Suzanne Harrington: Maybe 'suck my tongue' was a cultural misstep by the Dalai Lama
The Dalai Lama speaks on December 12, 2014 during the 14th World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates in Rome. Pic: Tiziana Fabi
Nooooooo! Did he really say that? The Dalai Lama? Could something have been lost in translation, as the words ‘suck my tongue’ triggered the entire Western world into ick meltdown and screams of horror, as though everyone’s favourite spiritual leader had instantaneously morphed into a Catholic paedo cardinal / Michael Jackson? Could we – please, please – have been mistaken?
Nope. He definitely said those words. In English. On camera. Loud and clear. To a child. Eeeeeek! What was he thinking? Has he lost his marbles? Is he now Tibet’s answer to R Kelly, under the maroon and saffron robes and the beatific smile, after 87 years of never putting a foot wrong?
Or could it be a cultural misunderstanding of epic proportions, where we, the hyper-sexualised West, are on a hair-trigger when it comes to anything suggesting sexual impropriety with children? As we should be, obviously – Ireland’s psyche has been profoundly scarred by a century of clerical sexual abuse. We have a zero-tolerance mindset for good reason; but in this instance, could there be room for misinterpretation? Might we be applying a Western understanding of tongues to a culture where tongues mean something different? Or is that grasping at straws?
Already, there has been an apology, and an explanation: the Dalai Lama, say his spokespeople, like to “tease people he meets in an innocent and playful way".
Did you find yourself Googling a bit frantically about tongues and Tibetans, to see if there might be a reasonable explanation, rather than everyone’s favourite Buddhist having taken leave of his senses, or worse? Me too.
Anyway. Just as tea means something very different in Tibetan culture – made from rancid yak’s butter, instead of PG Tips – it turns out tongues mean something quite different there too. We think of tongues as sexual – even before we think of taste buds, we think French kissing. Tongues are lascivious. They are for lovers.
But not in Tibet. In Tibet, waggling your tongue about in public is a traditional greeting; it signifies both respect and agreement. When an entire Tibetan village sticks their tongues out at Brad Pitt in Seven Years in Tibet, they are not being rude or hostile; they are politely greeting him. It stems from not wishing to be associated with a horrible 9th-century king, Lang Darma, who had a black tongue; by showing your tongue to strangers, you’re confirming you’re not an incarnation of a baddie.
In his 1939 book The Penthouse of the Gods, pioneering Tibetologist Theos Bernard wrote of this custom: “Consequently today you cannot look at one of them [a Tibetan person] unless he drops his tongue to his chin and sucks back…. as a salutation of the very highest regard.”
Apart from the Chinese government, everyone loves the Dalai Lama. Please let this suck-my-tongue be a cultural misstep, we need our good guys, our beacons of peace.
