'Suck my tongue' remark: Tibetan Parliament in Exile calls out China's 'vile' attempts to target Dalai Lama

Days after a viral video of Dalai Lama's 'suck my tongue' remark stoked controversy, Tibetan Parliament in Exile issued a statement expressing sadness over the event and accused the Chinese government of making His Holiness a "target" of vilification.

"We have been deeply hurt and saddened by the misinterpretation being currently given to an incident in a recent event with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, where without proper research irresponsible and careless sort of explanations and comments were being given to it in the media," read the statement.

Giving reverence to Dalai Lama as a champion of world peace and the master of all teachings of the Buddha, the Parliament noted that the Central Tibetan Administration and Dalai Lama have been uninterrupted targets of vilification by the communist Chinese government.

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"It is a campaign that the Chinese government has kept on pursuing at all times, and in every possible manner, both domestically and internationally, employing various sorts of media, private individuals and so forth. Its vile policy objective continues to attempt to destroy or otherwise degrade the Tibetan society," the Parliament in Exile statement added.

While praising Dalai Lama for carrying out his noble duties, the statement called out on the Chinese government saying it cannot mislead people in the international community.

Swiss actress Lea Wyler's post on Dalai Lama's 'suck my tongue' remark

The founder of ROKPA international, an international humanitarian organisation, Lea Wyler shared a Facebook post where she first explained the anecdote behind the Tibetan phrase "Che Le Sa" which means "Eat my tongue" and then goes on to rebuke all those who are pointing fingers at Dalai Lama over the recent controversy.

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Under an all caps header, "A KEY POINT MISSING", Wyler elaborated that in Tibetan culture, it is common to see the old grandparents not only give a pop kiss to the small children, but also give a small candy or piece of food to children from their mouths, directly mouth to mouth.

She said that this may not be the norm of culture of those who are raising questions on Dalai Lama but this is a commonly done thing.

Continuing, Wyler said after the elder gives a pop kiss and a candy, since there is nothing left in their mouth, nothing left to give, they will say the phrase "Ok, now 'eat my tongue."

She said that Dalai Lama used the word 'suck' instead of eat as His Holiness's command on English language is less proficient and he simply misspoke the phrase.

In the Facebook post, she shared: The Tibetan phrase is "Che le sa". They say that as in "I've given you all my love and the candy so that's it—all that's left to do is eat my tongue."

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The actress said it is a "playful" thing that the children know. "This is not really done in the Lhasa region (capital of Tibet) so much, but it is more common in the Amdo region (where His Holiness is from). However, it is definitely a Tibetan custom."

Towards the end of the post, in a veiled reference to all those who spoke ill of Dalai Lama, Wyler wrote, "If we are honest with ourselves, we know that when we form an opinion on any topic without considering many aspects of context in any given situation, we are choosing to keep a significant degree of ignorance in our reasoning."

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