go-far 2012 bhutan

BHUTANI N S E A R C H O F A M I D D L E P A T H

GOING OVERSEAS FOR ADVANCED REPORTING

BHUTAN: IN SEARCH OF A MIDDLE PATH2

BHUTANI N S E A R C H O F A M I D D L E P A T H

BHUTAN: IN SEARCH OF A MIDDLE PATH4 5

InsideBHUTAN: In Search of a Middle Path

EditorsCherian George, Tay Kay ChinDesignersRonald Loh, Eve Yeo, Goh Chay Teng, Ivan Tan Assistant editorsSamuel He, Mark Tay, Bhavan JaipragasCover pictureIvan Tan

© 2013 Wee Kim Wee School of Communication & Information

All text, pictures, illustrations, layouts © 2013 Go-Far Bhutan team.

All rights reserved. No part of this production may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. First published 2013

ISBN 978-981-07-5161-6

Wee Kim Wee School of Communication & InformationNanyang Technological University31 Nanyang LinkSingapore 637718www.wkwsci.ntu.edu.sg

Printed by KHL Printing Co. Pte Ltd.

Behind the picture-postcard image of Bhutan as the world’s last Shangri-la is a society that is eager for progress – but wary of the wrong turns that many other nations have made. At a time when many are questioning the world’s love affair with capitalist growth, a team of journalism students from Singapore visited the Himalayan kingdom to discover Bhutan’s answers. We found a

country hungry to emerge from decades of isolation, hankering for 21st century comforts, and hoping to find contentment through its unique national philosophy of Gross National Happiness. Here are our stories.

Welcome to our world 19The little airline that could 21

The Indian connection 23Befriending China 25

A growing dilemma 26Power on tap 34

People above profits 35

EconomyGovernmentFarewell to innocence 14The way to happiness 17

Power and prayer 56A place for old marks 58

Dancing in the dark 60Bhutan’s missing women 64

Folktales: losing their voice? 66

EPILOGUE 83

CultureSocietyContentment versus competition 37

The flight from farms 42City of dreams and despair 44

Ties that bind 48Land of bountiful bans 54

MORE STORIES at www.gofar.sg/bhutan

ABOUT GO-FAR

Going Overseas For Advanced Reporting (Go-Far) is a programme of the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. (See page 88.)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The Go-Far team would like to thank: • The Wee Kim Wee Legacy Fund and Shinnyo-en Foundation for their generous funding.• Singtel for its kind sponsorship of our multimedia project.• Wee Kim Wee School management and faculty members who contributed to the students’ journalism education.• The IT, finance and administrative managers and staff of the School who facilitated our trip.• KHL Printing for supporting the production of this book.• Yangphel Adventure Travel’s Karma Choden and Sonam Pelden, our translators, and especially our guides Dorji and Jigme, and driver Dan.• Dawa Penjor of Bhutan’s Department of Information and Media and other officials who facilitated our reporting.• Sioksian Pek-Dorji and the Bhutan Centre for Media and Democracy.• Manu Bhaskaran, Damber Kumar Ghimiray, Tay Kheng Soon, Yee Jenn Jong and Yeoh Lam Keong for their pre-departure briefings. • The people of Bhutan.


THE GO-FAR team arrives at Paro International Airport on 30 July. Drukair, Bhutan’s national airline, is the only carrier with scheduled flights to the airport, which lies amidst Himalayan foothills. Picture by RONALD LOH


THE MAJORITY of Bhutan’s population of 700,000 are followers of Mahayana Buddhism, the state religion. Picture by IVAN TAN


STUDENTS START their school day with a prayer at Motithang Higher Secondary School in Thimphu. Schools emphasise education values as part of the country’s pursuit of Gross National Happiness. Picture by IVAN TAN


STUDENTS AT Punakha Higher Secondary School spend breaks in between classes at a quiet corner next to their campus. Literacy rates in the kingdom has soared from 20 per cent in 1992 to close to 60 per cent today. Picture by RONALD LOH


TELEVISION BROADCASTS were only introduced in Bhutan in 1999 as the authorities feared that foreign influence would erode its culture and respect for the monarchy. Picture by GOH CHAY TENG


ANOTHER DAY begins in the capital city of Thimphu. Picture by IVAN TAN

Bhutan hopes that a focus on happiness will help it progress without being corrupted by outside influences. But its straight and narrow path is fraught with challenges.

by CASSANDRA YEAP

While other emerging economies try to show a modern face to the world,

Bhutan’s prime minister has no qualms revealing that he cycles 13 km of winding mountain roads to work. Jigme Thinley walks the talk — or in this case, pedals — for his little nation’s big ideals, it would seem.

The landlocked Himalayan kingdom once shut out the world for fear of being consumed by it. It is now opening up but it’s trying to do so on its own terms. Its biggest export is a homegrown idea — that sustainable development means focusing on happiness in its fullest sense, not “irresponsible growth”, as Jigme Thinley puts it.

“We will try to contribute, with hu-mility but with sincerity, in the making of a better world,” says the Prime Min-ister, sitting in a high-backed armchair in an office overlooking a 13th-century fort that houses both government offices and Buddhist monks, backed by verdant foothills of the Himalayas.

Since becoming the country’s first democratically elected head of government, Jigme Thinley has been trying to promote “Gross National Happiness” around the world. For an aid-dependent country of only 700,000 people, Bhutan’s national brand has travelled impressively. Global financial crises and mounting unease with the human and environmental

Bhutan: farewell to innocence?

CONTINUED ON PAGE 16


cost of untrammeled capitalism have made policymakers sit up and take no-tice of Bhutan’s alternative approach.

A United Nations resolution on hap-piness was adopted in 2011. In 2012, March 20 was declared World Happi-ness Day. But, the real test for GNH is at home. Bhutan still retains its rustic charm, but nobody pretends that a fo-cus on happiness – first mooted by the country’s beloved fourth king some 40 years ago — can completely protect it from the woes faced by other developing countries.

“It’s not yet corrupted, it’s not yet gone through the extremes of world wars or industrialisation; it’s still a very innocent society,” says journalist and publisher Tenzing Lanzang, 28 — add-ing that he has yet to be cheated by a taxi driver, unlike in “cynical, money-mind-ed, cutthroat” New Delhi where he first cut his journalistic teeth.

But Tenzing Lanzang is readying his country for a loss of that innocence. In February 2012, he founded the country’s 13th newspaper, The Bhutanese, which is not afraid to upset the establishment in order to reveal the less-than-happy side of life in the Dragon Kingdom.

Rising youth unemployment, a ru-pee crunch that has stalled construction projects and prompted a ban on vegeta-ble imports, and rural-urban migration that has emptied farms of young work-ers — all these tell a story similar to that of Bhutan’s developing counterparts.

In addition, the government’s cautious approach to industrialisation has been accused of stifling business and spawn-ing inefficiency. For example, the vaunt-ed Thimphu Tech Park project, built at a cost of around 400 million Nu (S$18 million), saw two anchor tenants pull out at the last minute. Screening crite-ria, requiring tenants to provide a certain amount of employment for Bhutanese,

have kept the complex largely empty.“You can’t have your cake and eat it

too,” notes economics professor Sanjeev Mehta of the Royal Thimphu College. “There’s a need to accept a degree of trade-off — because foreign investors will not come just to protect your envi-ronment or culture.”

A snaking highway into Thimphu — simply known as “the expressway” as it is the only one — was, at the time, the largest infrastructure project entrusted to local contractors in an economy dom-inated by Indian firms. But a year after its completion in 2005, cracks started to appear — a worrying metaphor as Bhu-tan attempts to pave and find its own way in the 21st century.

The coming 2013 election is seen as a test of the people’s support for Jigme Thinley and his government’s policies. But he is convinced that, no matter who wins, the next government will be as

committed to GNH — which is written into the Constitution as a national goal. “I think every Bhutanese is connected to (GNH), more so after this government came to power than before,” he says.

Sherubtse College political science professor Sarbajeet Mukherjee agrees with that assessment. “There is, across the table, a high sense of consensus on this philosophy of development,” he says.

Indeed, although four new opposi-tion parties have already emerged, it is hard to find any major ideological disa-greement with the ruling party. Instead, one key issue is likely to be whether the government — stocked with the tech-nocratic elites who had served under the King — is too out of touch with com-mon people.

Too many of the “common people” are not benefiting from the kingdom’s progress, adds Tenzin Rigden, 45, a vol-unteer with another opposition party. “Now in the urban areas we have a sec-

tion of the population racing ahead. There are others who cannot catch up,” he says.

Listening to Bhutanese such as Tenzin Rigden, one realises that although the country has modernised more slowly than the rest of Asia, the pace of change has been dizzying for locals. “We’ve moved from horses to BMWs and Toyo-tas in probably one of the shortest spans in world history,” notes journalist Tenz-ing Lanzang.

Television broadcasts only arrived in 1999, but since then the deluge of Indian entertainment and flashy com-mercials has transformed people’s tastes. Likening TV to an “aerial invasion”, sen-ior civil servant Kinley Dorji says, “That itself creates a momentum — what we call desire, greed — within society.”

To Kinley Dorji, one of the country’s leading spokesmen on GNH, Bhutan knows that change is inevitable. GNH is ultimately a small, vulnerable nation’s strategy to buffer itself against the ex-cesses that it sees playing out elsewhere, he says.

“We used to survive by hiding in the mountains, literally, and refusing to open up. But since the 1960s, when we realised we cannot be left behind, we de-cided to open up, but with caution and at a manageable pace.”

GNH Commission secretary Karma Tshiteem says that in an era of “great distraction”, the happiness doctrine is like a “bell” that summons the people back to basics. But Kinley Dorji notes wistfully that the effectiveness of this rallying chime remains to be seen.

“To be honest I don’t know if we’ll be able to do it in the end, or whether we’ll go the way many societies have gone,” he says. “I would say Bhutan has a bet-ter chance than most. It’s not that we’re brighter people, or more enlightened, or more deserving…we are lucky to have started late.”

For 60-year-old Prime Minister Jigme Thinley, who only recently picked up cycling, a late start may mean some wobbles along the way. But he and his government are determined to press on along their chosen path, despite being buffeted by global forces

“By and large, I feel that we will be able to resist,” he says. “Even as we go through these trends, we will be able to prevail.” n

It’s not yet corrupted; it’s still a very innocent society.

Tenzing LanzangNewspaper publisher

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The way to happinessPrime Minister

Jigme Thinley explains the concept

of Gross National Happiness.

by NUR ASYIQIN BTE MOHAMAD SALLEH

Traditional economic indicators are failing us, and we are fast los-ing sight of what should truly be

important, says Bhutan’s Prime Minis-ter. The world’s fixation on economic progress has led to a rash, uncaring capi-talist culture that has paved the way for social conflict and environmental degra-dation, he says.

“There is something hollow about what mankind has achieved,” Jigme Thinley said in a wide-ranging interview with Go-Far. “How much of it should we really be proud of? What is it that we are going to be leaving behind for the next generation, and the generations unborn?”

Jigme Thinley has gained interna-tional renown as an eloquent champion of Gross National Happiness (GNH), a term first coined by Bhutan’s fourth king in 1972 and more recently adopted as a comprehensive national strategy.

Bhutan measures GNH across four key pillars: sustainable development, cultural preservation, environmental conservation and good governance. In recent years, the approach has been discussed at numerous international fo-rums, including the United Nations.

But the Prime Minister acknowledged that many were still sceptical.

“It’s interesting how, at the individual level, we all talk about happiness. Hap-piness is what we all want, isn’t it?” he said. “And yet, how in public, and how at the scientific, at the academic, at the political level, we trivialise happiness, and then go about doing things that have so little to do with happiness.”

IN HIS WORDS

“The conventional economic develop-ment paradigm guided mainly by the GDP indicator is not sustainable in a finite world. Infinite growth in a finite world is simply not possible. And, of course, we are experiencing the con-sequences of pursuing such a growth model — irresponsible growth, limitless

BHUTANESE PRIME Minister Jigme Thinley speaks with the Go-Far team at his office in Thimphu. Jigme Thinley has been the Kingdom’s Prime Minister since its first democratic elections in 2008. The term Gross National Happiness (GNH) was coined by the father of the current king, Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, whose portrait can be seen throughout the country.

Pictur

e by I

VAN

TAN



growth, leading to the excessive extrac-tion of resources, extraction in unsus-tainable ways, and producing goods, much of which is really unnecessary.

But beyond the concern about the un-sustainable way of life that we are lead-ing, there is also the question about the way, at the end of all this — after creat-ing all this supposed wealth, after all the extractive activities that we are engaged in to produce more and more, after all the luxury and the comfort that we are supposedly living in — that we in fact are not happy.

There is something hollow about what mankind has achieved. And I think this hollowness was something that we be-came more and more conscious and aware of toward the end of the last cen-tury, on the threshold to the new mil-lennium, as we were in a reflective and contemplative mode.

How much of it should we really be proud of? What is it that we are going to be leaving behind for the next genera-tion, and the generations unborn?

And so, it was soon thereafter that more and more discussion began to take place on the adequacy of the indica-tors that have guided our development processes, the search for a more holistic, more comprehensive set of indicators. And all these being related to what mat-ters most to human society.

Happiness is what we all want, isn’t it? And yet, how in public, and how at the scientific, at the academic, at the po-litical level, we trivialise happiness, and then go about doing things that have so little to do with happiness. And I think that has been the cause of our failings, of all the harms that we have caused to ourselves. And so we suffer today the consequences, increasingly so.” n

Utopia to dystopia?by RONALD LOH

SENIOR CIVIL servant Kinley DorjiPicture by RONALD LOH

IN THE corner of Kinley Dorji’s of-fice hangs an unmistakable poster of the 1971 film, A Clockwork Orange.

His fascination with the movie goes beyond its dystopian themes of ultra-violence and rape. Instead, it serves as a warning of what Bhutan could become if it is not careful.

“Currently in Bhutan, you can’t even dream of such violence. But there might come a time where such a thing becomes a reality here,” says Kinley Dorji, who is the top civil servant in the Ministry of Information and Communication.

The influx of for-eign culture through what he calls the “aerial invasion” of television and foreign media is al-ready transforming the kingdom. This is one reason why the GNH philosophy is so important – it reminds citizens of the traditional val-ues that they should hold dear.

“It tells you what to understand, what you’re seeing and what you’re eating,” says the official, who used to be the editor of Bhutan’s main newspaper Kuensel. “Contentment lies within you, and not an external source. The faster car, or the nicer house will not give you that.”

IN HIS WORDS

“In the past, we were a small vulnera-ble country. The story then was all about survival. We used to survive by hiding in the mountains, literally, and refusing to open up. But since the 1960s, when we realised we cannot be left behind, we de-cided to open up, but with caution and at a manageable pace.

When we opened up to development, we saw that it is interpreted solely as the quest for money and materialism. We saw a lot of countries losing their

environment and culture, while their government was in shambles. That’s why we came up with the four pil-lars — good gov-ernance, sustainable economic develop-ment, culture and environment. While we haven’t achieved all these, GNH is an aspiration with clear guidelines. In-ternally, it’s a huge responsibility try-ing to interpret this

esoteric philosophy into development activities.

