Flying to Lukla

Two weeks ago I flew out twice of Kathmandu with Agni Air, each time on a Dornier 9N-AHE. The first one landed back in Kathmandu while the second made the rather scary landing in Lukla. This morning I flew back from Lukla in one of those.


Considering that this happened 2 months ago, I was a little concerned, but aware that the authorities would probably be a little more cautious.

It's a tiny plane that takes about 14 people at one time. There's even a flight attendant onboard who gives out cotton balls (for your ears) and sweets.


It's great if you sit right in front, because you get to see everything in the cockpit.


I wasn't quite sure what the GPS was meant to show. I assumed it worked only because I survived all three flights.



I still got a kick out of the seat belt and no-smoking sign.

Dashain Tika

The nice thing about having a cancelled flight on bijaya dashami (the 10th day of the festival of Dashain, which was last Sunday) was that I was able to go to L. and S.'s house for dinner that night. Not too surprisingly, there was quite a bit of meat, but what I was really looking for was receiving tika.

Tika, also known as 'tilak' in India, is a mark - typically a red dot - placed on one's forehead and is meant to symbolise the 'third eye'. Unlike a bindi, a tika can be worn by men as well as women. Though primarily a Hindu practice, it has been widely adopted by Buddhists in this country. On bijaya dashami,  it is common practice for elders to give tika to their juniors.

The tika I received was made with a red paste - I'm not sure if it was sandalwood, or just clay (my olfactory senses are somewhat dampened when I'm in Kathmandu). In addition to the red paste, some leaves from a grass / herb / plant I did not recognise was placed behind my left ear. Finally, I was presented with a little envelope containing some money! Made it feel a little like Chinese New Year.

So yeah, best cancelled flight ever.

Guides and Porters

Last night, an English guy at my guest house here in Namche mentioned that despite his attempts at speaking Nepalese (sic) with people on the trekking routes, he found quite a number of guides quite unfriendly, especially if he wasn't part of that guide's group (and since he didn't have a guide). He said this unfriendliness, bordering on hostility, was much more evident in areas past Namche, but people further down in the Dudh Kosi valley were much friendlier.

I can't really say that has been my experience, although I've spent most of my time in Khumjung, where groups just tend to spend the day to acclimatise before heading back to Namche. I did notice one of two guides today on my walk to Thame were not particularly forthcoming with conversation at rest stops, but most of the guides (and porters) seemed quite keen to know where I was from and where I learnt Nepali. One porter even decided to lag behind his group to chat to me about his Bachelor degree in English Literature and Rural Development - we joked that trekking in Khumbu counted as 'homework' for his Rural Development course.

The guides also seemed more than happy to tell me which path to take and how long it would take to reach the next village each time I asked them. This was in stark contrast to the English guy's experience (he said that some guides refused to tell him if he was going in the right direction, since he wasn't part of their group). As I was having lunch in Thame, one guide even came up to me to chat about where he'd been - he'd taken three guests up to do the 'three passes', but two of them got sick along the way, so he was left with one trekker from New Zealand.

My feeling is that two things are at work here. First, as a 'Western' foreigner he is seen as having more money and not taking a porter or guide is viewed negatively. He mentioned in Tengboche, when the guy at the guest house asked him if he had a porter and he answered in the negative, the reply from the owner was 'typical'. For some reason, it seems more reasonable for me to be travelling alone, perhaps because I look more Nepali (?) and even though I could be some rich foreign Japanese / Korean / Chinese person, helping me out for nothing seems more reasonable because I look more like family to them.

The second thing is, and I didn't have the heart to tell the English guy, was that his Nepali was simply awful. He said he greeted people on the path with 'Namaste' (the ubiquitous 'hello'), followed by 'Kasto chha?' - a phrase Lonely Planet says means 'How are you', but one that I have rarely heard uttered to strangers. When he said the word for 'water', it sounded just like 'pony', not 'paani'. When he tried ordering in Nepali at the guest house, I had no idea what he was saying. Not that my Nepali is great, but at least I've had lessons and I've been able to hold conversations with people (even if it's only about where I'm from and what I do and where my family live and what they do...). I suppose when people hear him speak Nepali, they might just think 'why on earth doesn't he just speak English'. Again, being 'Western' usually entails a knowledge of English, whereas in my case, it's more acceptable for me to speak in broken Nepali because there's less expectation that I know English.

Just my two cents here.

