There and Back Again: the World Travels of a Watson Fellow: Reverse Culture Shock in Bhutan

December 3, 2013 – Welcome to the Land of the Thunder Dragon

After an extremely long journey of 17 hours, waking up in Bhutan this morning was jarring. I started from Darjeeling at 6 in the morning, took a share jeep for three hours to the Indian town of Siliguri, then from 10 AM to 4 PM I took two state buses and a share taxi to the India-Bhutan border, after which I joined a share jeep 5 hours to the capital Thimphu. Because the terrain here is so rugged, it took 5 hours to only go 170 km or about 100 miles. However, I could not be more excited to be in the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, a constitutional monarchy where TV and Internet were banned until 1999. According to trusty Wikipedia, “Because of its largely unspoiled natural environment and cultural heritage, Bhutan has been referred to as The Last Shangri-la.” It is also known as the land of the dragon (“druk” means dragon and it is pretty much attached to everything including the national airline, seed company, shops etc.).

Bhutan is also striving to be the first 100% organic country in the world, which was the initial draw for me. Moreover, I think part of the allure of Bhutan is its remoteness and inaccessibility to foreigners.

“One of the most distinctive things about Bhutan is that it was never colonized. It gives the Bhutanese a very independent streak, and it has helped them keep their culture. There aren’t many places in Asia that didn’t succumb to the rule of another, more opportunistic state. Nothing comes to mind, anyway. Owing to the volative nature of the neighborhood over the centuries, this is no mean feat. The rulers of Bhutan seem to have a lot of luck on their side; and at certain crucial moments in history, that made the right alliances and avoided the wrong ones.” (53) For example, helping the British gain access to Tibet. “When India gained independence from the British Raj in 1947, Bhutan was quick to sign a treaty with the newly independent country, giving it a say in guiding Bhutan’s foreign policy. The irony of this is that Bhutan had no foreign policy. It was closed to foreigners, and it remained so for another 20 years.” (54) – Linda Leaming, author of Married to Bhutan

Tourists generally have to pay a $200-$250 daily tariff (low and high season respectively), a princely sum that I am excused from because I am working with the Ministry of Agriculture under the National Organic Program. Bhutan is definitely a land of mountains, forests, and Buddhism. There is a giant Buddha overlooking Thimphu, the capital city where I am staying, and many stupas that dot the roadside.

“Bhutan is also very Buddhist. As a Buddhist country, there is a certain sense of balance, brought about in a large part by a philosophy that preaches nonviolence, self-awareness, and improvement through the pursuit of inner peace. In a world that has become witness to an enormous amount of suffering caused by religious fundamentalism, terrorism, greed, corrupt governments, and environmental degradation, Buddhism provides the wisdom and balance that is so desperately needed. When things are rough on the outside, it is useful to look inside.” (55) – Leaming

Something else worth noting is that Bhutan uses “Gross National Happiness” (GNH) alongside Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as an index of development.

“I feel lucky to live in a place where Gross National Happiness is a radical social experiment. This decision by the government to pursue happiness helps instill in Bhutan’s people an immense sense of well-being that infuses everything here. I also have the good luck to have come from a place, the U.S., where capitalism reigns supreme. It’s still one of the richest countries in the world, and life is pretty good. I am well situated to compare the two philosophies of living. People do most everything, in a capitalist society, to get money. What they forget is that they want money because they want to be happy. I didn’t see this clearly, or see how insidiously our entrepreneurial social system permeates everything, until I lived in a place where people made decisions that weren’t based just on economics. The Bhutanese are not very good at making money, but they are happier than Americans. I like that I can have it both ways. I know how it is to be an American, and it’s fun chasing my tail sometimes, and even in these post-9/11, end-of-history times, it’s still a great country. I also love being lost in Bhutan.” (156-157) – Leaming

According to one newspaper article, Gross National Happiness was coined in 1972 by Bhutan’s fourth king and today it “refers to the nation’s policy of balancing modernity with preservation of traditions, mostly be resisting laissez-faire development.” The four GNH pillars are: sustainable development, preservation of culture, environmental conservation, and good governance, “which seek to balance the material and the spiritual by resisting unbridled development. After Bhutan transitioned to democratic rule from an absolute monarchy in 2008, the nation’s planning authority was renamed the gross national happiness commission and designed to ensure that happiness was taken firmly into account in all policies.” It takes into account how policies would affect stress level, physical exercise, and culture. The sale of tobacco products is banned in Bhutan and 70% of the country must remain under forest cover per conservation policy. Some people I’ve met in Bhutan, however, think that GNH is only effective in principle since happiness is difficult to measure and that Bhutan needs to sort out its own problems (e.g. economic crisis with the Indian rupee shortage) before preaching GNH to the rest of the world.

I am currently living with a Ministry of Agriculture employee, who is the coordinator of the National Potato Program, and his girlfriend who runs a garment shop in town that imports pieces from Bangladesh. They have a spare room in their flat outside the city (more like a large town, since the population hardly exceeds 100,000 people). I am looking forward to learning about the farming, as well as trying the cuisine and hopefully wearing the traditional dress.

At the India Bhutan border

View from my homestay in Thimphu

Shopping for kiras

First day at the office!

