S2E1 - Journey to India: Visiting the Dalai Lama

A pilgrimage can start as an escape and turn into a confrontation with history. That’s where this journey leads: from windswept passes in Tibet to the cedar-lined streets of Dharamshala, where a 10‑day visit with the Dalai Lama shifts how we see faith, politics, and the stories we repeat without thinking. We share what the camera can’t show, the mistakes of traveling without research, and the small, human details that make a place unforgettable.

We open with season two momentum and why Tibet keeps pulling us back—monastery stays, off‑grid routes, and the subtle beauty you only notice when you slow down. Then we pivot to India, where friendship, music, and wild parties collide with hard realities: crowded cities, missing basics, and the lingering weight of caste. Conversations with Indian friends unpack how status still moves through last names, jobs, and marriage, even as money complicates the old hierarchy and Dalits push for mobility and dignity. The goal isn’t to judge from a distance, but to learn how context changes everything you think you saw.

That context deepens as we reconsider Tibet–China history: annexation, resources, water security, propaganda, and why tidy narratives on any side rarely hold up. We talk about quiet defiance—portraits of the Dalai Lama in homes, taken down when inspectors arrive—and how spiritual authority can be both gentle and unyielding. Dharamshala becomes the hinge of the story: a sanctuary for exiles and a place where teachings on compassion meet the pressure of politics. By the end, travel feels less like escape and more like a mirror, asking better questions of us than we asked of it.

If this resonated, follow the show, share it with a friend who loves honest travel stories, and leave a review so more curious listeners can find us. What journey reshaped your assumptions? Tell us—we’re listening.

