Mrs Thuji General Shop

This general shop is located in the middle of nowhere. However, it is a popular place, as it is also a bus stop. Right from the onset, I marveled at the setting. I felt like I was watching an opera. The villagers were the audience seated in their luxury boxes, the performing actors the two goats. The play could have been called “The Advent Calendar.”

God’s Rays

In Myanmar, parents want to give a good life and good education to their children. As life is truly harsh, they give their children up for adoption to monasteries, where they become monks. Their life then becomes dedicated to Buddhism with daily prayers, food gathering, and focus on respecting others. As an outsider, I felt that their life is like a Swiss clock, regulated, with a heart beat that never stops and never surprises. The murals were critically damaged during the 2016 earthquake. The Temple has been closed since.

Sherlay Lhamo - Bumpa Dema - Soman Tshoma - each 16 years old

Unlike monasteries for male monastics, which receive funding from the state or from private donors, nunneries in Bhutan receive very little support. Nearly all of Bhutan’s rural nunneries have poor living conditions and lack conducive learning environments. In 2009, the Bhutan Nuns Foundation (BNF) was founded because the living circumstances were in dire need of improvement.

Miao Ethnic Minority Festival Costumes

Miao festival clothes are appealing not only because of their unique styles and craftsmanship, but also because they reveal the rich Miao culture and its long history. Making a set of traditional Miao clothes can take a Miao woman 1-2 years. Without written script, Miao people have used their costumes to record their history. Different patterns and designs on the clothes retain rich meaning and refer to legendary stories about such things as their origins, wars, and religious beliefs.

School children

Gross National Happiness can’t be taught; it just exists as the core value of the people. These young girls were thrilled to display their joy of being. The scene became even more meaningful as I was witnessing the interaction between them. The older girls acted as pillars to the younger girls, not just physically by also spiritually.

Praying Monk

According to legend, when the lamas assembled in about 1549 to select a site for a monastery, a big white bird rose suddenly in the air and settled on a spur of a hill. This was interpreted as an important omen, and the hill was chosen as the site for a monastery and for Jakar Dzong, which roughly translates as “castle of the white bird.”

Farmer

Agriculture is the main industry in Myanmar, accounting for 60 percent of the GDP and employing some 65 percent of the labor force. Myanmar was once Asia’s largest exporter of rice but lost its position to India and now is ranked at #10. Myanmar’s agriculture has suffered from decades of neglect and lack of new techniques. They are still trying to implement techniques like GMO [Genetically Modified Organisms] without much success as farmers operate with traditional equipment in a labor-intensive setting.

Roadside Workers

They work six days per week; many of them are immigrants from India. The Bhutanese government hires them because they are dedicated to building the best roads. They live in mobile shacks, made of tin, with few to zero amenities. Families growing up on the side of the road are proud and grateful they have food. Their bonds are unbreakable.

Candle-lit Monk

Candlelight is an important element of rituals in all cultures and festivals around the world. In every culture light triumphs over darkness, and inspires miracles and hope. Candle lighting is a time of healing, reflection, contemplation, and meditation. The shrine next to the monastery contains hundreds of Buddha statues in red robes placed in niches along the walls of the corridors. Lighted with numerous candles, the shrine offers a holy atmosphere for the meditation activity of the monks.

Traditional Roof

Despite China’s economic boom over the past decade, rural life has changed little in remote villages, except for the weather. In coastal China, stronger and unpredictable winds are damaging dwellings. Villagers are loading their roofs with rocks, held with cement. Even though the pitch of the roof is an optical illusion, their worries are real, and they feel almost helpless in the wake of this climate change.

Karmathaksun Dechencholing Private Monastery

I am the only Westerner who has had the honor to sleep inside this private monastery. It was fate. On my return flight from a previous trip, I sat next to a known Buddhist painter, Mr. Nima Dorji, who had been commissioned to paint this monastery with his dad. To my delight, he offered to become my guide on subsequent trips. It not only gave me special access to the place, but also the opportunity to witness how Nima paints personal and spiritual stories.

