‘It’s frightening because they are not learning independence, which I think is necessary for success. They are not being encouraged or pressured to get out there and take responsibility, be independent, become a productive member of society. It would be great if they could find a Buddhist middle path out of this, where they could keep the extended family ties but at the same time develop their own independence and self-worth. I think they are at one end of the spectrum, the West is at the other end, and the best path is the middle path.’
I feel torn. On the one hand I’m inspired that they are more interested in their families and spiritual pursuits than making money. But it also feels dishonest. Every business is interdependent. Every workplace relies on everyone doing their bit. This is not a case of exploited workers and the wealthy owners making all the money, and I feel disappointed when I see employees letting down Phuntsho and Tenzin.
I also feel a new appreciation for the work ethic that we espouse in the West, the expectation that you do the job you’re paid for – or get sacked. As an employee you are accountable for your actions, and there is an honesty and integrity about that which I find appealing.
14
A Victory for the Media
Bhutan Observer’s four rural reporters come to Thimphu for a week of writing workshops. I’ve been looking forward to meeting them, particularly Gyembo Namgyal, who lives in Pemagatshel, four days’ travel away in the far east of the country. Gyembo is a legend. He did not finish school but I am told he reads books, lots of them. In a country that doesn’t read, this is considered remarkable. Gyembo writes at least one feature each week, usually two or three. He ferrets out the most interesting characters and wonderfully bizarre stories in the south-east. When I read his features, I usually find myself smiling.
A month or so ago, management decided to offer Gyembo a job in head office. The paper was short-staffed, and giving him a promotion seemed a good solution. But when Tenzin personally phoned Gyembo to tell him of this news, Gyembo resigned on the spot. He didn’t want to come to Thimphu.
Tenzin tried everything – cajoling, threatening, offering a pay rise and a more important job title. Nothing worked. Finally, after weeks of fruitless negotiations, he got to the root of the problem. Gyembo did not want to leave his cow. Tenzin suggested he bring it with him, saying there were plenty of cows in Thimphu. But Gyembo felt his cow was too old to travel such a long distance. Perhaps when the cow died he might reconsider, but for now he wanted to stay in Pemagatshel. And so he did.
Gyembo arrives two days late thanks to a landslide on the main highway that delayed his bus. He is a fascinating mix of the modern and the uniquely Bhutanese. Like all the reporters, he’s on Facebook, but his world revolves around his cow. He is tall and solid, with a gentle manner and a colourful, beautifully pressed gho. I like him immediately.
I also meet Tempa Wangdi, from Trashigang, slightly north of Gyembo’s region. He is Gyembo’s opposite in every way. I am only 168 centimetres tall, and he barely reaches my shoulder. He is a frenetic ball of energy, with darting eyes, and is irrepressibly cheeky. It is impossible not to like him, though I imagine he would be exhausting to live with. I discover that although he is happily married, his wife lives elsewhere. He is extremely pleased to be called to the head office – not to do my writing workshops, he tells me cheerfully, but because he has a few issues to sort out with management. He would like a filing cabinet and a motorbike. Also, an increase in travel allowances. Horse porters in his region have raised their rates, so the cost of getting around the villages and yak camps and mountaintop monasteries has also risen. These issues are being ignored and it is time management addresses them, he tells me within minutes of walking in the door. He is like a small, highly charged rocket.
We end up with the four rural reporters, five Thimphu reporters and two staff from Bhutan’s media regulatory authority, BICMA. In a country with such little media experience, Phuntsho thinks my workshops are an opportunity for them to learn too. So does their boss, the head of BICMA, who also has no media experience but is too important to attend himself.
While the reporters are a confident bunch, used to each other and keen to talk about writing, the two BICMA staff are clearly terrified. They sit hunched together, avoid eye contact with anyone else, and don’t join in discussions. On the second day, they don’t even turn up.