Sherpa Evidentials

For the past week I've been here in the stunningly beautiful Khumbu (the region just south of Mount Everest), visting my friend Sara who's been doing her PhD research in the village of Khumjung (famous for its Hilary School and yeti scalp). I spent five nights in Khumjung and am now back in Namche Bazaar for another four, before heading back down to Lukla with Sara on Friday. Sara's went off to the Gokyo Valley on Saturday, while I stayed on so I could go to Tengboche on Sunday for the second last day of the Mani Rimbu festival where the monks wear masks and perform dances all day (but more on this later).

One of the other reasons I'm up here is to help a professor back in Melbourne with some Sherpa data. The first task is to collect (and transcribe -ugh) a story about a Jackal and Crow that she'd first heard years ago when she was writing her thesis on Sherpa. I've collected 6 stories so far, and barely transcribed one, with the help of one of the girls at the guest house I stayed at in Khumjung. Given my limited Nepali and even more limited Sherpa, the work is pretty slow-going and I will probably have to find some Sherpa speakers in Kathmandu when I get back to do at least one more transcription.

The second task is to look at evidentials in Sherpa. Like Tibetan, which it is closely related to, Sherpa requires the speaker to state how one knows a certain fact. For instance, in saying 'He is Sherpa', there are potentially three forms of the verb 'is' that can be used: one when it is a personal knowledge that he is Sherpa, one when it is a well known fact that he is Sherpa, and one when you are inferring he is Sherpa. Note that in English, it is just as possible to make these three distinctions by adding the phrases, "I know...", "it's  well-known fact that...", and "I think..." The difference is that in Sherpa you have to state how you know that fact.

These are three distinctions that are supposed to exist in Sherpa, as I have read in the small grammar section of the Sherpa-English dictionary. I don't dispute these distinctions, but anyone who has had to check these distinctions with native speakers of Tibetic languages can tell you what an absolute PAIN it is. It's never as simple as asking someone, "How do you say, 'He is Sherpa' in Sherpa?" Speakers invariably use the same evidential form in such translations - yin - but when I offer yinza and yinno' as alternatives, they tell me that both are acceptable too. Of course, few people can tell me when each one is used, and it would take hours of ploughing through recorded conversations or texts to actually work out when each form occurs (unless you happen to be a linguistically aware native speaker).

Then there's the linguistic obsession with paradigms. Anyone who's had to learn verb conjugations in an Indo-European language will have experienced this, systematically going  through verb forms like 'I am', 'You (singular) are', 'We are' etc, along with their question forms 'Am I?', 'Are you?', 'Are we?' etc.

The reality is that it is not always possible to get a full set of these forms. It is surprisingly difficult to get the form 'You are' in the affirmative, simply because it's rare to go up to someone and tell them who or what they are. It's far more common to have that as a question - 'Are you ...'. Conversely, it's nearly impossible to get the interrogative forms 'Am I?' and 'Are we?'. Speakers will tell me, 'No, no, that's not a question' and simply reject the fact that 'Am I?' or 'Are we?' can exist as questions. I suppose their reasoning is that you don't need to ask those questions to someone else when you're asking about something you're supposed to know about yourself.

Am I going slightly crazy? Yes, I suppose I am. Might go for a short trek tomorrow out of Namche to clear my head. It's one of the advantages of doing fieldwork in this part of the world. Photos will follow as soon as I get back to Kathmandu.

Take off take two

More than a week ago, on Sunday 17 October 2010 (or Ashwin 31, 2067 by the Nepali calendar), I had the priviledge of facing the crush at Kathmandu domestic terminal, getting on a plane, getting to the Himalayas, before being told that the flight would be turning back to Kathmandu.

The alternative would have been this. The landing at Lukla - my destination - is not the safest in the world. It's basically a runway facing a cliff. The weather had been bad all week and it was a small miracle that the weather cleared just enough for the two flights before mine to land.

I was quite glad that we turned back, though I can't speak for the French trio I met who'd also been on a flight that had been turned back the day before. I was also glad that the pilots / airline didn't feel the pressure to land the plane, given that out of the previous 7 days, 5 days' worth of flights to Lukla had been cancelled. An aviation catastrophe of another kind.

So I made my way back to the Kathmandu domestic terminal the next day. The ladies at the counter remembered me and since there was a free seat on the first flight of the day, that was the flight I got. I suppose it helps when you're 'that foreigner who speaks a little Nepali'. It also helps when you don't throw a tantrum at the check-in staff for not seeing your name on the list of 'confirmed seats', causing you to wait around for 1.5 hours until you get them to check the list again only to discover that hey, your name was on the list all along...

