NEW YORK — The Dalai Lama’s nephew has finished a 900-mile walk in America to protest what he calls Chinese suppression of Tibetans.
After the four-week trek from Indiana to New York, Jigme Norbu’s feet were full of blisters and were missing nails and the feeling in one toe.
“But I feel energized because the cause itself energizes me,” Norbu said Saturday, a day after emerging from New Jersey through the Lincoln Tunnel.
Capping his “Walk for Tibet,” Norbu led a noon rally Saturday in front of the Chinese consulate in Manhattan.
He started his walk in Indianapolis on March 10, marking the 50th anniversary of a failed Tibetan rebellion against Chinese rule that resulted in the exile of the Dalai Lama over the Himalayas into India.
Norbu covered about 30 miles a day on roads and small highways, passing through Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia. In the big cities, he led rallies.
“When I walked, I thought of my people — how they’re suffering, what they’ve been through,” said Norbu, a 43-year-old New York native who works in real estate in Bloomington, Ind.
Norbu is the son of the Dalai Lama’s late brother, Taktser Rinpoche, a high lama who was abbot of a monastery when the Chinese invaded and became, in effect, a prisoner of their army. The brothers fled into exile after the 1959 uprising.