We hold the workshops in the boardroom, where I stand at the whiteboard as a woman waves to me from the roof next door. She is placing small stick figures made from twigs and rags to scare away evil deities. Smoke is swirling about her. It is an odd sight. The sound of monks chanting rolls in through the windows.
Our workshop agenda includes grammar, editing, writing headlines, writing news and writing features. The Thimphu reporters come and go according to the stories they need to cover. The rural reporters stay for it all, soaking up everything. They are enthusiastic and fun. Each session ends up wildly off topic.
Tempa asks what I think about reading. He says he read about a man who is psychic and can see into people’s pasts and futures. What do I think of that?
I say I don’t know.
But it is in a book!
I reply that people can make things up in a book just like they can in conversation. He looks shocked. Gyembo, the reading legend, says he was told not to read fiction, that it is ‘dangerous’ for journalists. I tell him I don’t think that is true, and he looks relieved.
In the middle of a session Tempa takes a call on his mobile phone. Bhutanese never turn off their phones in meetings, so we all get to enjoy the discussion. One of the reporters translates for my benefit. It is a reader, angry that in a story Tempa called his village a ghost town.
‘We don’t have ghosts,’ the reader shouts at Tempa through the phone.
Tempa explains that the phrase ‘ghost town’ means ‘empty of people, deserted’. The village was relocated, everyone moved out, and now it was just a deserted collection of buildings. A ghost town.
The man has no idea what Tempa is talking about. ‘Why won’t you admit you made a mistake and write an apology?’ he yells.
Tempa argues, ‘But I didn’t.’
The man swears at him and hangs up.
Tempa grins. Criticism from readers, or anybody else, rolls off his back. This is fortunate, as it seems it is his karma to upset people. During the workshops, he writes a story for the newspaper about his three-day bus journey coming to Thimphu. It is an exposé on the bus driver who brought him here. He writes that the driver took on more passengers than was allowed, overcharged many of the passengers for their tickets and charged extra for luggage. Furthermore, the driver refused to stop the bus for a child to go to the toilet, so she wet herself, but he did stop the bus to flirt with some pretty young women. He also stopped for breakfast at 9 am, and then lunch at 10 am. From what I understand, the bus driver’s actions are not unusual, but it is the first time such behaviour has been detailed in a newspaper. Tempa’s story sets in motion a chain of events.
In a country of rickety old buses and vertiginous mountain passes, being overloaded can be catastrophic. Accidents on the national highway are part of the collective psyche in the same way bushfires and shark attacks are part of the Australian psyche. But it goes much, much deeper. The national highway is the spine of Bhutan – literally and figuratively. It runs from east to west, cutting through mountain passes at altitudes ranging from 3,500 to 4,000 metres above sea level.
Engineering feat aside, what makes the road truly remarkable and the pride of the country is that the people built it, inch by inch, breaking up the rocks by hand. They were not paid. They just responded to the call of the Third King, coming from the villages and farms to donate their time and labour. It is how the Bhutanese build lhakhangs and schools, and clear communal land. They have a name for it: Druk dom woola. There is no English translation. Or equivalent practice.
The
national highway was started in May 1961 and finished in 1988. Given the dense forests and sheer rock faces, it is hardly surprising it took 17 months to build the first nine kilometres of road. According to an engineer who oversaw the first year of building, every Bhutanese man, woman and child in the area worked for 33 days building the first stretch of road. The government brought in Indian engineers and mechanics, but it was the Bhutanese who did the hard slog.
In the book by Tim Fischer and Tshering Tashi, Bold Bhutan Beckons, Australian engineer Hardy Pradhan said that what amazed him most was how happy the people were at work. Tshering writes: ‘They were proud to be participating in the building of a modern nation and worked hard simply because their King had asked them to do so. Hardy also said that it was difficult for him to explain to Westerners this concept of affection and loyalty to a monarch.’
When the first few kilometres of road were completed, the Third King wanted to try it out. A jeep was dismantled, all its parts transported by mule along narrow passes and over high trails, then reassembled for him to drive from one end to the other. The Queen Mother wrote that the local people thought the jeep was a fire-breathing dragon, with its blazing headlights and roaring engine.
