Radio Shangri-La_ What I Learned in Bhutan, the Happiest Kingdom on Earth - Lisa Napoli [94]
And then one day, her name appeared in my inbox:
hey hi sweet lady jane
well am fine n am with my cousins out here at new york
sorry i didnt check my mails
will be going home may be after two weeks
how is everything going out wit you
keep in touch
“New York?” I wrote back. “What the hell are you doing in New York? How did you get there? What’s your phone number so I can call you? Would you please call me? Does your family know where you are? Do Sir Pema or Pema?” They had both just written again that she still hadn’t been seen.
My mind started racing: Just how long did Ngawang intend to stay in the United States? Forever, or till the expiration of her visa? Where was she staying? What was she doing all day? Had she planned this all along?
Frantic, I considered hopping a plane and scouring Jackson Heights, Queens, the neighborhood with the largest population of Bhutanese in the United States, but wrote that off as folly. I didn’t hear back from her.
The month of May arrived and went. By now, Ngawang’s visa would have expired. I had succeeded in liberating myself from my job in Los Angeles and was making plans to go back to Kuzoo to volunteer for the summer. But before that, I’d visit Washington, D.C., as a volunteer at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, where a faux Bhutan was being raised. The largest delegation of Bhutanese ever to leave the country at one time, 144 people, were headed to the American nation’s capital to set up a living museum exhibit about their culture. Monks would bless visitors in an authentic Bhutanese temple that had been constructed on the National Mall; archers, including the king’s brother Prince Jigyel, were to demonstrate the national sport; a weaver would sit at a loom creating a colorful cloth and wrapping those who wished in kira and gho.
One afternoon in the days before the festival began, I spotted Madam Kunzang Choden, the writer and Kuzoo advisor, over near the Metro with her husband, Walter. (I wondered if they knew about my dinner with Martin, who had emailed me earlier in the year to report that his work had relocated him to Thailand.) Madam Choden was to be one of the main speakers in the foodways tent, to discuss the curious culinary customs of her people, including and especially their devotion and addiction to fiery hot chilies. She had just published a book on the subject.
We said our Kuzu zampos, and commented on the magnificent location and the weather, and Madam Choden then said, quietly, as if she’d been waiting to clue me in, “I hear you sponsored Ngawang to come to the United States. She’s always been dying to go. I thought you knew she’d been trying to get here for a long time.…” And then she shook her head, disapprovingly, too polite to say another word. She didn’t need to.
Later, another Bhutanese friend revealed more details. He said Ngawang had boasted that she was working in New York in a shop belonging to some friend. Right after he started spilling the story, he clamped himself down and refused to say any more. And then Sir Pema let slip in an email that he had known all along Ngawang was in New York. He’d been sworn to secrecy, but eventually caved to my persistent concern.
Now, I thought darkly, I had another dubious connection to the Kingdom of Bhutan, besides going to help start a radio station whose mainstay turned out to be illegally downloaded Western pop music. I’d been an unwitting accomplice to the illicit plan of a young Bhutanese to explore her American dream.
IT WASN’T UNTIL the end of June that word came from my wayward friend, via email, informing me that she had finally returned home. I was relieved to hear it. She refused to discuss the who, what, when, where, why, and how of the whole New York adventure, but before she’d returned home, she had consented to meet in person the man we’d taken to calling Mr. Japan. He’d just wrapped up his graduate studies outside Tokyo and