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A to Z Challenge: Next Up: Bhutan
Apr. 16th, 2015 11:03 pmMy neighborhood's newsletter had this quote in it this month: "I want to thank ... Katherine Keegan of the Multicultural Refugee Coalition (MRC) for ... educating us on the Bhutanese refugee community that is living in our neighborhood and contributing so much to our community."
And that is how I decided to start reading books set in Bhutan, which is located in the Himalayas between China and India, near Nepal.
The first book I read was Kunzang Choden's Dawa: The Story of a Stray Dog in Bhutan. This is a nice story of a dog. Dogs are pretty much the same everywhere. Though in Bhutan, one may be a re-incarnated translator. And may go to a holy place to meditate hoping to cure his mange.
Now I've started reading Kevin Grange's Beneath Blossom Rain: Discovering Bhutan on the Toughest Trek in the World. This author has felt the need to educate me more. For example, I learned that the Yeti is from Bhutan. "Until 1960, Bhutan had few roads and no schools, hospitals, telephones, postal system, or national currency, and it followed a strict policy of isolationism until 1974. Now Bhutan has the distinctions of governing by a policy of Gross National Happiness, not having a single traffic light in the entire country, being the last Buddhist Kingdom in the Himalayas, and having one of the scariest airport landings in the world."
The author also refers to his "vow to put up a string of prayer flags for the peace and happiness of all sentient beings." Dawa, the dog in the other book, also heard a similar phrase and liked how it included him because he was a sentient being. I like it, too, and am going to incorporate a goal of peace and happiness for all sentient beings in my own personal religion.
Unfortunately, this trekking book is yet another book by a westerner coming in and explaining things from his point of view. He doesn't quite do that thing I hate where explorers talk about how they were the first to go into a wild and scary region and then you find out they had native guides with them the whole time who've done it alone themselves making it all easier for our explorer. This author is up front about all that almost from the beginning. And he's not as whiny as some of the other protagonists I've been reading lately, so that's nice. And there are pictures and a map, which I love, though I still don't know how to pronounce anything.
All in all, I'm finding, these books to be a fun introduction, and I have access to several more.
This is just what I like--I get to learn a lot about a unique place without have to risk death, be freezing cold, mess up their environment at all, or accidentally insult them to their faces.
And that is how I decided to start reading books set in Bhutan, which is located in the Himalayas between China and India, near Nepal.
The first book I read was Kunzang Choden's Dawa: The Story of a Stray Dog in Bhutan. This is a nice story of a dog. Dogs are pretty much the same everywhere. Though in Bhutan, one may be a re-incarnated translator. And may go to a holy place to meditate hoping to cure his mange.
Now I've started reading Kevin Grange's Beneath Blossom Rain: Discovering Bhutan on the Toughest Trek in the World. This author has felt the need to educate me more. For example, I learned that the Yeti is from Bhutan. "Until 1960, Bhutan had few roads and no schools, hospitals, telephones, postal system, or national currency, and it followed a strict policy of isolationism until 1974. Now Bhutan has the distinctions of governing by a policy of Gross National Happiness, not having a single traffic light in the entire country, being the last Buddhist Kingdom in the Himalayas, and having one of the scariest airport landings in the world."
The author also refers to his "vow to put up a string of prayer flags for the peace and happiness of all sentient beings." Dawa, the dog in the other book, also heard a similar phrase and liked how it included him because he was a sentient being. I like it, too, and am going to incorporate a goal of peace and happiness for all sentient beings in my own personal religion.
Unfortunately, this trekking book is yet another book by a westerner coming in and explaining things from his point of view. He doesn't quite do that thing I hate where explorers talk about how they were the first to go into a wild and scary region and then you find out they had native guides with them the whole time who've done it alone themselves making it all easier for our explorer. This author is up front about all that almost from the beginning. And he's not as whiny as some of the other protagonists I've been reading lately, so that's nice. And there are pictures and a map, which I love, though I still don't know how to pronounce anything.
All in all, I'm finding, these books to be a fun introduction, and I have access to several more.
This is just what I like--I get to learn a lot about a unique place without have to risk death, be freezing cold, mess up their environment at all, or accidentally insult them to their faces.