And yes, the plane landed in Lukla that day.

Leaving...?

I've got a flight from Kathmandu to Lukla in the Solu-Khumbu region (the Everest region) tomorrow to visit Sara. Never mind that it's bijaya dashami or the 'big day' (or more appropriately 'victory day'?) when families get together, businesses are mostly shut, and according to the people at my guesthouse, no taxis can be found on the roads of Kathmandu. Also never mind that the weather is meant to be absolutely shite tomorrow morning, meaning my flight might just get cancelled and I will have to find a non-existent taxi back from the airport to Pakanjol / Thamel!

Oh the joys of travel. At least if my flight gets cancelled, I have an invitation to a friend's house where I will get yummy food and receive tika. In any case, I'll see you all in two weeks!

Sacrifice

I suppose it was partly to satisfy my morbid curiosity that I decided to venture out early this morning (or as early as I could) to Kathmandu's Durbar Square. Along the way, I saw people carrying their roosters and ducks (usually held by the leg and hanging upside down) with them - a common sight over the past few days. I also saw a few headless goat carcasses being skinned close to a little roadside shrine to Durga that had been erected some days ago.

I quietly slipped into Durbar Square, playing with my mobile as I walked past the ticket office for foreigners and looking suitably disinterested in the festivities. Women were lining up outside a few smaller temples with puja plates in their hands. Families were lining up to worship / touch / rub their hands on other temples. But by far the longest line was to enter the Taleju Temple, which is only open once a year to the public.



Of course, the main reason I'd come was to watch the goats being sacrificed. I had expected a lot more temples to be covered in blood, and the thought even crossed my mind that the red brick used to construct many of them was appropriate.

Contrary to expectation, the sacrifices seemed limited to one area at Basantapur Chowk. When I first entered the square, I mistook the sound of the executioner's blade striking the ground for the firing of a bullet. There was already a crowd of people and while I didn't get a front row viewing spot, I was still able to use my camera and outstretched arm to record what was happening and to watch it again later.

The first animal I saw sacrificed was a buffalo, followed by a goat. After that I didn't stay much longer around the square. It wasn't that I was disturbed by the actual killing - in these better organised sacrifices, the method of execution was quick and clean (unlike home sacrifices that can be badly executed and extend the suffering of the animal). The stress of waiting to be killed while the priests do the blessings, could equally be likened to the stress of waiting while the animal in front of you is getting slaughtered at an abattoir (though never having been to an operational abattoir or having had the experience of being livestock, I really can't speak for the goats and buffaloes here). Anyway, while it wasn't enough to convert me to a life of vegetarianism, it was a good reminder of what happens before I select my meat at the butcher's or supermarket.

*WARNING*
Some readers may find the following image and videos disturbing.

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Inherent vowels in Nepali

People who are familiar with Indic writing systems will know that unlike in alphabetic writing systems (like the Latin alphabet we use in English), consonants in such scripts have an inherent vowel associated with them, e.g. in Hindi, क represents 'ka' (pronounced more like [kə] with a schwa), while कि represents 'ki' [kɪ] and के 'ke' [ke], with the vowel symbol replacing the inherent vowel of क. (It is is this replacing of the inherent vowel that separates such scripts from syllabaries such as Japanese hiragana.)


Having learnt some Hindi before attempting Nepali, I started by assuming the inherent vowel in Nepal was also pronounced as schwa [ə]. I quickly learnt from Lauren and from my own ears that it is not a schwa, but rather an open back vowel, closer to [ʌ] (like the vowel in 'hut'). This analysis was further substantiated by Khatiwada's 2009 phonological description of Nepali as part of the Journal of the International Phonetic Association (JIPA)'s Illustrations of the IPA series which gives /ʌ/ as the underlying vowel phoneme. (Incidentally, I'm waiting to hear back from them regarding an article draft I submitted a few months ago.) However, Lauren and I also noticed that this vowel could be pronounced with rounded lips [ɔ] (like the vowel in 'hot'). Khatiwada notes such variation for this particular vowel, along with other variants, depending on the speaker and surrounding consonants (basically, there's a whole lot of factors and it's too hard to tease out right now.)


It was therefore with some satisfaction that my Nepali tutor asked me yesterday to say 'dog', which I pronounce [dɔg], and 'duck' [dʌk] (the latter with an unreleased [k], but the vowels themselves distinctly different to me). She then asked me if they were pronounced the same, providing some evidence that to her ear, [ɔ] are [ʌ] are the same sound (or, allophones of the same phoneme).

