tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5994696273542901992026-09-05T19:47:50.087+08:00 - of places, people and perspectivesNgawang Phuntshohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08309983746129370511noreply@blogger.comBlogger352125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-599469627354290199.post-36261194020791795332026-09-04T15:40:44.091+08:002026-09-05T19:47:50.087+08:00

This is something I wanted to write about for a while. One of the common complaints about generative AI is that everyone suddenly has access to a tool that helps them write in flawless English, or for that matter, in any of the many languages AI works with. People who once struggled to put together a proper email, letter or article are suddenly producing perfectly readable prose. I do not see

Ngawang Phuntshohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08309983746129370511noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-599469627354290199.post-34226809368960741212026-08-25T17:01:47.314+08:002026-08-26T00:21:01.192+08:00

Back when I was a student in a remote school in Bhutan, English textbooks were not always easy to understand. English was a foreign language to us, and our comprehension was limited. A difficult poem remained difficult, while a complicated story sometimes became even more complicated after we had read it.Then, sometime during junior high school, I came across Ramji Lall. More precisely, I came

Ngawang Phuntshohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08309983746129370511noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-599469627354290199.post-90917276749503359732026-08-22T15:23:10.364+08:002026-08-22T15:27:11.035+08:00

Most people who have visited Bhutan before often tell me that the country felt different from anywhere else, they had travelled in Asia, and they usually cannot explain why until they have been here a few days. The pace is different. So are the customs. And honestly, very little here works quite the way you expect it to. If this is your first trip, here is what I would tell you over tea

Ngawang Phuntshohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08309983746129370511noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-599469627354290199.post-82812411764316374622026-08-16T17:49:31.661+08:002026-08-16T17:52:51.855+08:00

Some memories refuse to fade. Three of us had been assigned a task. While the teacher was giving instructions to other students, we began walking towards the place where we had been told to go. He suddenly called us back. We had no idea what we had done wrong.My friend went first. The teacher took a bamboo stick and struck his open palm three times. Hard. Then came my turn. I stretched out

Ngawang Phuntshohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08309983746129370511noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-599469627354290199.post-31695214288930127692026-07-10T10:15:40.250+08:002026-07-12T09:19:57.071+08:00

Photo copyright: ShejunThere was a time when almost every village had a water mill, known locally as a Chuti, and the place was called Chuti-Gang. If you stood nearby, you would hear rushing water, the steady rumble of stone grinding grain, and the voices of people waiting for their turn. Today, those sounds are rarely heard. When I was growing up, villagers carried sacks of maize or

Ngawang Phuntshohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08309983746129370511noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-599469627354290199.post-5456260935874412482026-06-03T15:40:32.261+08:002026-06-03T15:45:34.008+08:00

Growing up in rural Bhutan, the richest people in the village often had very little cash. They were known as chukpo, 'the ones with cattle'. And no one asked how much money a person had in the bank. No one or only a countable few had bank accounts, anyway. Wealth was measured in fields, cattle, grains, and the ability to carry a family through the seasons. Cash existed, but it played only a

Ngawang Phuntshohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08309983746129370511noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-599469627354290199.post-26699107341122268102026-05-22T16:57:16.507+08:002026-05-23T14:03:12.891+08:00

Living away from Bhutan reveals who we are in unexpected ways. Here in Perth, we often notice this in ordinary conversations. When someone learns that we are Bhutanese, her face brightens.  Almost every time, they mention a Bhutanese they know. “They are kind, respectful, hardworking people.” Those few words always stay with us.Even far from home, Bhutanese continue to live the values

Ngawang Phuntshohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08309983746129370511noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-599469627354290199.post-82816299934796154212026-05-14T12:06:19.639+08:002026-05-14T12:06:19.639+08:00

Bhutan's ongoing textbook delays have exposed something larger than a temporary printing problem. They have revealed a growing mismatch between a modern curriculum and an old delivery system.  This year, Classes IX and XI began learning under the new Cambridge-aligned curriculum. Yet many students started the academic year without printed textbooks. Schools relied on soft copies,

Ngawang Phuntshohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08309983746129370511noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-599469627354290199.post-3087202740871042682026-04-25T09:58:00.001+08:002026-04-25T09:58:42.979+08:00

