to listen to, and it made me super angry that such a pivotal and fantastic character would have such a giant, noticeable, nails-on-a-chalkboard flaw."

I will say there are examples of Hollywood doing it right. The film Chef is a great example. The film stars Sofia Vergara, but with a script that doesn't force her to overdo her accent or screech her way through the boisterous Latina stereotype (which is how many of us see her in her Modern Family). In the film, she isn't playing a Latina stereotype. She's playing a concerned mom who happens to be Latina. The Spanish and Spanglish happens when it's supposed to, and it just flows very naturally.

This is the way it's supposed to be, and it's the way it could be. There are over 50 million Latinos in America, and surely scriptwriters can find one of us to check the script with.

Until then, I have this thought: Here's a word I love in the Spanish language: ningunear. It's a verb that comes from the noun ningun, or "none." It literally means to turn someone into nothing, to condescend. Dear Hollywood: stop with the ninguneo.

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Breaking Bad

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Kari Fiotti moved back to Omaha, Neb., in 2009 after a decade living in Italy. She had divorced her husband and returned to the U.S. to start a new life.

Then, Fiotti, 44, took a pricey fall.

"When I came back, I fell and I broke my wrist without insurance," she says.

Her doctor, she says, rejected her offer to make partial payments. So, like millions of Americans, her debt — which had grown to $1,640 with interest and fees — was turned over to collectors.

Fiotti soon learned how hard they would try to collect her unpaid bills.

Court records show that the collectors sued Fiotti, but that she didn't show up in court for the hearing about her case.

In May of last year, Fiotti suddenly realized, "My bank account's at zero and I'm like, whoa, what's going on?"

Debt collectors had seized her bank account because she didn't have enough to cover the debt. Fiotti says she was stunned. "You're taking everything that I have," she says. "You're not just taking a portion of it, you're taking my livelihood."

Fiotti says she was doing clerical work making about $10 an hour. She had a kid in college and no savings. She says she had to overdraw her checking account just to take out $50 to buy groceries. In the end, a friend put Fiotti in touch with a lawyer, and she now has the debt behind her.

This story was co-published by NPR and ProPublica, an investigative journalism organization.

For more on this story:

Read the ADP report on wage garnishment. The nation's largest payroll services provider released its report after studying 2013 payroll records for 13 million employees, at the request of ProPublica.

From NPR: Millions Of Americans' Wages Seized Over Credit Card And Medical Debt

From ProPublica: Unseen Toll, Wages Of Millions Seized To Pay Past Debts

From ProPublica: Old Debts, Fresh Pain: Weak Laws Offer Debtors Little Protection

If you have firsthand experience being sued over a debt, NPR and ProPublica would love to hear from you. Use this form to send a tip confidentially. A reporter may follow up with you.

This week, NPR and ProPublica are reporting on a striking change in the way debt collectors pursue people in this country. On the heels of the worst recession in generations, 1 in 10 working Americans between the ages of 35 and 44 is getting his or her wages garnished. That means their pay is being docked — often over an old credit card debt, medical bill or student loan.

But just how much money can collectors legally seize from people's wages and bank accounts? The answer is more than you might think.

In about half the states in the country, collectors can seize 25 percent of your paycheck. In all but a handful of states, they can take everything in your bank account.

An Explosion Of Wage Garnishment Cases

In recent years, debt collectors have been filing millions of lawsuits against working Americans that are resulting in wage garnishments. That's according to an analysis by the payroll services company ADP.

Those who fall into this system find their futures determined by laws that consumer advocates say are outdated, overly punitive and out of touch with the financial reality faced by many Americans.

Lawyers and judges involved in these cases say it's common for people who are sued by debt collectors to not show up in court to defend themselves. They say some people seem to just stick their heads in the sand, while others get overwhelmed or just confused by the court documents.

The debtor's absence makes it easier for collectors to garnish wages and seize bank accounts.

The Law's Silence On Bank Seizures

Federal law regulating debt collection is silent on perhaps the most punishing tactic of collectors: It doesn't limit or prohibit them from cleaning out debtors' bank accounts.

