By PAMILLA SAYLOR
BOILING SPRINGS, Pa. – Rain isn’t high on the list of preferred weather conditions for most bicyclists. But while pouring rain certainly soaked the band of cyclists riding Monday to reach Boiling Springs, the weather is secondary to this group.
The 14 Tibetan men and a Canadian husband-and-wife team are on a mission to raise awareness of the plight of Tibet, a mountainous Asian land that has been controlled by the Chinese government since 1949. The Dalai Lama, who is both the spiritual leader and head of the Tibetan government, was forced into exile a decade later.
The 14 Tibetans, who are mostly in their 20s and now live in Minneapolis and Indianapolis, are members of the second generation to be exiled from their country. A few recently escaped from Tibet but most were born in India where the Tibetan government was exiled – but all have strong ties to their native land, explain Persival Herzog and Sharon Wisemyn, the husband-and-wife team from Winnipeg, Canada.
“All have relatives in Tibet and have lost relatives in Tibet,” Herzog said.
They are members of the International Tibet Independence Movement.
Their 600-mile journey will take them to Toronto, Canada, on April 24, where they intend to stage a peaceful demonstration at the People’s Republic of China embassy. The demonstration is timed to coincide with the Dalai Lama’s 10-day visit to Toronto.
Before 6 a.m. on Tuesday morning, the group began gathering their belongings from the Unitarian Universalists of Cumberland Valley on Forge Road, where they had spent the night.
After breakfast, they piled into two vans and headed to the Pennsylvania Turnpike toward Blue Mountain Summit and Saluvia, where they planned to unload their bicycles and ride to Shanksville.
During their two-day stay there, they will make a presentation at the site of the Flight 93 crash during the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, before continuing north toward Toronto.
For the cyclists, the emotional journey began Saturday with a peaceful demonstration at the Chinese embassy in Washington, D.C.
“It is something to listen to their stories,” Wisemyn said, recalling their presentation Monday at Harrisburg Area Community College to the local chapter of Students for a Free Tibet. The riders include 10 monks with ties to the Drepung Gomang monastic order, said to be the largest in the world, said Douglas Herman, tour coordinator.
The young men are not spouting slogans attached to the cause. “This is their life,” Wisemyn said. “One reason they’re (riding) is to show that a new generation of Tibetans are still connected and committed to their country.”
For the Chinese, the Tibetan culture is seen as a source of resistance to Chinese rule, and following Tibetan Buddhism is viewed as subversive by the Chinese, Wisemyn and Herzog said. “The motivation (of the young adult riders) is the fear that Tibetan culture will be lost.”
Standing in the kitchen Tuesday morning with a towel folded over his shoulder and the group’s Day-Glo green T-shirt over his clothing, Jigme Norbu quickly and efficiently works with a two-member crew to prepare breakfast.
Norbu, a tall man of about 40, is leading the journey to his uncle. Norbu is the son of Taktster Rinpoche, the oldest brother of the Dalai Lama, and is continuing the numerous marches for Tibet’s independence led over the past half-century by his father.
He pauses in his preparations to check the Internet as Douglas Herman, tour coordinator, logs on his laptop computer in the church office. After last-minute details are squared away, the group started Tuesday’s leg of the journey around 7:30 a.m.
Joining the group early Tuesday morning to help send them off was Ananda Reed, 23, of Landisburg. Reed, a Harrisburg Area Community College anthropology student, organized a local chapter of Students for a Free Tibet in January, and coordinated Monday’s campus presentation by the group.
Reed is the daughter of David Reed, an American, and Tej Reed of Nepal. She was born in Nepal and moved to this country with her parents when she was 8.
“My father, who is Buddhist, encouraged me” to become involved, she said.
She said the efforts by those seeking Tibetan independence have seen “some small victories” such as the recent release by the Chinese of a group of Tibetan nuns. The release of the nuns was timed to occur just before President Bush and his wife visited China, Herzog said. “It was a face-saving gesture, not because the Chinese have a change of heart.”
The ride also is a spiritual journey for Herzog, a history buff who has a software company, and Wisemyn, a retired social worker. Although they have participated in walks for the movement, this is their first bicycle ride – on a tandem inherited in 1998 from his Buddhist meditation teacher.
The experience thus far is “all very moving,” Herzog said.
He hopes to see the Dalai Lama once the group reaches its destination, where the spiritual leader will begin a 10-day Kala Chakra wheel, which is both a ceremony and special invitation into Tibetan culture.