Of course, for an English speaker such as myself, it's still quite annoying because since I hear the difference between the two vowels all the time, sometimes I just want to know which one I should use!

Cursing in Sherpa

Going through the recently published Sherpa-English dictionary looking for volitional / non-volitional verb sets before next week's trip to Khumbu / Everest region, I found this nice little curse in Sherpa:

རྨིག་དུང་རྐྱའུ།

(mīkdung gyau)

The translation: 'May you be buried in a hole!'

I suppose not all of us can get a decent sky burial.

On castrated and uncastrated goats

The story goes something like this:

Years ago, my professor's partner flew into Kathmandu to visit her. It was around the 9th day of Dashain. As he got off the plane, his first image was of a group of men furiously masturbating a goat, which they then proceeded to kill by slicing its head off, splattering its blood all over the plane.

Lauren recently told me this story about one of our professors - I assume it was just the wheels of the plane they splattered with blood.

Today, my Nepali teacher informed me, Hindus would start sacrificing animals as part of the Dashain festivities. This BBC article from 3 years ago talks about the cruelty of the practice. While goats are the most common offerings, other animals such as ducks, chickens, pigs and water buffaloes are also sacrificed. The most important thing is that all sacrificed animals be male and uncastrated (so hooray if you're an animal eunuch).

Male castrated goats are called खसी khasi in Nepali, while their uncastrated counterparts are called बोका boka. For a while, I assumed that castrated goats were the ones that were sacrificed, since young castrated male livestock grow to be bigger and yield more meat. However, I just learned today that khasi are the ones used for meat (which makes sense), while boka are reserved for sacrifice (although their meat is usually still eaten afterwards). Wikipedia tells me that castrated animals were excluded from sacrifice in ancient Judaism, as they were seen as being unwhole. I'm not sure if this is the same reason why Hindus here don't sacrifice castrated animals.

So what does this have to do with the men masturbating the poor goat? Nothing I assume, since even castrated goats can reach orgasm. But since appeasing Durga during Dashain is about maximum bloodletting, an excited goat is going to be pumping a lot more blood through its arteries than a calm relaxed one.

Oh, and here's the goat that was in the garden the other day. Haven't seen it since Tuesday...

Sundarijal

4 boys. 2 motorbikes. An afternoon at Sundarijal. What better way to spend a Sunday in the Kathmandu Valley (bearing in mind that Sunday isn't exactly a day off here, but Dashain holidays have started).



Sundarijal, meaning 'beautiful water' is about 15km northeast of Kathmandu and is one of the entry points for the Shivapuri National Park. It's meant to be incredibly rich in biodiversity, but I'm not going to talk about that, since my short visit late in the afternoon didn't allow me to see any first hand. Most travellers enter further to the west from Budhanilkantha, but my guides wanted to see the waterfalls and have a picnic at the reservoir further upstream (there's a reason why it's called 'beautiful water').





The area is also important because it provides water for people in the Kathmandu metropolitan area. Along the main hiking route is a large water pipe which carries water down to the valley. The sentry warned us not to swim in the river and reservoir, though the main reason for this wasn't to prevent water pollution but rather because most Nepalis (my friends included) can't swim.




Me with the guys, whom I dubbed the '3 Musketeers' (though they didn't mind the term '3 Idiots' after last year's smash Bollywood hit starring Aamir Khan.)

Walking uphill for 30 minutes was a good (if completely insufficient) warm-up for all the hiking I'll be doing once I land in Lukla this coming Sunday. The problem is, I've been in Kathmandu for two and a half weeks, leading a rather sedentary existence. I suppose I'll have 2 weeks up in the Khumbu region to get fit. And if not, I'll just hide out in Namche eating apple pie.

Kathmandu on a motorbike (II)

Yesterday, P. took me on a motorbike ride with two of his friends to Sundarijal, about 15km north-east of Kathmandu, but more on that later. Here're some pictures from the road.




Because there's not much else to do when you're waiting in traffic.


Kathmandu Ring Road, turning onto the road that leads to Boudhanath and Sundarijal beyond.


Note the old lady on the motorbike right in front of us. It's very common to see sari-wearing ladies sitting like this. Also, if you look closely at the truck on the right, you can see a man, legs stretched out, having a nap.


Our route

Dashain!

