The Dragon's Voice

by Bunty Avieson

  When I first visited Bhutan in 2002, I had no trouble with GNH. It seemed to make sense. But the more I live with it, the less I understand. The more I hear people attempting to explain it, the more slippery it becomes. Some days I think it is inspired, revolutionary even. Other days I groan inwardly at the first hint of the phrase. People can use it to beat each other up with a subtext of I’m more ‘GNH’ than you.

  Often it sounds about as vague and unachievable as the ideals of democracy. While it’s admirable to say that every government and community decision should be done with compassion, how do you do that and meet everyone’s needs?

  Some days I resent the smug superiority that can accompany the discussion around GNH. In some Bhutanese minds it encompasses everything that is good and decent, and they gave it to the world. I want to retort that they didn’t invent goodness, nor do they have a monopoly on it. Vulgar as we Westerners are, we do have those values too. We call it doing the right thing or, in the Aussie vernacular, a fair go for all. Christians would say it is just being Christian. Atheists call it humanism. Enlightened businesspeople I know call it the triple bottom line. My mother called it being nice.

  But all the talk of GNH provides a stark contrast to what we see on BBC, CNN and the Australian media online. On those sites terrorism, domestic politics, the financial meltdown, celebrity and sport dominate. Bhutan is blissfully uninterested in such topics, except perhaps a bit of local archery and updates on what its own government is doing. Mostly they are discussing other things, and the discussion is always framed in terms of GNH.

  I don’t know that I buy everything about Gross National Happiness, but I love that it is talked about endlessly. The educated Bhutanese obsess about it. They discuss it, deconstruct it and try to wrestle it to the ground. They apply it to every facet of their new democracy. They may not have achieved it, but the fact that it figures so prominently in public discussion has to be good.

  9

  Australian Connections

  On deadline nights after working late I catch a taxi home and find that the drivers love to chat. One day a 40-year-old driver is pleased to recognise my accent. It reminds him of Miss Sarah, the pretty Australian schoolteacher he had as a boy of 12 in the eastern district of Mongar. He also remembers eating Australian-supplied food including rice, ‘fish in boxes’ and something that came in a tin with a kangaroo on the front. I’m astounded and delighted. This cheerful man, resplendent in a red and orange checked gho, with photos of two smiling children on his dashboard, was a recipient of Australian foreign aid 28 years ago.

  Another time I’m greeted by a driver singing AC/DC’s 1975 hit ‘TNT’. They are his favourite band, and he has 80 of their ‘best’ tracks on a memory stick plugged into his dashboard. He is surprised to hear that the band is Australian, not American, and cranks up the volume, which we agree is the only way to fully appreciate their genius. We speed along the national highway, belting out the lyrics, detouring around the odd cow on the road, before bouncing over the little bridge into Tashi Pelkhil. I discover we live two AC/DC songs away from the office.

  Australia and Bhutan have connections that are far-reaching and often unexpected. For the coronation of the Fourth King in 1974, Australia sent a fleet of Ford Falcons, Bhutan’s first cars; and for the new King’s coronation we gave ten new university scholarships. We helped build Paro Airport; we also sent firemen to train Bhutanese firefighters, and scientists to assist with sheep farming and controlling fruit fly. Taltarni wine from the Victorian Pyrenees is freely available. I’m told it is because of a long-standing friendship between ‘Grandpa Taltarni’ and the Fourth King, and the company is helping the Bhutanese establish their first vineyard. Australian tourists are plentiful, providing the fifth-highest group of visitors (including Lachlan and Sarah Murdoch, who chose the isolated country for their 1999 honeymoon).

  Nearly 60 per cent of Bhutan’s cabinet ministers studied at universities in Australia. The former head of the civil service, Bap Kesang, studied accounting at Macquarie University in the seventies and famously won something like $20,000 in a lottery while he was there. Dasho Pema Thinley, the Vice Chancellor of the Royal University of Bhutan, studied at the University of New England and is the head of the Australia Bhutan Friendship Association. He invites Mal and me to a dinner honouring our countries’ connections, where the special guest is John McCarthy, the Australian High Commissioner in Delhi, whose territory includes Bhutan.

