By Meera Pal
STAFF WRITER
Tenzin Bhuchung has not seen his family since 1981, the year he escaped his native country of Tibet.
After his parents ensured his safety with an aunt and uncle in Mysore, India, they returned to the Chinese-occupied territory of Tibet to care for four other children and the family farm.
As a political refugee, Bhuchung grew up in India, watching the conflict between Tibet and China worsen. He said he watched as the Tibetan people suffered political, religious and cultural persecution, eventually becoming a minority in their own country. Each year, roughly 3,000 Tibetans escape to India as refugees.
But rather than simply sit and watch history unfold, Bhuchung decided at a young age that he would make a difference for his people and his family.
On Wednesday, the Rotary World Peace Scholar came to Rossmoor to tell his story to a group of Rotarians that helped establish a Peace Center for International Studies at UC Berkeley.
“Because of my own personal experience, it was a natural step to extend my studies globally,” said Bhuchung, who plans to intern with a human rights organization this summer.
Speaking to roughly 50 Rotarians, he said he spent seven years studying Buddhist philosophy and Tibetan languages and literature at the Tibetan University in Varanasi, India, wanting to ensure his native culture would live on.
“I grew up in India, surrounded by a compassionate culture,” he said, explaining how his progressive, liberal theories were formed as a young man.
With these ideals, he said he hopes to one day return to his homeland and effect change. It was with that goal in mind that he applied to become a peace scholar at UC Berkeley. He began his first semester in September.
Bhuchung is one of 10 students from around the world studying as peace scholars at UC Berkeley, which is just one of seven centers worldwide. The students, who range in age from 25 to 53, have traveled from India, Australia, Italy, Ethiopia, Canada and New Zealand to expand their ongoing work in human rights and conflict resolution, says the center’s director and professor Edwin M. Epstein.
“The objective is to provide the world with a cadre of leadership who will help make the world a better place and who will resolve conflict without violence,” Epstein said.
Although admitting he doesn’t have a panacea that will bring peace to the world, Bhuchung said he is learning the tools that help him effect change in a grass-roots effort. Just by being exposed to the diversity of the world has helped him to become a better person, he says.
“Exposure to different cultures is important when you’re dealing with international conflict,” he said. “You need to have an understanding of their world view.”
Attending school in Berkeley and living in Oakland has helped him to do that. Every day he is amazed at the diversity he sees on campus and in the classrooms, where students from warring countries, such as Pakistan, India and China, sit together in one room and discuss steps to international peace and resolution.
“These are people who have the potential, within the international community, to take on roles of leadership,” Epstein says.
Reach Meera Pal at 925-284-4728 or mpal2@cctimes.com.
