National 7 (Spotlight Weekly)

Between Buddhist Traditions And Cyber-surfing

By KURT LUGER

Only a few years ago, a "mail runner" would set off every day from Namche Bazaar, the main market town of the Everest area. In his bag he would carry letters from members of the local Sherpa population and postcards from the occasional tourist, for delivery to the next plane from the tiny airstrip further down. The day after, he would return to Namche with mail for the villagers and the latest gossip from Kathmandu.

Beacon of hope and dreams?

Back in the 1980s, Sagarmatha (Mt Everest) National Park gleamed as a beacon of hope for a few thousand mountaineers and trekkers, Westerners who were also ensnared by dreams of "the simple life" in the shadow of the world's highest mountain. Each year more than 20,000 tourists are now drawn to this fabled beacon of hope and happiness. What do they find? Well, today the Khumbu sub-district now boasts some 120 telephone lines and 20 satellite dishes. In four Sherpa hotels and three cyber cafZs, brand-new computers let the "Kids of Khumbu" keep in touch with their pals in Australia, America and Europe by e-mail. A micro-hydropower plant, built with Austrian assistance, supplies villages with the electricity needed for cyber-surfing - as well as for heating water so that tourists can take hot showers with a clear conscience. Only five years ago, hot showers meant using precious firewood.

And what of that world without tourists, where divine ordinance reigned supreme and the cycle of the seasons determined the rhythms of man? This is a world known to today's young Sherpas only through fireside tales. With the advent of electricity and tourism, the villages of the Sherpa country have changed. Especially, the children of the pioneers of tourism are glad to be linked with the modern world.

Until now, the problems of mountain populations have been discussed in terms of ecological and economic perspectives. But how do cultures change? How are the lives and perspectives of young people affected? These are among the questions asked by a recently published study† carried out among Sherpa youth in Kathmandu and in the Sagarmatha National Park region, an area where tourism has played a central role. This study also draws comparisons with the situation of the youth in another high mountain region, the Austrian Alps.

From the potato patch to the tourist trade

At about the same time the tourist boom in the Alps of Europe was becoming a major factor in economic calculations and modernization, the conquest of far-off peaks in the Himalayas was getting under way. The 1950s saw the first ascents of most of Nepal's 8,000-meter giants, soon to be followed by trekking tourism, initially on a modest scale. It was the Sherpa people who benefited most. Working for Western expeditions, they soon gained world renown as the "Tigers of the Snow". Without the assistance rendered by Sherpa guides and staff, many a Himalayan peak would have remained unconquered. However, there was also a high price to pay: numerous Sherpas met an early death on the highest mountains in the world.

By a quirk of history, the tourist boom came at just the right time: The Chinese annexation of Tibet put an end to an important source of income for the Sherpa people - the age-old North/South trade over the high passes. From now on, the Sherpas would focus on tourism, in addition to yak husbandry and growing potatoes. In 1976 the entire northern Khumbu region was declared a national park, rapidly becoming the second-most important trekking destination in Nepal. Since then, the lives of the people have followed the rhythms of the tourist more than those of the seasons and religious festivals, although the latter have become a part of the "tourist package" as long as they fall comfortably within the time constraints of the peak trekking seasons.

Where are the jobs?

Outside of the tourist industry, however, there are scant prospects for the youth of Khumbu. The sole exceptions are a few jobs in the service sector ñ in health, security services, national park administration, etc. Young Sherpas who leave their villages to try their luck in the city or abroad, return home only to take over the lodge run by their parents - if there is any. For Sherpa youth growing up in Kathmandu, the villages have nothing to offer, neither in terms of jobs nor the comfortable standard of urban living. This is less of a problem for girls, as not so many go to the city in the first place. Sherpa girls are far less caught up in the process of modernization. They are brought up in the traditional ways, have less contact with foreigners and rarely complete higher education.

Until the 1950s, the Everest area was predominantly an agrarian economy. Even today, almost every Khumbu household has its own fields and domestic animals. With the advent of tourism, however, a mixed economic structure has emerged, increasingly characterized by the dynamic growth of the service sector and by a culture that has distanced itself from the traditional while embracing the new with open arms.

Sherpa youth are no strangers to mobility and migration. At an early age they travel many a mile to and from primary school - on foot. Continuing their studies means going to Kathmandu or another city, where they live far from their homes, parents, childhood friends — and their culture. Nor do they return. There are no jobs in Khumbu where high school or university graduates can put their many years of schooling to use.

This exodus of basically home-loving young people represents a considerable loss. Khumbu lacks highly qualified people, youth who will settle down in their villages, take on responsibilities and become involved in political decisions and developmental processes. For the young people of Khumbu, Shangri-La lies in the far-off West. One of three boys will use his contacts with tourists or other sponsors to go abroad, whether for work or studies.

