I liked this article about this young man... a descendent of the Dharma King, Songtsan Gampo, who was historically regarded as the founder of the Tibetan Empire and said to be the thirty-third ruler in his dynasty. Songtsan Gampo is traditionally credited with being the first to bring Buddhism to the Tibetan people. He was also said to be an incarnation of Avalokiteshvara and built many Buddhist temples, including the Jokhang in Lhasa. So Lhagyari Trichen Namgyal Wangchuk descends from an esteemed biological lineage. However, I don' t think that he could claim any relationship to being a "king" in this day and age, especially as the Dalai Lamas had taken over temporal and spiritual head of Tibet since the time of the Great Fifth in the 17th century.
Points of interest -
1. Could Trichen become the next Sikyong? Perhaps his descent would be an factor in his favor, compared to Lobsang Sangay. It is good to see that he is humble about his background when he says "Refugee or king is just a name".
2. "at age 12, he was coronated by the Dalai Lama" - what does coronated mean? Was he enthroned? As what? What is his spiritual lineage?
3. Trichen opted to study Mandarin. Despite him saying that if he goes to China he will never get to leave, he is showing interest in China and is respectful about China. "He regularly opens his talks by sharing his affection for the Chinese people and a respect for their traditions – and cuisine." This is a sharp contrast with the TYC who is vociferous about Tibetan independence. He diplomatically states that "“We are not asking for complete independence (from China),” he says. “All we want are human rights.”
4. He has a strong relationship with the Dalai Lama.
so what future holds for this young Tibetan?
It will be interesting to see if something comes of it.
Last remaining descendant of Tibetan kings graduates from St. Andrew'shttp://www.delawareonline.com/article/20130526/LIFE/305260013/Heir-to-an-invisible-throne?nclick_check=1Written by Margie Fishman
The News Journal
Today, Lhagyari Trichen Namgyal Wangchuk and his 75 other graduating classmates will mark the end of an era – leaving the cocoon of their Middletown boarding school to enjoy the four-year freedom binge known as the American college experience.
Wearing his red-and-white striped St. Andrew’s tie, Trichen (pronounced TREE-chin) will blend in with the throng of exuberant teenagers accepting their diplomas. No one will curtsy as the last remaining descendant of Tibetan kings exits the stage. He will sling an arm around his mother, whom he has not seen in three years.
And that is all the 20-year-old could hope for – to be ordinary, for a moment.
For there is a heaviness about him, despite his serene demeanor and unwavering grace. Vested with a century-old Tibetan legacy, he carries the expectations of his extended American family and benefactors; his mentor, the Dalai Lama; and the millions of people suffering in his homeland, a place in which he has never set foot.
“I’m still in someone else’s home,” he acknowledged softly during an interview last week, wearing cargo shorts and flip-flops. Behind him, students bounced balls idly and reclined in the grass overlooking Noxontown Pond.
Before enrolling in St. Andrew’s in 2010, Trichen lived with his mother and three older sisters in exile in northern India. The refugee life was one without privilege, as the family earned a modest income renting space to shop owners. Trichen’s father, a former Tibetan king who was imprisoned for more than two decades, died when Trichen was in the sixth grade.
Today, Trichen is the only recognized descendant of the first Dharma King of Tibet, King Songsten Gamp, who introduced Buddhism to the unified kingdom in the seventh century.
As heir to an invisible throne, Trichen attended the Tibetan Children’s Village boarding school in Dharamsala, India, before taking the Dalai Lama’s advice and pursuing further study in America. He will attend Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania this fall, possibly majoring in political science.
Holly Carter, a New York City film producer who helped connect Trichen with St. Andrew’s, expects him to be elected prime minister of the Tibetan Government in Exile in India or hold another prominent position.
“He is as centered and thoughtful as anyone I’ve met in my life,” she says.
“He knows he needs to prepare to do something,” she adds. “But he doesn’t know what that something is.”
'Like his father'Carter met Trichen when they teamed up on the 2010 documentary, “My Country is Tibet.” Carter’s BYkids nonprofit group pairs experienced filmmakers with youths around the world to create documentaries for an American audience.
The 27-minute film, narrated in English by Trichen, traces young Tibetans as they struggle to preserve their cultural identities in the face of persecution. Wearing a Peugeot T-shirt with a dusting of teenage stubble on his face, Trichen interviews Tibetans in their settlement in Dehradun, India.