The happiness that we believe in is contentment, and nothing to do with the fleeting sensations, or fun. It’s much deeper. Contentment lies within you.

To be honest, I don’t know if we will be able to do it in the end, or go the way most societies have gone. But I would say that Bhutan has a better chance than most. It’s not that we are brighter peo-ple, or more deserving, but rather, we are lucky to have started late.

We were also lucky with past leader-ship strongly influenced by Buddhism, which has inculcated a sense of respon-sibility and compassion. That’s why the Bhutanese king lived in a log cabin and didn’t think of building a palace. It’s the values, and how he, and all of us, grew up.” n

There is something hollow about what mankind has achieved.

How much should we really be proud of? What is it that we are

going to be leaving behind?Jigme Thinley

Prime Minister of Bhutan

“

”

... but leave your world behind. Bhutan wants tourist dollars but without the woes that mass tourism usually brings.

Welcome to our worldAN ELDERLY man welcomes visitors to the National Memorial Chorten in Thimphu.

Picture by MARK TAY

by BHAVAN JAIPRAGAS

Perched high up on a pine-clad val-ley close to Bhutan’s most sacred monastery, the ultra-exclusive 29-

room Uma Paro resort is perhaps the most eloquent icon for the kingdom’s unique brand of tourism, which wel-comes the super-rich with open arms, but shuns materialistic excess.

The Singapore-owned resort — which has villas that can cost up to US$1,500

(S$1,830) a night — has all the creature comforts one would expect in a luxuri-ous mountain retreat, including person-al masseurs and a hot stone bath.

But true to Bhutan’s ethereal Buddhist tenets, the 35-acre resort does not exude decadence. Instead, with its organic veg-etable farm and austere, monastic archi-tectural design, the resort tries to be one with its natural surroundings.

It is also in sync with the tourism au-thorities’ plan for Bhutan.

Apprehensive about the hordes of backpacker-vagabond travelers who have overrun nearby Nepal, Bhutan has embraced a policy of “high-value, low-impact” tourism since opening its doors to foreign tourists in 1974. The gov-



ernment hopes this will rake in much-needed foreign exchange and lessen the country’s dependence on aid from its southern neighbour India, while stoutly protecting the nation’s Buddhist culture and pristine environment.

“We are trying to improve the qual-ity of our services so that indeed Bhutan becomes a high-end tourist destination — with fewer tourists who will spend more in ways that will not scar Bhu-tan or will not impact negatively either on our culture or on our ecology,” says Prime Minister Jigme Thinley.

Holidaymakers in Bhutan have to pay a daily high-season fee of US$250 a day per person, which includes tourist-class accommodation, food, transport and a US$65 government tax. They pay a pre-mium for more upscale resorts like Uma Paro.

“The exclusiveness is what makes Bhutan and us here at the Uma Paro special; high-end travelers go to the ends of the world looking for a place like this,” says Norman Luxemburg, general manager of Uma Paro, which is part of the COMO chain of luxury hotels and resorts owned by Singaporean hotelier Christina Ong.

Last year, close to 64,000 visited the kingdom. This was a ten-fold increase from a decade before. The tourism council set itself the ambitious target of attracting 100,000 visitors in 2012.

“The numbers will be well within ab-sorptive capacity,” says Thuji Nadik, the council’s newly appointed director.

Adds Karma Tshiteem, who heads the powerful GNH Commission, “The type of tourists we get in Bhutan tend to be ones who do quite a bit of study of Bhu-tan and have great appreciation for us.”

However, critics worry that a devel-oping country of just 700,000 people, who did not even have television until the late 1990s, will find it keep up with

the government’s ambitions.The country’s capital Thimphu, often

romanticised by outsiders as one of the quaintest cities in the world because of its lack of traffic lights and the lo-cal urbanites who wear the mandatory traditional garb, is slowly showing signs of such impact. A construction boom has gentrified parts of the city centre. Crude, makeshift dwellings have also cropped up in the city’s outskirts as temporary homes to scores of migrant workers.

“Do we want to become any tourist town like Pattaya or Bali?” asks opposi-tion lawmaker Tshering Tobgay.

Others like Sangay Khandu — a member of the legislature’s semi-elected upper house — worry that the country’s tourism sector is lining the pockets of those in the urban centres, while leav-ing the rural population high and dry.

Almost 70 per cent of Bhutan’s popula-tion remains rural, with most living off subsistence farming. “The trickle down has been very minimum, in terms of rural income generation,” says Khandu, whose constituency Gasa, situated along Bhutan’s 470-kilometre long border with Tibet, is one of the least developed in the kingdom. “A lot of our investors are in the urban areas.”

While acknowledging that Bhutan’s tourism sector can do much more to be “pro-poor”, tourism council chief Thuji Nadik says the authorities are stepping up efforts to bring tourism to the coun-tryside. Paid farmstays are one idea.

Besides, the rising government rev-enue from the industry has helped to sustain free universal healthcare and subsidised education across the coun-try, Nadik notes. In 2011, the tourism sector generated US$48 million for the Bhutanese economy, of which US$15 million went into the government cof-fers as taxes.

Tourists like retired office secretary Aileen Evans however, hope the world’s growing footprint on the erstwhile her-mit kingdom will not alter its unique character. Says the 67-year-old Briton, “I don’t know if I will be back, but I re-ally hope it doesn’t change. It’s a won-derful place to escape from our very modern lives.” n

To enjoy the assets that tourismprovides, we should not

overstretch ourselves or be overambitious.

Tshering TobgayOpposition politician

“

”

THE UMA Paro Resort: modern luxury in a traditional setting.

Picture by GOH CHAY TENG

WITH NO electronic screens to show safety videos, safety procedures are demonstrated by air stewardesses clad in Bhutan’s national dress.


The little airline that couldBhutan’s Drukair carries the kingdom’s dreams of being a top tourism destination.

by EVE YEO

GROWING up in landlocked Bhutan, Tenzin Namgyal’s dream of becoming a pilot be-

gan with watching planes fly by. He would run along with them until they whizzed behind the enclosing moun-tains to places that he could only dream of.

The tail of each plane was embla-zoned with a white dragon spread across a yellow and orange background: the logo of Drukair, the national carrier.

Drukair, which started flying direct to Singapore in September 2012, is one of the smallest national airlines you’ll see at Changi Airport. But few carriers have as big a place in their nations’ hearts.

When it began operations in 1983, it represented the end of the kingdom’s self-imposed isolation. Today, it is a key part of Bhutan’s “high-value, low-im-pact” tourism policy. And, for many or-dinary Bhutanese like Tenzin Namgyal, it is a trailblazer into the wider world.

“I am proud to represent my coun-try through the only airline that brings tourists into Bhutan,” says the 24-year-old pilot.

Now, a larger proportion of those tourists are likely to come from or through Singapore. “Singapore is an im-portant global gateway and an especially important one for Bhutan,” says the sec-retary of the Ministry of Economic Af-



DRUKAIR PILOTS on a stopover in Guwahati, India enroute to Bhutan.


The Indian connectionBhutan’s economy relies heavily on imports of food, fuel and labour from India. It is a special friendship that is imposing a heavy toll on the economy.

BHUTAN’S TRADE imbalance with India forced it to restrict vegetable imports.

Picture by MARK TAYby MARK TAY

One may be forgiven for think-ing of Bhutan as a country free of woes. After all, it boasts a

unique method of national accounting — Gross National Happiness — while enjoying the backing of India, one of Asia’s most promising economies.

But beneath the surface, Bhutan has less to cheer about. Its close relation-ship with its giant neighbour may bring more harm than good to its economy.

In 2012, Bhutan’s inflation exceeded 13 per cent, its highest level since 2003. Inflationary pressures are expected to re-main in the medium term as the coun-try’s currency peg to the Indian rupee has resulted in the cost of imports from India rising because of a rupee currency slump.

For 23-year-old waitress and mother Shacha Wangmo, a trip to the market today is about 50 per cent more expen-sive than a year ago. “The price of chili has gone up to 120 Nu when it was only 80 Nu last year. Rice is also more expen-sive now,” Shacha Wangmo said.

While most jobs in Bhutan are found in the agriculture and farming sectors, Bhutan remains heavily dependent on Indian imports to meet its demand for meat, rice, vegetables and fruits.

To facilitate trade between the two countries, Bhutan pegged its currency to the Indian rupee in 1974. Although Bhutan has its own currency, the rupee is accepted as legal tender in Bhutan.

Academics like Karma Galay from the Center for Bhutan Studies argue that the currency peg is necessary as India and Bhutan share similar characteristics such as factor mobility, trade integration and the ability to experience the same shocks caused by external changes.

Aside from the currency peg, Bhutan is tied to India through aid. In 2010, grants from the Indian government made up 75 per cent of Bhutan’s total grants.

India sees its eastern neighbour as a crucial ally in protecting its territories. Bhutan is strategically located between India’s northeastern states and China. But while security was a key factor in early India-Bhutan relations, economic collaboration has gradually become the focus of bilateral relations.

Describing bilateral economic pro-jects as “based on mutual benefit”, India’s ambassador to Bhutan, Pavan

Varma, cited their joint hydropower projects as win-win propositions. “We are collaborating with Bhutan to build 10 mega hydropower projects, which by 2020 are expected to generate 10,000 megawatts,” he said. “Bhutan has the resources to generate this power and they need the revenue. India is a power-deficit country, and we need the power. So it is a plus-plus equation.”

Fully-funded by the Indian govern-ment — through loans and grants —construction of the first hydropower project began in the 1970s. Most of the power generated by the Chukha hydro-power plant is exported to India’s east-ern states like West Bengal, Bihar and Sikkim. Earnings from hydropower projects chalked up approximately 27 per cent of Bhutan’s total revenue in the fiscal year 2009/10.

Despite exporting most of its electric-ity to India, Bhutan still faces a huge balance of payment deficit. The inability to repay its rupee-denominated debts has resulted in a Bhutanese currency cri-


fairs Sonam Tshering.Drukair now flies to Singapore twice

weekly. The Republic is only be the fifth country that the airline flies to — after India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Thai-land. The airline added a fourth plane to its fleet by the end of next August, with a fifth slated for arrival in 2014.

The airline is owned by Druk Hold-ings & Investment, the investment arm of the Bhutanese government. Its role is

more strategic than to just add directly to government coffers.

“As Bhutan’s only international air-line, there is a huge responsibility of not just making profits but to provide as much connectivity as possible,” says Drukair’s general manager of commer-cial and ground operations, Tshering Penjore.

The Singapore connection is expect-ed to help Bhutan tap tourists on the Australian and New Zealand routes, ac-cording to tourism council officials.

It will also reduce Drukair’s current dependence on less stable hubs. “Sin-gapore is very stable in the Southeast Asia region, both politically and fi-

nancially,” notes Bhutan’s Tour-ism Council director of plans and programmes, Thuji Dorji Nadik. “Flights have been affected by the rioting in Bangkok, causing the Suvarnabhumi airport to be shut

down. Nepal is occasionally unstable and there have been cases of bomb-ing in Delhi, India.”

Hong Kong was also considered, but Changi’s track record as a trans-fer hub helped tip the scales in Sin-gapore’s favour. “Changi Airport has well-designed facilities that will ease the transfer process for Druk passen-gers,” says Tshering of the Ministry of Economic Affairs.

Tshering also credited the Changi Airport authorities for their keen inter-est in establishing the air link, saying that they were very “forthcoming and

accommodating in their efforts”.With the direct air link in place, Bhu-

tan is ready to market a “sea-to-sky” experience — Bhutan’s Paro airport lies more than 2,000 metres above sea level, and the thrilling flight affords vistas of the snowcapped Himalayas.

“Flying from sea level in Singapore to Paro — it’s a beautiful imagery,” says Kinley Dorji, secretary of the Ministry of Information and Communication.

Bhutan’s challenging terrain is the main reason why Drukair’s flights won’t be reciprocated by Singaporean carri-ers. Each of the airline’s Airbus A319s is retrofitted with more powerful engines. The extra thrust is required for the steep ascent out of the airport in Paro Valley.

Therefore, although Bhutan’s air agreements are bilateral on paper, other airlines lack the aircraft that can deal with the special conditions, giving Dru-kair a monopoly on scheduled interna-tional flights.

Its pilots are also specially trained. They need to rely solely on their sight of the tarmac and the surrounding moun-tains as they zig-zag their way to or from the runway.

“We have to navigate the plane by sight. We don’t land unless we can see the tarmac,” says Tenzin Namgyal, who trained in Australia. Low clouds can sud-denly obscure visibility, he adds. “The weather in Paro changes very quickly —it can even change every five minutes.”

Tour operators in Singapore and Bhu-tan are already gearing up for the im-pending flights. One of them is Karma Wangmo in Bhutan, who was on the inaugural flight to Singapore. “I wanted to experience the duration and comfort level of the flight myself so that I can give better answers to my clients when they make inquiries,” he says.

Bhutan’s tourism sector has high hopes about what little Drukair can achieve over time.

Ravi Nischal, general manager of the palatial Taj Tashi Thimphu Hotel, says the new links could help turn Bhutan into a “365-days” destination, instead of one with a distinct low season.

“The mystique of Bhutan is not only for the ‘high season’. You can see it every day if you are here,” he says. “So maybe with the new air links and greater con-nectivity, we can become a year-round destination.” n


sis referred to as the rupee crunch.Until recently, Bhutan’s economy was

blind to the severity of the rupee crunch.“This problem has been building up

over the past few decades and we have not done much to combat it,” said Bhu-tanese blogger Yeshey Dorji.

Since then, the government has un-dertaken drastic measures like banning imports of motor vehicles and vegetables to reduce the outflow of rupees.

Professor Sanjeev Mehta, who teaches economics at the Royal Thimphu Col-lege, said such moves were unavoidable. He added that Bhutan was first caught in a vicious cycle of importing more when it started accepting foreign aid from India in the 1960s.

“With these projects from India, the income of the Bhutanese people started expanding and so did consumption… People were looking forward to consum-ing more and without domestic produc-tion increasing, they imported more.”

Bhutan is currently trying to wean itself off its dependency on foreign aid by exploring the organic agriculture ex-ports, the development of an education city in Thimphu and more run-of-the-river hydropower projects, which are less expensive.

Bhutan’s prime minister Jigme Thin-ley told the Go-Far team that Bhutan aims to be free of its dependency on foreign development assistance by 2020. “We have decided that the year 2020 will be the year by which time Bhutan would have become absolutely no longer dependent on foreign development as-sistance.”

Observers are closely watching for of-ficial China-Bhutan relations to develop. This would reduce Bhutan’s dependence on India. Academics like Prof Mehta see an improvement in China-Bhutan rela-tions as inevitable. “Old diplomatic re-lationships that only stood on geo-stra-tegic aspects are changing as relations are now focusing on economic rationale instead of political rationale,” he said.

