Bhutan: Married to Bhutan (book review for Kuensel)

Book Review 24 April, 2011 - To truly understand a people and their culture, learning the language can open up and take you down a path that didn’t exist before. It’s also, maybe, the only way that allows you to see the world from the eyes of the natives. 

Perhaps this is why Linda Leaming, a middle-aged American, who comes to Bhutan – first to visit and then stays to teach English – finds herself “Married to Bhutan.”

She is very candid in her confession that her eagerness to learn Dzongkha, more than to teach English, makes her a better student than she is a teacher.

“Married to Bhutan” is Linda’s story of ten years in the country and how her love of it eventually leads her to marry a man who is quintessentially Bhutanese.

Maybe, because she knows the language, or has lived there long enough to start thinking like the locals, Linda seems to know things about Bhutan that sometimes makes no sense to foreigners/westerners. For example, the concept of time and the Bhutanese “refusal to be ruled by the clock,” is something that often perplexes or even irks outsiders. “In Bhutan, no matter what time you get there, you are right on schedule. When making an appointment for someone to come for a meal or to fix the plumbing, a Bhutanese will say ‘Come Wednesday,’ and that is specific enough. As long as the person shows up within the 48-hour window that is Wednesday and Thursday, everything is as it should be.”

It is in detecting these little idiosyncrasies that reveals Linda’s ability to understand and tolerate of a way of life other than her own. After all, she says, she comes from a world where there is “too much structure – too much insurance, litigation, unfulfilling work, fighting; too many credit cards, receipts, tax, forms, mortgages, traffic jams, obligations – and always enormous pressure and fear as a result.”

But Linda also points out things that don’t work in Bhutan. Her description of an incident in a classroom, where a young girl describes her “pink goat” only to find there is no room for dreams but realism. Linda summarises very well what is wrong with the Bhutanese education system.

Her observation of all things Bhutanese shows that she has penetrated Bhutanese culture at a deeper, esoteric level. Her description of locked telephones, the many cups of tea, sharing family albums with strangers to keep them entertained, why they love and venerate the crazy Drukpa Kuenley, and knowing what works (humility) and doesn’t – like “tooting your own horn”– explains why Bhutanese are the way they are. Her knowledge of Bhutanese folklore, religious mythology may also explain how she, an American woman from Tennessee, comes to intimately love a man, who speaks little or no English, cooks, cleans and even darns her stockings. And while he may do chores and, materially speaking, possess less than an average American, Linda is able to see how this illiterate artist has a better education (even it if it is in Dzongkha) than most men she has known. He is sophisticated and egalitarian, and has the qualities that any woman looks for in a man, no matter what culture he is from.

Being married to someone, who is so culturally different from oneself is full of tests and compromises. One such test occurs when Linda sees a dead baby floating in the Thimphu river. It is how Linda is able to make one laugh, while relating this macabre incident, as well as comprehend Namgay’s reaction to it, that makes her a good storyteller.

Married to Bhutan is an enjoyable read that tells you about the joys and trials of being married to a Bhutanese, which in Bhutan is being married not only to that person, but also to his/her family, community, and, in many respects, even the country.

Contributed by Sonam Ongmo

Washington DC: China, Europe and U.S All Have to Change

Part II of the article The Financial Crisis and What State it Left Countries In. click the title to read. 

Washington DC: The Financial Crisis and What State it Left Countries in

The Bertelsmann Foundation and Financial Times conference in Washington DC themed GOING BACK TO WORK discusses the global economic situation. click the title to read

A SMALL PLEA TO ALL NEWSPAPERS/PUBLICATIONS

Dear readers/visitors,

It is highly flattering when my stories are used for papers/publications. However, please remember that you HAVE TO inform me BEFORE you use them (yes, every time you want to) AND you must (please, thank you) CREDIT my blog www.sonamongmo7.com. and not just put my name under.