Morning Ritual

Rain or shine, the monks gather on the main square to start the day with meditation. The combination of the celestial sky, the light in the monastery, and the dedication of the monks was mesmerizing. The silence was powerful. Monks of the Buddhist religion practice meditation for enlightenment through inner awareness and experience, with the hope of helping others and understanding the “true nature of our lives.”

School Kitchen

Food is basic: rice, spicy peppers, beans. But the kitchen staff take their role very seriously to feed hundreds of students every day. Kitchen tools are almost nonexistent. Cooking is done on open fire; large pots are carried by hand to the dining area. After the meal, students are responsible for cleaning their plates. To the delight of the students, the same tasks are repeated daily, no rain check.

Monks Reading Books

In 2016 Myanmar was hit by a magnitude 6.9 earthquake. Many temples were severely damaged, revoking access for monks to their daily prayers. This Pagoda, the home of the Shinbintharlyaung Reclining Buddha, was eventually restored. New rules were implemented with limited schedules for visitation, restricted access, and no use of candle light in order to preserve the remaining inscriptions on the walls.

Yeewong Dorji Selden at the School Kitchen - Preschooler

Yeewong Dorji Selden is the daughter of the school superintendent. She is one of 15 preschoolers in the town. Even at her young age, 5 years old, she has already learned the etiquette of cleaning her dishes after lunch. Such a simple task made for a magical moment, when combined with the elements of water, light, harmony, abundance, and happiness.

Farmers with Water Buffalo

Agriculture is a vital industry in China, employing over 300 million farmers. The government prides itself in providing food, shelter, and a good life to all its citizens. However, the reality is grim, as the younger generation would rather work in a factory then tend the land. Nevertheless, the elders work to keep the traditions alive.

Mother and Daughter

Until very recently, Merak, a village in Eastern Bhutan, was accessible only by foot. Villagers were totally self-sufficient and on rare occasions made the one-day walk to the nearest market. Construction of a private road has made their life easier and brought teachers to the village. Merak Villagers are easily recognizable as they wear unique cloth and hats, all handmade from material of the region. There is no crime, kids are safe. This is life at its purest.

Chinese Chess Players and Hairdresser

This was a typical day: Older people went to the fields to tend to the crops, younger people headed off to the city to work, and children went to school. The old men gathered in the center of the village for endless retellings of fighting the Japanese and to watch or play games of Chinese chess. Nothing felt out of place.

Road Workers

Bhutan hires thousands of Indian workers to build their infrastructure. The terrain is treacherous and most machinery cannot gain access. Dynamite is used to bring down the side of the hill and human hands are the final steps to make these hills drivable. The workers have very little but they have each other, food, and housing on the side of the road. It is hard to imagine the living condition they left behind.

Mother and Daughter Harvesting Buckwheat

Harvesting paddy is not just about cutting ripened stalks and shaking off the grain. Besides the long hours of back - breaking manual work in the sun there is a particular tradition, built through the ages on myth and belief, to reap what is sown. Buckwheat crops, once the staple food was replaced by the cultivation of potatoes, which brought more profit. Today, the trend is reversing, as buckwheat is gaining popularity due to its medicinal value.

Aum Tshering

Textile experts widely acknowledge Bhutanese weaving to be among the most sophisticated and time-consuming in the world. Over half of Bhutan’s population is involved in weaving. Bhutanese women continue to pass down weaving techniques through oral tradition. However, the art is still at risk of disappearing in the shadow of urbanization and importation of cheaper commodities. In Bhutan, weaving is not merely a skill, it is a ritual of love that comes from the heart.

Tenzin Dorji - Rinchen Khando

When I first saw these two teenagers, I was captured by their look, their confidence. While Tenzin is not in school and Rinchen is in primary school, they are still friends. They were quiet and unassuming. I followed them around and the path they took revealed much about who they were, their living condition, and the lack of family support. Even on the happiest place on earth, alcoholism is an issue that can’t be taken lightly.