  Mal is seated next to the Vice Chancellor, who immediately engages him in a conversation about Travellers & Magicians. I’m seated next to a government minister who studied in New Zealand but is representing his wife, an Australia alumna who couldn’t make it. The MP is an authority on Dzongkha, which I’ve become endlessly fascinated by since the essay judging. He tells me that during his university years he started dreaming in English, but now that he is speaking Dzongkha in parliament all day, he has reverted to dreaming in Dzongkha. Suddenly he stops mid-sentence and, in an urgent whisper, asks who the man opposite us is. I say Mal Watson. The MP looks stunned. His eyes bulge. He whispers that he knows all about Mal Watson because he read a book written by his wife about the making of the film Travellers & Magicians. I start to say that I’m that author, that wife, but he’s not interested. He is leaning across the table and politely interrupting to declare that Rinpoche’s style is reminiscent of legendary Japanese film-maker Kurosawa. The Vice Chancellor starts nodding furiously and it becomes apparent that these two are old friends and have dissected the film together before – they are mad film buffs. Mal starts to agree about Kurosawa and the two of them look like they could devour him.

  The former deputy prime minister of Australia Tim Fischer holds a unique position in Bhutan, nominated by former prime minister Kevin Rudd as ‘special envoy’. I’m told that Tim is one of the few people in the world who within a day of arriving in Thimphu can arrange a meeting with the Fourth King, the Fifth King and the Prime Minister.

  Mal and I meet Tim when he brings a busload of Australian tourists through Thimphu. These trips are part of his strategy to build bonds between people in the two countries. He believes personal relationships can change the world. Megan Ritchie, our Australian neighbour, invites his whole tour group – and us – for a traditional Bhutanese feast at her home. Tim is a polymath with the energy of ten men. His ‘hobbies’ include making podcasts about trains for the ABC, writing books about rural Australia, campaigning for greater national recognition of war hero General John Monash, and all things Bhutanese. He is also the only person I’ve met who shares Mal’s interest in the adventures of British explorer Francis Younghusband, who, according to legend, rode into Tibet with a falcon on his wrist. While Tim’s tour group line up at the buffet, he and Mal drift off to a corner, mutually delighted to discover a fellow Younghusband enthusiast.

  During this visit Tim is also finishing a book on Bhutan he has been writing with local historian Tshering Tashi. Bold Bhutan Beckons: Inhaling Gross National Happiness recounts controversial periods from Bhutan’s history that haven’t been written about before, including the assassination of Bhutan’s prime minister in 1964, which is still a touchy subject involving high-profile families. I think that these two men – an outsider of Tim’s standing and the very well-connected Tshering – are the only ones who could write such a book. Tim tracked down the daughter of the British judge brought out to conduct an independent trial on the grisly death. Bhutan has few history books and Tshering and Tim plan to give four copies to each school in the kingdom. I ask Tim if I can interview him about the book for Bhutan Observer. He says yes, but trying to pin him down is like trying to catch a mosquito, so I join his bus tour for a morning as they drive to a monastery on the edge of Thimphu.

  Tim is the consummate tour guide, standing at the front of the bus and pointing out sites of interest. His knowledge of Bhutanese history is impressive and he is a great storyteller. He tells me he started visiting the c
ountry in 1983 after reading Hollywood actress Shirley MacLaine’s book Don’t Fall off the Mountain, which included a dramatic account of being held under house arrest during a visit to Bhutan in 1965. In the eighties MacLaine was dating the Australian leader of the Opposition, Andrew Peacock, and Tim says he thought that the best way to gain favour with ‘the boss’ was to read his girlfriend’s book.

  Tim was captivated by her descriptions of a hidden Himalayan kingdom. Since then he has been a regular visitor to Bhutan, bringing his wife, Judy, and their two sons, and becoming a close friend to the Fourth King as well as an informal adviser to the government. During his 20 years representing Australia on various matters in Beijing, Tim always spoke up for Bhutan’s interests, particularly the ongoing border disputes. He says the Chinese came to expect it, and would open every meeting with an update on Bhutan ‘just to get it out of the way’.

