Radio Shangri-La_ What I Learned in Bhutan, the Happiest Kingdom on Earth - Lisa Napoli [18]
“Oh, yes, I do.” I put down my teacup and moved forward a bit in my chair.
“Well, the secret is that I have nothing to do with Kuzoo.” Phub Dorji smiled a bit, the most I’d seen of his teeth so far.
I was intrigued. “I don’t understand. You sent me all those documents about what you needed … and you said you oversaw the station.”
“Yes, I do. But from a distance. It’s okay. You are in very excellent hands. Mr. Tenzin Dorji will be here in a few minutes to say hello. He is a former high school principal now in charge of Kuzoo. No relation to me. You won’t see me every day, but if you need anything, I insist that you call. Or have Ngawang call me.”
Phub Dorji motioned to a piece of paper taped on the wall near the phone. “Ngawang, can you write down my mobile number for Lisa? Can you lend her a mobile phone so we can reach her?”
“Yes, sir,” said Ngawang, with her head bowed respectfully, before I could refuse the offer. I’d been looking forward to not having a digital leash during my time here, but I supposed a cell phone wouldn’t be a bad tool to have.
Just then, the front door opened, and a cyclone of energy in the form of Mr. Tenzin Dorji entered the room with his eight-year-old son and a little white Maltese in tow.
“Welcome, Jane!” he bellowed.
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RADIO SHANGRI-LA
A RADIO STATION MAY SEEM QUAINT AND RETRO, AN old-fashioned medium in this age of all things digital and pod. But in the last Shangri-la, it proved to be an invention as modern as a spaceship.
As soon as Kuzoo FM started broadcasting on September 28, 2006, the entire population of Thimphu tuned in. That’s not an exaggeration. The few stores that carried radios promptly sold out their stock. Farmers in the nearby valley twisted the angles of their antennae in order to tune in a signal so Kuzoo could keep them company as they worked the land. Drivers of the kingdom’s growing number of motor vehicles (up from just under four thousand in 1999 to well over thirty thousand less than a decade later) were happy to have Kuzoo’s radio jockeys entertain them as they cruised the capital city. Many of the cars proudly displayed Kuzoo bumper stickers in enthusiastic support of the new station.
Before Kuzoo came along, there wasn’t much else to listen to. Recorded music—if you could even get your hands on it—was far more expensive than modest Bhutanese incomes would allow. Up until Kuzoo, the only sounds transmitted over the airwaves had been the dull news and announcements, punctuated by the occasional music program, churned out by the government-launched Bhutan Broadcasting Service. It didn’t even broadcast all day. The rest of the dial was filled with static.
Suddenly, a radio was a hot item, and Kuzoo FM was a real station, playing all kinds of music that most Bhutanese hadn’t heard before: the saccharine epiphanies of pop divas, the aching twang of country music, the interlocking rhythms of rap, rock, hip-hop. All presented by friendly, if inexperienced, Bhutanese radio jockeys, who shyly stumbled through their pronunciation of English words, making it clear this was not some slick feed imported from afar.
Even so, the capital city was a world away from the rest of the country. Villagers might visit Thimphu once in their lives—and only then for formal business or to be tended to at the hospital. Travel in Bhutan had long been utilitarian, not for pleasure. Leaving home to scratch through forest paths in order to venture to the next town meant time lost working the land, which yielded the food and other necessities that sustained the community. Only in the last few years had the beginnings of a leisure class blossomed.
That the