Radio Shangri-La_ What I Learned in Bhutan, the Happiest Kingdom on Earth - Lisa Napoli [108]
Tshering Tobgay is worried. He also knows that the widely held belief by Bhutanese about how rich outsiders are is a myth. “People here think you all have weeks and weeks of vacation time, too,” he says. “As if you can just dash around the world for a few weeks with kids.” Another thing that disgusts him is the business of “teaching” GNH in the schools.
“Not everything is demand and supply,” Tshering Tobgay says, lifting his fourth cup of coffee. “You can’t teach Gross National Happiness and inner peace. Next thing you know, McKinsey will be recommending that we buy an ad in the Super Bowl, like we’re Coca-Cola.”
With that, he lifts up the lid of his MacBook and whips out his cell phone. “Have you been reading the blogs? People are so angry about all of this,” he says. “Now, if you will please excuse me for a few minutes while I conduct a little business.” I rise to leave, and he motions for me to sit down. First, he calls his webmaster, and then makes a series of calls to the media outlets to alert them to a press release that has just this moment been posted to his blog. In between, he directs me with a grin to his site, where he says what practically everyone I’ve been talking to, including my tourism department hostess, has been saying—but won’t say publicly. The new constitution offers freedom of speech, but that document doesn’t trump the hidebound tradition of loyalty to the state:
The Opposition Leader called on the Minister of Economic Affairs … yesterday to express the Opposition Party’s concerns on the Royal Government’s recent policy decisions on tourism.… Liberalizing the tourist tariff will undermine the positive brand image that our country has carefully cultivated and enjoyed over the last three decades.… A target of 100,000 tourists per year by 2012 may be unsustainable and undesirable, given the country’s existing absorptive capacity and small population base of barely 600,000 people, most of who still live in scattered communities.
The opposition leader takes his title very seriously. As he works the phones to drum up a little media attention, I savor my ringside seat to the new democracy in action. Maybe next time I see Tshering Tobgay he’ll be Bhutan’s second elected prime minister.
THE NEXT DAY, I’m waiting outside the offices of the Tourism Council of Bhutan for a friend to pick me up for lunch. A man passes by and asks where I’m from; even in Thimphu, it’s still not common to see foreigners, especially at this time of year. “Los Angeles,” I say. “California. United States. And you?”
“Luentse,” he says wearily. It’s a remote district in Bhutan’s untrafficked northeastern corner. I had just read about this corner of the country in the travel materials last night; there are hardly any roads there, the residents are unfettered by modernization, and few outsiders have trod the pristine, undeveloped terrain, which offers spectacular flowers and natural beauty. Just the kind of place the McKinseyites are working to commoditize.
“I would love to see that,” I said solicitously, although I wonder how my stomach would handle the food. “I hear it’s very beautiful.”
“To you it may sound beautiful.” He smiles as he gets into a Toyota Land Cruiser. “To us it is backward.”
ON THE LAST NIGHT of my stay, Ngawang and Mr. Japan stop in to say good-bye. They are coming from the hospital; the baby is better, home with the mother-in-law, but now it’s his father’s turn to be ill. He’s availed himself of the free health care, as many people do, to make sure his flu is really just a flu. No wonder the McKinsey report has declared this system financially untenable in the long term.
As we sip ginger tea made by Pema’s new organic-products employer, we discuss the frustrations of my visit, Ngawang’s displeasure at the ratty guesthouse where I was first housed, and how upset she is that while I volunteer and pay my way here, $700-a-day consultants are deployed for events like the GNH conference,