State laws, while often more comprehensive, vary significantly. Only a handful, for instance, automatically protect a minimum amount of funds in a debtor's account.

When garnishment protections do exist, the burden is usually on debtors to figure out if and how the laws protect their assets.

"In an awful lot of states, the information that the employee gets is going to be very, very confusing," says William Henning, a law professor at the University of Alabama and chairman of a committee drafting a model state law on wage garnishment.

Back in 1968, when lawmakers passed the landmark Consumer Credit Protection Act, it specifically limited how much of a debtor's pay could be seized. But it made no mention of bank account garnishments. As a result, a collector can't take more than 25 percent of a debtor's paycheck, but if that paycheck is deposited in a bank, all of the funds can be taken.

Carolyn Carter, director of advocacy at the National Consumer Law Center, says the lawmakers didn't address bank seizures because they simply weren't common at the time. In today's collection environment, she said, "the wages that are deposited in a bank account become suddenly much more vulnerable than anyone realized."

Since the late 1960s, debt collection has changed in other ways that lawmakers couldn't have anticipated. Today, buying old debt is an industry in itself. And big debt-buying firms hire teams of lawyers to crank out lawsuit after lawsuit seeking to collect. Carter says it's time for lawmakers at the state and local level to revisit and reform existing laws.

'I Honestly Dread Paydays'

Like any American family living paycheck to paycheck, Conrad Goetzinger and Cassandra Rose hope that if they make the right choices, their $13-an-hour jobs will keep the lights on and put food in the fridge and gas in the car.

But every two weeks, the Omaha, Neb., couple is reminded of a choice they didn't make and can't change: A chunk of both of their paychecks disappears before they see it, seized to pay off old debts.

Twice, debt collectors have scooped every penny out of Goetzinger's bank account and even attempted to take his personal property.

“ It makes you feel hopeless that you're working for no reason and that you're never going to be able to succeed.

- Cassandra Rose

For Goetzinger, 29, it's the consequence of a laptop loan he didn't pay off after high school; for Rose, 33, it's a reminder of more than $20,000 in medical bills racked up while uninsured. The garnishments, totaling about $760 each month, comprise the single largest expense in their budget.

"I honestly dread paydays," Goetzinger says, "because I know it's gone by Saturday afternoon, by the time we go grocery shopping."

On a recent evening after Rose got her 11- and 12-year-old daughters upstairs to bed, the couple explained that the children need dental work. They need some crowns on their teeth. "I don't want my daughter walking around with a big silver tooth," Goetzinger says. "When you have to choose between keeping the power on for the rest of the week and getting teeth done, unfortunately, teeth falls to a lower priority."

Rose puts it this way: "It makes you feel hopeless that you're working for no reason and that you're never going to be able to succeed."

William Reinbrecht, a Nebraska attorney who represents people who are getting their wages garnished, says often there are other debts waiting in line. So when one gets paid off, the next garnishment kicks in.

"It's a little like debtors prison," he says. "It makes a subclass of people that are crushed by all of this, and they can't, no matter how hard they work, improve their economic position."

Are Working-Class Americans Being Asked To Pay Too Much?

For most workers, the unexpected loss of a quarter of their wages would make life difficult. For low-income workers, it can be particularly devastating.

The Consumer Expenditure Survey, produced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, reports that, for a worker with annual wages between $20,000 and $30,000, the average amount spent on basic costs such as housing, transportation, food and health care is about $26,000. The average income for that population is also about $26,000.

A recent survey by the Federal Reserve asked thousands of consumers whether they could afford an emergency expense of $400. Less than half of respondents said they could without borrowing money or selling something. Nearly 20 percent said they could think of no way they might cover such a cost.

So how did the federal lawmakers in 1968 set 25 percent as the allowable limit for garnishments? Like many laws, it was the result of closed-door compromise.

At the time, House Democrats argued that debtors could often afford to lose very little.

"For a poor man — and whoever heard of the wage of the affluent being attached? — to lose part of his salary often means his family will go without the essentials," argued Rep. Henry Gonzalez of Texas, in a speech on the House floor.