I don't know how I missed it, or rather the first day of it. I had it in my diary as starting this Thursday, and didn't think to question it. Not even when the BBC was reporting the start of Dashain as they covered the fact that Nepal still has no government. Or when S. said she didn't have school because of Dashain. Or when my Nepali teacher had to cut our class on Thursday short to rush off to the tax office to get her taxes done before the government offices closed for the holiday.

I just thought it was all part of the lead-up to the actual holiday. D'oh!

So Dashain (as usual, 'sh' is more often pronounced like 's') started on Friday (8 October) this year. It's a 15 day Hindu festival that celebrates Durga's defeat of the asura / demon Mahishasur who had made a deal with Brahma that no man or (male) god could defeat him. The battle raged for 10 days, during which Durga and the Mahishasur transformed themselves into various forms to defeat the other. Finally, on the last day, Durga lopped the head of Mahishasur who had transformed himself into a demon buffalo.


Me and Aung Si at the statue of Mahishasura at Chamundi Hill, Mysore (Jan 2009)


Statue of Mahishasura as the demon buffalo at Chamundi Hill, Mysore (Jan 2009)

The 10th day of Dashain is the considered the 'big day', where families gather together and elders give tika (coloured powder placed on one's forehead) to their juniors. Married women also go back to their home villages to take tika from their parents.

The days leading up to the 10th day are filled with animal (particularly goat, but also water buffalo) sacrifice. I'm watching a news report on TV right now with footage of a man leading a herd of goats, presumably towards Kathmandu for the big slaughter. Lauren and I might do what she and Sara did last year and just sacrifice a watermelon.

Since I had the dates wrong, I was under the assumption that I would be away during the big sacrifice / massacre. As it turns out, the sacrifices will be held mostly this Friday and Saturday, while I only fly off to Lukla on my way to visit Sara in the Everest region on Sunday morning.

One of the perks of Dashain (unless you count widespread bloodshed a perk) is that Kathmandu slowly empties itself as people go back to their home villages, especially for the 10th day. So as the week draws on, I'm expecting to see less traffic on the road and fewer people on the streets.

Nepali film देश (Desh)

Adding to my list of cultural activities here was a trip to the local cinema to watch a Nepali film. Of course, being in Kathmandu, 8am on a Saturday morning is a perfectly reasonable time to go to the cinema.

The film was called देश (desh) pronounced 'des' here and meaning 'country' - think of Bangladesh as being the 'land of the Banglas'. As expected, it was quite nationalistic in orientation. Lauren gives a much more detailed review of the film, although neither of us really managed to follow the film completely owing to our less than native Nepali language skills.





The film stars Rajesh Hamal, who I gather is to Nepali cinema what Shah Rukh Khan is to Bollywood (especially with regards to playing characters half their real ages). He plays a journalism student at a local university who ends up forming a political party and eventually dies (because of his beliefs?). Well I must admit I understood a tiny fraction of the dialogue, though the on-screen action made the plot somewhat easy to follow.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the cultural experience of being able to cheer with the audience when the hero does something great or jeer when the bad guy does something heinous. (Note: the bad guy in the film actually throws a grenade at a defenceless woman and her daughter while her brother (the protagonist) and son are walking off.) My mum talks about a time in Singapore when such banter / making comments during movies was the norm in cinemas - something she still continues to do even today, and one of the main reasons I don't watch movies with her.

The film ended on a rather sad note, with the protagonist getting shot, while the political party he's formed keeps moving on (literally, the procession keeps going while he lags behind and collapses). Still, at least his little nephew seems to take over the mantle by accepting the highly symbolic pen that was given to the protagonist when he was a boy. (Note: this same boy is earlier shown setting fire to and killing the man who had thrown the grenade at his mother and sister, with no apparent repercussions.)

It was also interesting to see the flow of people in and out of the cinema. People were arriving as later as an hour into the film, and whenever the cinema doors opened in the middle of the film, a flood of people would take the opportunity to walk out. I suppose it wasn't the plot that most people were interested in, but like myself, just the experience of being at the cinema.


Cinema goers spilling onto the street after the film

Language Development Centre

A few days ago I arranged to meet Reg Naylor, a British expatriate who's been doing development work in Nepal for years (courtesy of a contact of my friend Sara's). I caught a taxi out to the Summit Hotel in Patan where Reg kindly picked me up in a blue jeep and drove us to the Language Development Centre office, also in Patan.