A friend claims the exiled would-be king used to be naughty like other boys. His sister describes him as a consummate gentleman, “the best brother in the world.” His mother, who radiates a warm glow that rivals her son’s, insists he’s exactly like his father.
The movie also offers a primer on modern Tibetan history.
When the Chinese invaded Tibet in 1950, the Dalai Lama went into exile, and Trichen’s father, Lhagyari Trichen Namgyal Gyatso, was sent to prison, where he was shocked with electric prods and forced to wear heavy chains, his son says.
The Chinese offered to save the royal palace if his father would surrender. Instead, he fought back.
After he was released, the Dalai Lama urged him to move to India, where he spent a dozen years in the Parliament for the government in exile.
“Refugee or king is just a name,” Trichen says. “The most important thing was the work he did.”
Trichen was aware of his lineage, but says his father never pressured him.
“He never made me feel like I had too many responsibilities,” he says. “At least I have a beautiful childhood memory.”
The last time the pair shared a hug, father praised son for maturing both mentally and physically.
“He told me he was so happy I was his height,” Trichen remembers.
A few days later, Trichen learned of his father’s death from a warden at his boarding school. The elder Trichen slipped away while meditating to one of the Dalai Lama’s speeches, his son says.
Following Tibetan custom, Trichen set fire to his father’s funeral pyre. He recalls feeling lost, confused and heartbroken at the time, knowing he would have to change – to learn to sit still, to become a model student.
One year later, at age 12, he was coronated by the Dalai Lama, the highly revered Tibetan spiritual leader.
“When I first met him officially, I almost forgot my name,” Trichen remembers.
At first, the young king didn’t appreciate the marathon prayer sessions with dignitaries while his friends horsed around in the streets. Over time, he became grateful for the opportunity to provide a “voice for the voiceless.”
“We are not asking for complete independence (from China),” he says. “All we want are human rights.”
About TrichenFollowing the film’s release, Trichen and Carter were scheduled to begin a brief promotional tour in the U.S. It was Trichen’s first trip outside of India.
But before he left, he met with the Dalai Lama to discuss life plans. His Holiness advised Trichen to pursue a “modern education” at an American university, Trichen remembers.
When he arrived at John F. Kennedy International Airport, he wore a shirt emblazoned with “King.” Below, in smaller type, were the words Martin Luther.
“I found him easily,” Carter remembers.
The two spent six weeks bunking in Carter’s cramped two-bedroom apartment on the Upper West Side, temporarily exiling Carter’s own children.
Carter, who has “dabbled” in Buddhism, tried to sell Trichen on the merits of yoga.
“I don’t need to do yoga,” he replied. “I’m calm.”
Scouting for colleges proved difficult, because Trichen’s family could not afford the tuition and he was not familiar with a little acronym called the SAT.
A friend of Carter’s, a St. Andrew’s parent, suggested that Trichen consider boarding school to better acclimate.
Thus, “Team Trichen” was born, consisting mainly of Carter and her well-connected friends stretching from Boston to Texas.
Carter discussed financing Trichen’s education with a billionaire friend, who prefers to remain anonymous. One day, while Carter was talking to him on the phone, then-U.S. Sen. John Kerry buzzed in on the other line.
The billionaire told Kerry he would call him back. But before he did, he mentioned Trichen’s predicament.
Within five minutes, the headmaster of Kerry’s alma mater, St. Paul’s School in Concord, N.H., had phoned Carter to inquire about Trichen.
“It was a bidding war,” she remembers, laughing.
But Trichen already had committed to St. Andrew’s, which provided him with a full scholarship. His spending money came from private benefactors.
An Episcopal Church school founded by Felix du Pont at the dawn of the Great Depression, St. Andrew’s educates students regardless of socioeconomic status. Today, nearly half of the school’s 303 students from 16 countries receive financial aid. The average annual award is $38,000, which covers about 75 percent of tuition.
“We’re bringing together students from all different backgrounds and we’re enlarging their possibilities,” says Louisa Zendt, the school’s director of admission and financial aid.
Those possibilities include 2,000 acres of farmland, woods and wetlands, along with 14 tennis courts and 10 athletic fields. During the summer, tourists descend on campus to snap photos of the towering stone buildings that appeared in the 1989 film “Dead Poets Society.”
School officials will not disclose the names of notable alumni. Trichen is St. Andrew’s first Tibetan student.