Given Bhutan’s close proximity to the world’s most populous country, he believes Bhutanese exports to China can aid the ailing Bhutanese economy. “Bhutan is rightly placed to benefit from China’s economic expansion and the Bhutanese government has to go beyond hydropower and take some bold deci-sions,” Prof Mehta said. n

Befriending ChinaThe benefits of closer ties are impossible to ignore.by BHAVAN JAIPRAGAS

At a hillside clearing on the out-skirts of Bhutan’s fast-modern-ising capital Thimphu, an up-

scale gated residential complex is taking shape. It is another sign of neighbouring China’s expanding economic heft in the Himalayan kingdom.

Bucking the local construction in-dustry norm of depending fully on long-term benefactor India for material, developer Yangphel has turned its gaze across the Himalayas to China.

Nearly 20 per cent of the construc-tion material used in the $15 million project — colossal by Bhutan’s stand-ards — is from the East Asian giant. “The difference is the superior quality, the price and the range of choices. There is no reason why I wouldn’t want to buy my material from China,” says Ken-cho Tshering, who heads conglomerate Yangphel’s real estate arm.

“Guangzhou is like my second home,” adds Tshering, gushing about the wide range of custom-made pipes, toilet fittings and tiles that are available in hundreds of factories in the southern Chinese city. The 47-year-old has visit-ed China nearly two dozen times in the past five years to make orders.

The enterprise of Bhutanese business-men like Kencho Tshering, coupled with China’s growing economic and po-litical muscle across South Asia, is fast changing Bhutan’s cloistered diplomatic outlook.

Once resolute in its policy to keep an arm’s length from the five permanent members of the United Nations Securi-ty Council, Prime Minister Jigme Thin-ley now believes China’s growing clout as a “world leader” will see the kingdom grow closer to its northern neighbour, despite a longstanding border dispute.

He maintains this stance even after a fresh round of talks between the two sides — the 20th since 1984 — to re-solve conflicting territorial claims along their 470km border concluded in Au-

gust 2012 with little headway made.“China has to be seen not only in

terms of a country that is contiguous to Bhutan but as a world leader,” he says, in an interview with Go-Far.

“Whether it is in the international arena or matters of international issues beyond bilateral relations, we will find ourselves interacting increasingly with China,” he adds.

Bhutan is the only one among China’s 14 immediate land neighbours not to have formal diplomatic ties with Bei-jing. The Buddhist kingdom has a cul-tural affinity to Tibet, over which Bei-jing asserted its military power in 1959.

Still, many believe the main reason for Bhutan’s lethargy in advancing ties with China is the kingdom’s special relation-ship with India. Located in the foothills of the Himalayas along India’s north-eastern frontier with China, Bhutan is seen as providing a buffer zone between the two Asian powers.

India is the aid-dependent kingdom’s largest benefactor. However, India’s am-bassador to Bhutan, Pavan Verma, re-futes claims of Indian interference in the kingdom’s foreign policy.

“Bhutan is a sovereign country, and the decision of whether it wishes to es-tablish formal diplomatic relations with China is that of Bhutan,” he says.

The border dispute between Bhutan and China is one sticking point. The two countries signed an agreement in 1998 to maintain peace in the disputed

border area.A senior royal aide says Bhutan would

establish official ties with China only when the border dispute is fully resolved. “We have nomadic people living in the northern border and herding yaks,” says Nado Rinchen, the deputy chairman of Bhutan’s Royal Privy Council and a for-mer ambassador to India. “We have to protect our territory.”

Although still dominated by imports from India, Bhutan’s economy is seeing a steady rise in demand for China-made substitutes, which are cheaper even after factoring in a top tariff rate of 35 per cent. Most Indian goods are tax-free un-

der a trade pact signed in 2008.China is Bhutan’s sixth-largest source

of imports, accounting for US$11.25 million (S$14 million) worth of goods in 2010.

“There is a growing lobby in Bhutan keen to cultivate relations with China for business purposes,” says Professor SD Muni at the Institute of South Asian Studies. “Stronger Sino-Bhutan rela-tions will come.”

Kencho Tshering, the developer of the sprawling residential complex in Ka-besa, says businesses in the kingdom are hoping for the two countries to foster closer trade ties.

“India is like a big brother to us, but how can we avoid China when the rest of the world and the most powerful nations in the world are dependent on China?” n

We will find ourselves interacting increasingly with China.

Jigme ThinleyPrime Minister of Bhutan

“”

LANDLOCKED BHUTAN’S only neighbours just happen to be the two giants of Asia.

Map from WIKIMEDIA

A growing dilemma

CONSTRUCTION AT the 5-star Bhutan Hotel Private Limited go deep into the night to meet tight schedules. The hotel is one of many that has sprung up in Bhutan’s capital to meet increasing tourism numbers.

Thimphu needs more buildings, fast. But this is placing strain on its goal of sustainable development. Photojournalist IVAN TAN wanders the streets to see how the city is coping.



It is 10pm in Thimphu. The sounds of hammers, drills and men shout-ing in Hindi are heard in the heart

of the city. With bare hands, no protec-tive gear and sweat-soaked shirts, Bi-goyhlabar and around 40 other Indian workers are working at the site of what is to be Bhutan’s fourth five-star hotel.

There is nothing alien about this scene. The rush to finish work at Bhu-tan’s fourth five-star hotel by Febru-ary 2013 is reflective of a construction boom that has engulfed the fast grow-ing city. But as the Himalayan king-dom slowly trades its pastoral face for

“I BOUGHT these helmets for my workers, but they are not used to it,” says Singay Jhamtso, 34, construction manager at Hotel Thimphu Tower.

WHILE WORKPLACE safety regulations are in place, they are loose and not stringently enforced. Indian workers are often seen working in slippers, and without gloves or protective headgear.

A CONSTRUCTION worker uses

rudimentary methods to align the third floor

of the Hotel Thimpu Tower. Poor systems

of measurement and unskilled labour have

made engineering accuracy hard to

achieve.

concrete, the question is whether Thim-phu — long renowned for retaining its authentic charm — is building too fast for its own good.

“Seven to eight years ago, the city grew organically and at a natural pace,” says Phub Rinzin, Chief Engineer at the Ministry of Works and Human Settle-ment. “Today, the momentum is so fast I feel like I’m living abroad again.”

Since the introduction of a gov-ernment plan to institutionalize city planning in 2002, Thimphu has been growing at an unprecedented pace. Sup-ported by strong funding from India,

the government also released tenders for infrastructure such as roads and utility pipelines.

Increasing rural-urban migration and an influx of tourists has also placed tremendous strains on housing. The government plan simultaneously intro-duced the land pooling concept, with 30 per cent of the land owned by Bhuta-nese given to the government for public works.

“The housing colonies and many ex-tended areas outside the city core were



all constructed from padi fields that were pooled from the people,” says Rin-zin. “The plan was very unpopular when it was announced, but it really provided the catalyst for the construction boom we are experiencing in Thimphu today,” he adds.

The rise in the number of construc-tion projects has proved costly. Prices for raw materials such as timber, bricks and sand are steeply rising due to a severe supply shortage. Local saw mills such as the Army Welfare Saw Mill typically re-ceive orders of more than 10,000 cubic feet of timber a month, but only gets an average of 1,000 to 1,400 cubic feet of stock from the Forest Division.

“The result is a black market that drives up prices of timber illegally,” says Yeshi Wangchuck, accounts officer at the Army Welfare Saw Mill. “Even though prices are pegged by the govern-ment at 279 Nu per cubic feet, there are many other saw mills across the coun-try that are illegally charging as much as 450 Nu per cubic feet,” he adds. Con-struction of a typical two-storey house requires about 7,000 to 10,000 cubic feet of timber.

Timber from mis conifers and blue pine is popular for traditional construc-tion work. The wood from these trees insulate buildings from the cold, and are more stable during earthquakes. Tim-

ber makes up almost 30 per cent of a typical Bhutanese construction. It is an important part of the building’s facade, which must conform to strict architec-tural guidelines.

“Roofs must have specific rows of wooden shuttering correlating to the number of levels of the building,” ex-plains Tandin Dorji, a senior architect at the Ministry of Works and Human Settlement. “Bhutanese windows and roofs have to look a certain way, and any foreign architects must be backed up by a Bhutanese one.”

In addition to rules preserving tradi-

CLOCKWISE FROM ABOVE LEFT:

KINGA TSHERING, 45, reprimands foreman Mondel, 28, about sloppy work done on Hotel Thimpu Tower’s third floor. Poor systems of measurement and unskilled labour have made engineering accuracy hard to achieve. Bhutan’s construction industry is heavily reliant on Indian workers as most Bhutanese shun blue-collared jobs.

BHUTAN’S FIRST Supreme Court is being built in the capital. Fully funded by the Indian government, its construction is seen as a significant step in the monarchy’s move towards democracy.

RANGER GYELTSHEN, 51, checks the accounts and blueprints at Yangphel conglomerate’s mega real estate project at Kabesa. The Forest Division ranger ensures that construction companies do not log trees illegally. They also advise site managers on how to introduce and maintain plants and trees in and around their construction sites.



-tional designs, the construction indus-try is also bound by strict controls on logging. The constitution states that 60 percent of the country must remain for-ested. Government agencies such as the Forest Division ensure that construc-tions are protecting Bhutan’s rich green-eries.

A visit to Yangphel real estate con-struction site coincided with a ranger’s surprise visit. Ranger Gyeltshen was not only there to ensure that illegal logging was not taking place, he also advised Yangphel’s management on the best spe-cies of grasses and fauna to plant in the area.

Bhutan needs to strike a balance be-tween sustainability and development.

“What we are still lacking is a system that ensures proper work and construc-tion safety. Many contractors are damag-ing the environment without knowing so, and our workers are not following proper safety protocols like wearing hel-mets,” says Phub Rinzin.

Kinga Tshering, CEO of DHI Infra, shares Phub Rinzin’s sentiments. He feels that the choices facing Bhutan in-volve difficult decisions, but these can-not be avoided.

“Ultimately, our culture and our for-ests will disappear,” he adds, “its the people that we have to count on.” n

Ultimately, our culture and our forests will disappear. Its the people

we have to count on.Mr Kinga TsheringChief Executive Officer

DHI Infra

“”

CLOCKWISE FROM ABOVE LEFT:

GYELTSHEN is a ranger with the Forest Division. He monitors construction sites to ensure that illegal logging does not take place.

PHUB RINZIN graduated from an Australian college and is now the Chief Engineer of the Engineering Services Division. His department provides engineering support to public projects such as sanitation, roadworks and hydropower. He hopes “to be able to create a proper safety and construction protocol for Bhutan in the future.”

TANDIN DORJI has worked as a senior architect in the Ministry of Works and Human Settlement for the past five years. In a department of only five architects, their work load has been increasing over the past few years. They design key government projects ranging from housing to royal structures.

TASHICHOZOM is a sales assistant at Beautiful Home’s Toto toilet and bath showroom. Although she sees only a few customers every month, their purchases are usually huge. All of the goods are imported through a Singaporean distributor.

SINCE THE adoption of the Thimpu Structural Plan in 2002, there has been a boom in the construction of houses, hotels and schools. The capital’s location in a valley means that its buildings are susceptible to landslides.


Blessed with abundant, fast flowing water, Bhutan is banking on hydropower to boost its development.

Power on tapby LEONARD HOW

En route to the famed Tiger’s Nest at 3,300 me-tres above sea level, a waterfall offers trekkers a cooling respite. Picture by RONALD LOH

Bhutan is a land of oddities. It is one of the world’s slowest-devel-oping countries and simultane-

ously the happiest; its forest cover is advancing instead of retreating, and it boasts the human phallus as a cultural and religious symbol.

Another curious fact: this small, land-locked minion of South Asia is, quite lit-erally, a powerhouse for parts of neigh-bouring India.

Thanks to its abundance of glacial lakes, rivers and tributaries, hydropower is big business in Bhutan. In 2011, 45 per cent of the kingdom’s revenue came from its hydropower sector alone, mak-ing up 20 per cent of its Gross Domes-tic Product (GDP), according to Druk Green Power Corporation, the country’s hydropower authority. (That’s equiva-

lent to the manufacturing sector’s con-tribution to Singapore’s GDP.)

Today, Bhutan generates around 1,480 MW of power, nearly four times its national need of 400 MW, and sells the bulk of it to India. The southern neighbour has provided financing for nearly all of its hydropower projects.

Further capitalising on its wealth of glacial lakes and monsoon-fed rivers, Bhutan plans to increase its generative capacity to 10,000 MW by building 10 new hydropower plants by 2020.

“We have only begun to tap our hy-dropower development potential,” Prime Minister Jigme Thinley told the Go-Far team. “We want to develop hy-dropower energy potential as quickly as possible, and as a green form of energy. It is not necessarily green, but the way

it is generated here in Bhutan — run-of-the-river schemes — it is very eco-friendly.”

All of Bhutan’s current hydropower plants are of the run-of-the-river type, which rely on natural river flow to gen-erate power. Because of the absence of large dams and reservoirs, damage to the environment is minimal.

It is an approach carefully designed to fit within the country’s strict focus on environmental conservation: its Constitution mandates that at least 60 per cent of its land area has to be kept under forest cover, explains Vijay Mokhtan, director of conservation at the WWF Bhutan.

This is important because both the country’s largest income generators, hydropower and tourism, are heavily dependent on its natural environment. “Maintaining adequate forest cover is essential to capturing the rains that feed the rivers,” Vijay Mokhtan says.

Two of Bhutan’s 10 new projects are notable for being the country’s first res-ervoir dams. It is a significant change in tack from its approach of using run-of-the-river schemes.

The government says the reservoirs are necessary given that run-of-the-river dams are heavily reliant on seasonal monsoon rains. When rainfall drops dramatically during the winter months, hydroelectric output falls to below 300 MW.

Reservoirs alleviate the problem by storing excess water during the mon-soon periods, which is then released during the dry season.

Chhewang Rinzin, managing direc-tor of Druk Green Power Corporation, explains this will allow its plants to maintain regular output during winter.

“Our valleys are not like the valleys

in Europe and other countries that are wide open; our valleys are very nar-row. So when you talk about reservoir schemes, we are not talking about cov-ering that much land. Our areas under submergence are very small,” Chhewang Rinzin says. Druk Green manages the country’s hydropower plants and over-sees hydropower development.

The resulting low human displace-ment numbers is a hydropower develop-er’s dream: just 50 families were relocat-ed in preparation for the Punatsangchhu reservoir project.

Tenzin Lamzang, an investigative journalist at the country’s largest private newspaper, notes that this is already an abnormally high figure compared to the typically 10 to 20 families that are have been relocated for other projects.

Of course, these numbers are a far cry from the 1.2 million people displaced during the construction of China’s Three Gorges Dam.

The government has been adamant that its plans for its two reservoir dams — the Sunkosh and Punakha Reservoir projects — are safe.