As some of you may know, I'm looking at potential topics for a PhD in Linguistics. One of the main reasons I'm in Nepal is to look at ways of combining my linguistic training with development work. Of course, the aims of the two don't always overlap. Having finished the MA, I felt quite disillusioned that the work I had produced didn't seem to serve any other purpose apart from adding to a growing body of knowledge accessible only by a group of specialists. I don't think see anything wrong with people who aspire to do this sort of research, but I personally need to see my research produce something a little more concrete, and if I were to dive straight into a PhD in Linguistics, I think I would come out feeling the same lack of fulfillment as when I completed the Masters.

So I went to the LDC in the hopes of finding out more about the kind of projects they're involved in / have been involved in here in Nepal. It's been two days and I'm still processing some of what I've learnt. Reg had so many stories from projects he's been involved with, including dealing with the army, befriending Maoists, and most importantly empowering communities (and especially women) through mother tongue literacy programmes. He himself is not a linguist, and much of the work he's done does not necessarily require one to be a specialist. He is not sentimental about language death, believing that if speakers shift to another language they are generally able to create a new identity in that language. What he's interested in is development and improving lives. If developing a minority language helps in that process (and in most cases it does), then that's the strategy he'll take.


Reg, looking a little like Ian McKellan in this photo.

Over the next few days I'll try and post some of the stories he shared with me about how developing minority language literacy has improved the living standards of the communities the organisation has worked with.

Kathmandu on a motorbike (I)

A week ago I got my first taste of being on a motorbike in Kathmandu. No helmet, no protective gear. Just blind faith in P. my driver, who thankfully never went above 40 km/h, and in the other road users (particularly big truck drivers) who could slam into us from behind any time. Since I'm helping  P. with a dictionary project, I suppose it was in his best interests to keep me alive too...





It was pretty fun, if a little harrowing at the start. But it was a great relief to get out of the noise and dust of the city centre.



P. took me to a place out of town he liked. It's still a district of Kathmandu, but it felt a world away.





You might think me mad for sticking out my arm to take a video during the ride, but it had to be done.




On our way back I asked P. how many lessons he'd taken before getting his licence. (I also asked if many people just paid for their licences here.)

ZOMG, it's a new language!

In the past few days, articles have surfaced on news sites like CNN and Reuters regarding the discovery of a new language in NE India - specifically in Arunachal Pradesh, a region which China claims as part of its territory too.

The form of the articles seemed to follow the familiar structure used when talking about the discovery of a new species of animal (incidentally, close to 150 new species have been discovered in the Greater Mekong area).

Already knowing about the amount of diversity found among the world's languages and their plight, I couldn't help but find even the title a little sensationalist. Yeah sure, there's a new language, so what? Oh, it's on its way out? Again, what's new about that? It also didn't help that according to one language blog I follow:

The announcement this week of findings regarding a previously unknown language has shaken up the field of linguistics.

Seriously? I'm pretty sure the field of linguistics is already badly shaken by the current rate of language death on the planet. But this article appears to be from a non-journalist, simply commenting on the news reports.

Looking at the major articles again today, and couldn't really find the sensationalist element explicit in the writing. Beyond the title - the major role of which is to attract readership - the articles themselves present facts about the speakers, their living environment, the classification of the language in a non-gushing manner. The CNN article is also quick to point out that: "Like most languages, Koro is unwritten and transmitted orally" to readers who may not be aware that there are far more languages without a written tradition.

In contrast, the sensationalist elements in the articles, seem to come from the quotes from the linguists themselves. David Harrison says, "We didn't have to get far on our word list to realize it was extremely different in every possible way." He also writes that, "Koro could hardly sound more different from Aka." Finally, we have the statement: "Koro brings an entirely different perspective, history, mythology, technology and grammar to what was known before."

'Extremely different in every possible way'? 'Hardly sound more different'? 'Entirely different perspective'? What is this? If Koro was a language isolate spoken by a community completely isolated in a valley that had somehow been blocked off from the rest of civilisation thousands of years ago, then maybe. Heck, if it was an alien language from a different language I would embrace such hyperbole. But if it's one of the many Tibeto-Burman languages in the region facing extinction, then how could it be that different?

I could speculate on the reasons the team would say things like these - excitement at the serendipitous discovery of the language, garnering public support and maybe even funding? Maybe the whole 'novelty' of the language is how they're marketing the project, in addition to the sentimentality often associated with language documentation projects. I don't blame organisations like Enduring Voices for doing that - surely, funding is a main problem in this sort of work and part of a successful project is its ability to engage the (global) public and to spur its imagination.

