Radio Shangri-La_ What I Learned in Bhutan, the Happiest Kingdom on Earth - Lisa Napoli [77]
Nothing less than a royal edict would convince the devout Bhutanese to give up their sacred annual treks. Though voting was not compulsory, the official Bhutan Voter Guide did declare it the moral responsibility of the people to cast ballots. If they did not, it continued, they ran the risk of being “guilty of letting a less competent political party or candidate come to power.” If the menace of moral failure didn’t compel a proud citizen to the polls, what would?
Lest the people be overwhelmed with too many decisions and campaigns at once, the election board had decided to split the daunting responsibility of choosing a parliament into two dates. In the first round, this New Year’s Eve, ballots would be cast for a National Council, with each district (or dzongkhag) electing a single representative. A few months later, at a date still to be determined by astrologers, the Bhutanese would be asked to vote for a slate of candidates affiliated with one of two newly formed political parties.
On December 31, 2007, voting commenced across the tiny kingdom.
IT HAD BEEN just under a year since my first trip to the kingdom, and time had done nothing but intensify my curiosity about the place, my craving for more—the landscape, the people, the feeling of calm that had swept over me while I was there. The serenity had mercifully remained, but I wanted a booster shot. I needed to see this place again. I knew I’d never completely solve the riddle of Bhutan, never really “get” it. I also knew the way I felt during my first visit, the richness of experience, could never be duplicated. All I was sure of was that I needed to return.
Back in Los Angeles, I’d entertained any Bhutanese visitors I could and met anyone with even a remote connection to the place. A local couple who had collected photographs of Bhutan by the explorer John Claude White and published a book of them? Let’s have tea. The labor minister’s wife and children, whom I’d met through our mutual friend Sebastian? You are welcome to stay with me. A friend of a friend who’d returned from a trip? Let’s drink some wine so you can show off your photos. My friend’s daughter had heard me talk so much about the country, she’d written a report about it for her fourth-grade class. (“Bhutan is the happiest country on the face of the earth …”)
In the spring, just weeks after I’d arrived back in Los Angeles from that first trip, a twenty-five-member Bhutanese trade delegation mining California for business opportunities jammed into my tiny apartment for a pizza party. (To make the slices more spicy-palatable, the ladies in the group discreetly pulled hot chili sauce from their purses.) I gave them a tour of the studio where I worked, encouraged them to help themselves to the stacks of free books we always had on the shelves to give away, and helped mitigate disappointment over their lack of sales. Their intricate handwoven items just couldn’t be mass-produced on the necessary scale for the U.S. market
The trade visit had unintended consequences: Because of it, I met the small but close-knit community of Bhutanese living in Southern California. (One of them became the recipient of my dusty old television set, which I was delighted to finally give away.) And my connection to the group motivated them to offer me a visitor visa for a return trip to Bhutan. After I’d put in for vacation time, I had bought my plane tickets and stuffed my suitcase with Gold Toe socks and a hand-me-down Burberry purse for Pema, courtesy of my stylish friend Barbara, and the royal astrologers made my return an even more auspicious one. My arrival would coincide with the first stage of the election.
KUZOO WAS PREPARING to perform its most important community service yet: beaming out the results to the people as soon as the votes had been tabulated. The news would be revealed simply, by reading a fax from the election board on the air as soon as it chugged