If: (conjunction) in the event that...

Indian clothes are so bad, if Buddha had been born in Tibet we would wear chupas.
-Soba (Tibetan monk of twenty years)

If Buddha had been born in Tibet he wouldn't have been Buddhist.
If I had been born in Tibet I might have been.

If I were a tiny Tibetan boy I would definitely think that the scraps of paper and bits of metal treasures that I had stuffed in the pockets of my split pants were awesome things to offer to a friend.

If I were a Tibetan nun I would be ridiculously curious about the foreigner girl in my tea house asking me how to say "fly (as in insect)" in Tibetan and might even invite her to my tiny little cell foot achingly near the peak of some mountain.

If I were a Chinese teacher I would think that my foreign co-worker was the strangest person on earth for how slowly she counts money and how frequently she insists that Chinese food is so delicious or repeats "tai ke shi le!" (it's a pity) since that's the only phrase she really knows.

If I were a Chinese person I would not realize the outpouring of love that looks like a plate of deviled eggs and tastes like a home that I could not have imagined.

If I were native to this city I would not be sitting in the semi-dark because most of my light bulbs have burnt out and I don't know where to get new ones.

If I chose not to look I would miss the small children digging "treasures" out of their pockets or wearing absurdly bright colored hats with flowers or eating hot dogs on sticks, I would fail to notice the nuns who grin shyly at me in hopes that I speak more Tibetan than I actually do, I would not have the chance to laugh at the shock on my Chinese co-workers faces when I unwittingly do something uniquely not Chinese, I would bypass the grace that is a plate of deviled eggs and take for granted that I know how and where to buy light bulbs.

If I did not know that the One who took all my shame away and beckoned me into His family loves me still and is the very one who makes every leaf green and every cloud on a bright blue sky fluffy I would be miserable.

If I had been born in Tibet I would not know that anyone took my shame away and beckoned me into their family.

If Buddha had been born in Tibet, he probably wouldn't have been Buddhist, but nevertheless, all the monks would wear chupas.