Nepali government (Food sayings part 2)

So for the 10th time since June this year, Nepal still hasn't formed a government.

It reminded me of what L. said the other night:

दाल भात तरकारी जिउ मेरो सरकारी 

daal bhaat tarkaari, jio mero sarkaari

('lentil curry, rice and vegetables, my body my government')

At least you can always count on your daal bhaat to feed you.
(And for most people here, it's daal bhaat 2-3 times a day, everyday.)

And we were complaining about the lack of government in Australia for 2 weeks.

Out of Time

Nepal has to got to be in the weirdest time zone I know. Even weirder than Adelaide.

More importantly, I find it rather annoying that when setting one's time zone in online profiles (Blogger) included, Nepal's time zone isn't included. How often do you see (UTC+05:45) in a drop down menu anyway? So even though all my posts here are time-stamped according to standard India time, the time stamp is always 15 minutes late.

If only things in the subcontinent were that reliably behind schedule!

(But at least the time here makes sense when you consider when the sun rises and when it sets. When I was living in Xinjiang, most people observed Beijing time, but there was a local 'Xinjiang time' that was 2 hours behind. When I was in NE India, Delhi time was followed, even though the NE states are further east than Bangladesh, which is already half an hour ahead of Delhi.)

Food sayings

During dinner at L. and S.'s, L. shared a proverb / saying that according to him was popular with soldiers (he used to be in the army, though it's not clear to me which army):

दाल भात तरकारी जिउ मेरो सरकारी 

daal bhaat tarkaari, jio mero sarkaari

(which seems to translate into something like 'lentil curry, rice and vegetables, my body my government')

I'm not sure what it's supposed to mean exactly - apart from expressing one's love for (and loyalty towards) the dish.

The closest saying in another language I could think of comes from Russian (and this one was apparently also popular with soldiers and it rhymes as well):

щи да каша пиша наша

shchi da kasha pisha nasha

('Cabbage soup and buckwheat porridge, that's our fare')

दाल भात तरकारी (Daal Bhaat Tarkaari)

For maybe the 4th time (I'm losing track) in a week and a half, Lauren and I were treated to dinner at L. and S.'s house. As usual, the menu consisted of Nepal's 'national dish' - दाल भात तरकारी daal bhaat tarkaari (lentil curry, rice and vegetables), followed by the best दहि dahi (curd) I've ever had.

S. decided it was time I learned to be a good modern Nepali house husband and help with the preparation of dinner. So after Lauren and I broke up the सिमी simi (beans), I got to peel and chop the लसुन lasun (garlic), प्याज pyaaz (onion) and अदुवा aduwaa (ginger), as well as the गोलभेंडा golbhenDaa (tomatoes) and धनियँ dhaniyan (coriander).

After putting some तेल tel (oil) and खुर्सानी khursaani (chillis) in the wok (now the details start getting sketchy), the beans, onions, garlic, half of the ginger and some काउली kauli (cauliflower) were thrown in, along with some बेसार besaar (turmeric), and given a good stir before being covered. A few minutes later, the tomatoes and the rest of the ginger were thrown in with some जीरा jiraa (cumin). Afterwards, the wok was taken off the fire and the coriander finally added.

And since I was the Nepali house husband in training, I was given the honour of standing over the hot stove stirring the veggies.

Me and S.

S. making sure I didn't ruin dinner

Music video in the park

So while there's a Nepali rock music video being filmed at the guest house this afternoon, I caught the filming of another more Bollywood-esque music video at the amusement park (aka 'fun park') near the Ratna Park bus station more than a week ago, on my second day in Kathmandu.

Cyber ID

According to this article from the Nepal-based blog 'Weird and Funny World', cybercafes here are supposed to now check clients' ID before allowing them to surf the net. This practice is something I'm quite familiar with from my time in China and India (at least in Kolkata).

None of the cybercafes I've visited over the past few days have asked for my ID, and it's pretty clear that the free wifi offered by most of the cafes in Thamel aren't too fussed about who uses their wifi, provided they can afford the prices - Or2K doesn't even have a password for its wifi network!

Considering that a compulsory helmet law for motorbike riders had to be withdrawn recently because it was too hard to enforce, I wonder if the 'ID requirement' at cybercafes will stick here. I'm also sure there are better ways to track 'cyber-criminals' on the web than to work out which cybercafes they frequent.

