Bhutanese Dancers perform at the Evening Concert of the 2008 Smithsonian Folklife Festival
BSR-12 posted a photo:
BHUTANESE CULTURE IN SMITHSONIAN FOLKLIFE FESTIVAL
BHUTANESE IN SMITHSONIAN FOLKLIFE FESTIVAL
Author: VOAKunleng
Keywords: VOA Kunleng Tibetan News Tibet PBHUTANESE IN SMITHSONIAN FOLKLIFE FESTIVAL
Added: July 2, 2008
Bhutan Festival at the Smithsonian
Smithsonian festival folklore displays Bhutan culture at USA Nation al Mall
Author: VOAKunleng
Keywords: VOA Kunleng Phayul Tibet Tibetan Bhutan Smithsonian Folklore Festival
Added: June 30, 2008
On the rooftop of the world, shoe-horned into the Grand Himalayas, Bhutan—or Thunder Dragon—is a fiercely independent kingdom. Isolated, charming, peaceful and religious, the Bhutanese are a pragmatic, sensitive people who take from the West what will benefit their country and leave the rest. Only 4,000 tourists will visit the kingdom in any one year and they are strictly monitored by a government that cares deeply for its people, environment and heritage. The countryside is pristine, the lifestyle and culture have been preserved for centuries, and the love of life is abundant among the people. Few outsiders know Bhutan as intimately as Françoise Pommaret; her guidebook takes you on an incredible journey of discovery and adventure; her love of the people and the place shines through; her in-depth knowledge helps aid our understanding of why this unique land has long remained one of Asia’s deepest mysteries and best-kept secrets. 
As a teacher of English literature, Jamie Zeppa would understand how the story of her journey into Bhutan could be fit into the convenient box of “coming-of-age romance,” a romance with a landscape, a people, a religion, and a dark, irresistible student. An innocent, young Catholic woman from a Canadian mining town who had “never been anywhere,” Zeppa signed up for a two-year stint teaching in a remote corner of the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan. Despite the initial shock of material privation and such minor inconveniences as giardia, boils, and leeches, Zeppa felt herself growing into the vast spaces of simplicity that opened up beyond the clutter of modern life. Alongside her burgeoning enchantment, a parallel realization that all was not right in Shangri-La arose, especially after her transfer to a college campus charged with the politics of ethnic division. Still she maintained her center by devouring the library’s Buddhist tracts and persevering in an increasingly fruitful meditation practice. When the time came for her to leave, she had undergone a personal transformation and found herself caught between two worlds that were incompatible and mutually incomprehensible. Zeppa’s candid, witty account is a spiritual memoir, a travel diary, and, more than anything, a romance that retraces the vicissitudes of ineluctable passion. –Brian Bruya
Author: Russ Carpenter, Blyth Carpenter 
Folded road and travel map. Scale 1:380,000. Legend shows places to stay and places of interest, International/district boundaries, railways, passes, airports, bus stations, gas stations, camping sites, museums, Buddhist temples, Chortens (Buddist monuments), monasteries/churches, Dzongs (Fortress), nature reserves, national parks. Includes inset of Thimphu (national capital), Paro.
Discover Bhutan
