Tibet Festival in Chile, CTA’s Liaison Officer Visits Mexico
New York 21 April 2005: Mr. Tsewang Phuntso, the Liaison Officer of the Central Tibetan Administration to Latin Americas visited Chile and Mexico from 3 April to 17 April 2005. The main purpose of the visit was to attend the Tibet Festival, “Taste of the Tibetan Culture”, and supervise the arrangements of the festival.
In Mexico, he attended a function organised by the hosts of His Holiness’ visit last year to Mexico to allocate the proceeds from the visit to humanitarian projects according to the wishes of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Besides, the function was aimed to gather several important people to follow up the discussions they had with His Holiness during the visit.
Tibet Festival, “Taste of the Tibetan Culture”, was jointly organised by the Office of Tibet and the Chilean Buddhist Community headed by Mr.Abdullah Ommidvar, Chairman of the Corporacion Cultural Tibetana, and Mr. Fernando Salinas, Chairman of the Advisory Council of Centro Choe Khor Ling. The festival, held at the Chilean Cultural Institute of Las Condes, included two segments. The first segment, held from April 6 – 12, included live demonstration of the creation of the Sand Mandala by the monks of Namgyal Monastery, musical concerts by Nawang Khechog and Chilean musicians, workshops on “Awakening Kindness through Music” and “Tibetan Holistic Healing”, and a series of film show and talks on Tibet.
The second segment included three major photo exhibitions – “Living Treasures of Buddhism”, a portrait of living Buddhist masters of the world, by Mexican artist Angel Alcala, “A Long Look Homeward”, a contemporary history of Tibet, by Tibet Museum in Dharamsala, and “Journey to Dharamsala” by Chilean photographers Pablo Rosenblatt and Chantal Bernsau – and an exhibition of the private collection of Tibetan religious objects of bronze statues and thanka paintings. The second segment of the festival is scheduled to go on until April 24.
Mr. Phuntso inaugurated the festival on the evening of April 5 at a ceremony attended by 300 guests despite a subdued atmosphere prevalent at the time in the city due to the passing away of Pope John Paul II. Mr. Phunsto gave a brief introduction on the purpose the cultural event and also paid the Tibetan people’s respects and tribute to the late pontiff.
In his introductory speech, Mr. Abdullah Ommidvar recollected his passion and association with Tibet and gave a concise account of Tibet before and after the invasion by the People’s Republic of China. The Director of the Chilean Cultural Institute of Las Condes briefly spoke on the beauty of the Tibetan culture.
During the week-long festival, stream of Chileans came to see the exhibitions, watch video films, and listen to talks on Tibet and also acquaint with the Tibetan culture. The video film shows included: Little Buddha, Heart of Tibet, The Spirit of Tibet, Himalaya, The Cup, The Red Flag Over Tibet, Kundun, Mustang: A Hidden Kingdom and Dharamsala.
While observing the two monks from Namgyal Monastery carefully create the sand mandala, the Chilean visitors were enthralled by the amount of patience, concentration, steadiness of hand required to create such a beautiful and exceedingly intricate work of art.
Similarly, on April 8 and 9, Nawang Khechog has, literally, stolen the heart of the Chileans, when he presented two house-full consecutive musical concerts with well-known Chilean musicians Thomas Tyer, Sabina, and Jose Bass Gonzalez.
In addition, the lecture by Dr. Namgyal Tenzin on the Tibetan medicine also pooled a huge crowd. Nearly three hundred people attended his lecture. The Tibet Festival held in Santiago, Chile, was one of the biggest Tibetan Festival ever held in Latin America. The festival was a big success. It was widely covered in Chilean media. Chile’s largest circulating conservative newspaper, “El Mercurio”, brought out a half page report about the event on three consecutive days on April 7, 8, and 9.
The French Cultural Institute, “Alliance Francaise”, approached Mr. Phuntso and expressed its desire to organise a similar festival in Chile’s second largest city, Concepcion, and also Valparaiso, the largest port city of Chile. Since it was not possible to organise the festival of this magnitude in a short time, it was agreed to display the Tibet Museum’s photo exhibition, “A Long Look Homeward”, screen video films on Tibet and arrange talks on Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism at the Alliance Francaise Center in Valparaiso from April 26 – 30 and Alliance Francaise Center in Concepcion in May 2005.
As advised by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the organisers of His Holiness’ visit to Mexico in October 2004, Casa Tibet Mexico and Loseling Institute of Mexico, donated 500 thousand US dollars from the proceeds of the visit to five humanitarian projects. The amount was equally divided among five humanitarian organizations — the Foundation for Peace of Mexico, CCF-Children of Mexico, Foundation Tarahumara (an organization dedicated to uplift poverty among the native Indians living in the mountain range of Baha Tarahumara of Mexico), Sudan Refugees’ Fund, and Tibet Fund (Hunsur Tibetan settlement’s soil and water conservation project as shown in Integrated Development Plan-III of the Central Tibetan Administration).
The money was distributed at a special function held on April 12 at Casa Lam. Among others, the function was attended by Dr. Alvaro Castro, Director General of Religious Affairs of the Ministry of Interior of Mexico, Mr. Manuel Arango, President of the Center for Mexican Philanthropy, myself, Mr. Marco Antonio Karam, President of Casa Tibet Mexico, and Mr. Ramon Corona Alvarez President of the Loseling Institute of Mexico.
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Mr. Phuntso thanked the government and people of Mexico for according a very warm reception to His Holiness the Dalai Lama during his visit to Mexico in October 2004 and also expressed his appreciation over the utilisation of the proceeds from the visit.
Dr. Alvaro Castro said, “Ministry of Interior can openly say that the visit of the Dalai Lama, in his capacity as a spiritual leader and a Nobel Peace Laureate, had a positive impact on the people of Mexico”.
More than 24 representatives from the media, including national TV Azteca and Televisa, covered the function.
Despite the busy engagement of congressmen with the House in session, Mr. Phuntso managed to meet 12 Congressmen, who were involved with the visit of His Holiness the Dalai Lama to the Mexican congress last year. He thanked the congressmen for their role in inviting and welcoming His Holiness to the Mexican congress on October 6, 2004 by offering them Tibetan traditional scarves and Spanish translation of His Holiness Book “The Art of Happiness”.
They discussed current situation in Tibet, the historical validity of the Chinese claim over Tibet, the status of Gendun Choekyi Nyima, and His Holiness position as to finding solution to the issue of Tibet.