The Odd Couple

I often count it as a blessing when I can blend in with the local population (like when I was in China and Nagaland), yet still assert my position as a tourist when I start to speak English. Earlier that day I had purposely taken to wearing shorts and thongs to make it clear I was a tourist, just to experience all the repeated offers for 'Taxi?', 'Trekking?', 'Hashish?' you get in Thamel that can drive many a foreigner insane (I do get asked if I want these sometimes - especially hash - though not to the extent that other foreigners seem to be hassled.)

However, last night as Lauren and I were walking back to the guest house, we were verbally abused in English by a crazy Nepali man. Most of the abuse was directed at me and it seemed he was most upset that I had taken a foreign wife!

Now, to set the scene, Lauren - with her less than diminutive stature, straw-coloured hair and blue eyes - was wearing her gorgeous new kurta sulwar, often a sign of a foreign woman who's gone local (not loca). And I was well, dressed in a T-shirt and pants with a sling pouch and apparently looking rather local in the semi-darkness of a dimly lit road just out of Thamel. It's not the first time we've been mistaken for 'husband and wife' - my appearance at the guest house a week ago raised many questions and I can only imagine how scandalous it must have been when I moved out of my first room (post-rodent event) to one right next to hers.

Lauren explained to me that unlike many parts of SE Asia where you often see young Asian girls hanging out  with older Caucasian men, the trend in Kathmandu appears to be for young Nepali guys to be with older Caucasian woman. Just the other night I'd seen a couple at Or2K (btw, the best Israeli cafe in town) who fit this exact description (and yes, the first label I had for the middle-aged woman was 'cougar').

So I guess you can see this rather 'emasculating' reason for the crazy man's rant. He clearly has great pride in his country, and his penis.

Street Art in Kathmandu (II)

Found a few of Invader's installations here in Kathmandu.

Here's one from the old town area.

Counting wives

The other day I had to catch a taxi out of town to a place called Thecho just to the south of Kathmandu.

The great thing about being in a taxi in Nepal is that I get to unleash my basic Nepali on the poor unsuspecting taxi driver. A situation where both parties are stuck in one-on-one situation for about 30-40 minutes tends to breed patience, at least for the duration of the taxi ride (one can also bond easily over stupid drivers on the road and complain about the amount of traffic and cows on the roads). But to my credit, after a week of 1 hour one-on-one classes I've actually gotten quite good at introducing myself, talking about where I'm from, where I live, how many people are in my family, where they live, what they do etc. I can also ask other people about these same things, though I may only understand 50% of what they tell me.

Now, one thing you should know about Nepali, is that it uses numeral classifiers, similar to languages like Mandarin and Malay, where you almost always have to introduce a numeral classifier before a numeral and the noun it modifies. For example, if you want to say 'two bags', you need to say दुइटा झोला (dui-Taa jholaa), where दुइ (dui) is 'two', झोला (jholaa) is 'bag' and टा (-Taa) is a reduced form of the classifier वटा (-waTaa) which can be used with almost all nouns (like 个 ge in Mandarin). For people however, the classifier ना (-janaa) is used, e.g. दुइजना मन्छे (dui-janaa manchhe) 'two people'. This is something that my Nepali teacher had insisted on.

It therefore struck me as odd when my taxi driver said दुइटा श्रीमती (dui-Taa shrimati), referring to his 'two wives'. Acknowledging that Nepali society can be rather sexist in its treatment of women - one particular example is the festival Teej, where women fast for their husbands' long lives (no festival where husbands do likewise for their wives exists) - I simply took for granted that the use of the 'demeaning' numeral classifier here was an example of culture and social cognition reflected in the language's grammar.

At supper last night, Lauren and I confirmed that both दुइजना (dui-janaa) and दुइटा (dui-Taa) were acceptable when counting wives. However, both were equally acceptable when counting husbands श्रीमन (shriman). This leads me to suspect that despite my teacher's insistence that ना (-janaa) be used with people, वटा (-waTaa) is the more general one, with ना (-janaa) used to denote additional respect for people and in particularly situations (like 位 wei in Mandarin).

So unfortunately, no, the driver saying दुइटा श्रीमती (dui-Taa shrimati) wasn't a clear example of grammar reflecting a condescending view of women. Of course, given that polyandry is not practised in Nepali culture, one would still not expect to hear दुइजना श्रीमन (dui-janaa shriman), let alone दुइटा श्रीमन (dui-Taa shriman) 'two husbands' here!