His Majesty’s visit to Rongthung, the ancestral home of the queen-to-be, was a couple weeks ago, but the day will always remain quite vivid in my memory for a few reasons:
# 1 – I got shoved by a bull.
# 2 – I was scolded by the Gup.
# 3 – The King spoke to me… twice.
# 4 – The earthquake.
*
The day started in typical Bhutanese fashion – a mass confusion over time. Bhutanese take this sort of thing in stride. As I’ve just written about in a previous post, I do not. My students had been told to be at the school at 6:30 on Sunday, 18 September. I could go through all the gyrations of what transpired that day regarding time, but I won’t bore you with petty details. Let’s just say, there were some very tired and hungry students around 11:30, which was the time we finally left the school to go to Rongthung.
In a packed Hilux and two busses, we arrived at the Gup’s house in Rongthung. The Gup (the Gup is the equivalent of a mayor), whose nickname is Country Boy (many people in the Kanglung area don’t even know his real name), lives in a house over a century old on a beautiful piece of land in Rongthung. Everyone who drives through Rongthung notices the house and the property. The Gup’s family hails from the same ancestral lineage as Jetsun Pema, who will be the Queen of Bhutan as of the 13th of October. And this was the reason for His Majesty’s visit to Rongthung and the reason why several hundred people converged on the Gup’s property on a rainy Sunday.
It had been raining for hours, the heaviness coming and going with a constant drizzle in between. As we – the hundred or so Kanglung Primary students who were scheduled to perform for the King and Jetsun Pema and a few teachers – made our way into the Gup’s property, we fought the crowds and trudged through thick, slippery mud. With so many people and not that much walking room (there was also for me, as is usual in Bhutan, a sense of confusion and not knowing what was going on), there was a lot of bottlenecking, stopping and going. At one point the path got very narrow and the students and I were almost in a single file line. There was a bit of a commotion. I looked behind me and coming quickly were a few people from the Merak-Sakteng area (easily distinguishable by their clothing) with horses and a bull. The animals were tied to ropes and the ropes were being held by people, but it was clear to see that the people did not have total control over the animals. The horses were calm enough, but the bull, in a constant struggle to be free, was not happy. His head, being controlled by ropes, was going this way and that while his body, which was not being held by ropes, was writhing in opposite directions. If I were one of the bull’s handlers, I wouldn’t have brought the bull into a crowd of people, but I was not one of the bull’s handlers, and the bull came storming into the crowd. The students ran up a slick slope on the side of the pathway. I tried to do the same, but was not successful. Before I realized how close the angry bull was, I was forcibly shoved onto my hands and knees into mud. Of course, I was wearing National Dress and, since I was going to see the King, I had on my best tego (the jacket). As I struggled to get up, my students crowded me – “Are you okay, ma’am?” “Are you hurt, ma’am?” “I was so scared for you, ma’am.” And since I was covered in mud – “You have to find water, ma’am,” “Ma’am, if the King meets you with so much mud, he’ll feel embarrassed.” There was, indeed, a lot of mud on me, but I was not hurt. Still, the shock of the fall and my students’ reactions caused me to cry, which made it seem like I was hurt. We continued to walk on with students and people making sure I was okay. My students were insistent that I find water to wash off. I wasn’t that concerned and didn’t think washing off was a possibility. We arrived at a piece of string, partitioning the crowds from the main house, the courtyard, and the kitchen. Beyond the barrier was a running tap. Somehow, I was allowed to go beyond the string with some students and a few girls tenderly washed my kira and feet. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t allow this to happen – I’d wash myself off – but with the whole situation, I let them take control of washing the mud off. A man approached me and, after realizing I was a foreigner, said, “When I saw you covered in mud, I thought you were a villager.”
With that misunderstanding cleared up, the man – who works for the King – invited me into the hot kitchen where mass cooking was taking place. I was happy to get out of the rain. Soon I was asked to stand out of the way of splattering oil. We talked for a bit, I inquired about when the King would be arriving (he was supposed to be there at 10 am), and the man gave me warm tea.
*
The main reason I was at the Gup’s house for a King appearance is because two days prior my students had been selected by the teachers to perform. 6A’s variety show dance to the now-popular-Kanglung-song Everybody Dance Now was thought to perhaps be not appropriate for such an occasion. So I said I’d teach them a song – “Celebration” by Kool and the Gang, something I had taught the students in the beginning of the year when we were on our Celebrations unit in the textbook. Along with the song, I taught them some movement. I wasn’t as difficult as teaching them a full out dance, but it was definitely a challenge to re-teach the song so that it was understandable when sung and get the movement into their muscle memory… all in two days. But the students of 6A (and two from 6B) were very proud and very excited to honor the King’s upcoming wedding with “Celebration.” Our performance was one of 40 scheduled for the day. 40. Our school was asked to perform five pieces for His Majesty’s visit. Around 8 other schools got the same order.