The Third King originally expected that one in six people would volunteer, but by the time the road was finished, 27 years later, one in every three Bhutanese had laboured on that road. It was dirty, back-breaking, dangerous work that included digging, blasting and, for some, dangling precariously over cliff edges on ropes to place explosives. In the warmer southern regions, there were malarial mosquitoes. Elsewhere, heavy rains and the unstable mountains produced frequent landslides. All in all, 700 people lost their lives.
Despite the hardships, Hardy remembered the singing and the laughter of the workers. He described toddlers playing while women broke up rocks and gossiped. Working alongside the Bhutanese were Tibetan refugees who had fled the Chinese military invading their country. Hardy said they were relieved to be in a Buddhist country where they were showered with affection. There were also Nepalese workers who lived inside the border. The construction was a great social leveller in this feudal country.
In 1974, Bhutan celebrated the coronation of the Fourth King. The fleet of Ford Falcons that Australia gave Bhutan to mark this auspicious occasion were to be driven on the section of road that had been finished. They became their own legend, the first cars in the country. A new Rolls-Royce ferried the Indian president while the Ford Falcons followed in a majestic procession, each one carrying a dignitary or an ambassador. The people who lined the road were awestruck by the sight of all those cars, not knowing whether to bow or flee.
Mal remembers being driven in the last surviving Falcon when he first visited Bhutan in the early nineties. Over the years it had been repaired using bits and pieces from all the others.
Our friend Sonam says that although he was just five, he vividly remembers the shiny metal beasts passing by. He had never seen anything so grand or mysterious in his life. These days, as a successful civil servant in his forties, with a PhD from Cornell University in America, he gets around the traffic of Thimphu in his own Toyota Prado.
According to Tshering Tashi, the national highway changed everything. Basic necessities such as salt and sugar became available and affordable to ordinary people. Farmers could get their produce to markets. It was possible to develop infrastructure in more corners of the country. Bhutan launched itself from medieval ways into the 20th century, at last realising the Third King’s vision.
The highway connects east and west, but entire regions still are long distances from a major road. It is faster to get from America to Thimphu, changing planes along the way, than it is to drive from eastern Bhutan to the capital. The Bhutanese describe distances in terms of days’ travel rather than kilometres. They are happy to walk for days – hundreds of kilometres – to visit family or attend a tshechu. The Fifth King does it regularly to keep in touch with his people.
The national highway is important to Bhutan in both symbolic and practical terms. Landslides that block great swathes of road can delay the supply of food to Thimphu market, rob farmers of income, and delay the Fifth King en route to visiting a town. Car accidents on the hairpin bends or over the steep cliffs are tragically common. The highway occupies a unique place in Bhutanese life and is a constant source of news.
When Bhutan Observer publishes Tempa’s story about the negligent bus driver, it provokes a storm. The driver is sacked, and for a while Tempa becomes known as the reporter who exposed the bus driver.
The driver asks Bhutan Observer to issue a retraction. Phuntsho refuses. The story is true and they were right to publish it, she says. So the driver sues for defamation, one of the new democracy’s first such cases.
The trial lasts a week and is reported on by all the newspapers. Other passengers testify that the bus was overloaded. The driver is caught out lying, and he changes his story. As the trial unfolds, he starts to look more dishonest. Unable to bear the man’s public humiliation, an official court representative takes Phuntsho aside and asks if she could just publish an apology and pay him some money. Let him save face. Had the driver not suffered enough?
Phuntsho is indignant.
‘No. We are a newspaper. We tell the truth,’ she tells him. ‘It’s important. That’s what we do.’
The court representative argues that it would be simpler – and kinder – if Bhutan Observer did what it could to restore harmony.
‘But we’re a newspaper. We can’t say we were wrong when we weren’t,’ she replies.