But Vijay Mokhtan demurred on the validity of the claims, only saying that the country tries to minimise impact to the environment through “sustainable hydropower”.

“We don’t say no to hydropower, be-cause hydropower is a lifeline for this country,” he said.

Energy committees in the country have explored other forms of renew-able energy such as wind and solar, but hydropower still comes out top. Wind power is thought to be impractical due to inconsistent wind flows, Chhewang Rinzin said. Furthermore, having large windmills dotting the country’s pristine hills and mountainsides “would be an eyesore”.

Solar energy is too expensive to intro-duce on a large scale.

“If you want to do a 1 MW solar plant, you need two acres of land. We own about 200 acres of land at Tala [Hydro-power Plant], producing 1,000 MW. So that’s around one acre of land for every 5 MW,” says Chhewang Rinzin. “At any given time, wind is about three times the cost of hydro; solar would be around five to six times. When you can buy elec-tricity from hydropower at 4 cents, who will want to pay 10, or 16 cents?” n

DASHO Chhewang Rinzin is general manager of Druk Green Power Corporation and oversees the country’s hydropower development.

Picture by LEONARD HOW

g

People over profitsBhutan is attracting individuals from around the world to set up social enterprises.

IAN SHACKLETON used to work in Australia but was drawn to the idea of set-ting up a social enterprise in Bhutan. Picture by GOH CHAY TENG

Contentment versus competitionLike other nations, Bhutan dreams of glory in international sports. But how does this yen for success square with its national philosophy to find zen-like happiness?

by RONALD LOH

When Sherab Zam and Kun-zang Choden returned from London following another

fruitless Olympics, they brought home a feeling that is becoming all too familiar to Bhutan’s sports fans — the agony of defeat.

Archer Sherab Zam failed to make it past the first round, while Kunzang Choden missed qualification in the 10m air rifle event by 16 points. Although respectable compared with the 20-0 drubbing of the national football team by Kuwait back in the 2000 Asian Cup qualifiers, there was no denying the dis-appointment after both Olympians were eliminated so quickly.

“Sherab is capable of much better, perhaps she needed a little more expo-sure,” laments Ugyen Rinzin, President of the Bhutan Archery Federation.

by LEE JIAN XUAN

When Ian Shack-le first agreed to manage the

Thimphu Tech Park project in Bhutan, the last thing he expected was that he would consider putting down roots in the country.

But when the project was done and dusted, the Aus-tralian, who is in his 50s, found himself wanting to stay on and make a differ-ence in the little kingdom he had grown to love. Draw-ing on his passion for horti-culture, Shackle, or “Shax” as he is known to friends, founded Landscape Bhutan, a social enterprise providing landscaping and gardening services, the first of its kind in the country.

“I had a passion for the country and landscaping, and I had the business acu-men for it,” he said. “Bhu-tan is at a point where it is emerging into the 21st cen-tury. This is a country where there’s not much cynicism, which hasn’t been caught up by rampant consumerism yet, and the people are still innocent.”

The Bhutanese govern-ment subjects all plans for foreign investment to a rig-orous screening process, to ensure that they comply with the country’s unique Gross National Happiness (GNH) development philosophy

Companies are forbidden from large-scale activities that might harm the envi-

ronment and employment opportunities must be given to locals.

“The unique thing we have in Bhutan is that for any ac-tivity, government or private, it needs environmental clear-ance,” said Sonam Tshering, Secretary of the Ministry of Economic Affairs. “And af-ter, it goes through GNH clearance, which studies it in a holistic way.

Such stringent rules may

hinder it from attracting large-scale foreign invest-ment.

But the same rules, which adhere to GNH’s emphasis on sustainability, have made the country a haven for so-cial enterprises — business models that prioritize envi-ronmental and social ben-efits over profits.

One such example is Shax’s Landscape Bhutan, compris-ing of him and his six local

employees. The company, he said, taps into a niche mar-ket that has not yet been ex-plored — gardening services.

“Bhutan is so rich bo-tanically, but it’s rare to find gardens here because people don’t know much about hor-ticulture,” he said, revealing that he was in talks to pro-vide landscaping services for two five-star hotels down-town in Thimphu.

But getting a social enter-prise off the ground is not easy.

Financing is a daunting challenge — the country places 170th out of 183 econ-omies in the World Bank’s rating for ease of obtaining credit. Its overall ranking for ease of doing business is 142nd, behind neighbours Bangladesh and Nepal.

Another major challenge is the lack of infrastructure, which is especially crucial in mountainous Bhutan. Get-ting trained staff is another problem. Shax said he rec-ognizes the need to upgrade his workers.

He said he is even prepared to pay out of his own pocket for his two best employees to attend university and study horticulture.

“I don’t want to grow big and have franchises. I want to be part of GNH, to em-ploy locals and educate them,” he said.

“If we can help the coun-try grow and provide em-ployment, even if I have competitors, that’s fine. I’ll be happy for them.” n

A WEEKEND archery competition. Archery is the national sport. Picture by GOH CHAY TENG



We have to be competitive in sports, otherwise there is no point in form-

ing a national team.Ugyen Wangchhuck

Bhutan Football Federation general secretary

“”

IT is not uncommon for football players to share the field with wandering cows. Picture by MARK TAY


In just under 30 years, Bhutan has evolved from a nation that was happy to do its own thing behind closed doors, to one that dares to dream of success — only to taste bitter defeat — on the in-ternational stage.

The state of sports in Bhutan is em-blematic of the kingdom’s struggle to strike a balance between zen-like con-tentment, and a yen for progress.

“Contentment lies within you, not an external source,” notes senior official Kinley Dorji, a noted spokesman for Gross National Happiness.

But exposure to the world is chang-ing people’s attitudes. “We have to be competitive in sports, otherwise there is no point in forming a national team,” says Ugyen Wangchhuck, secretary gen-eral of the Bhutan Football Federation. “Winning always makes us happy.”

Pride may have swelled in the Hima-

layan nation when its first batch of Olympians took part in Athens in 1984, but today Bhutanese want decent per-formances, not mere participation.

“When I first played for the national team, we were up against a country that was way above us. The focus then was about our participation because it was true that we didn’t stand a chance as we just started playing,” says Ugyen.

But that mentality has to change, he says. “If we are going there just for par-ticipation today, then it’s as good as say-ing we’re going there to lose.”

Losing is something of a habit in foot-ball, which is the most popular sport in Bhutan. The national team was thrashed 8-1 by Afghanistan in a South Asian championship in December.

There were reports that the players did not mind, since Bhutanese are said

to believe in their own form of happi-ness. “But I think that’s wrong, because no one should want to lose in sports,” says Ugyen.

As for the national sport of archery, the record has been equally bleak. Tra-ditional archery is widely popular with the masses, deeply rooted as part of the Bhutanese culture. With many eager, and able, to wield the bow and arrow, it seemed like a perfect fit when the coun-try adapted to modern archery and in-ternational rules in order to compete on the world stage.

Yet, no Bhutanese archer has gotten past the second round at the Olympics.

Still, officials are hopeful. The new president of the Bhutan Olympic Com-mittee (BOC) is the king’s younger brother, Prince Jigyel Ugyen Wang-chuck. The prince’s appointment is seen as a strong endorsement.

“It’s an interesting time for sports in Bhutan,” says Ugyen Rizin. In the gov-ernment’s 11th five-year plan, sports initiatives will be included for the first time. They include sports education in schools, increased funding for the fed-erations, and the improvement of the country’s sporting facilities.

If the plans materialise, it will be a major boost for athletes who now work with facilities that possibly make a Sin-gaporean junior college look like an Olympic venue. For example, the Thim-phu-based footballers train on a muddy, grassless pitch at Changjiji. To make matters worse, clubs are often seen shar-ing the limited space with at least two other teams during training sessions.

“We’ve still got a long way to go,” says Yeedzin FC striker Yeshey Dorji, 25, after a training session, his boots caked

If we can get people at the grassroots interested … elite

athletes will inevitably happen.Bedadema

National women footballer

“”

with mud. “We need the fullest support from the government if we are to im-prove.”

Footballer Bedadema of the women’s national team agrees: “We have friends interested in sports, but many of them feel that there isn’t much career oppor-tunities in sports and drop out.”

BOC’s secretary-general Sonam Kar-ma Tshering acknowledges that sports have suffered long neglect. “But today, we have a strategic long-term plan in place for the next 20 years, and the government has promised the necessary funding,” he says.

The main goal for now to increase the supply of athletes. “For the 2010 Asian games in Guangzhou, we only had a pool of eight archers and 12 boxers to choose from,” he says.

In order to generate a continuous supply of elite athletes, Bhutan will first target the grassroots and youths. The archery federation hopes to award eight sports scholarships to students after a national talent search.

“If we can get people at the grassroots interested in and playing sports, elite athletes will inevitably happen,” says Sonam. Sports facilities are also set to be improved, most notably with two full-sized artificial-turf football fields in Thimphu.

The BOC has also reeled in help from abroad, signing Memorandums of Un-derstanding with countries such as Den-mark and South Korea. “The exchange of know-hows and ideas will help us greatly, together with the support in building our infrastructure and equip-ment,” said Dr Kinzang Dorji.

What counts as progress remains disputed. Sporting success should not be benchmarked against the silverware won, insists former Prime Minister Kin-zang Dorji, who now heads the Bhutan Indigenous Games and Sports Associa-tion.

“Our 20-year strategic plan for sports development that we published last year states nothing about winning medals or trophies,” he says. “Instead, we believe in the inherent health and moral ben-efits that sports can bring to the larger population.”

Dr Kinzang Dorji believes a compro-mise can be struck between finding inner contentment and striving for success in the competitive climate of global sport.

“With regard to boosting national ego through sports, I can fully understand that. But we realise there are certain things we cannot achieve,” he says. “We have always tried to balance the two ex-tremes and found a middle path, which has stood us well so far.” n

THE PRODUCTION of successful elite athletes remains a dream for Bhutan as the nation struggles to promote interest in professional sporting careers.

POOR TRAINING facilities have not helped Bhutan’s sporting growth. Thimphu-based football clubs, for instance, have to share a muddy, barren football field with other teams during training.

Picture by IVAN TAN

Picture by IVAN TAN


The flight from farmsWith youth increasingly disdainful of rural life, Bhutan has to balance its dreams of modernisation with its goal of food self-sufficiency.

by LEONARD HOW

ON VIDEOBHUTAN AIMS to make all its food production organic by 2020. “Whatever comes out of Bhutan will be organic,” says Prime Minis-ter Jigme Thinley. “We’ve already started on this very seriously, and we’re making very good progress.”

Go-Far’s video team explored organic farming in Bhutan. Visit www.gofar.sg/bhutan to watch their story.

FARMER KENCHO has been farming since his father took him out to the fields as a young boy, but does not wish the same for his children. The 59-year-old usually tends to his padi field alone, and the crops from his harvest go solely to feeding his family.

Picture by NUR ASYIQIN BTE MOHAMAD SALLEH

IF PHEYDUE had had his way, he would never have been a farmer.

He had dreams of going to school, landing a comfortable job, marrying a nice girl. But, when school was a three-hour walk from home and there were no proper roads, leaving home simply wasn’t an option. “So I didn’t go to school and stayed in my village,” he says. “And I became a farmer.”

Today, Pheydue tends to his one-acre farm in Punakha district, growing most-ly beans, rice, chillies and corn – mainly just to feed his family. His farmhouse is a quaint, anachronistic affair: a garish red refrigerator sits in the kitchen, while a centuries-old wooden box stores rice from his harvests.

Bhutan’s philosophy of happiness is very much rooted in its countryside, with its culture of interdependence and its closeness to nature. However, the re-ality is that many of the country’s farm-ers, like 60-year-old Pheydue, remain in agriculture out of necessity, having no other means to put food on the table.

With every stride the government makes in bringing schools, roads and the Internet to the countryside, more newly educated youths are packing up and leaving for the cities.

While 60 per cent of the population still depend on farming, agriculture now faces a labour crisis. The hollow-ing out of farms jeopardises the coun-try’s ambitions to be self-sufficient in

basic foods. In addition, it complicates the pursuit of Gross National Happiness (GNH).

“A lot of Bhutanese values that un-derpin GNH have a very agrarian, rural setting to it,” notes Karma Tshiteem, secretary to the country’s GNH Com-mission. “So of course, with moderni-sation and urbanisation there are chal-lenges of translation.”

The Bhutanese government hopes to boost the sector by making farming more lucrative.

One ambitious plan is to make food production completely organic by 2020 so that Bhutan will be known world-wide as an organic brand. Wealthy neighbours China and India, home to affluent and discerning consumer seg-ments beginning to worry about what they eat, are prime targets.

Most of the country’s agricultural produce is already grown “organically” by default, since chemical fertilisers and pesticides are too costly for most farm-ers. The aim now is to take the best practices from commercial farming and merge them with Bhutan’s traditional practices to produce the best yield.

Critics are quick to point out that the high cost and comparatively lower yields of organic farming may thwart Bhutan’s goal to attain food self-sufficiency by 2015. However, the advantages of in-ternational certification will more than make up for the shortfalls, Department of Agricultural and Marketing Coopera-tives director Dorji Dradhul insists.

The second half of Bhutan’s strategy is to move farmers from traditionally la-bour-intensive, low-income subsistence farming to market-driven commercial agriculture.

The overwhelming majority of Bhu-

tanese farms operate on a subsistence basis, with farmers only sowing and har-vesting enough to feed their families and keeping little else for sale.

Despite the opportunities Bhutan’s education system has brought to its population, it is clear the education boom is the reason for the nation’s flight from farms.

Minister for Agriculture Lyonpo Pema Gyamtsho says: “The success of our edu-cation system has pushed the outmigra-tion of youth from the rural areas, and the content of the education was geared, initially, towards people getting white-collar jobs.”

Compounding that is the fact that there are no high schools or colleges in the villages, he adds. “Children, if they want to go beyond Class 10 to Class 12, to high school, they have to come out of their locality to a new place.”

Because of the cost involved, youth who do not do well in school avoid re-turning home to the family farm, driven away by the embarrassment of failure and lured by the hope of landing an of-fice job in the city.

In response, Bhutan’s agriculture and education ministries teamed up in 2000 to reintroduce the School Agriculture Programme (SAP) to the school curricu-lum. The programme aims to educate youth on the dignity of labour and give them some farming experience.

Students from six to 14 spend up to five hours a week on practical sessions involving agricultural tools and practic-es, according to Dezang Dorji, director of the School Agriculture Feeding and Environment Division, which adminis-ters the SAP.

“Some of the people have called farm-ing ‘uglyculture’ – when you farm, you

become ugly,” he says. “The SAP’s aim is to counteract the concept that farming is dirty or unbecoming.”

Yesh Galley, principal of Punakha Higher Secondary School, one of Bhu-tan’s top ten schools, admits that youth increasingly see no prospect in vocation-al work. “Given the chance, they will not go back, even with all these dignity of labour programmes,” he says.