  Another friend to Bhutan is Catherine Harris of the Harris Farm grocery chain. Catherine is Australia’s Honorary Consul of Bhutan, and the family home in Sydney’s inner west operates like an unofficial hotel for delegates. According to Cathy, the family’s long association started in the 1980s, when Harris Farm was just one shop. A Bhutanese farmer on a visit to Sydney’s vegetable markets asked her husband, David, for advice about harvesting mandarins. In Bhutan, he explained, farmers often were attacked by tigers. David didn’t think he could help with that problem but invited him home for dinner, and the Harris family has been helping Bhutanese farmers ever since. In the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, Cathy marched with Bhutan’s team of two archers, wearing a kira in the team colours and waving a Bhutanese flag. Mal and I catch up with them in Thimphu when they are here on official business. While Cathy is in meetings, David is quietly investigating whether refrigerated warehouses in strategic rural locations might help farmers.

  Christmas comes, and while the Bhutanese mostly ignore it, there are enough European expats in Thimphu for the excitement to build. I cut a Christmas tree out of cardboard and stick it to the wall. We make decorations from pictures cut out of Indian magazines. Kathryn adds a toilet roll that she decorated at Cecile and Hans’s house, which brings a certain panache.

  A Danish couple throws a traditional Danish tree-decorating party in their grand home high above Thimphu. We join their 20 or so guests sitting on the floor drinking gluhwein, and making elaborate paper ornaments of stars and angels. The Danish men are right into it and one explains he has been doing this since he was a child. They tell us how much they like Prince Frederik’s Australian wife and we feel ridiculously gratified. After a few gluhweins, we’re merrily toasting ‘our’ Mary and ‘our’ Fred, as if we’re now one big happy family, somehow all related because two people, whom none of us have ever met, got married.

  As we finish each paper ornament, we attach it to a huge pine tree in the living room. Dozens of little candles are dotted all over its branches, with a bucket of water at hand for when the tree catches alight – which happens in about three minutes. Then we are invited to hold hands, sing ‘O Tannenbaum’, the Danes’ version of ‘O Christmas Tree’, and dance around the tree. Each nationality is asked to step up and sing a Christmas carol from their country. Mal slips out the back door with a Bhutanese friend, who also has no desire to sing and hold hands, leaving me and Megan to give a rendition of ‘Waltzing Matilda’ and shuffle around the smoking tree. I can’t help wondering if this is what our Mary is doing tonight in Copenhagen.

  Megan and her Bhutanese husband, Thinley, host Christmas lunch for about 40. A former academic and tourism executive, Megan now heads up the Bhutan office of Dutch aid organisation SNV, making her one of the most important people in Thimphu. She was one of the select 70 VVIPs to join the royal family inside the sacred chamber for the King’s coronation. Her working days are spent improving life in poor communities and being feted by government ministers. For her birthday the Fifth King sent his driver to deliver to her a bottle of French champagne and a massive chocolate cake. But she is a country girl from rural New South Wales at heart and invites all the expats to bring a plate, which ensures a multicultural feast. Mal cooks two huge pots of red Thai beef curry with enough chilli to impress Megan’s in-laws, who come back for seconds, thirds, fourths, and then just finish it off. Mal is chuffed when they ask for his recipe.

  Thinley and his father cook beef Maori-style in a hangi, having risen before dawn to dig a hole in the garden, fill it with burning coals, and put the meat on top, before covering it with dirt for hours of deep, slow cooking. Thinley learned the technique from Megan’s brother when he took him on a recent trip to a remote community. Worried about eating uncooked pork, Megan’s brother hadn’t wanted to insult his village hosts by not eating, so instead he volunteered to cook a pig for the whole village. Thinley was inspired to try it, and Christmas Day is his first chance. The Danish, Dutch and Japanese stand around the earth pit watching him dig it up and marvelling at Australia’s strange Christmas traditions.

