Adoring crowd meets the political and cultural icon on first official visit to San Diego
Union Tribune San Diego |April 17, 2012
Ruth Spear faced a simple choice Tuesday afternoon. She could catch a 90-minute snooze before her all-night flight home toLondon. Or she could skip sleep and stand outside the Manchester Grand Hyatt, hoping to glimpse the Dalai Lama.
Napping never stood a chance.
“When I heard who it was these people were waiting for,” said Spear, a British Airways flight attendant, “I had to stay. He’s a peacemaker — and these days, any peacemaker deserves applause.”
Her sleepless vigil was rewarded less than an hour later. Around 4 p.m., a black Cadillac sedan parked outside the Hyatt, dropping off a team of U.S. State Department security agents and a slight, bespectacled man wearing his customary saffron and maroon robes. As a team from the Voice of America’s Tibetan service recorded the scene, applause and cheers erupted from the 100 people waiting behind a rope barrier. Dozens offered him bright spring bouquets.
While digital cameras and cell phones flashed, Jack Doxey — an 81-year-old gentleman of the old school — waited for permission. “May I take your picture?” the San Diegan asked.
The Dalai Lama nodded and posed. Then he shook hands along the rope line, bowing with clasped hands and pausing to to bless a rack’s worth of Tibetan silk scarves.
In the hotel lobby, he was met by a delegation from the universities hosting his three public appearances today and Thursday: Marye Anne Fox, UC San Diego’s chancellor; Mary Lyons, the University of San Diego’s president; and Nancy Marlin,San Diego State University’s provost. Then he caught sight of Kalsang Peling, an Escondidan he had first met about 20 years ago in Dharamsala, the village in northernIndiathat is the Dalai Lama’s home in exile.
Smiling, the monk hurried to Peling and embraced him.
“He gave me his blessing and said I had changed a lot,” said Peling, 61, a home health care worker.
Tourists and passers-by flocked to the scene at the Hyatt, as did many ofSan DiegoCounty’s tiny Tibetan community. The latter had been alerted in advance by Lama Tensing, the Dalai Lama’s special emissary and an occasional county resident. They burned incense and assembled a small altar decorated with wheat and barley flour.
“These are symbols of long life and good luck for everybody,” explained Ngawang Lekshay, a North Parkresident who works for the UCSD Medical Center.
While the Dalai Lama once made a brief stop in San Diego, this is his first official visit. “This is historic,” said Jhampa Kalsang, owner of the Tibet Gift House in Normal Heights, “the first time the Dalai Lama will be able to connect with San Diegans.
“It is a blessing to this area.”