Pheydue’s quiet farmhouse beside the Punakha River stands testimony to that national trend. His children have flown the nest: his two sons have landed jobs in the military and the civil service, while two of his daughters have married and now live in Thimphu.

His remaining daughter, 18, lives with him and his wife, but does not help on the farm much as she has to go to school. He says he will have to hire someone to tend the farm when he and his wife die.

Like any parent, he does not want his own hard past to be his children’s future. He says his biggest dream for his chil-dren was for them to be happy and to be “whatever they want”.

“Whatever is the present life for me, I hope it will be better in the future for them.” n

Picture by LEONARD HOW

FARMER PHEYDUE works on a one-acre farm he obtained through a land grant from Bhutan’s fourth king. The 60-year-old lives with his wife and youngest daughter in a farmhouse he built with his wife over 40 years ago.


City of dreamsand despairMigrants from the countryside may be jobless and alone, but community projects are trying to recreate the community spirit.

by LEE JIAN XUAN

At first glance, 21-year-old Jigme Dorji does not look like a com-munity leader. With tattoos

snaking down both his arms, dyed hair tied into a small ponytail and a Bob Marley necklace, he resembles more the many youngsters loitering on the streets of Thimphu.

But the two-time ex-convict is the vice-president of a grassroots group in Changjiji, the largest low-income hous-ing colony on the outskirts of Bhutan’s capital.

“They chose me because I am an ac-tive member, and I can represent the youths best,” says “Tag”, as he is known among friends.

The need for youth outreach in Changjiji is pressing. The neighbour-

hood is a magnet for migrants longing to escape the raw and humble life of Bhutan’s small farming villages. When the bright lights of the city prove illu-sory, some turn to gang violence, alco-holism and drug abuse. Just this May, a man was stabbed to death and two oth-ers were slashed during a drunken brawl.

“Changjiji has had emerging youth problems, with rising trends in drug abuse and crime,” says Yandey Penjor, 51, executive director of the Bhutan Youth Development Fund, a non-profit group that works with youths across the country.

Most of these crimes are committed by youths who have left high school but are unable to find work, says Sonam Lhamo, 25, a worker at the Youth Infor-mation Centre (YIC) in Changjiji.

“They have nothing to do, so they

start to make trouble here,” she adds. “Then they get drunk easily so we have theft cases, tyres getting slashed and boys fighting at night.”

Tag used to be part of their ranks. Shortly after dropping out of school in 2006, he landed himself in prison — where he got his tattoos — for fighting alongside his “Sunday Market Gang”, one of Thimphu’s several street gangs.

“That’s how I got my nickname. My friends call me ‘Tag’ because I tag in to help my friends fight, like in wrestling,” he says.

Youth misbehaviour is just the most extreme and visible of the social prob-lems that one sees in Changjiji. The big-ger issue is how to absorb the thousands

LEFT:(From left to right) YESHLEY “Jitse” Dorji, 17, Sonam “Lepo” Chopel, 24 and Jigme “Tag” Dorji, 21, high school dropouts and reformed gangsters who are now training to be youth leaders in Changjiji. It is common for street gangs in Thimphu to assign such monikers to their members, as they are considered to be more contemporary and hip. Picture by RONALD LOH

TOP:COMMUNITY LEADERS are working with the government to convert Changjiji’s spaces to parks and play-grounds where residents and their children can gather and socialise. Picture by LEE JIAN XUAN



who flock to the city from the country-side. A national census in 2005 revealed that more than 15 per cent of the popu-lation had moved from rural into urban areas.

Many are drawn by the prospect of white-collar occupations that are less strenuous than working in the fields. But most of the available jobs are on Thimphu’s many construction sites —back-breaking work that is left mainly to migrant workers from India.

As a result, a government survey last year found that the unemployment rate in urban areas was higher at 5.8 per cent, compared with 2.1 per cent in ru-ral regions.

Actually the situation has improved. It’s just that we have a

bad image.Sonam Lhamo

Social worker

“”

Changjiji was set up by the govern-ment-linked National Housing Devel-opment Corporation (NHDC) to house the urban poor. According to residents and youth workers, its population has swelled beyond the official estimates of 5,000 and is probably at least 8,000.

Although each unit — roughly the size of a two-room flat in Singapore — is meant to accommodate eight people, it is common to find 10 or more occu-pants crowded into one flat, as the Go-Far team discovered. Water shortages, common throughout Thimphu, have also plagued the neighbourhood, which only receives water for four hours a day.

Over the years, such reported issues

have resulted in a poor public percep-tion of Changjiji. Critics have slammed it as a “failed urban colony”, holding it up as an embodiment of Bhutan’s ur-banisation woes.

Observers note that while the coun-tryside may be poor, rural communities have strong social safety nets because of their traditions of community self-help. In contrast, many city-dwellers must face their problems alone.

“There is a concern that they don’t know each other because in urbanised areas, people tend to be individualistic,” says NHDC managing director Ugyen Chewang, 42.

That is where various community building projects come in. Even as the municipality office has been trying to improve water supplies, the NHDC has allocated more land for amenities such as a park and playground.

Meanwhile, the YIC has organized volunteer programmes and sports com-petitions like futsal and basketball tour-naments to attract at-risk youths living in the area. Tag, an avid soccer player, whose walls at home are adorned with the medals he has won at local competi-tions, is one such example.

“Actually, the situation has improved. It’s just that we still have a bad image,” says Sonam Lhamo. “People in Thim-phu look at Changjiji and think it is dangerous, dirty, crowded.”

Observers say progress sped up after last December, when 25 community captains, or “tshogpas” as they are known in the native language, were elected to form the Changjiji Association.

Their first order of business was to get residents out of their houses for a neigh-bourhood-wide cleaning campaign, giv-ing them a chance to interact while tidy-ing up common areas. They have since made it a monthly affair.

“We keep track of who attends the cleaning and we check on the mem-bers who are not present,” said Presi-dent Phurpa Wangdi, President of the Changjiji Association.

The tshogpas also came up with other ideas to improve the community, such as building a street cafe and planting flowers and shrubs.

A recovered drug addict, Tag proposed a community-wide weeding of marijua-na plants, which are smoked by locals as recreational drugs and can lead to addic-

tion. Other residents have come up with informal initiatives such as sharing wa-ter to cope with the daily rationing, and taking care of neighbours’ houses when they are away.

However, not everything has been smooth sailing. Community efforts often lack funding, as government re-

sources are currently dedicated to meet-ing housing demands in the capital. Fundraising at the grassroots level is dif-ficult, since most families barely survive on a monthly income of less than Nu. 10,000 (S$220).

Furthermore, there is little chance for most dropouts to resume their educa-

tion, as fees for tertiary education are too expensive. Most NGO programmes are able to offer only unpaid volunteer training, which organisers hope will equip the youths with skills to earn a livelihood.

“It gets difficult for them sometimes having to work without pay, but it’s re-warding when you see them go forward in life,” says Sonam Lhamo, citing an example of a dropout she mentored who eventually travelled to Bangkok for fur-ther training and returned to work in the food and beverage industry.

In September, Tag delivered the speech at the opening ceremony of the newly constructed neighborhood park which was developed as a community project. He hopes it will inspire more residents to take ownership of Changjiji and get involved. “Other people and or-ganisations can’t do it for us,” he says. “We are the people living here, we have to do it.” n

AN APARTMENT block in Changjiji houses 12 two-room units on three floors. According to housing regulations, the maximum occupancy of each apartment is eight, however, it is not rare to see units with 10 occupants. Picture by GOH CHAY TENG

EVERY MORNING, residents have a four-hour window for water collection. During this period, they have to collect and store enough water to last the day. Picture by GOH CHAY TENG


Ties that bindInternal migration may take Bhutanese far from home, but some can still count on their loved ones. Photojournalist GoH CHAy TeNG meets a family whose members have been able to lean on one another in their new urban surroundings.

In 2005, Karma Dema, then 16 years old, left her family and village in East-ern Bhutan for a new life in the capital.

She was part of a huge migration move-ment: her region experienced a 27 per cent migration rate.

Bhutan’s rural-urban migration rate — the highest in South Asia — shows no signs of slowing. The urban popula-tion has grown twice as fast as the na-tional population.

Many are worried that this trend is pulling at the fabric of the traditionally tightly knit Bhutanese family.

But these worries may underestimate the resilience of families. For 23-year-old Karma Dema, leaving home has only served to show the strength of fa-milial bonds.

When she faced difficulty settling

down in Thimphu, she was able to count on her family members. Still un-able to find a job, Karma Dema is fully dependent on her brother and husband.

Her brother, Sonam Chopel, 28, pays the rent and utility bill of the three-bedroom apartment that they share, meanwhile her husband, Sonam Phuntsho, 24, pays for household ne-cessities like groceries.

Karma’s husband and her mother, Dema, 65, have also been helping her look after the baby, allowing Karma the time to attend self-improvement courses.

“Family means a lot to me,” she said.“They are vital to my life. Without

the support of my family, I would have been so scared on my own. I will not be able to live in Thimphu without my family.” n

LEFT: DINNERS at Karma Dema’s home are a family affair. In addition to her immediate family members, they include cousins and their spouses, all of whom have come to Thimphu to seek better lives.

ABOVE: KARMA (in pink and blue) and her classmates. They spend their lunch hour in an empty corridor sharing food brought from home, as the cafeteria food is too expensive.



AFTER A full day of classes at the Youth Development Fund office/centre, Karma spends her free time in the evening relaxing in front of the television. While between jobs, she attends an entrepreneurship workshop, organised by the Bhutan Youth Fund, for self-enrichment.

KARMA’S MOTHER Dema left her husband and village for Thimphu especially to take care of her grandson. With her caring for baby Khasum, Karma and her husband, Sonam, are both free to attend class and work, respectively. Childcare centres are rare in Bhutan and children not old enough to go to school are usually looked after by their grandparents.

EARLY IN the morning, before the rest of the family make their way to class and to work, Dema prepares lunch for her children to bring with them. Besides caring for her grandson, she also takes charge of cooking and cleaning for the household when there is no one around to do it.

SONAM TAKES over caregiving duties whenever he has the day off from work. Karma considers herself lucky to have a husband like Sonam. “Even though he is not earning a lot, he is working very hard to take care of me and our baby. When I have to go to the YDF and he has to take care of the baby, he does not complain,” she says. Sonam and Karma met in Thimphu through a telephone call when a mutual friend had given Sonam Karma’s number. One year after they married, Karma gave birth to their son.

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT:

ON VIDEOTHE Go-Far video team looks at how Thimphu’s new residents pursue their own ideals of happiness.

Visit www.gofar.sg/bhutan to watch their story.


At 7.30 am each morning, stu-dents in Punakha Higher Sec-ondary School pick up their

brooms, dustpans and rags, and set about scrubbing the desks and sweeping the corridors of their school. But just metres from the campus gates, youths a few years older loiter along the streets with their friends, swelling the ranks of young people who refuse to take up jobs as labourers.

Principal Yesh Ghaley says that his school, just like any other in Bhutan, aims to instill the value of manual jobs, or the “dignity of labour”, in its stu-dents. Despite such programmes, and a youth unemployment rate of 9.2 per-cent, young job seekers prefer to hold out for office jobs.

“The major prob-lem is a mismatch be-tween the skills of the job seekers and avail-able jobs,” says Min-ister for Labour and Human Resources Dorji Wangdi.

Overwhelmingly, job seekers at the min-istry’s five Employ-ment Services Centres name the civil service as their first choice, followed by govern-ment-owned corpora-tions and big private companies.

As a result, construction projects rely mainly on Indian workers.

Replacing all imported labour in the country would require 75,000 additional

Nong Dorji, 60, says handicraft work is sometimes stigmatized because of the for-eign tailors who have set up shop in Thim-phu.

Royal Thimphu College’s Economics professor Sanjeev Mehta says the edu-cation sector is not meeting the needs of the economy. “Universities are like machines that churn out similar gradu-ates on an annual basis whether they are needed in the market or not,” he says.

Wangchuk Rabten, a curriculum spe-cialist with the Ministry of Education, has been driving a pilot programme of vocational skills training courses that started in five schools last year. Its aim is to introduce practical courses while students are still in school so graduates can easily pick up apprenticeships later.

In the late 1980s, he was in a group of educators granted an audience with the fourth king. At the king’s request, they were to draw up a values-based educa-tion that helped kickstart many main-stays of Bhutan’s schools, like the clean-ing of campuses. But somewhere along the way, many schools lost sight of the purpose of such practices.

His colleague Dorji Tshewang is try-ing to bring schools back to his original vision through a new teaching philoso-phy. Called “Educating for Gross Na-tional Happiness”, it encourages teach-ers to practise values by example.

Ironically, the benevelont monarchy and GNH-driven government may have led to youths developing a sense of en-titlement. Education is free in Bhutan up to Grade 10, and certain groups of students like boarders are paid stipends.

“When they walk into the centre, they ask ‘We would like to learn this, and how much are you paying me?’,” notes Nong Dorji. Now that the government is open-ing up the economy, the shift to market forces is leaving people at a loss, she adds.

“The government has been looking after the people for a long time. Now you’re on your own. People don’t know how to do business, they are not prepared.” n

Beyond the paper chase

Top:Samten Dorji (left) and Damba Thapa are instructors at the Khuruthhang Institute of Elec-trical Engineering. In the past ten-odd years that they have been teaching, none of their students have come to the institute by choice.

Left:Yesh Ghaley is the principal of Punakha Higher Secondary School. Although his school empha-sises “holistic assessment”, he admits more youths see no prospect in vocational work.

Right: (L-R) Indramaya Tamang, Lemo, Sangay Wangmo, and Karma Choden produce handicrafts for the Nalzhoen Pelri centre, where they sought training after they did not qualify for high school.Pictures by GOH CHAY TENG

by CASSANDRA YEAP

Bhutan is struggling to fix a mismatch between the aspirations of better-educated youths and the jobs that are opening up.

Bhutanese. “From vocational training cen-tres, we produce around 400 each year — just imagine what we are going to do with that snail’s speed,” says the minister.

Kinley Penjor is the principal of one such institute, the Khuruthang Institute of Electrical Engineering. Of the rough-ly 200 plus students that his institute takes in each year, aged 18 to 21, none of them has come by choice. Most of the students could not qualify for higher studies and had to resort to the technical institutes. Part of his job is cajoling and encouraging them to have a sense of the worth of the work they are taught to do.

“Presently we’re having a tough time with the mindset. Because the real truth is that [students] look down on blue col-

lar jobs,” he says.High school principal

Yesh Ghaley blames the unrealistic expectations of the youth partly on exter-nal influences, like televi-sion programmes.

A Hindi movie on tel-evision was what inspired Lemo, 23, to want to be a lawyer. But after failing to qualify for high school, she sought training at the Nalzhoen Pelri Centre, which was set up to help unemployed girls. She now works in a produc-

tion unit there weaving and embroider-ing souvenirs that are sold at the airport and in Thimphu.