Status symbol and Schooling

As in the Alps, the children of hotel owners can more easily afford a Westernized lifestyle of enjoyment than those whose parents have other, more incidental, work in the tourist industry. Especially important to the "lodge owner kids" of Namche is a trip to the USA, †the ultimate in status symbols. By contrast, in comparable mountain areas in the Alps, what the young people dream of is the newest fashion, a sports car, exotic holiday destinations, trendy sports and the latest in the media sector. While these signs of the times may apply to a certain extent to well-off Sherpa youth in Kathmandu, it is definitely not the case in the Everest area. Status is not to be gained by wearing the "right" kind of T-shirt, because Nepal is flooded with pirate versions of designer clothes and expensive trademark goods. What still count in the Sherpa world - also among young people - are social rank, age and standing in the local community. Status is not achieved primarily through the insignia of consumer society. On the other hand, these are more important than they used to be. For example, the host who serves foreign whisky at a party is making a significant statement of his wealth.

Blue jeans have long since replaced traditional Sherpa costume, but it is only five years since electricity came to the area. Satellite TV has recently come to some Sherpa households, linking them up with the global culture industry. As yet, the media seem to have had relatively little impact on Khumbu, but there can be no doubt that they do bring new ideas into a local culture. In this way, they alter the software of that society, and the influence of Western culture grows stronger.

This kind of cultural change would not be possible without the trend-setters and opinion-makers - in the Sherpasí case, usually young adults who commute between the towns and Khumbu, bringing to their villages urban lifestyles. These trend-setters come primarily from the ranks of the well-educated. Whereas Austria can look back on some 250 years of compulsory education, it was not until the early 1960s that Sir Edmund Hillary and his "Schoolhouse in the Clouds" project built the first Sherpa schools. Todayís 50-year-olds belong to the first generation of Sherpas to have formal schooling. Their contribution to cultural change is a considerable one. Ang Rita, among the first to graduate from the Hillary school, recalls how his father saw the school as a rival to his sonís work at home and in the field. "It is not necessary to learn everything, two years are enough," was the feeling back then.

Today, schooling is seen as valuable. Being "modern" is what counts, and for that, you need a good education. Young Sherpas tend to look down on the older generation who cannot read or write, considering them to be backward and superstitious. Indeed, even among some of the older generation who have profited from recent changes, considerable skepticism remains to the value of formal schooling, and new technology and new ideas - especially concerning the role of women.

The young Sherpa women of today complain that they are brought up in a far more conservative way than their brothers. They have no desire to be groomed for household tasks while the boys enjoy their freedom or even travel abroad. It has always been the Sherpanis - the girls and women - who have been the preserving element in Sherpa culture, guaranteeing continuity and stability in the absence of their menfolk. This has in turn ensured the women a natural position in traditional society. The socialization of the young women of Kumbu has followed from this, with the women naturally assuming responsibility for maintaining and further developing the Sherpa culture. Today, however, Sherpa girls growing up in, say, Kathmandu, are no longer willing to accept this role so automatically. In many families, it is first and foremost between mothers and daughters that the generation gap is evident.

Promoting more open life-styles

Sherpa youth arrange their own parties — called changdung - which give them the opportunity for informal enjoyment as well as the chance of initial contacts with the opposite sex. These changdungs can be seen as comparable to the discos of rural Alpine areas of Europe - they too provide a space away from the control of adults, where social norms and values are not so strictly enforced.

Over the past three decades, many Sherpa families have moved to Kathmandu. The younger generation learn Nepali and English at school, but not their own Sherpa tongue, which is related to Tibetan and thus very different from the Indo-European Nepali or English languages. Some of today's educated youth feel that the disappearance of the Sherpa language presages jeopardy for the Sherpa culture and ethnic identity. In Kathmandu, Sherpa cultural societies have been formed, where the young people can learn the ancient traditional dances and songs — an attempt to keep the coals glowing that can feed the fire of a living culture. But such efforts cannot halt the processes of change that have been transforming life in the high mountains, whether in the Himalayas or in the Alps of Europe. The old, accustomed ways that used to provide security and order are increasingly dismissed as backward and old-fashioned, whereas the new, the attractive and uncertain can provide no firm alternative. For Sherpa youth, one solace is sought in Buddhism. Far more than the case with Catholicism in the Austrian Alps, young Sherpas are drawn to their traditional faith.

Today's youth have to make their lifestyles more flexible to accommodate the increasing pace of change which even bypasses some stages of technological development. In Sherpa-Nepal as in the Alps, young people are breathlessly trying to form their own identities, integrating what appeals to them in their efforts to become modern mountain people. Thus develop new lifestyles within larger hybrid cultures, which could never serve as static structures. Throughout the mountain valleys of the world, traditional lifestyles that may appear as bulwarks of divine and natural order have long been undergoing modifications, becoming more transparent and integrating new elements into their fabric. What is different about recent developments is the incredible speed of change. This is forcing mountain youth to make lasting adaptations if their lives are to retain form and meaning.

(The writer is professor of Intercultural Communication and Tourism at the University of Salzburg, Austria)