Even if my students hadn’t been picked to perform for the King, I would’ve likely attended the event anyway. As soon as one arrives in Bhutan, there is King hype. He is known as the “People’s King.” He’s young, handsome and, when we arrived back in January, not yet married or even engaged. His photo is everywhere – classrooms, houses, shops, hotels, offices, hospitals, in printed media, on currency, on t-shirts, cut and pasted inside students’ notebooks, everywhere. During our stay in Bhutan, the King has celebrated his 31st birthday (he and I are both monkeys) and gotten engaged. Ever since Scott and I arrived, we’ve wanted to meet the King. We know other foreigners who have and meeting him seemed like it would complete the package of living in Bhutan. I mean, who wouldn’t want to meet a King? For the majority of the people at the Gup’s house that day, seeing the King was obviously a priority, but more intriguing was seeing Jetsun Pema, the queen-to-be, in person and seeing how the King and her interacted together.
*
When you’re talking to the King, you’re not supposed to look at him. Before he arrived I had been talking to a teacher I work with, Madam Pema Tshezin, about how to address the King.
“We refer to him as His Majesty, so when you’re talking to him, do you say ‘Your Majesty?’” I inquired.
“I don’t know. I guess so,” she replied.
“Like, would you say, ‘How are you, Your Majesty?’”
To this, Madam Pema laughed heartily and said, “You don’t ask the King questions.”
*
Around 1:30, when the King finally arrived, I was seated in a chair in the courtyard with some other teachers while my students waited outside the courtyard with the hundreds of other students. What I saw was the back of many monks as they performed what I presumed was a welcome ceremony with horns and dances and blessings. After some time, the monks broke up and the King and Jetsun Pema were nowhere to be seen; they had been whisked away into the main house.
At around the same time as when the King arrived, the near constant rain that had been falling since early morning stopped. Just like that. The insistent rain ceased to fall. So while the King and Jetsun Pema were inside the house, big tarps were spread onto the ground of the courtyard for the general public to sit on. That included me. The chairs were for more important people, like the Gups from all over Trashigang and other even more important officials.
The speaker of the house, one of the King’s uncles, members of parliament roamed around the courtyard wearing their appropriately colored scarves and greeting one another. The Kanglung individuals who are normally considered VIP and get the cushy chairs were sitting on the tarp on the ground.
*
When the King and Jetsun Pema emerged from the main house a little after 2, I couldn’t take my eyes off the King. And not because he was amazingly nice to look at but because he was the man in all the photos, the man who gives money to the poor, the man who everyone loves, an icon of Bhutan. He is bigger than I would’ve guessed – taller and broader. And he’s aged, as I had known from more recent photos. He’s not nearly as handsome or as young as most of the nation’s photos would lead you to believe. And I think he looks older than 31. His traditional Bhutanese boots weren’t the usual white that I’m accustomed to seeing; they were read and black. Jetsun was thin, pretty with pin-straight hair, and seemingly meek, not yet completely accustomed to the public eye.
The King spoke for a short while to the crowd in Dzongkha and then sat is a cushy chair under the tent next to Jetsun Pema, his brother seated a couple feet away (this particular brother is rumored to be dating Jetsun Pema’s sister; Jetsun Pema’s sister was at the event as well).
A group of local adult woman performed a traditional dance for the King. They would be the only locals to perform for the King that day in Rongthung. The King brought his own entertainment – a few Bhutanese actors, known as “jokers,” were able to bring the crowd of several hundred people into joyous laughter many times.
None of the hundreds of students who were supposed to perform the 40 different pieces got to do so – zero. My students had practiced for hours, they had gotten their hopes up, classes had been cancelled, they had arrived at school at 6:30 that morning and stood in the rain – for nothing.
*
During the King’s appearance, I had my camera out and took as many photos as I could as discreetly as I could. I knew that taking non-permitted photos of the King was a definite No, but I figured I had nothing to lose. After about ten minutes, I felt a tap on my shoulder from one of the organizers of the event. The camera had to be put away.
*
Before 3 pm, the King and Jetsun Pema and several other individuals left the courtyard to eat lunch inside the main house. The teachers had told the students to bring their own bowls and cups as a free lunch would be served, but the teachers themselves didn’t bring anything to eat lunch out of. Usually at public events, the teachers are given plates and bowls and get their food from a buffet line. For this public event, that was not the case. As others around me took out their bowls and plates, I looked in my schoolbag and fished out a plastic bag that I knew wasn’t clean. Men carrying big buckets of food walked around and dished out rice, pork, and potato curry to everybody. Scoops of food got slopped into my plastic bag and I ate with my fingers, as many Bhutanese do. It was past 3 at this point and I was hungry; I hadn’t eaten since breakfast.
*
I knew that as long as I was sitting on the tarp, I would get lost in the crowd and never get an opportunity to meet the King. As some of you might have guessed, I’m often mistaken for Bhutanese, especially when I’m wearing National Dress. Usually, I’m fine with this. Ordinarily, I don’t enjoy sticking out, but if it meant the difference between meeting the king or not meeting the king, than I was going to make every effort to stick out.