She prefers her present occupation to her childhood dream, but her instructor


GETTING four-year-old Pema Choeyang out of bed and ready for school on Tuesdays is no easy

task for her father Kencho Tshering.

Land of bountiful bansThe quest for happiness doesn’t always give individuals the freedom to choose.

by MARK TAY

They live just a 20-minute drive away from the school, but Tuesday is Pedes-trians’ Day, which means their Toyota Hilux must remain at home.

Young Pema has to wake up a full three hours before school starts at 9am in order to beat the crowds in search of a taxi. For many Bhutanese like Pema’s family, Monday blues have turned into terrible Tuesdays, when private cars are banned from city centres.

Pedestrians’ Day is just one of Bhu-tan’s restrictive laws that reveal the gov-ernment’s paternalistic tendencies. It may have lifted the country’s ban on tel-evision in 1999 and become a democ-

racy in 2008, but the kingdom today has a cigarette ban, strict regulation of religious practices and a national dress code for all locals. In a less idyllic set-ting, some of the rules might seem al-most dictatorial. But here, they add to Bhutan’s quaint charm, showing the government’s refusal to be swept along by the tide of globalisation.

While some societies equate happiness with individual choice, Bhutan’s notion of well-being is more communitarian.

But officials acknowledge that most bans cannot be watertight or perma-nent. “What we hope is that education will help people understand what’s good for you and what’s not good for you,” says senior government official Kinley Dorji.

Despite wide criticism of Pedestrians’ Day since it was launched in June 2012, Prime Minister Jigme Thinley remains

enthusiastic about it. He often cycles the 26 km round trip through the hilly terrain between his house and his office, not just on Tuesdays but on other days as well.

But he acknowledges that there could have been more consultation before Pe-destrians’ Day was implemented. “The good thing is that whenever we fail to consult enough, we have a media and a public that is increasingly vocal and that makes us more mindful,” he says.

Indeed, Bhutan’s largely free media, including lively online forums, are quick to reflect any public unhappiness with the restrictions. Prominent investiga-tive journalist Tenzing Lamsang says the government’s we-know-best attitude re-flects officials’ “elitist mindset”.

“A lot of our ministers come from the Bhutanese bureaucracy and are more used to a top-down approach,” he says.

Another controversial law is the To-bacco Control Act, making Bhutan the first country in the world to ban tobacco sales. Last year, a monk was sentenced to three years in prison for smuggling in S$2.70 worth of tobacco.

The high-profile case made lawmakers realise that, in their enthusiasm to pro-tect the population, they had engaged in overkill. Penalties have since been reduced, and a thriving black market operates. Shopkeepers sell packs of il-legally imported Indian cigarettes at Nu 100 (S$2.20). They quietly slip the slim packs, wrapped in old magazine pages, into buyers’ hands.

A smoker, 28-year-old Kezang, de-scribes the tobacco sale ban as “irra-tional”, since the premium paid on il-legal cigarettes could have gone to the government as taxes.

Other bans are economic in origin.

The state imposed austerity measures in 2012, including import bans on vegetables and vehicles. There are also restrictions rooted in Bhutan’s desire to preserve its culture. Although the Constitution guarantees freedom of reli-gion, only Buddhism and Hinduism are officially recognised. Christian pastor Phurba Wangdi, 45, says he has had to relocate his church at least eight times in the last 20 years.

As for the national dress, the require-ment to wear the gho and kira at most workplaces enjoys support, even among government critics like Tenzing Lam-sang. “For a small country, we cannot afford to have division, and if we all have a unified culture, then there is no issue of division,” he says. “Globally peo-ple don’t know much about us, so the only thing that can make us stand out is culture.” n

THIMPHU is still the only capital city in the world that does not need traffic lights, but traffic con-gestion is forcing authorities to introduce more and more rules. One of the most controversial is Pedestrians’ Day: private cars are banned from city streets on Tuesdays. Picture by IVAN TAN

A NEPALI couple’s makeshift Christian chapel in Thimphu. Although the Constitution protects freedom of religion and the state is secular, only Buddhism and Hinduism are officially recognised.

Picture by MARK TAY


Power and prayer

At the heart of Bhutan’s capital lies the majestic Thimphu Dzong — headquarters of the government

and residence of clergymen alike. Dur-ing summer, visitors are likely to see government officials, clad in traditional ghos or kiras, crossing the cobblestoned courtyards and maroon-robed monks chanting Buddhist scriptures in ornate prayer halls.

The fort-like monastery, built in 1216, is a stark symbol of the intricate relationship between politics and reli-gion in the country. Historically, the kingdom practised a dual system of gov-ernance. The monarch presided over ad-

The great influence of Buddhist monks requires special handling in Bhutan’s secular democracy.

by VALERIE KOH

ministrative and civil matters, while the chief abbot, or Je Khenpo, headed the religious division.

Today, the religious values of this deeply Buddhist society are infused in Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness phi-losophy. But, like many other modern societies, Bhutan has had to confront the challenge of managing the power of religion to ensure that it doesn’t spin out of control.

“Religious institutions and person-alities shall remain above politics,” states the country’s four-year-old democratic constitution. In line with that edict, Bhutan ousted 10 prominent monks from parliament in 2008 and barred thousands not only from running for of-fice but even from voting. The Je Khen-po’s role is confined to spiritual matters.

This is a dramatic change for a Bud-dhist-majority country where monks used to hold reserved seats in the Na-tional Assembly and Royal Advisory Council, and counselled the King in state affairs.

“We have made a very conscious deci-

sion to separate the state from religion, like many countries have done,” noted Karma Tshiteem, secretary for the Gross National Happiness Commission.

While Mahayana Buddhism is still the official state religion, the fear was that religious personalities would have such a powerful influence at the grass-roots that they would distort the demo-cratic process.

“The Bhutanese have great respect for anyone in a monk’s robe,” Karma Tshiteem said.

If monks forayed into politics, it would not be a level playing field, adds member secretary of the Commission for Religious Organisations (CRO) Dorjee Tshering.

The monks themselves seem to ac-cept the new arrangement. “Voting is a basic human right but we are trying to stay separate so there wouldn’t be any conflict or misuse of spiritual power,” said the secretary general of the Central Monastic Body, Lopen Gembo Dorji, 49. “It is not right or healthy for (us) to vote.”

Added Gyeltshen, 75, a monk who served in both the National Assem-bly and Royal Advisory Council in his younger days: “Being a monk is a privi-lege. The monastic body doesn’t need to be represented in parliament.”

Having a monk in the family is tra-ditionally considered an honour. Com-ing from a poor family, Gyeltshen first joined a monastery at the age of 13. It was his only chance of getting an educa-

found in GNH policies. Compassion for all living things, as taught by the Buddha, is evident in the country’s com-mitment to environmental conserva-tion. The country has a negative carbon footprint, and up to 80 per cent of the landscape is covered with forests.

“If anything in the world can be time-less, it should be those values,” said Karma Tshiteem.

Monks may have been disenfran-

number of Buddhist institutions was limited in the past, meditation centres and district offices for monks are now a common sight in the country’s 20 dis-tricts. The kingdom has an estimated 60 monastic schools and 70 meditational colleges — further enhancing its global image as a Buddhist sanctuary.

With such generous support, it is little wonder that most religious personalities have been “very understanding” of the new system, said Dorjee Tshering.

However, there have been cases of monks wishing to enter politics. Last year, the Bhutanese Observer newspaper reported that several monks had hung up their maroon robes to stand in the local government election in Trashigang, a district in eastern Bhutan. In order to qualify, the Trashigang monks surren-dered their spiritual certificates from the Ministry of Home and Cultural Affairs.

With many countries in the world torn between secular and religious au-thorities, MPs like Tshewang Lhamo, 31, are uneasy about monks exploiting their influence in politics. The MP for the Chukha district in western Bhutan feels a civil war over religion should be avoided at all costs. “We cannot afford to have this,” she said.

“People believe in religion but faith is blind,” she added. “Our forefathers and kings were very wise to keep them separated.” n

The Bhutanese have great respectfor anyone in a monk’s robe.

Karma TshiteemSecretary, GNH Commission

“”

tion. This was before western-style edu-cation was introduced in the 1950s.

The society’s religious devotion is evi-dent in the colourful prayer flags, stupas and dzongs that blended seamlessly into the landscape. Most households also have an altar, allowing people to wor-ship at home.

Buddhism is often cited as a source of inspiration for the state’s Gross National Happiness doctrine. Values emphasised by the religion, such as filial piety, are

chised, but they are certainly not ne-glected by the secular authorities. In fact, the state provides monks with ac-commodation, food, water and a stipend — as required by the 2008 constitution.

These provisions are sufficient, said Gembo Dorji. The 7,000-member strong congregation of the Central Mo-nastic Body asks for nothing else, he adds.

Besides, the government continues to promote the state religion. While the



A Singaporean philanthropist is behind a project to build retirement homes for monks.

Monks in Bhutan often face the difficulty of supporting them-selves into old age. Unable to

re-join the families they left years ago, elderly monks can only continue to rely on the monasteries they have been with.

Yet, many of these monasteries pose safety hazards for elderly monks, and lack financial resources to support them into retirement.

The prospects for these elderly monks

by EVE YEO

may improve when the Bhutan Elder Sangha Sanctuary (BESS) is completed next year.

Located in Punakha, the sanctuary provides affordable and age-friendly housing to meet the basic needs of re-tired monks. Led by Dr Maryann Tsao, the project receives support from Sin-gapore’s Tsao Foundation, which pro-motes improving the quality of life for ageing citizens.

Bhutanese monks advance from pri-mary and secondary education insti-tutes, meditation and vocational train-ing institutes and dzongs, according to their age. A majority of them are stationed in dzongs. They also serve as caretakers across the 2,300 temples the monk body owns.

Land for the retirement housing facil-ity was donated by the former king of Bhutan, Jigme Singye Wangchuck, who chose Punakha for its milder winters.

NOT ALL of Bhutan’s monasteries are equipped to house aged monks.

Picture by EVE YEO

ABOUT THE SANCTUARYTHE Bhutan Elder Sangha Sanctuary is designed to meet the needs of the ageing community. It also aims to be a prototype for affordable, age-friendly housing for older people, which can be replicat-ed in Bhutan and elsewhere in the world.

A place for old monks

The housing village will have a mix of small and large units that can accom-modate six and seven monks respec-tively. Each monk will have their room but share a common sitting room and pantry.

The secretary-general of the 7,400-strong monastic body, Gembo Dorji, said: “Elderly monks prefer to retire in a peaceful place without incon-veniencing others. Those who live on their own would also require help with preparing meals and health care.”

Comparing the BESS to an old folks’ home, Gembo Dorji said: “We have no retirement homes or old folks’ homes in Bhutan yet, maybe because the bond in families is still very strong.”

He added that the BESS project was very timely, and noted that it would provide support with training health care practitioners to advise the monks on health and safety issues.

More than 30 elderly monks from the Central Monastic Body, including Wangyel and Gyeltshen, have already applied to move into the facility when it is ready.

Age has taken a toll on their health, hearing and sight but has certainly not dulled the elderly monks’ sense of hu-mour. Wangyel jokes as Gyeltshen’s phone rings: “Another missed call? The God of Judgement is calling you.” n

ON VIDEOPRAYER FLAGS are among Bhutan’s most ubiquitous icons. A book, Dreaming of Prayer Flags, was touted as the first photo book written by an indigenous Bhutanese author, Singye Dorji. Go-Far’s video team was at the author’s reading and exhibition in Singapore. Watch their video online, at www.gofar.sg/bhutan.

A 51.5-metre Buddha statue built at a cost of US$47 million (S$57 million) is fast becoming one of the most prominent icons in Thimphu’s otherwise spartan cityscape. A sprawling complex below the statue is being constructed to house over a hundred thousand gilded Buddhas. Picture by IVAN TAN

Dancing Caught between prejudice and poverty, these hostesses defend the choices they’ve made.

Dressed in a modest blue and green kira, Lhakpa Dema seats herself beside a middle-aged

man, her hand splayed casually on the crook of his arm.

He is greying at the temples, nursing a paunch and a bottle of beer. She is just 19, slim and wide-eyed, with soft hands and long hair falling over one shoulder.

The wistful opening strings of a Hindi song bring cheers from the audience, but Lhakpa Dema is not here for pleas-ure — she’s here to work. It’s 9pm, and she is three hours into her job at the

Lungta Gongphel Drayang, plying the audience for song requests.

Two years ago, she left her family and their battered house in the farming dis-trict of Punakha for Bhutan’s city capi-tal, Thimphu.

Now, she works in a drayang six hours every night, flitting around a dimly-lit room to rub shoulders with customers, and singing and dancing on a wooden stage. Drayangs are Bhutan’s answer to KTV lounges — somewhere in between innocent entertainment and sleazy pick-up joint.

It is a side of Bhutan that you won’t see mentioned in tourism campaigns that promote the kingdom as a pure Shangri-La. And it isn’t what you’d ex-pect in a country that is billed as the happiest in Asia, where contentment is supposed to come from within oneself — and never from exploiting others.

But a drayang is a good place to see the tensions of a country that is strug-gling to open up without losing its tradi-tional values. Here, you can meet young Bhutanese women who have aspirations but not enough job opportunities.

Lhakpa Dema works hard to support her family back home who have strug-gled for years with poor rice harvests. But she also has to fend off the disap-proval of the Bhutanese public, who see drayangs as places ripe with the po-tential for the sexual exploitation and harassment of financially-needy young girls.

Drayang girls have been repeatedly dragged into the limelight by media outlets and government officials debat-ing the decency of the job.

“I want to give my family a better life. But all I get is shame,” says soft-spoken Lhakpa. “People who don’t know me

look at me and think I’m dirty.”Drayangs — which quite simply

means “entertainment” in Bhutan’s na-tional language, Dzongkha — have be-come a highly visible part of Bhutan’s nightlife.

Since the government first started is-suing licenses for drayangs in 2009, 27 of them have cropped up all over Bhu-tan, with 14 of them on the streets of Thimphu alone.

Garnished with strings of flashing lights, and presided over by a squat, rudimentary wooden stage, a drayang’s main attraction is the bevy of young girls clad in Bhutan’s national costume — the kira — who file onto stage to sing and dance at a customer’s request.

Drayangs are meant to be entertain-ment hubs, lavishing the audience with a mix of traditional Bhutanese music, Hindi dance numbers popular with the Bhutanese, and even choice Western hits.

The people who whirl in and out of a drayang’s door come from all walks of life: a monk in saffron robes, a mother bounc-ing her son on her knee, a civil servant who passes out namecards over drinks.

But 95 per cent of their customers, say drayang owners, are men.

And in a country where urban culture is still in the awkward, gangly stages of development, the sight of young girls cosying up to men for money has stirred much debate. The Bhutanese have linked young girls providing entertainment to a male-dominated crowd as the opening number to rampant sexual exploitation.

On stage, it’s an exercise in modera-tion: even with a Shakira song thump-ing in the background, the girls move

I want to give my family a better life. But all I get is shame…People

who don’t know me look at me and think I’m dirty.

