From Everest to Hong Kong and Back Again
VIEW EVENT DETAILSThe Asia Less Traveled Series
A Conversation with DHAMEY TENZING NORGAY & Ambassador CURTIS S. CHIN
Drinks Reception: 6:30PM
Conversation: 7:00PM
Close: 8:00PM
In 1953, Tenzing Norgay Sherpa and Edmund Hillary became the first to summit Mount Everest. In doing so, this pioneering duo tested the limits of human endurance and captured the imagination of the world. Tenzing became one of the world’s most recognized Asian celebrities and was later chosen by TIME as one of the 100 most influential personalities of the 20th Century. More than 60 years after their historic ascent, the Himalaya and the Sherpa people face growing challenges. Changing climate and ongoing development have brought new pressures on the Himalaya and on a community that faces disproportionate risk and inequity.
Join Dhamey Tenzing Norgay, the youngest son of Tenzing Norgay Sherpa, as he and longtime family friend and former U.S. Ambassador to the Asian Development Bank Curtis S. Chin take a closer look at the Tenzing legacy and go beyond the stereotypes of a region and a people whose reality is distant from the Shangri-La of myth. How real was the Hollywood blockbuster "Everest"? Is there any more glory in climbing Everest, in the face of recent tragedies and controversies both on and off the mountain? What is the state of sustainable tourism there and across the region?
After giving up the corporate Hong Kong life, Dhamey today is an advocate for the rights of the Sherpa climbing community. He also volunteers as Secretary to the Tenzing Norgay Sherpa Foundation, focusing on education, health care and the preservation of the Sherpa Culture. He and his wife Sonam are based in Thimphu, Bhutan, the Himalayan region’s last Buddhist Kingdom, where they operate a boutique adventure travel business, The Noble Traveller Bhutan. Curtis, only the fourth U.S. ambassador of Chinese descent and like Dhamey a former Hong Kong-based corporate executive, is the inaugural Asia Fellow of the Milken Institute, a non-profit, non-partisan economic and policy think tank. He is a frequent traveler to the Himalayan region, an advocate for responsible development, and with Dhamey, he asks that all be “noble travelers” in learning more, and then visiting the communities and the mountains that make the Himalaya a destination that is so much more than about travel.
A portion of ticket sales will go to support the Sherpa community.