It's Only Strange If You're a Stranger

I was five minutes late to third period. Five minutes, leaving 37 seventeen and eighteen year-olds alone in a classroom. In my absence all of the students had decided to take advantage of their newfound freedom. Without the teacher there, they could catch up on an activity that they get little time for.

You can imagine.

When I entered, there they were, all of them, not a single one free of guilt as they collectively engaged in …

… daily meditation.

The students were all sitting silently, backs erect, hands folded on their laps, breathing deeply. It even took a second for them to realize I was in the room. When they did, they arose, smiled and in unison said, “Good morning, sir.”

Yes, things are very different here.

As much as I find commonalities between me, my students and my colleagues, there are still many instances that mark how different an American upbringing is from a Bhutanese one. Mr. Yonten, who I take walks with frequently, told me about how he was raised in a village that had no roads or electricity. Many of the other kids did not own shoes so they ran around barefoot through stinging nettles and rocky terrain. His is an existence that seems so far in the past but Mr. Yonten is 30 years-old, younger than me. This undeveloped Bhutan was still the norm in the 1980s and 90s. He remembers the first time he saw a TV and the first time lightbulbs lit the rooms of his childhood home. He recalls the memories as if he were a witness to miracles.

Now Mr. Yonten has adapted to a modern Bhutan. He shares movies with me from his thumbdrive. He wears AC/DC t-shirts and we talk of climate change, the election in the US, and further development around his home. He lives under a giant cellphone tower.

Mr. Yonten’s personal adaptation to the modern world isn’t necessarily ubiquitous. The other day at a house warming party I talked to Mr. Gyeltshen about traffic lights.

“They’re in the cities, right?” he asked.

“They’re everywhere—cities, suburbs, even the smallest towns will at least have one.”

“In Bhutan we do not even have one,” he told me. I couldn't tell whether he said it with disappointment or pride. “Not even in Thimphu.”

He asked me to explain how they work. “What do the colors mean?”

There is a risk of thinking that a culture is simple with questions such as these. But I’ve asked Mr. Gyeltshen myriad questions since arriving here that I’m sure paint me as the ignorant one. How do you hand wash your clothes? How much should I pay for a new gho? How do I buy meat in the market? When does the rainy season begin?

Being knowledgeable is a relative concept.

Some of my knowledge is completely pointless. I explained to a student that in the US we have grocery stores the size of the school’s soccer field. I went into detail about how they are filled with dozens of each kind of food. When he asked, “Why do you need so many options for potato chips?” I had no answer. Sometimes we can’t even find garlic here in town. I haven’t seen any kind of fruit in nearly two weeks.

A story that my class XII students were reading included the phrase “made from scratch,” which I found myself bumbling around for a relatable definition.

“It means food that you make from the most basic ingredients.”

They looked at me quizzically.

“Foods that aren’t premade like frozen dinners. Or fast food.”

Again, complete perplexity. It’s remarkable to have a refrigerator here (and basically futile, since the power goes out almost every day,) let alone a freezer to put Hungry Man dinners in (if you could find such a thing.) The only thing considered “fast food” are dumplings that are, in fact, made from scratch. So there went that definition.

I gave it another attempt, explaining to the students, “Pretty much everything you guys eat is ‘made from scratch.’”

An astute student responded, “Don’t you just call that ‘food’ then, sir?”

“Yes,” I said, a little annoyed. “I guess you do. Basically, we have a lot of options in America that aren’t made from scratch. So, I guess you could say, we have a lot of foods that aren’t food.”

Still, on their vocabulary test they memorized the definition and most of the students could define the term, though I’m sure the concept itself remains elusive.

There are other things too: Lopen—which means teacher in Dzongkha and is often a title reserved for those who teach the national language—enters the teachers work room every morning chanting Buddhist prayers. None of the other teachers complain; the sound is as natural as the birds chirping outside. His deep, guttural voice reverberates through the room.

When I see students in town they still bow and say, “Good afternoon, sir.” They scramble to find chairs for me to sit in when there is a sporting event outside and they bring me tea and crackers as I enjoy the games.

In class the students still look up at me as if shocked that there is a foreigner teaching them. I’ve been teaching here nearly three months now and still I get stares and reactions of surprise. For many, I’m the only foreigner they have ever spoken to.

Time is stretchable in Bhutan. A “short” meeting can go for an hour, plans to meet at 6:30 come to fruition closer to 7:30 or 8, class periods are fifty minutes long, but start late and go into the next teacher’s time (no worries, since that teacher is likely to start late too.) I diligently prepared my year syllabus in order to make sure I could cover all the material before the students’ board exams. It was perfect. But weekly there are sudden presentations, athletic meets, or pujas to bless the houses, schools, people. Each event eats away at my original pacing. I’m worried, as are the other teachers. Still there are some that tell me, “Don’t worry if you can’t finish everything. It doesn’t matter. Most years teachers can’t get through the syllabus.”

There are so many other things that I am now getting used to, but if I stop and think about them, I realize they are sensations I would have never experienced any other place in the world: the smell of a classroom of villager students, the trip to the tailor who is sewing my handmade gho, the sound of drums and Tibetan trumpets as a holy Lama utters ancient mantras to ward off evil spirits. The other day I drank blessed wine out of a human skull.

It’s a strange land. Or rather, I am strange and I must live and survive in this version of normal. I’ve done this before but the idea is still hard for me to reconcile. To truly live abroad is to give up some of your culture and identity, permanently. You must willingly let go of the past you and accept a new one who is not better, nor worse, but vastly different. Perhaps after I leave Bhutan I will be less punctual, more superstitious, and have an appetite for spicy chilies. I might want to spend more days just sitting in the grass and chatting with friends, or wonder why a house needs anything more than a bed, a two burner stove, a squat toilet and a sink. Who knows? It’s impossible to predict these changes. All I know is that a piece of me, however big or small, will be Bhutanese. If not, than I never truly lived here and I didn’t learn a damn thing.