Please contact me at theunclewong@gmail.com

Transcript

Season Two Momentum

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey, what's up, everyone? Welcome back to Asian Uncles season number two. And I'm your host, Uncle Wong. Again, I want to start off by thanking you for your support and your love. Surprisingly, our tip of episodes all hit record downloads. And what I mean by that is as a podcaster, especially starting out new, normally within the first year, our target would be to hit a hundred plus downloads per episode within the first week of launch. So that's kind of the metrics. Um and surprisingly, all our Tibet episodes hit that mark within a couple within an hour or two of launching, not even a couple of hours. So that was a shock, to be honest. Um, I didn't think so many people would be interested in those type of adventures. Um those adventures kind of it brought me, it gave me a lot, it taught me a lot. Um it was an escape of reality for me. And later on I'll share with you more of what I was escaping. It was either from society or it was from my own demons. But every time I went to Tibet or I did one of these pilgrimages, I I felt something different. And so I think we can carry on this conversation and share some more things. I've been through most of the routes traveling. I've stayed at monasteries, I've stayed at haunted hotels. Oh my god, that was crazy. Um with my wife, yeah, that was quite the experience. I remember to share that. And then So I only shared a couple of unique stories, like crapping over the side of a mountain, or seeing a woman marry two brothers, or seeing or seeing vultures just eat up an entire carcass. Those were very unique experiences that I kind of expected to see traveling there. I read all about it. But there was something there, but there's somewhere that I went that I just I don't know why I just didn't bother to do any research at first. I just went. Both times, I had a very unique experience, don't get me wrong, but it probably would have been a little better if I did more research. Yet if I knew what to expect, I don't think it would be as memorable. You get what I mean? So given that for season two, I plan to integrate two types of travel very distinct from one another. One, we're gonna go more in depth into Tibet and some of the places that I've been to, and also maybe give you some travel tips that are off-grid that you will not be able to find anywhere else. And also one of my hopes is that by the time we launch maybe season three or four, we could get some of this up on YouTube where I can share some videos and some photos that I've taken while I was on my trips there. Because lucky enough, every single time I went, it was either I had a professional camera with me or one of my friends was a semi-professional photographer. So needless to say, we took some great photos of nature, um, of the temples, the structure, the people, right? Of it was just overwhelming, the things that you can find the subtle beauty in. And I hope to share that with you. But before that, I want to introduce another one of my travel experiences that I thought would be very unique. And to be honest, I didn't expect it to move it up to this season. Um, but you know, given that most people are interested in this topic, I think it would be pretty cool to share. And because the next topic that I'm going to share, of course, you can see in the title, it's it's about India. It's it's it's weird because we all have Indian friends, right? We all know where the country is. We see it on the news. Um, but yet we really haven't spent much time, well, especially me, understanding that culture. Even when I traveled there, um, experiences good or bad, I st I still didn't do my research until years later. And even during this podcast, I had to brush up on my knowledge. I had to do more research to make sure what I was saying was correct. I don't want to lead, I don't want to lead anybody in the wrong down the wrong direction. But Indians, they're a they're a very interesting culture. They're one of the oldest in the world. And if you were to give them sort of a kind of well, not a bias, but a like a mark of what they're known for, I would say that they're known for religion. You know why? Because many religions were founded there. Brahmanism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Jainism, and it's also like a historic meeting place for um uh for Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. And so when these cultures clash, coupled with the thousands of years of history and culture, and you know, for the most part, India is has been war-torn or has been going through a lot of uh political upheaval, right? So that itself, from an economic standpoint, kind of held India's development back for many, many years. Um, you know, we could go more into that, and I hope to bring one of my friends on the show. He's, of course, Indian. Uh, he grew up there, an achieved scholar. He made it out of there. He wasn't from a particularly wealthy family, made a great life here, making millions now as an executive of a company. So his experience was shed a light onto what India is really like for people who you know who live there. But for people who are traveling there, um, for the most part, um, to be honest, it's not a place you would you would typically think of going to on a vacation. Okay, I'm gonna be real. And seeing the historical backdrop of India, what their people had to endure, what they went through, it reminded me a lot comparably to China's history, with the the cultural burden, the the political fragmentation that took place. And just all this transition made uh the society colorful, yet it might have stagnated it. But besides the economy, the like the the the economics of this India and China, not just talking about myself, but the ethnic group in general growing up there, they're some of the most resilient people in the world. It sometimes makes our us Americans feel like our problems are really first world. Right? This the stuff that they care about and the stuff that we care about. It's just totally different. And the way they live and the way we live. And so during my my travel to India, I didn't share too many details at first because it was just so I don't even know how to sum it up, to be honest, until I started doing podcasts. And so when I tell some of my Indian friends the story, I purposely try to embellish it to not sound too kind of racist, right? I like I I don't want to walk up to my Indian friend be like, yo, I went to your country, man, it's a shithole. You know, like it's so rude. And I won't I wouldn't want somebody to to say that to me either. Right. So, and when I surprisingly, when I told them this story, they were like, ew, bro, like what the fuck were you doing that? Like, where the fuck were you why would you go there? You know, the places that I told them I that I went to, I didn't even know how bad it was myself. And like I said before, India is not a place that you typically feel your first choice of vacation. Like even for Indians that live in America or that that are currently living overseas, they you know, unless they're going back to see family, um, that