My desk at the ministry

With colleagues at the ministry

National Organic Program office

Thimphu

Locally brewed beer

Enjoying yak burger and fries

December 4, 2013 – Reverse Culture Shock in Bhutan

Well Bhutan has been a shock to say the least. I’ve just returned home from a really fun evening of going out. My host also plays in a rock band that mostly does covers and he loves to have a good time. So after a day at the office filled with two interviews, lots of reading, and receiving compliments on my kira, I joined him and several of his friends and band mates at this little pub-type restaurant for dinner. There was a Canadian ex-pat librarian who is working on establishing an environmental library in Thimphu who had spent a year living in Mumbai and has been in Bhutan for more than two years. I met the band mates, drank local Bhutanese beer (“Red Panda” and “Druk Supreme”), and ate yak burger and fries, which was absolutely delicious. After dinner, we went to this bar and local music spot called Mojo Park where there was this guy and a guitarist doing 90s covers (including Bryan Adams, Creed, The Fray, Lifehouse, U2 and many more). The last few days have been confusing for me, since I think I am experiencing reverse culture shock to some extent. More than anywhere so far, Bhutan has felt like home. I didn’t expect to come here and be able to have a hot shower, go out to eat for Chinese food or a burger and fries, listen to John Mayer on the radio, and see almost immaculately clean streets free of car horns. Hearing songs of my childhood (including the band’s awesome rendition of “Fast Car” by Tracy Chapman) in a bar drinking beer with other young Bhutanese people has been really disorienting. I haven’t stayed up late, spent time with English speakers my own age, or really had fun in quite some time. I was told that a few years back, there was a Spanish guy working with them and he said he had expected Bhutan to have “mountains, monks, and monasteries,” but around Thimphu, it proved to be quite different. The bar was an example of globalization if I ever saw one. I looked around and there were three flat screen TVs: one with Vh1 (including music videos of Pitbull, Kesha, Justin Timberlake, Britney Spears and Pink); another with a football match and later WWE wrestling; and a third TV with a Hindi soap opera. The performers were singing cover songs in perfect English but would switch over to Dzongkha, the local language that is in the Tibetan language family, in between songs. But alongside foreign influence is deeply rooted tradition. For example, I was able to wear my new kira to the Ministry office today because all government officials are required to wear the traditional dress to work. Yet when I went to the Dzong (fortress), I was missing one ceremonial scarf piece to my kira set, known as a rachu, and therefore count not enter. Yet if I was wearing Western clothes, I would have no problem. So I went back to the car and quickly took off the kira bottom, revealing pants, and zipped up my fleece to cover the blouse and then I had no problem entering. It seemed like a very silly and technical formality. It is also interesting how my host was saying that these days, he feels that although, many people are stuck in tradition and old-fashioned rituals, they are forgetting the underlying importance of the culture and Buddhism. Instead, he says he is a spiritual person but not a religious person. So he doesn’t much care for the organized aspect with rigid practices but instead believes in the importance of being a good person, maintaining control of negative emotions that may hurt others etc. He told me about some silly things such as an animal welfare society that will buy yaks or livestock to prevent them from being slaughtered and sold as meat and then release them into the wild. This has environmental impacts and also doesn’t solve the issue because they can just be re-caught.

In essence, I find myself repeatedly drawing comparisons with India but in many ways, they are so different. Regarding my research, for instance, Bhutanese farmers can set their own prices in the market because there is no government minimum support price or similar procurement policy, which is the antithesis of India where farmers have zero control over their profits. In this way, Bhutanese farmers may actually be better off economically and usually are profiting. Moreover, there are not really government subsidies for agricultural inputs (seeds, fertilizer, pesticide etc.), implements (tractors, power tillers, etc.) or labor in the conventional sense. The government, however, is incentivizing farmers to form groups and cooperatives by offering cheaper access to inputs and implements, so this is a type of subsidy. Furthermore, the Pesticide Act of Bhutan mandates integrated pest management and policies exist that ban GMOs. Multinational corporations such as Monsanto are not present in the country, so farmers are not yet victimized by their monopolization of seed and synthetic inputs. However, the government is filling this role at the primary supplier, which may have its own problems. Without a shortage of forest, Bhutanese can cut trees in their own backyard to fuel the wood stove for cooking and heating, which frees up cow dung for fertilizer, unlike in India where a shortage of trees forces farmers to save and dry cow dung in the form of cakes, which are later burned. This compromises the organic fertilizer source if they have to use it for fuel. Culturally, the expat Canadian I met commented on how Bhutan has all the good things of India but without the pollution, crowds, or objectification of women. Spending time with my host and his friends, I realize that people are much more open about sex, drinking, smoking etc. It is just funny how we can expect something and then the totally opposite occurs. I honestly thought that coming to Bhutan (where Internet and TV didn’t come until 1999, a national dress code of traditional clothes is required during office hours in government and schools and all buildings must conform to the national architecture) would be true cultural immersion into a pristinely traditional society. Instead it has been a temporary jolt back into Western society. And even working with the organic program, I expected organic to be the magic bullet solution, but in my few interviews and informal chats with Ministry staff, it seems that integrated solutions may actually be more beneficial. However, the government is indeed pursuing an organic agenda that would not leave any room for chemicals.

A woman selling blood sausages at the farmers market. They´re pretty tasty until someone reminds you what you´re eating.

Chilis abound in Bhutan

Prices at the farmers market

The entire upstairs of the market is dedicated to local produce with some marked organic

Cereals at the market

Colleages from the Ministry who took me to the farmers market :) Looking beautiful in their kiras

Bhutanese homes and terraces

Views of my homestay flat from the hike

So fitting reading The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman, about globalization while traveling in Bhutan

With the world´s (possibly) largest Buddha

Views of Thimphu from Buddha point

Prayer wheels

At the Memorial Chorten. My friends from the Ministry did a very nice landscaping project this past summer, but you can´t see the beauty because of the winter season