Lhakpa DemaDrayang girl

“

”

Picture by RONALD LOH

CONTINUED ON PAGE 62by NUR ASYIQIN BTE MOHAMAD SALLEH

in theDark


primly — hips swaying shyly, wrists rolling gently. It is when they are on the floor, say worried Bhutanese, that the girls are at their most vulnerable.

Girls make their rounds through throngs of seated customers, coaxing song requests out of them. Customers can have their pick of girls, ordering them to dance and sing on stage for any-thing between Nu 100 (S$2.25) to Nu 500 a song.

“If you’re beautiful, of course I’ll pay more,” says 27-year-old shopkeeper Thinley Wangchuk, who visits drayangs at least two nights a week. “You have to be pretty to be popular.”

High school drop out Dorji Omi, who says her favourite part of city life is being able to wear make-up every day, is fast learning how to rake in more money at work.

“They pay better when we are nice to them. Sometimes, they like it when you sit down and talk to them, or touch their hand gently,” explains the 20-year-old in halting English.

Having left her hometown of Tshi-rang five months ago to join a drayang, she hesitantly admits that she sometimes panders to the affections of men by flirt-

ing back, but insists she draws the line there. Some men, after downing a few drinks, have asked her to come home with them, but she has never agreed.

Even so, the rumour mill still churns with stories of drayang girls offering their bodies to customers.

“Drayang owners will accuse the me-dia of sensationalising, but I’ve seen drunk male customers fondling the girls, or making them sit on their laps. You’re feeding these girls to the wolves,” says Riku Dhan Subba, an outspoken blogger and a former reporter with the Bhutan Observer.

And Riku acknowledges that some drayang girls choose to go home with

customers: “We cannot pretend it’s not happening. Our culture is very rich. Why should we let it be corrupted by practices that can lead to our girls being exploited by older men?”

MP Tshewang Lhamo, one of only 10 female members in Bhutan’s Parliament,

has met drayang girls who were raped by their customers, and others abandoned by their customers months into their pregnancy.

“It’s easy money, but the repercussions might be something you’ll have to carry all your life,” she says.

With a sigh, she adds: “But some girls really don’t care. It’s my body, my wish. Now, their body is not theirs. I’ve even heard people howling ‘Your body is my wish!’ in the crowd. So disgusting.”

Still, more girls have started flock-ing to drayangs looking for a quick buck. They can pocket over Nu. 6,000 a month, including tips, from just six hours of work each day.

These girls are usually school drop-outs from poor families living in the ru-ral districts of Bhutan. Television, Riku believes, has led to a culture of vanity, fed by popular culture. Television and the Internet only made their debut in Bhutan in 1999, but now, most people have access to over 40 channels of cable television.

Tshewang says: “Our girls are getting greedy now, day by day. They want flashy mobiles. They want easy money. Who wants to till the field? Let’s just dance for a few hours, earn a few thousand.”

In 2010, Labour Minister Dorji Wangdi drew public ire when his com-ments on finding alternative employ-ment for drayang girls were miscon-strued as an attempt to impose a ban on drayangs in a country already grappling with a swarm of other bans.

The Ministry of Labour and Hu-Some officials think sexual exploitation could thrive in drayangs. In these dimly-lit bars, some male customers are looking not just for entertainment. They’re looking for company.

Picture by RONALD LOH

Drayang with a causeHE WAS once swathed in red robes, chanting Buddhist scriptures crosslegged on a wooden floor. But Jigme Namgyel has swapped a monk’s life for that of an entertainer. Now, he wears a gho and a pair of tint-ed shades, jarringly simple against a backdrop of garish, multicoloured lights, and crowds of people guzzling cheap alcohol.

The 25-year-old is one of the few men performing in drayangs. And in this swelling industry, shrouded in controversy, the drayang he works at is a rarity. Not only does the Tashi Tagay Drayang hire male performers, it also employs people with disabilities.

“For a long time after I became blind, I retreated into myself, losing interest in everything else,” said Jigme, who lost his sight at 18. “But once I picked up the microphone and started singing, I discovered I can still hear. I can still speak. I can still survive.”

Tashi Tagay’s owner, Namgay Dorji, has won the unwavering loyalty of his employees. More an overprotective father than an aloof boss, Namgay also makes sure to train all the girls on how to handle themselves in front of customers, and how to reject unwanted advances.

A singer himself, Namgay, 31, always wanted to give youths the chance to take to the stage and display their talents.

He provides employees free lodging in three rooms at a hostel near the workplace. He also hires professional trainers to teach his employees tra-ditional music and embroidery from 9am to 2pm every day.

Now, Tashi Tagay has 19 blind singers — three girls, and 16 boys. It also hires a handful of girls without disabilities.

“Once upon a time, I came from a poor family. I suffered a lot. But I’m not a disabled person. They have seen more suffering than me. I want to be able to save them.” n

— NUR ASYIQIN BTE MOHAMAD SALLEH

I don’t see this to be a very decent job.

Dorji WangdiLabour Minister

“”

TASHI TAGAY Drayang hires entertainers who are visually impaired.

Picture by IVAN TAN

man Resources (MOLHR) carries out discreet checks on drayangs to ensure satisfactory working conditions. So far, said the Labour Minister, the ministry has not received a single complaint of sexual harassment from girls working in drayangs.

But this, he admits, does not mean he doubts sexual harassment is taking place in the shadows.

“I don’t see this to be a very decent job,” he says, adding that it does not provide long-term security. “How long will the drayang keep them? It will keep them as long as they are young. After some time, where do they go?”

His ministry launched a tailoring train-ing programme specially for girls work-ing in drayangs last year. The response, however, was feeble, with only two peo-ple signing up for the 36 available slots. The Labour Minister says they still have other avenues open for girls looking for a change in employment, from informa-tion technology to cooking.

While drayangs have fueled lots of righteous indignation among Bhutan’s elite, the working girls insist they are doing nothing wrong. “I’m not selling myself. I’m not selling my body. I’m selling my talent. I’m selling my voice and my dancing,” says Lhakpa, who just got married a few months back. She dropped out of school at 17, hoping to support her family. Her parents divorced when she was in her early teens, and she is the oldest of three children.

Now, the Nu. 7,000 she earns is pains-takingly sent home to her family each month, supporting her two younger sis-ters’ education.

Lhakpa, who lives with her husband in a small apartment the size of a one-room flat, is also hoping to start her own family soon, but worries about being shamed in public over her job.

“How can I be a mother when people tell me my job is dirty? I know in my heart that I’m not. Some drayang girls may do dirty things, and that gives all of us a bad name?

We are not prostitutes. We are enter-tainers. It is not fair that I make the de-cent choice but people still judge me,” she says.

“If my child grows up, and her friends make fun of her because her mother works in a drayang, how will my child feel? What can I say to her?” n


67BHUTAN: IN SEARCH OF A MIDDLE PATH66

Politics has often been likened to a glorified popularity contest, where participants struggle to have their

faces recognised and voices heard in public. For politician Tshewang Lhamo, 31, standing out comes naturally.

The public has come to know her as one of the youngest woman politicians in their country. The Member of Parlia-ment is a clear minority in this male-dominated arena. Only six out of 25 politicians in the National Council, the upper house in Bhutan’s bicameral par-liament, are women.

The 47-member National Assembly, the lower house, has only four women.

But the he gender gap does not faze Tshewang Lhamo, who has a back-ground in accounting and hospitality background.

Sweeping into a sparsely furnished conference room in the National Coun-cil headquarters, the young politician exudes self-assurance and confidence during the interview.

One gets the sense that she is quite the rebel. As far as conventions go, she dons a traditional red and green kira. Beyond that, she sports a boyish chin-length bob, long fringe swept casually to the side. It is worlds apart from other Bhu-tanese women with their kohl-rimmed eyes and long locks.

Similarly, her views on women lead-ership differ from the average woman’s. “I’ve never felt intimidated among males,” she told Go-Far. “Politics is a mechanism for change. And sitting in capital on a spinning chair, writing on white paper, you don’t really get to know

Bhutan’s missing womenDespite enjoying formal equality, women remain under-represented in Bhutanese politics.

by VALERIE KOH

the people.”It is this conviction that saw her rise

to the occasion when Bhutan’s inaugu-ral parliamentary elections were held in 2008. As the second elections approach, she foresees more women taking part. The Election Commission of Bhutan has been encouraging women to step forward as voters and candidates. Post-ers conveying this message have been placed around the town.

This campaign has been spurred by a deep-seated concern that women

Tshewang LhamoMember of Parliament

“

” FEMALE PROFESSIONALS and office workers are a common sight in Bhutan’s cities, but many girls are expected to forego school in order to help on family farms.

Picture by MARK TAY

are under-represented in politics and the public sphere in modern Bhutan. While the kingdom has won admiration around the world for embracing democ-racy, it battles internal criticisms of gen-der discrimination.

While the law guarantees women’s rights and there is no outright discrimi-nation in policy, Druk Chriwang Tshog-pa’s (DCT) newly appointed president Lily Wangchuk, also the first woman party leader in Bhutan, points out that gender disparity is widespread.

Bhutan signed the United Na-tions Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women in 1980 and set up a National Commission for Women and Children in 2004. Yet, women continue to trail behind men in most fields apart from agriculture.

Traditionally, women inherit land in Bhutan’s matrilineal family system. This practice stems from a belief that they can provide for themselves through sub-sistence farming. The downside is that daughters are expected to forsake educa-tion for menial work such as agriculture, said Yangchen Pelden, programme man-ager of the National Women’s Associa-tion of Bhutan.

It seems that the government is well aware of such underlying complexities. After the kingdom successfully transi-tioned into a democracy in 2008, a Na-tional Plan of Action for Gender from 2008 to 2013 was initiated.

The idea of implementing a quota system in politics was raised during a United Nations conference on women in politics held in Thimphu in March 2012. Supporters argue that it could level the playing field and narrow the gender gap in the workplace.

Women in politics and other fields have been left behind, said gender ana-lyst Rinzi Pem of the United Nations Development Programme, and will con-tinue to be if they are not given “some kind of push”.

But this could also lessen the cred-ibility of capable women, counter

detractors. MP Sangay Khandu cautions against preferential treatment for the fairer sex as it could affect the psyche of young girls. They might grow up believ-ing themselves inferior to the opposite sex.

The main problem, say activists, lies with the mindsets of women. “We have equal status but it’s just that women don’t want to step forward,” said Yangchen Pelden. Many are content with having their husbands head the household.

Added Tshewang Lhamo: “I tell my female folks to step out… but they say politics is so dirty. They have no time for it… and need to take care of their children.”

It’s a different story altogether for the MP. It takes her days of traveling by foot to visit her constituency of Chukha, but the swinging single has no complaints. Free from family obligations, she has “ample” time to focus on the needs of her people.

Apart from family obligations, a lack of qualification has also deterred women from joining the field. A basic degree is a must for all candidates. In 2012 statis-tics released by the Education Ministry, women took up 40 percent of the vacan-cies in university.

In fact, many young girls grow up without any ambition and drop out of school, lamented Lily Wangchuk. She herself faced great pressure from her family to forsake her education for an airborne career — as an air stewardess. That motivated her to complete her studies so she could show that “women are as capable as men”.

More women are needed at decision-making level, she said. Taking that first step is not easy and often, women have to prove themselves twice as able as men, if only to keep detractors off their backs.

Still, it is necessary for to have equal representation for both genders in poli-tics, she told Go-Far in an interview in August, before she became the DCT’s president.

“If you believe in change, you have to come out and be that voice.” n

I tell my female folks to step out, but they say politics is so dirty. They

have no time for it.


Are folk-tales losing their voice?

by NUR ASYIQIN BTE MOHAMAD SALLEH

Bhutan’s rich oral tradition is threatened by television and other modern distractions.

Sangay has the kind of voice that good stories live for: naturally so-norous, like his every word deserves

an audience; a slightly raspy edge, like it’s been weathered from decades of use; an expressiveness that cannot be learnt.

The 60-year-old is the self-appointed storyteller in his family — and it’s a job he takes seriously. Every week, he ekes out time in the evening for his family to gather around him on the bare concrete floor of their Punakha home so he can share the stories he heard as a young boy.

In Bhutan, the practice of narrating folktales has been on a decline over the years, but Sangay, armed with noth-ing but his voice and the echoes of his grandmother’s stories – is on a one-man mission to keep the tradition alive with-in his family.

The battle is a hard one. His oppo-nents are forces he cannot comprehend: the flashing lights of the television set he finds so baffling; the piles of cheap Eng-lish paperbacks imported from India, in a language he cannot understand.

The first thing his 18-year-old grand-daughter Karma Choden does in the mornings is turn on their small tel-evision, donated to the family by a neighbour.

The vast collection of folktales Sangay has gathered over the decades — as a child in the cradle of his grandmother’s lap as they shelled cobs of corn together, and later, as a teenager, competing with friends over who could narrate the most number of folktales — might fade away along with him.

“When they were small, my grand-children would ask me to tell them folk-tales,” recalls Sangay wistfully in Bhu-tan’s national language Dzongkha, as his granddaughter Karma sits beside him, looking up from her Samsung hand-phone at intervals to translate.

“But now they are older, nobody wants to hear our traditional folktales unless I make them listen. Now, they want to watch television. They want to chase a culture that is not their own.”

His right cheek, where he has a wad of doma (betel leaf topped with bitter are-ca nut, and spritzed with a bit of lime, rolled up tight into a compact package) tucked away, bulges as he speaks.

“Our grandmother’s stories are dying, and our children don’t care. We are los-ing our souls, but life goes on.”

Bhutan has staved off the forces of glo-balisation decades after most countries found themselves scrambling to adapt to the outside world. That its once-proud oral tradition of narrating folktales — or

srung, as they are known in Bhutan —could soon be in its death flurries is a symptom that their traditional culture is losing ground, beating a stumbling re-treat as mass media and modernisation charges ahead.

The preservation and promotion of cultural values is one of the four pillars of the country’s Gross National Happi-ness (GNH) policy, Bhutan’s human-centric approach to development.

Until the 1960s, the country had no currency and no proper roads; television and the Internet were only introduced in 1999. But in a few short years, the tides have turned. Now, a new genera-tion of young Bhutanese hang posters of Korean pop stars on their walls next to pictures of the King, and are increasing-ly comfortable shrugging off their ghos and kiras — and the burden of swathes of cloth and decades of unchanging tra-dition and uniformity — to swagger about town in Western clothing, their jeans fraying at the cuffs, their t-shirts shouting angry slogans.

A mere three decades ago, Bhutan was still a largely oral society. And be-fore Western education came to Bhutan in the 1950s, there were only monastic schools. Written communication was scant, and education and literacy were more privileges than rights.

In houses all over Bhutan, a different sort of education was at work: grand-parents would narrate folktales to their grandchildren — an informal, home-spun formula for educating the young.

