Dharamshala, India —
Cheogyal Dawa couldn’t contain his emotions when he finally came face-to-face with an image he hadn’t seen openly displayed since he was a small child: a portrait of the Dalai Lama, Tibetan Buddhism’s spiritual leader.
“I was so excited I burst into tears,” Cheogyal said of seeing the large portrait, which is banned from being displayed within China, at a center for new Tibetan refugees in Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, earlier this year. “Then I felt that I had reached a safe place, that I was free.”
This was the first time the 25-year-old had left China – his first stop in a journey that’s made him one of just a small number of Tibetans who have fled the country for exile in recent years.
His story is a rare first-hand account of coming of age in the Tibetan region at a time when the area has been transformed by policies under Chinese leader Xi Jinping – and as another flashpoint looms over the future succession of the 91-year-old Dalai Lama.