might not be the top choice for a vacation. It's just because of um the pollution, the safety issues, and kind of the limited amount of uh the limited space you get, uh, given how crowded it is, too. And so besides the main cities, uh economy-wise, the south is uh the is more prosperous, right? They're just richer in GDP. Contrary to my belief, I thought the North would be um have um would have more economic prowess, but uh unfortunately that was it proved me wrong. I I I did not know that. Um and so the places that I went to I thought would be not as underdeveloped, but I was wrong. So that was my first trip, was to kind of a sanctuary. Um and it was so I didn't get to feel firsthand Indian culture until my second trip where I went to notoriously probably the worst parts of India. And that that even I didn't even know at the time. So if I knew at the time, I don't to be honest, if I knew at the time, I might not, I might not have gone. So I guess sometimes being ignorant helps you create a better, more colorful journey, right? And so I had the pleasure, of course, of working with many uh Indian people and I had I have many close Indian friends. And so let me tell you, there's some of the brightest and most studious uh people I've ever met, coupled with a very colorful culture. So if you've been to their uh any of their parties, um, there's always music, wine, dancing. It's pretty cool. It's it's it brings up um it's just something different that you would not see in American or Chinese families, right? Especially Chinese families were more held back. Everything just seems more stern. But Indians, like when they when they party, like they party. So it's pretty cool just spending some time with them and and being in their country to experience what um well sometimes they don't even talk about themselves. And you know, throughout these conversations, it's also funny because uh we kind of compare who's more racist, right? Indians or the Chinese. And during that debate, I mean, like the end was the Indian one, right? Because there's one reason. So we all are racist against everybody else, we're all racist against our own, but India has a system um that is not enforced today, but it still lingers in their culture, and that would be the caste system. Uh something that you would maybe only read in books. So I had the opportunity to experience that uh throughout my trip, and only later did I realize what I had experienced. So I'm gonna share with you too. And then also my friend that went with me took some very nice professional photos of the slums, and I didn't know they were slums. I was just watching a lady come out of just like a phone booth kind of shack and with her hair wet, I think she was washing her hair or something. I don't know where she was washing her hair, but and he took some very beautiful photos, and I thought it was just um you know, it was just poverty. But little did I know it was didn't have any running water, um, they lacked the basic necessities. And I found that out later on. So the concept of this caste system, um China has one too, or had one also during their imperial rule, but that didn't really carry forward. That kind of diminished between dynasty changes, it diminished greatly um under communist rule. But for India it was a little different. I mean, this culture kind of lasted all the way until modern times. Was it it wasn't until modern times that was it abolished or did affirmative action take place? And so 3,000 years ago during the Vedic period, um they tied this ethnic, uh, I'm sorry, the social class with the god Brahma, right? Meaning that the head of Brahma translated into the priests, the teachers, the highest class. The arms were the rulers, the warriors, and the legs were the farmers, the traders, the merchants, right, while the feet were the laborers. So it's pretty straightforward in that sense that their caste system is pretty separated. And when I talk about this with my um my Indian friends, they do concur, yes, that is actually true. There's even though it's not as popular or as obvious as it was back then, especially in certain places, but it's still quite much there. Um it's hard to just flip the script and change the entire society's behavior just by rule of law. Right? And something that I saw really shook me up because I didn't think there were more than these four castes before I went to India. And there are actually another cast that I I really I've heard of them, but I've never imagined I would see any of them. And those are the deletes that were formerly known as um back then we we call them the untouchables. They're typically the outcasts and they take very dehumanizing jobs, right? They pick up manure, sewerage, they do construction, leather crafting, um, cleaning, manual scavenging, right? All the things that um educated or people of even like the laborers do not want to do. Of course, like I said before, conditions have improved, but um it's still quite there. And I feel it from some of my friends when they speak to one another. Um I don't know, it's just like I felt it a lot when I was in India, obviously. But when I asked them, like, so how does that class kind of pertain now in modern day? And my business partner, he's funny. He he he told me something, he was like, Well, it's still now, present day, it's more about money. Okay, meaning that the ruler class, the warrior class, or the merchant class, like they've gone up in social ranking because obviously they make more money, right? They have more income. And so the highest class, the priests, the teachers, traditionally do not have that kind of source of income, right, even though they are from the higher caste system. And that kind of balances it out. And so the poor are still poor and the rich are still rich. So it evens out the playing field a little bit. Um, but it but uh uh if you ask any Indian friend if they tell you the truth, um they'll tell you that is it that sort of prejudice amongst the different classes is still quite much there. And so one final thought is these delites were traditionally oppressed from ever even leaving that that society or that class that they're in, including not allowing them to education. But now it's a little different. Theoretically, you can become rich now as a delite or untouchable, but nonetheless, it's like mentioned before, it's hard to escape that the prejudice, especially if your last name reflects it. Like all this came from not knowledge, but information came from dialoguing with my Indian friends. Um I I don't know if they're true or not, so if I say something uh wrong or offend any of my India buddies, my bad. Right, but um, this is just from my own personal experience. And so I didn't want to go to India. That was definitely not my choice to go visit either, but I got an invitation that year to visit somebody very special, and that was the Dalai Lama. So I made up my mind, I wanted to go see him. I wanted to, he invited me to his um palace in Dharmashalla along with a couple of friends. And I and I wanted and I really wanted to set out on this amazing trip, and so I did. And back then I was in China working, so information on the Dalai Lama was kind of limited. Everybody