Dalai Lama apologizes after video shows him asking boy to ‘suck my tongue’

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NEW DELHI — The 87-year-old Dalai Lama, the 87-year-old spiritual leader of Tibetans, apologized on Monday after footage showed him asking a young boy to “suck my tongue” at a public event .

“A video clip has been circulating that shows a recent encounter where a young boy asked His Holiness the Dalai Lama if he could give him a hug,” said one. statement on the exiled leader’s Twitter account, which has 19 million followers.

“His Holiness would like to apologize to the boy and his family, as well as to his many friends around the world, for any harm his words may have caused.”

The statement said the head of the Dalai Lama “often teases people he meets in an innocent and playful way, even in public and in front of the cameras. He regrets the incident.

Sticking out your tongue is a sign of respect or agreement and was often used as a greeting in traditional Tibetan culture, according to the Institute of East Asian Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.

According to Tibetan folklore, a cruel 9th-century Tibetan king had a black tongue, so people stick their tongues out to show they are not like him, the institute said on its website. There is no mention of tongue sucking on the site.

The video, which has 1 million views on Twitter, appears to show the Nobel Peace Prize winner attempting to give the boy a kiss on the lips in front of an audience. The crowd can be heard cheering and laughing, as a man captures the moment on a phone.

The Dalai Lama, who fled to India in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule in Tibet, is seen by Beijing as a dangerous separatist.

He worked for decades to build global support for linguistic and cultural autonomy in his remote, mountainous homeland.

He now lives in a compound next to a temple surrounded by green hills and snow-capped mountains in the northern Indian city of Dharamshala.

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