The reason I say this is because writing a blog post for my personal blog is not the same as writing for a print publication. There are differences in how the story reads once it is out in print (also blogposts are more informal) and I just happen to be particular about it and if you are lifting it from my blog, without informing me, it makes me feel better to let readers know that this came from my blog)

Otherwise it makes it seem - if you don't credit my blog - as if I wrote the story/article for you, when I did not. I would write one for you or fine tune the piece for publication in your newspaper/publication if you only just ask me to - like I said it is flattering and I am willing to oblige. But lifting stories/pieces straight as they are is not right (maybe not even ethical if you don't inform me which makes it worse).

THANK YOU for taking the time to read this. Remember I couldn't be more than happy to have my articles reach a bigger audience and you help me do this and I appreciate all your efforts.
So Kadinche once again!!

Sonam

BELIZE: travel

Tis but 4 and a half hrs to Belize city from NY. We didn't go into the city but instead headed straight for the hills. Belize is in Central America (the northernmost nation) and is about size of Bhutan but with half our population (333000 people). However, they have one of the highest growth rates - immigration?) Although Belize has hills it's still very hot. The 1 and half hr or so drive was beautiful through large tracts of land not inhabited by people or development.

A young Amish man selling watermelons

Then we entered the region of Cuso where the settlements began. To my amazement, in a place where I expected to see black/ Hispanic/Mayan people this lone white guy, clearly Amish, suddenly materialized on the landscape. He was behind a wagon selling watermelons. What was shocking to see at first later became quite common. My husband said that they were Menonites who had settled here and the driver said that they had come here in the 1950's to escape religious persecution in Europe (probably from the Netherlands?).

We stopped and bought some watermelons that were refreshingly sweet, and then carried on. People like the Amish amaze me in that they come all the way from across oceans/mountains/seas only to live the way they live without adapting/ assimilating to the local way of life or culture. I don't know if you could call the Amish way of life a culture - the men wear mostly blue shirts and black pants with suspenders and straw hats. They also all have beards if they are older. The women wear long skirts with white aprons and bonnets.

The driver told my husband that for a while these people had no one else to marry so there was quite a bit of inter-marriage taking place and the kids were turning out all wrong. As we went on we saw more of them sitting in groups (not a single local amidst them). Perhaps they did mingle or work with the locals but I didn’t have the privilege of time or opportunity to see this.

I also heard the driver tell my husband that there was some dispute now about who the original inhabitants/natives of Belize were, Mayans or the blacks. He said that although the Mayans were here before anyone they had left for nearby Guatemala long before the Spanish Conquerors arrived. Perhaps because of earthquake or disease. Then when the Spanish came there developed something they all Mestiso's (mixed race) children of Spanish and Mayan heritage. One of our guides told us he was a Mestiso and said it with some pride (?!) I seem to encounter this amongst quite a bit in my travels in South America. In Chile I met quite a few who were more proud to claim Spanish, German, Italian whatever/ European heritage rather than their own heritage.

locals - Belize is a very diverse country

Anyhow, years after the Spanish the British arrived in the 1630’s along with them came the slave trade and with this came the black population. And apparently by the time the Spanish were here with the slaves, the Mayans were long gone , only returning after the Spanish and African slaves had settled. Hence the dispute of who was here first. This is what the driver told us (may or may not be true and I haven’t looked @ Wikipedia or researched this. I am writing this on the little note pad on my phone as I sit by the beach)

The Xunantunich Mayan ruins

During the time that the British were here they completely destroyed the rich teak and mahogany forests. On a visit to one of the villages by Monkey River, we were told that the Mahogany tree is the national tree of Belize. “When we gained independence from the British they gave/planted a mahogany tree and gave it to us making it our national tree” said the man. “Great” muttered my husband of Irish origin, “they took your forests and planted one tree in return?” The British may have colonized Belize and taken much from this colony but they left little behind. There is hardly any infrastructure worth taking note of.