On quiet mornings, over coffee, certain thoughts return with unusual clarity. One of them is relationships. Among Bhutanese who move to Australia for study, work, and a better future, I have often noticed two very different stories unfolding inside relationships. Both begin with hope. Both begin with sacrifice. But they do not always end in the same place. Migration changes many things. We speak

Ngawang Phuntshohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08309983746129370511noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-599469627354290199.post-62871832551880867842025-10-03T14:54:00.011+08:002025-10-03T14:56:15.914+08:00

When I first came to Perth, I did not notice much grey in my hair. Maybe a strand here or there, but nothing to worry about. A year later, things changed. My hair started turning grey in a way I could not ignore. Some friends told me it was stress. Moving to a new country, starting over, learning to build a life from the ground up. Stress can show up in strange ways, they said. I nodded, but I

Ngawang Phuntshohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08309983746129370511noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-599469627354290199.post-68481576094676633122025-09-30T12:50:00.000+08:002025-09-30T12:50:39.202+08:00

Some of my friends still update their blogs, though less often than they once did. I stepped away from mine for a long stretch, (lost a year or two in between) despite how much I valued it. That absence feels like a loss. And it is.  The shift is easy to explain. This is the age of social media and vlogging, where video dominates attention. Readers, even those who could easily turn to text,

Ngawang Phuntshohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08309983746129370511noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-599469627354290199.post-19583600673274187112023-06-10T16:55:00.002+08:002023-06-10T16:55:43.108+08:00

A sense of place is a feeling that makes one feel at home and thereby at peace whenever he or she is in a particular area or think of one. It is the first impression or a deep sense of recognition that is deeply rooted in our memories. It is a feeling of happiness, and a sense of safety, an expression of endearment toward a particular place (Cross 2001). Before I travelled to Perth for my

Ngawang Phuntshohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08309983746129370511noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-599469627354290199.post-56644905057261301382023-06-10T16:27:00.000+08:002023-06-10T16:27:15.640+08:00

In our everyday conversation, we refer to something or someone as ‘resilient’ if that entity rises above hardships, struggles, and setbacks and succeeds. Resilience, in this sense, denotes the ability of a person or objects to handle difficult situations. This short account describes what a resilient community would look like and discusses some of its features. Walker and Salt (2012)&

Ngawang Phuntshohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08309983746129370511noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-599469627354290199.post-64072045232836775412021-05-08T21:54:00.002+08:002021-05-08T21:54:18.339+08:00

System is a collection of interrelated elements that create one complete and unified whole. All components within it constantly interact with each other to achieve a specific purpose. For example, a car is a highly sophisticated form of a system. Hundreds of different parts work together to make it move in the desired direction, and even if a small part is missing, the car will fail to run.&

Ngawang Phuntshohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08309983746129370511noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-599469627354290199.post-76481400804216764052021-05-08T21:39:00.003+08:002021-05-08T22:02:19.744+08:00

My major project (in one of the units) focused on the growing per capita solid waste in Bhutan’s capital city. I wanted to show how there is more to what we observe in the solid waste management issue than meets the eye. Looking at the issue through the system thinking lenses reveals various underlying factors that contribute to the problem. System thinking provides an overall perspective of what

Ngawang Phuntshohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08309983746129370511noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-599469627354290199.post-47454220898089977102021-05-08T21:33:00.005+08:002021-05-08T22:11:02.640+08:00

What is nyak?Nyak is a cultural construct prevalent in many parts of Bhutan, especially in eastern and central Bhutan. It is never easy to describe for many things go with this. It is a subtle act of refusing when someone offers us something to eat or drink. Our first reaction (as our norm would have it) is to impulsively refuse and say ‘no, no, it is okay, I just had something', etc., even

Ngawang Phuntshohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08309983746129370511noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-599469627354290199.post-48657879388396300922020-07-10T15:41:00.001+08:002020-07-10T15:41:22.292+08:00

 That in the end is what we make out of it. After all, a block is something everyone suffers once in a while, but they have overcome it by doing more and more regularly.Such is the power of practice – you can already feel it coming back. Such is the power of consistency - imagine how much better it would come out if we do it on a more regular basis.  I am a firm believer that we