should know that China and um Tibet or these two factions aren't always on the best of terms. So before that, I first heard about the Dalai Lama not through any documentary or propaganda, uh, but in a movie starring Brad Pitt. It's called Seven Years in Tibet. And so Brad Pitt was an Austrian German during the end of World War II, and then he met the young Dalai Lama. And so this movie came out in '97, I think the same year as Forrest Gum. And this movie was almost immediately banned in China, as was Brad Pitt. But this left a very um it left a very interesting memory in my childhood, uh, in my teenage brain after watching that movie. Um, it's a very powerful story, so if you guys have to get the chance, definitely watch it. And so years later, um I would end up in China after I finished schooling, uh, where the Dalai Lama was seen as a separatist. Um there was a lot of um turmoil going on between that ethnic group and the traditional Han ethnic group of China. So at that time, I I didn't give it much thought, but oh, there was still a question, an obvious question. That was what's a spiritual man who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989? How did this guy, this man, suddenly become this evil political figure, this culprit, right, this separatist? I never gave him much thought until I really stepped foot into Tibet. And I think this part of history is often distorted. I had a friend back in uh high school, right? And when he went to college, uh he joined this like free Tibet movement. This guy was Italian, you know, grew up in New York. And when I asked him questions, like he didn't know anything at all. He was just like, oh, China attacked Tibet, they're oppressing them. I'm like, bro, like do you do you even know what you're talking about? Right? Do you even know what really happened? Right, of course, part of that this tension between um Tibet and China was a result of a full-scale invasion back in 1950. That was called the annexation of Tibet. So if you can guys Google it, um it was a very short uh conflict. And yes, invading someone is generally considered not a good thing. But what most people fail to realize is that China had no other choice. They just founded the Communist Party, their sovereignty. They just became a sovereign nation one year ago. Right? And they were in the midst of the Korean War. And so they were filled with anxiety. And Mao Zedong, that entire party was filled with anxiety and they needed to gather as much resources um as possible. And one of that would be Tibet. Not only is Tibet a natural barrier between China and the Middle East, it is abundant in natural resources. But one thing that is strikingly important that most people don't fail to see is that they are the they they all of China's fresh water depends on the glaciers at Tibet. And so you poison that, you can destroy China. Makes sense? So because there's so much propaganda going on, you really it's hard to find, even in historical texts or even in um good sources or reliable sources, um, the truth. Like for instance, some history books would have you believe that um when the Dalai Lama fled um in exile, part of the part of the story said there was a mysterious mist uh covered the plains and it blinded the uh the Chinese military. And then the Dalai Lama and his um and his uh followers were able to escape to India. To be honest, I don't believe that to be true. Logically, China had no reason to capture him. It would not be good for their look, right? It would cause a huge humanitarian issue, and they and they're already in enough trouble. So what they wanted was the land, they wanted to capture the territory, but they don't want to make a big deal out of it. So I believe they deliberately let the government and the Dalai Lama and his followers uh a safe passage to India. They won't admit it, um, but just logically thinking, right, like either he raised a mist or the legions of PRC military just happened to not see a bunch of monks leaving the Patala Palace. During my visits to Tibet, I would often come across uh the Dalama's picture around um the local houses, residents, uh even in local monasteries, temples. So I thought it was forbidden to hang up these pictures, which is true. They it it is forbidden. And when regulators or government officials come, that's when they take it down. So you can see the importance of uh the that the Dalai Lama in in their society, uh, what what he read you know what he symbolizes as a spiritual figure and as a political figure. So as Buddhists, we believe that he's the reincarnation of the Buddha of compassion. And the Dalai Lama selection process, it's it's very different from the Catholic Church. And so if you Google how the Dalai Lama is selected, um, it will tell you more or less uh through reincarnation, through some sort of a uh ritual. But that's simply not true. The truth is the Dalai Lama in the old days was all selected by the Emperor. Because throughout history, religion has always been weaponized. And instead of arguing over who takes over what, who is a reincarnation of who, the emperor is like, you know what, just pick your name out of this bottle that I have. That's what pretty much what happened. Um I'm also sure that not many people have noticed that uh China actually changed the name of Tibet. So the name the term Tibet um actually was a term used and during the Qing dynasty of China. It was Tibet, um Tibet was translated into uh uh Tobotu. And now the Chinese corrected that name into uh Xizang, which is the direct phonetic translation from Mandarin Chinese. And so talking about just the this caste system, right? Um it's worth mentioning that back then in ancient Tibet or old Tibet, um, they also had a caste system. It was also filled with poverty, um, corruption. It might not seem necessarily a fair system, right, despite how open their people are. We can go a little bit more into that, but now I want to bring you guys into my actual travel, right? How what it felt like from the moment I stepped, like from the moment I landed in India, from being in Dharmashalla, and then meeting the Dalai Lama himself, going to his chambers uh with a bunch of people and listening to him speak all day about spirituality, um, about everything but politics. And so it was really amazing. Well, that's all the time we have for today. Uh, my bad. I didn't expect this episode to be this long, but um I want to finish off by saying that uh the city that I went to, um, Dharmashala, it's on the northern part of India. Beautiful landscape, surrounded by cedar forests, and it's on the edge of the Himalayas. And that's where the Indian government designated as a place of refuge, a sanctuary for the exile Tibet government, uh, their citizens, and also the Dalai Lama. And so I went there for a 10-day trip. Um unbelievable. I went to the town, I went to Dalai Lama's residence, I shook his hand, and I heard him preach for days. Uh I met the monks, I saw some of their artwork. It was just an amazing experience in general, much different from my second experience. But, anyways, thank you for tuning in. Please join us next time. Um, again, thank you for all your support and love. Uncle Wong, peace out.