Phuntsho is quite clear on the role of the media in this new democracy. It is about truth, which is important for the community. She becomes frustrated that the court official doesn’t see that. She tries to explain that the newspaper’s credibility would suffer. It has to tell the truth, as best it can.
Phuntsho represents the modern face of Bhutan. Democracy may not always be kind, but it aims to be fair. The court official is not convinced: he sees things the old way. Saving face and showing compassion are more important.
Because Phuntsho will not budge, the case is returned to court. The judge finds that Tempa’s story was true and rules in favour of Bhutan Observer.
It is a victory for the media.
15
Wooden Phalluses and Crooked Vaginas
Like all Bhutanese government offices and businesses, Bhutan Observer has a box of condoms mounted on the wall at reception. The government supplies them to help fight AIDS. Every time I look the box is empty, which I’m told is typical. Offices throughout Thimphu have trouble keeping up with demand. The government supplies condoms in a range of colours, some with feathers and ribbing.
When it comes to sex, the Bhutanese go about it in their own unique way – as the ritual of night-hunting shows. Sometimes they can seem very relaxed, often ribald, while at other times downright prim. Everyone dresses demurely, and even in summer, flesh remains hidden. Siok Sian Pek-Dorji’s media impact study shows how uncomfortable Bhutanese people feel at overtly sexual scenes on foreign television channels. A Thimphu mother said: ‘It is not right to show underpants and breasts in public.’ Others thought it was fine for chillips to be nude on television, but Bhutanese people should keep themselves covered up. City people thought it was inappropriate for families in the villages to be confronted by images of scantily dressed foreigners.
But that doesn’t mean sex is taboo in Bhutan. One of the country’s national heroes is a spiritual master from the 15th century, Drukpa Kinley. Known as the Divine Madman, he exposed hypocrisy and pretentiousness wherever he found it, skewering our tendencies towards self-reverence. He wandered around with a staff shaped like a penis, was often naked, and became renowned as a master of tantra, using sex to help his consorts attain a state of transcendent bliss. He sang bawdy songs and used desire, emotion and sexuality to make his points.
Dr Sonam Kinga, fou
nding editor-in-chief of Bhutan Observer and renowned scholar, wrote in a paper: ‘Drukpa Kinley used the phallus as a medium to tame the demons and demonesses and other malevolent spirits, and in his sexual practices to overcome the social inhibitions set by the socially established values.’
While his methods often appeared shocking, to the Bhutanese he manifested a particular form of enlightenment known as ‘crazy wisdom’. He is considered a saint.
Bhutanese children grow up hearing outrageous stories about the Divine Madman and quietly absorb the key point of these tales, which is Drukpa Kinley’s irreverence for rigid moral codes. Despite the highly structured social hierarchy in Bhutan, there is also a certain respect for unconventionality that runs through the culture, as well as an openness about sexuality.
While publicising Travellers & Magicians in 2004, Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche told American journalist Noa Jones:
While the Bhutanese live by values which agree, on the most part, with universal systems and morals, there is also a unique set of values, particular to Bhutan, that is unlike anything found in other Asian countries. For example, in many parts of Bhutan the subject of sex is not so taboo as it is in China, India or Tibet … Other cultures have lost this sense of freedom or openness, in turn possibly making them into sexually repressed societies. So-called sophistication may have made their minds narrow and rigid, depriving them of a source of happiness.
This goes some way towards explaining the Bhutanese bawdy humour. Phuntsho comes back from a week of teachings with Dzongsar Khysentse Rinpoche in eastern Bhutan and I find her in her office still giggling from some of the Bhutanese jokes. Rinpoche was collecting them and asked all the Bhutanese to volunteer their best. Phuntsho tells me her favourite.
‘The dog says to the rooster, “Don’t stand near me, you are an embarrassment. You have a clitoris on your head and testicles hanging from your ears.” The rooster says, “When you sit down your balls are in the dirt.”’
The Dragon's Voice Page 12