Ngawang Phuntshohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08309983746129370511noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-599469627354290199.post-38751147843135343322020-07-10T15:21:00.002+08:002020-07-10T15:21:45.191+08:00

I admire people who have it in themselves and who can really touch their readers with their expressions and words. Such people need to keep up the habit and hone it further. And Bhutanese are good at expressing themselves. That's a rare skill. We must encourage our young ones to follow. There are also many Bhutanese who can debate at length with words and expressions. There are many who

Ngawang Phuntshohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08309983746129370511noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-599469627354290199.post-3145105535198090792019-08-11T19:33:00.001+08:002019-08-11T20:09:45.573+08:00

The Ministry of Education discovered 890 'underage' children admitted in schools across the country in 2019. Thus, the ministry in May 2019 issued a notification revoking the admission for these children. Majority were in urban centres.  Desperate, parents and the affected schools requested the government to intervene. They also requested the government to consider

Ngawang Phuntshohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08309983746129370511noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-599469627354290199.post-55441858657452304112018-10-30T19:13:00.002+08:002018-10-30T19:17:03.557+08:00

This feels like ages since I last posted anything here. That shows how inactive I have become on my blog. It is such a pain to let it go empty, day after day. And I am sure that all bloggers share the same sentiments. I have attempted to blog about something for a long time now, only to find myself failing to do so. Maybe that is my laziness. But sometimes, there is nothing new or

Ngawang Phuntshohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08309983746129370511noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-599469627354290199.post-46098735530153385982018-08-01T18:28:00.001+08:002018-08-01T18:42:44.873+08:00

Like all grandparents, my late grandma would call food 'tsampa rimpoche' and any fuss made about it would invite everyone's sneer and scoldings. Food is always treated with respect and is never wasted. "If you waste food in any manner," she would admonish us. "One day food will discard you and you will go hungry."  What remained from the previous meal would be

Ngawang Phuntshohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08309983746129370511noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-599469627354290199.post-44476882553155249472018-06-26T12:31:00.003+08:002018-06-26T13:49:51.674+08:00

When we were growing up in a small village in the central Bhutan, we would gather around our grandparents every evening in a room that would be dimly lit with a kerosene lamp. Our grandparents or the elderly members of the family would then take turns to entertain us (siblings and cousins who lived under the same roof) with their stories. Such was the only form of entertainment we had had

Ngawang Phuntshohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08309983746129370511noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-599469627354290199.post-89327253721462567512018-05-25T18:25:00.001+08:002018-05-25T18:30:03.931+08:00

This Bhutanese month (May 16 - June 13) is observed as Saga-Dawa, a holy month in the country. It is popularly or infamousely known as the time when the sale of meat items is banned in Bhutan. And it's also an opportunity for us to put a light brake on our mighty meaty appetites. Consequently, restaurants are encouraged to serve their customers rich vegetarian meals during the period. Similar

Ngawang Phuntshohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08309983746129370511noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-599469627354290199.post-36852620409544750962018-05-18T19:12:00.001+08:002018-05-18T19:25:05.752+08:00

Last few months have been a real test of patience and humility for many residents of Motithang in Thimphu as they struggled with limited or no water. Some tenants were seen carrying water in various jerrycans from the neighboring apartments. Our people are helpful that way. Some tenants had to keep their big buckets and cans outside to collect rainwater for all their bathroom needs. Most

Ngawang Phuntshohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08309983746129370511noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-599469627354290199.post-47079636550958581062018-05-16T17:24:00.003+08:002018-05-16T17:58:52.586+08:00

Reports show that about 58% of Bhutanese are involved in agriculture, but the sector contributes only about 14% to our Gross Domestic Product. According to Bhutan Trade Statistics, 2017, Bhutan imports vegetables worth Nu. 3,823,879,525 (US$ 58,828,916) and rice worth Nu. 1,979,747,923 (US$ 30,457,660). Isn't that a lot to chew? We are not even talking of other food items here. 

Ngawang Phuntshohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08309983746129370511noreply@blogger.com2