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“Please, madam,” someone says. “If we don’t pass English, we won’t be promoted.”

Mr. Bose, I have noticed, sits at the front of his class and reads from his yellowed notes while the students write frantically. There is no discussion, no room for other interpretations. I remember the kids in Pema Gatshel being hit for asking questions: questions insulted the teacher, the thinking went, because they implied the teacher had not done his or her job properly.

“I won’t be insulted if you ask questions,” I tell the students. “In fact, I’m insulted when you don’t ask.”

In private, they sometimes share their critical observations with me, but in public, they wear the smooth, untroubled face of conformity. I ask why they never express their doubts and criticisms openly, and they tell me this is not how things are done in Bhutan. Questions about how things work might be read as dissent. My own questions about the political situation are drawing more hostile answers from both sides. “I’m only asking,” I say uneasily, knowing that I am both asking and telling, that my asking holds value judgments. One student tells me with uncharacteristic bluntness, “Foreigners can’t understand. This is not their country. They should not get involved.”

I turn it over and over in my mind one evening at Pala’s, at the little table in the back corner, underneath bougainvillea and orchids. I am exhausted by the constant debate with myself. It is like walking a tightrope—I climb up and manage to balance for a short time, arms out, feet splayed, muscles tightened against the pull of gravity—yes, from here I can see how all values are culturally constructed. From an intellectual point of view, it’s a fascinating place to be: here there are no universal standards or ethics, only endless constructions and points of view. But now that I am up here, I realize, there is no place to go, except back down, to my own side and point of view.

Amala brings out a mug of changke, a thick tangy drink made out of fermented rice. “Taste,” she says. “Just now I am making.”

“Thanks, Amala.”

“No problem,” she sings out as she goes back inside. It is her favorite phrase, acquired from the students. She complains that her English is “all broken” but I love the way she talks.

Tshewang sticks his head around the corner. “Hello, miss,” he says softly.

I wave at him and pick up my pen. Go away, I think. I am too demoralized to talk, and after last Sunday’s awkwardness, he is the last person I want to see.

“What’s wrong, miss?”

“Nothing. I’m writing some letters.”

“Can I sit here?” He pulls out a chair across from me.

“Isn’t it time for your night study, Tshewang?”

He sits down anyway and waits, his eyes trained on me. “What is it, miss?”

I cannot resist the kindness in his voice and eyes. I tell him about my frustration in class over the students’ reluctance to debate issues. “I just want them to talk,” I say. “What’s wrong with really debating the issue of gender in Bhutan?”

He considers this. “There’s a time and a place for everything, miss. What good is it to say something if no one is ready to hear it?”

“Because silence feels like complicity and cowardice to me.”

He pulls a purple blossom off the bougainvillea that runs along the railing beside the table and holds it in his palm as if he were weighing it. His face is very serious. “Miss, I think you should know.... The students like you, you’re a good teacher and all, but some of your comments ... about political things ... might not always be appreciated.”

It is tactfully put, but the frown lines between his eyes convey the real message. The bells for night study reach us dimly. “Yes,” I sigh. “I know. But it’s hard to stay quiet when you feel strongly about something. ”

He pushes back his chair but does not get up. “You know, miss, a person can be completely right about something ...”

“But?”

“A person can be completely right about something but still not have the right to say it,” he says.

“So in your wonderfully diplomatic Bhutanese way, you’re saying you also think I should shut up and mind my own business?