Gross National Happiness
Exchange Program
2013 Report to the REC:
Julian Darius Jacobs
As we descended below the mountains
of Paro Valley, we watched in awe at the Bhutanese style houses that rested on
the vibrant green mountains that now surrounded us. When we finally stepped
outside, we were met with a purple billboard advertising the marriage of the
king and queen and as we looked around, we felt dwarfed by the surreal and
mysterious landscape we now walked in. After making our way through Bhutan’s immigration
office and retrieving our bags, we met with members of the Royal Education
Council, shaking hands with them and expressing our amazement at the sights we
saw around us. From here, we traveled one hour to Thimphu and watched as prayer
flags draped in the distance while farmers walked on the side of the road
beside their disobedient cows. Still, It did not feel as though we were on the
other side of the world, for we had no real conception of our physical distance
from home. Instead, it seemed as though we had been inserted into an alternate
reality with a culture and landscape that seemed to be too exceedingly
different from our own to even be of the same world. Although this initial
observation was fundamentally misguided, it does well to capture our immediate reactions
to the country. When we arrived in Thimphu, we traveled directly to Peaceful
Resort, where we would be spending the first few nights of our trip. We found
this hotel to be thoroughly relaxing and pleasurable, a nice treat after nearly
30hours of traveling. Over the course of the next few days, we were able to get
an initial taste of Bhutanese culture before we began our work in the schools,
which would take up the vast majority of our trip. This consisted of traveling
to an archery match, getting acquainted with Bhutanese food, and purchasing our
Ghos (something we took much delight in). We also worked with the REC during
this time and began to prepare our materials for the schools that we would be working
in. Beyond this, we finally met with the host families we would be staying with
while in Thimphu. They were all extremely kind and generous and all of us
enjoyed our time with them over the course of the two weeks that we were
together. The small period of time that we spent traveling around Thimphu,
which lasted four days, was crucial to our trip because it provided us with
time to get acquainted with Bhutanese culture before we actually went out and
experienced it. After this time had ended, we traveled to Punakha where we
would be working in Tashidingkha Middle Secondary School as teachers of
specific subjects. Still, before we arrived there, we had the opportunity to
visit the famous Tzong that Punakha is home to. This allowed us to peer into
the religious life of the Bhutanese and begin to formulate our understanding of
how Buddhism impacts Bhutan itself. Immediately after our trip to the Punakha
Tzong, we climbed up windy and bumpy roads to reach Tashidingkha, where our
work in Bhutanese schools would finally begin. Upon our arrival, we met with
our three hosts, the principle and two teachers, over a cup of tea. We
discussed what subjects each of us would be teaching and organized an elaborate
schedule to plan it out. I (Julian) led a philosophy course, Kei taught politics, Jun led
technology classes, Kuba held lectures/ interactive discussions on sports (and
the culture that it is surrounded by), Nathan introduced music in the form of
an after school club and a real in class course, and James taught art. Each of
us had prepared our teaching material prior to our arrival in Bhutan and we
were happy to see that our work there provided an excellent medium for
exchanging our ideas with the students and making friends. In order to
communicate the concepts of each topic we discussed, we had to readjust our
discourse to one that the Tashidingkha students would be able to connect with.
As a result, our work in the schools actually helped to accelerate our
integration into the Tashidingkha community. It was from the basis of teaching
that we were able to begin actively conversing with students. This new level of
interaction consisted of playing basketball/soccer games with the Tashidingkha
students to simply conversing and laughing with them after class. Ultimately,
our stay in Tashidingkha, which lasted over ten days, proved to be one of the
most substantial and life changing parts of our trip, if not for the simple
reason that this experience lasted over ten days. Immediately after our time
Tashidingkha drew to a conclusion, we found ourselves back in Thimphu and in
the wealthy Druk School. Upon our entrance into this middle secondary school,
we immediately noticed the contrasting physical differences between it and
Tashidingkha, which, unfortunately, did not have nearly the facilities or
quality of education that we found in Druk. Although we did not teach there, or
play as active a role as we did in Tashidingkha, we were able establish a
connection with the students in Druk school within the one day that we were there.
This was an obvious result of an increased overall proficiency in English,
which translated into a more bold and outgoing student response to our
presence. Even as we stepped through the school gate and looked at the
well-kept turf field that sat behind the principles office, it felt as though
we had been blasted centuries into the future and all we saw before us was the
modern interpretation of the Bhutanese culture we had witnessed in
Tashidingkha. When the weekend finally came, we now had found groups of
Bhutanese students to have lunch with and meet for events (such as the soccer
finals between Nepal and Bhutan). Although our stay in Druk School was short
lived, it proved to be a powerful one nonetheless. The following Monday, we
attended International Youth Day and found ourselves interested in the
discussion of youth migration in Bhutan. We were just as eager to hear what
each official had to say about this issue as we were to participate in the
proceeding discussion of it. After this interesting start of our day, we began
attending classes at Pelkhill Higher Secondary School, where we were, once
again, exposed to an entirely new perspective and conception of Bhutanese
culture. Here we found a school that, while modernized, lacked most of the
resources that had made Druk School such a stark contrast to Tashidingkha. In
connection with this, the students here did not seem to be as academically
motivated as we had seen in the other schools and we were shocked to here about
the gangs and drugs that the school’s students seemed to have an unfortunate
reputation for facilitating. This raised many interesting questions in our mind
about why Pelkhill, which still has more resources and higher teacher quality
than Tashidingkha, would be prone to these issues. What made this even more
interesting was the fact that the students who actually professed to be in a
gang were just as nice as anyone we had met in other schools. As a result of
this interest, we began to investigate as to what the source of these issues is
derived from. Although there were numerous unknowns (like what type of family
each student was coming from), we noticed that the students of Pelkhill were
not very patriotic and were far more westernized than those at other schools.
Here many students could tell us more about specific American musicians and
cultural figures than we could. If westernization is, as we expect, some source
of the issues that plague Pelkhill, an interesting question in our minds is;
how does a country balance westernization with modernization? This is a question that we kept in mind
throughout the remainder of our stay in Thimphu, which would conclude following
our two-day stay in Pelkhill ended. At this point, we said our goodbyes to our
host families and friends before departing to Paro for the remainder of our
trip. It was here that we had the opportunity to visit Tenzin Higher Secondary
School (our second non-urban school) and hike up to the well-advertised Tiger’s
Nest on the weekend (our most visually stunning experience in Bhutan). After
already spending significant time in Bhutan, we felt well acquainted with
Bhutanese culture and the Bhutanese style of living. As a result, our
transition into Tenzin was rather smooth as we were able to make friends
quickly and almost seamlessly interact with the students. This was partly due
to the unprecedented warm reception that we received in Tenzin. Not only were
the staff and students extremely open with us, but they also were the only
school to draft a day to day itinerary for our stay there, which actually
helped to make it much more productive. This schedule included the Tenzin Idol
(talent show), a speech competition, and a basketball match, each of which we
were able to participate in as oppose to simply observing. We truly felt like
we were part a community and in the two and a half days we spent at Tenzin, we
made some of our closest friends on the trip. Needless to say that as we
departed for the US on the following Tuesday, we had made many friends and had
experienced a culture and way of thinking that had previously been totally
foreign to us. Our time in Bhutan was absolutely life changing and we think, as
a result, it is essential that we succeed in raising money to fund the stay of
Bhutanese students to the US this coming winter. Beyond this, we hope that
other students, from all over the country, will be able to experience the
richness of Bhutanese culture in the same way that we have.