In the end, the House version of the consumer protection bill limited garnishment to 10 percent of income. But the Senate's version didn't limit garnishments at all. When a compromise bill finally emerged from a committee of lawmakers from both houses, the limit was 25 percent. Forty-six years later, that's still the law in more than half of states.

The 1968 law did seek to protect the poorest workers, but did so by setting a standard tied to the minimum wage. Time has eroded what even then was a modest protection. The federal minimum wage in 1968 was $1.60; adjusted for inflation, that's $10.95 in current dollars. With $7.25 the current minimum wage, federal law only protects workers from garnishment if they earn under about $11,310 annually. Even for a wage earner without any dependents, that wage is beneath the poverty line.

The Law Demands That You Pay Your Debts

Robert Foehl, a general counsel for ACA International — a trade association for debt collectors, says collectors play an important role in the economy. And sometimes, he says, "a creditor might have no other avenue for recovering their debt except through a legal process" such as wage garnishment.

In St. Louis, Mo., Associate Circuit Judge Chris McGraugh has presided over many collections cases. He says people will admit, for example, that they ran up a big debt on a credit card and didn't pay it. And the judge says he tells them "the law demands that you pay your debts!"

But at the same time, McGraugh says, he still sees some serious problems.

He says lawyers for debt collectors will sometimes ask for delays or continuance on cases if they see a debtor is taking time off from work to show up in court. They will do that several times over weeks or months until the person finally gives up and doesn't come to court anymore, allowing the debt collector to get a default judgment against the debtor.

McGraugh says he also finds payday loan cases unsettling because the court ends up enforcing a triple-digit interest rate that the person can never escape.

"You're talking about a person who takes out $200 and years later ends up with a $4,000 debt running at an interest of 200 percent." McGraugh says he finds those cases "egregious."

McGraugh says before he became a judge in 2012, he practiced all kinds of law, from car accident injury cases to death penalty defense. And he thought he knew the legal system pretty well.

"I had practiced law for 25 years. I had no idea something like that was occurring, and as such, I don't think most people know that that's occurring and this is allowed to happen," he says.

consumer debt

garnishment

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts, says newly released recordings of conversations between Federal Reserve officials show that the same kind of cozy relationships that led to the 2008 financial crisis still dominate Wall Street.

In an interview with Morning Edition, Warren says the recordings provide definite proof of that relationship.

"You really do, for a moment, get to be the fly on the wall that watches all of it, and there it is to be exposed to everyone: the cozy relationship, the fact that the Fed is more concerned about its relationship with a too-big-to-fail bank than it is with protecting the American public," Warren says.

Economy

Transcript: Sen. Warren's Full NPR Interview On Financial Regulation

Warren talked to Morning Edition days after ProPublica and This American Life ran stories about Carmen Segarra, a former bank examiner for the Federal Reserve in New York, who in 2012 surreptitiously recorded conversations by Fed officials considering regulatory decisions on Goldman Sachs.

The recordings don't reveal anything outright illegal. Instead, they reveal Fed officials discussing "legal but shady" transactions and then wringing their hands over how to delicately bring them up with the bank.

Warren, who before coming into office led an effort to create the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, says that trepidation is another thing wrong with regulators today.

"A regulator doesn't say to a big financial institution: 'Hey! Step right up here. Get your toes on the line, and so long as you can make a legal argument that you have not crossed the line then, hey, we're — we're all cool here,' " she says. "That's not the way regulation of large financial institutions is supposed to work — they're supposed to be using judgment. And remember, part of this judgment is about whether or not there has been compliance with the law. The fact that Goldman could mount a legal defense here is not really the point of these tapes. The point of these tapes is that the regulators are backing off long before anyone's in court making a legal argument about whether or not they came right up to the line or they crossed over the line."

The bottom line, Warren says, is that the United States needs regulators "who understand that they work for the American people, not for the big banks."

Much more of Steve Inskeep's conversation with Warren is on today's Morning Edition. Click here for your local NPR member station.

Goldman Sachs

Elizabeth Warren