With a student-teacher ratio of five to one, learning happens through lively debates around tables – in the classroom or in the family-style dining room, where students rotate as servers.
“In my old school, we would listen and memorize,” Trichen says. “Here, I think. Here, I talk.”
Still, he found it difficult to adjust to the academic rigor, language and cultural differences of St. Andrew’s, where students wear blazers to class and play four square after dinner. Even the bells that chime on the hour sounded different.
The plan was for Trichen to graduate last year, but St. Andrew’s extended his scholarship to strengthen his academic foundation, Zendt says. (All of St. Andrew’s students go on to attend four-year colleges).
Trichen received emotional support from his group of “second mothers,” including Carter, Zendt and other St. Andrew’s faculty, who adopted him for the holidays, shuttled him to Starbucks and introduced him to the Philadelphia cheesesteak. He spent summers studying intensive English language, babysitting for Carter’s uncle’s kids and relaxing in the Hamptons.
“It’s really hard to let him go,” admits ChiaChyi Chiu, Trichen’s academic adviser and Chinese language instructor.
Chiu says Trichen decided to study Mandarin, his fourth language, to deepen his connection to his late father. She gave him the Chinese name of “Le,” meaning happiness.
In the film, Trichen notes that his refugee settlement is called Dekyiling, meaning land of happiness.
“He has a very humble heart,” Chiu says. “He is willing to learn from everybody.”
This year, Trichen bunked with one student from Greenwich, Conn., and another from New York City in a postage stamp of a room crammed with ramen noodle cartons and an enormous American flag.
“Some things that get under my skin, Trichen is able to brush off,” says roommate Peter D’Agostino, senior class president. Recently, Trichen gave D’Agostino a banner with a message about friendship from the Dalai Lama.
To relax, the pair slam tennis balls against the wall or sing along to folk-rock by Jack Johnson. Trichen also served as co-president of the international students’ group and joined the soccer and crew teams.
“They don’t care about my title,” he says. “They like me as a person.
“In my hometown, we are friends,” he adds, “but they know who I am.”
He checks his Facebook page less than once a day, usually to catch up on Tibetan news. He owns an iPhone but sees no benefit to texting.
He takes stink bugs outside.
Occasionally, he will play a violent video game, he concedes, “but it’s not real life.”
A strip of photos on his bureau show him goofing off James Bond-style at the school prom. He took a friend, a Chinese student. He doesn’t have a girlfriend.
During the last three years, he has visited dozens of American schools to talk about his film and the plight of his people.
He has braved sweaty New York subways, which he admits can be a meditation challenge, and engaged in constructive dialogue with Chinese students who ask, “Are you my enemy?”
He regularly opens his talks by sharing his affection for the Chinese people and a respect for their traditions – and cuisine.
But he also expresses sympathy for the dislocated Tibetans, whose cultural identity is becoming diluted, as they are not permitted to study in the languages of their ancestors.
Since 2009, more than 100 people in Tibet have died by lighting themselves on fire in protest, according to estimates by the Tibetan Youth Congress.
Last week, while Tibetan protests were erupting in New Delhi over Chinese Premier Li Kegiang’s visit, Trichen sat on a sleek leather sofa in the St. Andrew’s admissions lobby. In walked a representative from a travel agency who is sending a group of St. Andrew’s students to China this summer.
“You’re not going?” the man asked Trichen.
“No, I made other plans.”
“Where are you from?”
“From Tibet,” Trichen replied in Chinese.
“Oh, you’re from China?”
“I’m Tibetan.”
“Well, yes, the autonomous region of Tibet,” the man said.
After the man left, Trichen explained to a visitor: “If I go to (China), I will never come out.”
But he dreams of home, where the mountain peaks are the highest in the world, to serve an estimated 6 million Tibetans in a democracy. It’s “the best policy of the 21st century,” he says.
One of his sisters, Namgyal Dolkar, successfully won a court challenge against the Indian government to allow Tibetans to apply for Indian passports. She now travels throughout India, educating Tibetan women about their rights.
“I would have to be elected,” says her brother. “I don’t want to be the chosen one.”
To be sure, Trichen could ignore the calls and use his American education to obtain a job in the States and work toward full citizenship, Zendt says.
But she knows that’s far-fetched.
“I don’t know what it will ever mean for him, being a descendant of kings,” she says. “But I know what it will mean for him to help lead his people and give them hope.”
Contact Margie Fishman at 324-2882 or
[email protected].
