And at the same time, it seems to me, he knows he's just this kid from Amdo who got picked, you know, to be The Big Guy. The Dalai Lama would probably acknowledge that Harrer was extremely instrumental in his broadening, so that when he encountered the outside world he wasn't shocked by it. He is the first Dalai Lama who has had to live outside Tibet, who is such a true citizen of the world, and so adept with people of all cultures. And he had to learn that somewhere, from somebody. As such, Harrer's story becomes a great device for exploring the contrast between East and West.
Western culture is an egocentric culture.
It's all about the cult of the individual, and you won't find any occupation that is going to heighten that sense more than to be a mountain climber. They are the most extreme examples of rugged individualists you can ever imagine. So it is the story of a man who finds himself by losing his ego, his Western sense of achievement. The whole story is about a man who goes through a series of humiliations, really. What keeps happening is that Harrer keeps getting knocked down, and along the way he learns that the graceful way of accepting life is not to assert his ego.