Academic Dorji Penjore noted that folktales were crucial in shaping Bhu-tanese society in the past. For the chil-dren unable to enter the formal educa-tion system, it was the wisdom of their parents and grandparents that schooled them. Sharing folktales also used to be one of the paltry choices villagers had for entertainment.

“At night, our parents wouldn’t let us go out to play. It was dark and danger-ous with so many forests and animals,” recalls 81-year-old Pema, who moved from Wangdue to Thimphu last year to live with her daughter. “So we stayed at home and listened to our elders tell us folktales at night.”

Bhutanese folktales span a kaleido-scopic range of topics: stories of sinpos

CONTINUED ON PAGE 68PROFESSIONAL TOUR guide Dorji relates the tale depicted in a mural at Punakha Dzong. Picture by CHERIAN GEORGE

IN THE NEWSSeveral of the stories featured in this book have been published in

newspapers and magazines.

FROM TOP:The Straits Times, 1 September 2012; The Straits

Times, 13 August 2012; What’s Up, September 2012; Business Times, 3 September 2012; The

New Paper, 9 September 2012.


(demons) and yetis, which are steeped in cultural beliefs and superstitions; sto-ries about the poor triumphing over the rich, which reflected deep-seated class tensions.

In one story, a lame monkey teaches a boy etiquette; in another, a poor peas-ant uses his wits to become king; mean-while, two villagers stumble on a yeti dozing under a tree.

Bhutanese folktales are, at heart, mor-alistic, says Sangay. They emphasise and encourage positive virtues — like sampa zangpo (good intentions) — by reward-ing morally-upright characters.

“Instead of a grandfather teaching his grandson, don’t do this, don’t do that, scolding him and making him want to be disobedient, they taught him values in a softer way,” explains Tharchen. “Folktales softened the blow and made the lessons more entertaining for the kids.”

In remote villages where the nearest motor roads are days away, the narration of folktales in the pastures and at home are alive even today — a 2008 GNH survey found that 65.7 per cent of peo-ple in rural Bhutan found folktales very important, compared to the 46.5 per cent of people in city areas like Thimphu and Phuentsholing.

TELEVISION ONLY arrived in 1999, but it has since replaced older family members as the main storyteller in Bhutanese households.


In urban areas, there is a host of other distractions, as well as a wealth of av-enues for education. “Folktales are not important to me. I have no time for them. There are more interesting things on television,” says 15-year-old Jigme Dorji, who was roaming the streets of Thimphu with a group of friends.

“Last time, we were so tired after

working the whole day, so we sat at home and listened to folktales to relax,” says housewife Sunmaya Tamang, 38. “Now, my children feel so restless inside the house. Why would they want to sit with me and listen to old people’s sto-ries?”

There are now attempts to revive a tradition that is fast growing stale. Folktales are now being documented in writing. In 1984, Dasho Sherab Thaye

published the first volume of Bhutanese folktales in Dzongkha. And in the years that followed, a spate of books on tradi-tional folktales from all over the country would be published in English.

Schools are also getting in on the act, helping to foster appreciation for folk-tales. The Department of Information and Media (DOIM) recently published

eight comic books based on Bhutanese folktales to counter the influx of foreign comics. In August 2012, they printed over 23,000 comic books to be sent to all primary and lower secondary schools in Bhutan.

The DOIM have also reached out to local animation studios to help produce cartoons based on folktales.

In July 2012, local animation studio Athang wrapped up their first 3D ani-mation project based on a popular folk-tale Meme Hayley Hayley, a story which reflects the country’s simple approach to happiness. “Suddenly, there is so much activity and effort to preserve and raise awareness of our folktales,” says Tharch-en, a manager at Athang. “I wouldn’t call it a renaissance. But I’d like to.”

And in a little house in Punakha, San-gay will continue the fight to keep the tradition alive for his family. His only wish is to share his grandmother’s folk-tales with his grandchildren for as long as he can still speak.

“I don’t have anything to give my chil-dren and grandchildren. The only thing I can give them my stories,” he says.

“Our folktales are the blood that runs through all of us. The blood that runs through Bhutan.”

Sangay turns to the side abruptly, ducking his head to spit out the wad of doma he’s been chewing on for hours. It hits the ground in a wet splatter.

When he raises his head to smile, his teeth and gums are stained red. n

There are more interesting things on television.

Jigme DorjiTeenager, Changjiji

“”

71


WORK-LIFE BALANCE is emphasised in the country’s Gross National Happiness model, which states that workers should work a maximum of 8 hours a day. Picture by GOH CHAY TENG


BHUTANESE DRAYANGS, which are traditional entertainment centres, have come to be associated with the exploitation of the young women who are employed to sing and dance on stage. Picture by IVAN TAN


NUNS FROM the Zilukha Nunnery take a break after morning prayers. Unlike their male counterparts, most of these nuns will not have the opportunity to further their monastic education. Picture by IVAN TAN

79

ON THE FRINGES of Thimphu lies Changjiji, a large low-income housing colony. The area has a reputation for social problems like street gangs, unemployed youth and drug abuse. Picture by IVAN TAN


STREET PORTRAITS. By Samuel He, Go-Far Class of 2007 and Go-Far instructor 2012.



Thank you, Bhutanby NUR ASYIQIN BTE MOHAMAD SALLEH

We are in a small red car, Usher crooning over the radio while a tiny golden figurine of a traditional Buddhist prayer wheel sits perched on the dashboard, guiding

us down one of the few asphalt roads in Punakha, a small coun-tryside town in Bhutan.

In a country where you’re more likely to see an idly wander-ing cow on the streets than a single street lamp, it’s a 15-minute drive down a winding stretch of pitch-black road to the modest village hospital.

Fifty-nine-year-old farmer Kencho is in the back seat, balanc-ing containers of rice and chilli cheese in his lap. His 21-year-old son lounges in the driver’s seat, dressed in a white t-shirt and faded jeans, his hand phone clasped between his thighs.

Kencho is visiting his only grandson, who has been hospital-ised for the night. Kencho sits on a shaky stool in the sparsely furnished ward, stroking his grandson’s hair. It’s a sombre sight. His concern for the two-year-old, who has been plagued by fe-vers most of his life, is intensely personal. But the old farmer has welcomed us — and our artillery of cameras, notebooks, and re-corders — to hover around as he bends his head in silent prayer.

Before this, I had lurked in his padi field — leaving an appall-ing number of trampled seedlings in my wake — as he toiled alone. That evening, I pottered around his house as his wife melted a lump of cheese over the kitchen stove.

After a six-month internship at a newspaper back home, I took sealed lips and cold shoulders as an inevitable part of the job of a reporter. So, being welcomed with open arms by Bhu-tanese was unexpected.

It wasn’t uncommon to be wandering the streets one minute, and finding yourself in someone’s home the next. There, you’ll be served a cup of hot tea, whereas in Singapore, you might be dispensed a strong dose of suspicion through a tightly pad-locked gate instead.

Covering Bhutan taught me, all over again, that reporting is about talking to people. People milling the streets were our best contacts. And the Bhutanese rarely shied away, always open and eager to share. It took just a few minutes of conversation, or even a shy wave from a distance, before we were admitted into their lives.

It might just be basic journalism, but in Bhutan — against a skyline guarded by sweeping mountain ranges; and in living rooms where conversations unfolded under the benevolent gaze of the King’s portrait — it felt like magic: effortless and exciting.

The Go-Far team would like to thank the people of Bhutan who helped us in one way or another and opened their hearts and minds to us.

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Lee Jian Xuan Jian Xuan’s internship at the Emerging Markets Division in Singapore’s Ministry of Trade and Industry gave him an appreciation for places off the beaten path, such as Tanzania, Kyrgyzstan and, of course, Bhutan. In Bhutan, he explored Changjiji, reputedly one of worst neighborhoods in the capital city. Jian Xuan has written for the Nanyang Chronicle and youth-oriented websites such as Funkygrad and New Nation.

Leonard How Leonard did an internship at Thomson Reuters in Singapore. He has also written for Nanyang Chronicle and done stints overseas at Seattleite Magazine and The Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Writing about farming in Bhutan, Leonard was struck by the people he met. “They may not have what we consider necessary for comfortable living, but they are happy with what they have,” he said.

Mark Tay Mark joined Go-Far after internships at Thomson Reuters and The Straits Times. His interest in business journalism led him to investigate how Bhutan was coping with its shortage of Indian rupees. He also reported on Pedestrian Day and other unusual restrictions that the government has imposed to protect Bhutan’s environment and culture.

Benny Lim A member of Go-Far’s video team, Benny has garnered accolades at film competitions, most notably clinching a spot in the top 11 films at the New Paper First Film Fest. He served as head of news and studio director at the university’s TV station, Spectrum TV. A six-month internship at local production house, Little Red Ants Creative Studio, saw him directing, producing and shooting professional videos.

Jeremy Lim Part of Go-Far’s video team, Jeremy previously served as head of the campus TV station, Spectrum TV. He spent six months on exchange in South Korea and took part in the school’s Short Overseas Journalism (SOJOURN) visit to North Korea in 2011. He has interned at the national daily, The Straits Times, and writes regularly for the online portal, www.xinmsn.com.

Trinh Hoang Ly Ly led the video team’s production of a story on rural-urban migration in Bhutan, looking at how Thimphu’s new residents cope in their new environment. A former news editor for the Nanyang Chronicle, Ly spent six months at The Straits Times’ RazorTV, covering a wide range of stories for the online broadcast channel. She has also reported for www.LinkAsia.org, on hot topics being discussed in Singapore’s blogosphere.

Samuel He Samuel, from the Wee Kim Wee School’s Class of 2008, took part in Go-Far Laos (2007). The freelancer started his career with The Straits Times, where he won first prize for feature photography from the Society of Publishers in Asia. He helped launch the paper’s multimedia site, Through the Lens, which won a Gold at the IFRA Asian Digital Media Awards 2011. Samuel supervised Go-Far’s multi-media projects.

Lau Joon Nie A lawyer by training, Joon-Nie spent 15 years at MediaCorp’s Channel NewsAsia as a TV reporter, web editor, current affairs producer and assignments desk editor. A graduate of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, she has reported in countries such as Bhutan, Myanmar and the United States. Joon-Nie supervised Go-Far’s video team out of Singapore.


Bhavan Jaipragas Bhavan joined Go-Far after an internship with Agence France-Presse (AFP) in Singapore. He has written for the alternative news site, The Online Citizen, and the campus paper, Nanyang Chronicle. He has had internships with the Foreign Affairs Ministry and Institute of Policy Studies. In Bhutan, Bhavan reported on its tourism strategy and its relations with China. He was also one of the team’s website and social media editors.

Nur Asyiqin Binti Mohamad Salleh Asyiqin was drawn to Bhutan’s drayangs, enter-tainment bars haunted by rumours of sexual ex-ploitation. She also explored Bhutan’s vulnerable tradition of narrating folktales. Asyiqin’s Go-Far stint was preceded by a six-month internship with The New Paper. There, she was thrown (by virtue of her relative youth, and severe misconceptions about her sporting ability) into writing a series about daredevil activities.

Cassandra Yeap June Yi Fresh from an internship with Phnom Penh Post in Cambodia, Cassandra could see parallels between the two small Asian nations. “As seemingly unspoiled as Bhutan was, I knew that it was a developing country, with familiar signs of growing pains,” she says. She reported on Bhutan’s nascent democracy and youth unemployment. In school, Cassandra was chief editor and news editor of the campus paper, Nanyang Chronicle.

Ronald Loh One moment he was drinking tea with the Bhutan Football Federation’s general secretary; the next, taking cover from stray arrows during a local archery tournament. “That’s just how diverse, yet exciting, sports reporting can be,” he says. Ronald describes himself as a sports-centric journalist. He covered the beat for the Nanyang Chronicle before a seven-month internship on the sports desk of The New Paper sealed his career choice.

Eve Yeo Yu Ping Eve reported on the national airline’s role in the country’s tourism strategy. “It was interesting to understand just how closely intertwined Drukair was with the economics of the country, being the only airline in the world that flies to landlocked Bhutan,” she said. Before joining Go-Far, she did an internship with The Business Times. In school, she worked on the Nanyang Chronicle and the Youth Olympic Games’ Young Olympian Daily.

Valerie Koh Having a passion for “stories with heart”, Valerie arrived in Bhutan keen to investigate social issues like HIV and domestic violence cases — not stories one normally associates with seemingly idyllic Bhutan (see www.gofar.sg). She also reported on the relationship between religion and politics. Valerie completed a six-month stint at The New Paper, as well as an internship at Singapore Women’s Weekly.

Goh Chay Teng Chay Teng started out in photojournalism at the campus newspaper Nanyang Chronicle, later becoming its photo editor. In order to hone her journalism skills, she took on a magazine internship as a features writer, covering business and lifestyle news. Back behind the lens of a camera for Go-Far, she documented the life a young Bhutanese woman trying to make in the city.

Ivan Tan Ivan worked as a photographer for the campus newspaper Nanyang Chronicle and Young Olympian Daily. He also practised photojournalism at the University of Missouri, Columbia, on a six-month exchange. In 2011, he was nominated by Singapore’s photojournalism collective, Platform, as one of Singapore’s top ten emerging photographers.

Cherian George An associate professor at the Wee Kim Wee School, Cherian researches journalism and politics. He also serves as the director of the Temasek Foundation — NTU Asia Journalism Fellowship. He established Go-Far in 2005, but this is his first time leading the programme. Before academia, he was a journalist with the Straits Times, serving as a political correspondent and art and photo editor.

Tay Kay Chin Tay Kay Chin held various editorial positions in newspapers in Singapore and the United States before deciding to become a freelance photographer and photojournalism instructor. He runs the photojournalism programme at the Wee Kim Wee School and has also taught online journalism and publication design. He led the Go-Far team to Aceh, Indonesia, in its inaugural year.

The Student Journalists

The Instructors

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Gone FarGo-Far Bhutan was part of an annual series of overseas reporting trips.

SO FAR2005: Aceh, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka2006: Nepal2007: Laos2008: Karnataka, India2009: Bangladesh2010: Timor Leste2011: Southern Thailand2012: Bhutan

It started in 2005, in the wake of the Asian Tsunami. It was a disaster that did not strike Singapore directly, but was too momentous for journalism educators and students to ignore.

Two teams set out for the Indonesian province of Aceh and the island republic of Sri Lanka to report on people’s efforts to rebuild their lives. What started as a one-off response to an exceptional event became an annual programme.

Going Overseas For Advanced Reporting takes journalism students out of their comfort zones to report on socially meaningful subjects in environments as different as possible from Singapore’s First World setting.

Go-Far has allowed students to test and stretch their journalism skills, to learn how communities work, and to develop their ability to communicate across cultures. The programme is made possible by the generous support from NTU’s Wee Kim Wee Legacy Fund and Shinnyo-en Foundation.

www.gofar.sg

go-far 2012 bhutan

Documents

middle path bhutanin

people of bhutan

bhutan centre

far bhutan team

wee kim wee school management

narrow path

wee kim wee legacy fund

school day