*
Jutting out from the main house was a sort of covered stage, a space for monks to play instruments during pujas. For this event, there were no instruments, so the space was occupied by people. I spotted some of my students who had come as part of the general public sitting up there. I was tired of sitting cross-legged on the ground, so after I finished licking my curry-laden fingers, I got up and joined the crowd on the covered stage. There wasn’t enough space to sit cross-legged, so I sat on my butt and let my legs dangle off the stage. Immediately, I got noticed. The Gup came up to me, shook my hand, and asked me when I had arrived, as if I just had. We exchanged pleasantries. Soon, another Gup from a town a couple hours away approached me and we started talking. Interrupting the conversation, one of my students ran up to me and said, “Ma’am, His Majesty is coming back out so you should stand up.” I did as she said without thinking about it. But then I noticed that no one else was standing. I asked, “Why did you tell me to stand? Is everyone else going to stand?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Then why did you tell me to stand?”
“Because you weren’t sitting properly.”
I hadn’t been sitting cross-legged and the way I was sitting was inappropriate in front of the King, in front of any important person I later learned. I had no clue.
*
After lunch, His Majesty came out in front of the crowd with Jetsun Pema by his side. They were both wearing different outfits than the ones they showed up in. I kept trying to picture how that went. I don’t imagine the King dresses himself.
He spoke again to the crowd in Dzongkha. At this point, he was standing opposite me across the courtyard. Behind him I saw two teachers I work with, Madam Kinzang and Lopen Ugyen. They were looking at me and gesturing at me to go over there. I looked at Madam Kinzang puzzled, after all we were in the middle of a King’s appearance and there was a large crowd of people to maneuver through. Madam Kinzang just waved her hand more insistently, implying that I could go around the crowd. Alright. I grabbed my bag and started to walk in front of the Gup, hoping to make my way through the crowd. As I passed in front of him, Country Boy, who was bowed since the King was nearby, angrily and scornfully said, “You can’t do that. You can’t do that.” I immediately withdrew, retraced the few steps I had taken, retook my spot next to the other Gup, and bowed my head down as low as it could go, startled and, again, shocked by the whole interaction. I couldn’t believe I had just been scolded at. I can’t even remember the last time I was scolded like that. Anger towards Madam Kinzang and Lopen Ugyen was growing.
*
Suddenly, in the midst of my cowering and anger, I heard, “Hello. How are you?” I looked up stunned. It was the King and Jetsun Pema not two feet away from me. I felt so rattled that I could have just started crying right there and then, but I didn’t. I shook his hand. The King and I had a few exchanges. Where was I from? Where did I work in Bhutan? Had I gotten some lunch? I answered his questions, looked and smiled at the both of them. They smiled back. The whole interaction lasted no more than two minutes before they passed me and continued on.
*
During the next hour or so, the “jokers” came back out to entertain while the King and Jetsun Pema walked around and interacted with the people. There was an ara ceremony for the King, King t-shirts and new Queen t-shirts were freely given out, new ghos were given to veterans, and finally a photo taken of the King and Jetsun Pema with the students from a school for the disabled. Again, before I realized it, the King was in front of me saying, “It was very nice to meet you.” I shook his had again, and this time I also shook Jetsun Pema’s hand.
They continued to sweep by people and they were gone. His Majesty’s visit was officially over.
*
The few students who were nearby came to me. I called the Vice Principal to ask what the plan was. We were supposed to walk up the hill and meet the busses. The small group of us joined the swarms of people leaving the Gup’s house. Darkness was quickly approaching. We walked on the side of the road making our way up the hill past other groups of people, oftentimes inching our way around passing cars. Darkness fell. There were no busses in sight. We kept walking. Still, no busses. One of the students with me was my neighbor, Sonam, who is chronically sick. The walk up the hill was wearing her out after a long day out. Kanglung was 5 kilometers away and the no bus thing was stressing her out. The other students took it upon themselves to flag down a passing car and put her in.
Another student, Chimi, started to cry because she lived a good walk from Kanglung and didn’t know how she’d get home once we got back to town. I assured her I’d find a way to get her home. After some time, I gave up on any busses, stopped and started waving down cars to stop. I figured I’d break up the group and just start sending students in ones and twos into cars going to Kanglung. (Hitchhiking in this area is very safe, in case you were wondering.)
Several cars passed without stopping. Finally, a pickup stopped. All of us hopped in the back and we set off on a rumbling, unsafe ride in the dark toward Kanglung. I didn’t know what else to do and Bhutanese kids are tough. I tried to make everyone at least sit down inside the bed and hold on tight. A boy student that we had picked up along the way, Dendup, didn’t listen to me and sat atop the edge of the truck bed, coolly enjoying the ride and the feel of the night air running through his hair. In the back of the pick up, we passed several people who were making the journey back to Kanglung by foot, including a mother of one of the students I was with. And during that ride, Bhutan and northern India had an earthquake, which none of us, amidst the bumps and the rumble of the truck and road, felt.
