In the following article, Tuan reported on the new life in the US of a Tibetan monk named Tenzin Norbu, who had migrated from India back in 2007.
The monk had done several jobs ranging from laundry in Long Island, NY to kitchen helping in New Jersey before settling down in Canal Street as a hired street vendor.
But he still wanted more, that was to become a taxi driver, stemming from his desire for independence and freedom.
Deeper inside his psyche, a family seemed to be of greater significance to the then 38-year-old man at the end of the day.
Tuan posted this article on his own site on February 16th, 2011.
Red lights were on at the crossroads of Canal and Centre Street. Tenzin Norbu quietly waited, hands clutching the handle of two big carts. Green lights. He sprinted ahead pulling the two carts. He had to make it to the other side before the lights turned.
“It’s always a tough job,” Norbu said as he tried to pull the carts from Canal through Hester and then to Baxter streets – all against the constant flow of traffic of the one-way road. At the crossroads with Baxter, he paused, gathered strength before running again to pull the carts on to the slope pavement.
“I don’t have to go to the gym, you know. I have two sessions like this every day,” Norbu joked while gasping for breath as he pulled the carts into the storage area, a small room with a thick steel gate and divided into 3×5 feet compartments.
On a late night back in December 2007, Norbu, a Tibetan born in India, arrived in New York in a Dhachay, the traditional red robe of a Tibetan monk. After 25 years of being a Buddhist monk in different institutions in Nepal and India, Norbu had decided to make a new life in the US.
“I arrived with just a few rupees in my pocket. At the airport I could not get a luggage trolley as I did not have a single dollar”, Norbu recalled. In his simple thinking, like that of many other Tibetans living in Southern India, America is a place where you always have pocketfuls of money. Which turned out to be a different story.
One month after he arrived, through an agency, Norbu got his first job in a store in Chinatown.
“As the new guy, I had to stand outside while the other two staffs were inside,” Norbu said. It was the winter. His job was to take out merchandise from the basement to replace items, which had just been sold. “My boss was Chinese and her English was very hard to understand. I had to remember bags, purses, and belts of different styles and colors…It was really hard.”
For two months, snow and cold were his daily companions. “In the monastery I had to sit all day, here I had to stand all day. It’s like a punishment,” Norbu said with a gentle smile on his face.
“I was born in a poor Tibetan family in Eastern India. My father sold tickets in the cinema to support a wife and five children.” At 10, Norbu and a younger brother were sent to a Buddhist temple as their parents could not support them anymore. That was where his itinerant life started, a Buddhist temple in Nepal, before he finally settled down in a monastery in Southern India.
Flash forward. After two months in Chinatown, Norbu left to work in Long Island at a laundry store, then New Jersey, as a restaurant bus boy – a.k.a. kitchen helper. He stayed three days at both places as the daily two-hour commute was too much. Another restaurant stint lasted almost a year, on Atlantic Avenue. And finally, for the past year, this street vending job on Canal Street.
On his five-feet long collapsible table, Norbu had all kinds of belts: slim, patterned, tiled. He kept a small piece of cardboard where he wrote down which ones were selling well and which to buy more the next day. Pointing at a brown, slim belt for men, Norbu said: “this has been a good sell today. I will get more tomorrow.”
Norbu bought the belts for $1 apiece and sells them at $3. Those more decorated bought for $2 would sell at $5. But for all the profit made Norbu was paid just $60 a day. “The boss gets the rest but business is not good now, so she doesn’t get that much.”
After 7 pm, when all the lights were on and the flux of people has abated, Norbu carefully rolled each batch of belts and puts it in two big plastic boxes. A long, tedious job which took him almost an hour to finish every evening. “That guy,” he pointed over to Barka, the guy from Senegal, at the next table, “can finish his packing in 15 minutes. He has mobile covers, very easy to pack up. Me, much longer.” In the morning, he started the reverse process around 8 am.
Norbu still remembered when he started this job. “In the first two days I was thinking, ‘no, I can’t do this every day. It’s just too hard.’” Norbu said before giving the reason why he has persisted. “You know, patience is the most important virtue among the six virtues in the Buddha’s Teachings. The others include hard work and the giving of your self.” His left hand always had the threngwa, the rosary of his Buddhist monk’s days back in his home country. “It’s just a change of clothes, I still try to live and think like a Buddhist monk.” Norbu said now he still kept the habit of not drinking or smoking like in the monastery. He still cried each time listened to Dalai Lama’s teachings.
Three years into his new life, Norbu is now looking forward to a change. “I just got my cab-driving license last week. I can be a cab driver now,” Norbu said. “You know, as a cab driver you can be your own boss. You can decide when to go and where to work.” His dream is still and always freedom.
“In India, we were even lower than the lowest caste,” recalled Norbu as he explained that Tibetans were not recognized as citizens.
“We had a green book stating our refugees status, and we had to get a permit each time we want to travel,” Norbu said. They could not travel abroad with the green book. “We either had to get an Indian or Nepali passport,” explained Norbu.
When he first came in 2007, Norbu travelled with a Nepalese passport. His application for political asylum will be heard soon in the next few weeks.
Back in a small restaurant on 37th Road in Jackson Heights in Queens, a Tibetan friend of Norbu said in jest: “You look like a king here today, Norbu.” Norbu smiled. It had been a good day. He had managed to make some good money. His eyes were fixed on the television, which was playing a taped debate between the presidential candidates of Tibet’s government in exile. The preliminary vote was on Oct. 3 and Norbu didn’t want to miss it. “I go to work during the day but I can go vote at night,” Norbu said.
Every month, he still pays $98 to maintain his Tibetan greenbook. The money is collected for the activity of a small government in exile with six ministries and a congress of about 20 members.
Norbu’s dream now is simply to have a good life. “Sometimes I want to have a family but it’s too late now. To have a family you must have a house, a car and a good bank balance. I have a late start.” And he’s just 38.
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