By Elaine Jarvik
A Tibetan monk whose dying wish was to return to his homeland died instead in Salt Lake City this week — a reflection of broader unresolved problems between Tibet and China, his friends said.
Sonam Wangyal was cremated at Larkin Sunset Lawn mortuary Tuesday at a 5 a.m. Tibetan Buddhist ceremony, a time and day chosen as auspicious according to Tibetan astrology. The 47-year-old monk died of cancer on Sunday, five days after he applied for an emergency visa to return to Tibet to see relatives for a final time.
Although emergency visas are typically granted within 24 hours, according to Salt Lake Tibetan Pema Chagzoetsang, the Chinese Embassy was slow to give the OK and eventually time ran out before permission was given.
“We have to wait” was the standard reply given by the embassy when she made daily inquiries about the status of the visa application, she said.
The visa delay reflects the Chinese government’s inability to resolve the ongoing struggle for Tibetan independence following the Dalai Lama’s 1959 exile after the country’s invasion by China, Wangyal’s friends said.
Wangyal, who moved to Salt Lake City in 1994 as part of the Tibetan Resettlement Project, is the first resettlement member to die. He moved to Utah from India, where he had lived for eight years after leaving Tibet. In his home country, where thousands of monasteries were eventually destroyed by the Chinese, Wangyal had studied Buddhist philosophy as a monk.
In Utah he worked two jobs, in housekeeping at the Grand America Hotel and as a bus boy at Benihana. He loved basketball and golf, said Chagzoetsang, and his Tibetan friends in America nicknamed him “Scottie” because of his resemblance to former Chicago Bulls star Scottie Pippen.
“He was always smiling. He was such a joy,” she added. “He had willpower you wouldn’t believe.”
Although his illness had sapped him of energy, leaving him unable to walk, “He was determined to make the journey” home, a region currently considered part of China, Chagzoetsang said.
Tuesday’s cremation ceremony included prayers for Wangyal’s soul so “that his soul may be reborn to a better being, and that he will have a smooth transition to the next life,” Chagzoetsang explained.
E-mail: jarvik@desnews.com