  The children run wild across the estate, and we tuck Kathryn into bed delirious with exhaustion. In the weeks leading up to Christmas, she had worried that Santa might get lost over the Himalayas. But he had found his way to her on Christmas morning, leaving at the foot of the bed some books and a child-sized version of the prayer wheels she had seen old women twirl at the lhakhang. Kathryn puts it beside her on the pillow, looking at it in wonder. ‘How did he know?’ she whispers. It is the highlight of my Christmas.

  10

  Who’s Reading?

  Over the Christmas and New Year period, Rosemary closes her school for a few weeks. Some students head back to Europe and others go to beach resorts in Thailand, while the Bhutanese return to their villages. Mal and I take Kathryn to India. Mal lived in Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche’s household in Delhi for 12 years and still has a couple of boxes of belongings there, one containing his beloved espresso machine. We decide to go and get it, travelling by train, plane and car across the continent, stopping along the way at various places – Bodhgaya, Varanasi, Sarnath, Agra. India is wild, exotic and exuberant, constantly in your face. It’s a kaleidoscope of experiences for a six-year-old Aussie kid to digest, and sometimes Kathryn looks dazed by the sights unfolding in front of her, especially the devastating poverty. Beggars, sightless or limbless or both, stretch their hands out to her. Some push themselves around on skateboards, bringing them to Kathryn’s eye level and making it impossible for her to look away. With her pale skin and long red hair, she is like a beacon, particularly for the children, who crowd around her.

  A few days after our return, I come home from work and Dolma tells me Kathryn and our Dutch neighbour Roos are ‘playing being poor’. I find them sitting in our gutter, wearing old clothes, their faces smeared with dirt. They are pretending to be beggars. I guess she’s processing the experiences, the way children do, but I wonder what Dolma makes of the new game.

  When the school term starts up again, Kathryn throws herself back in with gusto. At night she reads to me the books that Rosemary sets for homework. They are jolly British readers about how the Pitt family survives the Second World War. Put That Light Out is a rousing tale of what happens when the Germans bomb Balaclava Terrace. Careless Talk tells of a mysterious foreigner with a moustache and a funny accent who moves into the neighbourhood. Is he a German spy? In art, they make wartime posters. Loose Lips Sink Ships and Look Out, Spies About. Hitler starts to creep into our conversations. We drive along the river, listening to Kathryn and Roos arguing in the back seat about which country Hitler invaded first.

  ‘It was Poland,’ says Kathryn.

  ‘No, he invaded my country first,’ says Roos.

  It seems a surreal conversation as we bounce over our little bridge, draped in prayer flags, the sounds of a puja wafting along Wang Chhu river.

  Kathryn thrives at the little school. I may cringe at the thought of war history invading our peaceful idyll, but she loves it, happy to be doing the same work t
hat older children Robert and Marlin are doing. And she is especially fond of her teacher, Miss Sonam.

  Teachers are revered in Bhutan, and every year on National Teachers Day the country pays tribute to them. The Bhutanese rate education highly: the educated class in this country has perhaps more PhDs per head of population than anywhere else in the world. All government ministers and top civil servants must have at least a bachelor’s degree, but preferably a master’s or PhD from an international university.

  Bhutan Observer willingly sponsors two of its most experienced and capable reporters to do masters’ degrees at a Thailand university. The newspaper continues to pay their wages for the two years they are out of the office, and in return the reporters commit to five years’ work for the company.

  Needrup and a senior reporter have their sights set on masters’ courses at Australian universities. Phuntsho supports them. She knows it will bring respect to the newspaper. Even though they are short-staffed and the cost is huge, she believes it is worth the investment.

  While one end of society is pursuing higher education, it is a different story in villages across the country. The national literacy rate is only around 56 per cent. Rural schools lack many of the basics – books, teachers, even roofs – and some families can’t give their children time off, needing them to work on their farms or sell vegetables by the roadside.

  For rural children to go to school, they often must travel great distances. The newspapers run heartbreaking stories of children as young as seven walking three hours a day to school, being too exhausted to learn, then walking three hours home in the evening, braving snow, mudslides, and wild animals such as bears and leopards.