To Go or Not To Go

Jay arrived in Seattle a few days ago in one piece, after finishing up classes and saying goodbye to his students, who were very sad to see him go. But with the promise to return.

Jay alluded to this in one of his last posts, and we have also told some folks about this - Jay was awarded a Fulbright grant to teach in Bhutan this next academic year. We learned about this shortly before I left the country in May, and so the last weeks have involved figuring out if and when our return will happen. 

 

But it’s not so simple. As has been our experience with just about everything related to Bhutan - a conundrum wrapped in an intricate web of beauty, peace, frustration, spirituality, hope, stoicism, tradition, deference, hierarchy, and the most incredible potential.

 

We decided that if we were going to go back, it would be for the fall semester only. So Jay began discussions with the academic dean about whether there was a role for him there, and he proposed to develop a course around a very timely issue, and one that he previously taught at Evergreen: Free Speech and Democracy. Timely, because one of the faculty who writes a regular column for the English language newspaper, The Kuensel, had recently gotten some pushback for a piece he wrote, and the faculty had expressed interest in discussing the meaning and bounds of “academic freedom”. Something that is also on the forefront of the Republican culture wars in the US. 

 

The idea of this course was well-received, and Jay began working on this with a junior faculty member who he could mentor as a co-teacher.

 

The dean for Student Services also expressed delight that I would be able to come back and continue my work with them. So we both had places to land on campus, and the ability to continue working with the JSW students, who are an absolute delight and wonder.

 

So when will we go? Mmmmm. Making this actually happen involves coordinating the US state department functioning with the sluggishness of the Bhutan bureaucracy. For one, Jay needs medical clearance from Fulbright, which needs to happen at minimum 2 months before his start date. Since he would only be back in the states 6 weeks before the beginning of fall semester (the first class is July 31), he needed a faster turnaround than their norm. His contact at the state department assured him that they could expedite the approval. We'll see.

 

Then Jay realized his passport will expire about 5 months after our expected departure from Bhutan in November. But Bhutanese immigration policy requires a passport that is valid for 6 months beyond departure. Jay thought he could get an emergency US passport at the office in Seattle, where you go in and they give it to you same day (for a bunch of bucks), but they will only do it if you have an imminent departure, with a plane ticket in hand. He tried to explain that he doesn’t have a plane ticket, because he can’t get one without a visa, and he can’t get a visa unless he has a passport that is valid beyond his current one, so he needs a new passport in order to get a visa in order to get a ticket. The response from the folks in the passport office, after he tried explaining this multiple times, was to roll their eyes and tell him to go sit down in the hopes that he would get fed up and leave. Oy.

 

At the same time, we learned more about something that had been simmering much of the time that we were on campus. Being so isolated for most of its history, Bhutanese culture seems to be wary of foreigners in some respects. Everyone is friendly and welcoming, but it is harder to make inroads for an extended period of time. Some of the staff and faculty at the school actually seemed to have a kind of hostility to the long-term internationalists on campus (i.e., me, Jay, and our friend David). For the most part it didn’t really affect Jay or me, but David’s position was different, so he saw more of it, and we heard from him. We recently learned that there has been resentment boiling over at our friend Sangay, who is one of the faculty assistants and has been incredibly helpful in getting things done for all of us (as well as accompanying us on excursions, cooking meals, and being our friend). Her help has been so vital as we try to function in this very foreign country, at an unfamiliar institution, in a completely different language. Some of the other staff recently unloaded on Sangay that she has been “spoiling” us, and they are upset that now we expect the rest of them to help us as much as she has. Including the Student Services staff person who has been my primary contact and help. Which surprised me enormously.

 

This explains some of the passive aggressiveness we’ve experienced. Honestly, there are times when I have thought that “Yes, la” is just Dzongka for “fuck you”.

 

It’s been rather surprising to experience this. We naively thought that because most everyone is Buddhist, and many are quite devout, that most people would carry Buddhist ideas like compassion, tolerance, and kindness into their everyday lives. And many people do, I will be clear. But we’ve also seen the images of Buddhist monks in Burma (Myanmar) attacking Muslims with weapons, amidst the ongoing struggle in that country. And in Bhutan, many people were intimidated, harassed, forcibly expelled from the country, and pushed into refugee camps in Nepal when they were declared non-citizens following laws enacted in the 1980s by King Jigme Singye Wangchuck (the namesake for the law school). Many of these refugees, whose families had lived in Bhutan for generations, ultimately resettled in the US and other countries. Human Rights Watch has documented protestors arrested during that time period who remain incarcerated in terrible conditions, still today, more than 30 years later. It is most definitely not Shangri-La. 

 

Many people think Bhutan is “the happiest country on earth". This misnomer comes from Bhutan’s official development policy of "Gross National Happiness". This does not mean that individual happiness is guaranteed or even pursued by governmental policy or decree. It is merely a guiding principle for development, relying heavily on a theory of sustainable development, on top of which is layered an ethical, moral, and Buddhist approach to making development decisions. But the ability to achieve individual happiness is not much different in Bhutan than anywhere else.

 

Which is why talking and learning about free speech is especially valuable in a nascent democracy like Bhutan. Which is why Jay has been very energized about developing this class for the fall. And which may be why he got an email the other day that, while the Academic Council (one of the multitudes of bureaucratic structures at the school which govern a faculty of less than 2 dozen) appreciates his proposal for this class for fall semester, maybe he could teach something that would help the students to be more employable, like commercial law? He is having none of it, of course - even if he knew anything about or had any interest in commercial law, which he doesn’t, having spent his career as a public defender and criminal defense attorney. It’s like asking your dermatologist to do your brain surgery, because, hey, you’re a doctor too.

 

So with this ebb and flow of obstacles, at times we have been inclined to say, the heck with it, that is a lot of trouble. But then, there are the students. 

 

Jay had a wonderful end to his semester, really bonding with his students, all of whom relish having a relationship with their professor that is more than the classroom. He has been increasingly connected with them, learning from them about their lives, their aspirations, their willingness to question the past with an eye on their, and their country’s, future. And in return, he has given them confidence, insight, and inspiration beyond the drudgery that has too often been the experience in many of their classes. Jay started having afternoon tea with many of his students, and we have become increasingly close to Phelden in particular, who comes from a very humble working class back ground and is an encyclopedia of Bhutanese Buddhism. He gifted us several very precious books about Bhutan.

Having tea with our neighbors in Block E dorm, (l to r) Phelden, Sonam and Dorji 

Jay with his class, after they performed a dance that they created in honor of the last class.

Phelden came to visit Jay after their last class together, to play a song for him on the traditional instrument that his grandfather made. 

 

Two nights before I left, a group of senior girls prepared a marvelous feast for us!

So between the challenges of class content, staff hostility, passport issues, Fulbright bureaucracy, and the ongoing challenge of just getting a damn visa into the country, we don’t really know if we are going. Then we remember how much we get from the students and can’t think of not going. So maybe we are. Or maybe we aren't. 

We’ll keep posting.