Sunday, August 12, 2012

Modern Way of Life


Modern Way of Life

By: Dawa Dema, B.A. Eco/EVS, Sherubtse College.
Lobzang Basil Dawa, B.Sc. Life Science, Sherubtse College.

Bhutan is a small unique country nestled in the Himalayan mountain range with protective culture and tradition base on customary rule, norms and a rich religious heritage of Mahayana. As Rinchen said “The small, fragile and heterogeneous society with a varied culture is not strong enough to sustain itself–especially when the floods of modernization and Westernization seep through, attempting to forge our culture.” The traditional culture could no longer remain protected ever since June 1999, when Bhutan became last nation to turn on the television and internet communication (Clark & Levy, 2003). This happened with the aim for globalization, eventually leading to modern way of life under misconception of ‘globalization’ with ‘modernization’, ‘Westernization’, and ‘Americanization’ in accordance to Rose (2005). Modern way of life is much concerned with technologies and science. Thus it is referred to the Western culture as it is the most suitable model for modernization with access to science and technologies. This modern way of life with advent scientific technology and modern media of western mode of comfort had made the traditional way of Bhutanese life a myth to the present generation. This depicts insecure future for Bhutan. Therefore Bhutanese face far greater and unavoidable risks such as cultural domination, rise in crime wave, mental stress, and weakening of family bond unlike in the past despite few advantages.
  
The Bhutanese face risk of culture domination at greater extend due to modern way of life. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) state that “culture is the whole complex of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional features that characterize a society or social group. It includes; modes of life, the fundamental rights of the human being, value systems, traditions and beliefs” (2002). Due to interaction of cultures there is an inevitable exchange of ideas, values, rituals, and commodities. In the current world, in the name of culture exchange, culture domination occurs due to more extensive abandonment of local tradition and value, and the wholesale adoption of western culture. At present in Bhutan we can no longer see children and young ones gathered around their family elders listening to stories and fables or see elders chanting prayers rather we see that the chat topics ruling the conversations of women in most of the places are about those characters in television serials. Youth are ashamed of singing and dancing traditional song- zhungdra instead they like singing like western pop singers. If one visits Thimphu, Bhutan’s capital city, along the streets or around the city, almost all the youths are dressed in western fashion, with boys in low-slung jeans and trucker caps, and girls in short skirts and high heels. The only youths you will see in the traditional garb of gho for boys and kira for girls are students still in uniform. The prominent pastime games about one and a half decades ago were Khuru, Dego, archery and Sogsum, but today many people don’t know what and how Dego and Sogsum are played rather they are more familiar with modern games such as video games and cards. People don’t have time to worship god and go for pilgrimage yet they have time for disco parties. These are consequences of adoption of western culture. Hence if Bhutanese does not take precaution from modern way of life at such a pace and adopt westernization, Bhutan will take no longer to join the rest of the world in a homogenous cultural society where western culture is dominant.      
The rise in crime wave is the most threatening problem face by the Bhutanese due to modern way of life and its accelerating at high pace in comparison to past. Many stabbing cases had been reported in beginning of the month. As per editorial warn mentioned by Clark and Levy that “we are seeing for the first time broken families, school dropouts and other negative youth crimes. We are beginning to see crime associated with drug user all over the world-shoplifting, burglary and violence.” Many students are caught using drugs and alcohols at very early ages and even smoking at greater extent. These are the consequences of adoption of modern way of life by forgoing the traditional way of life. Many youth are trained from the modern technologies such as internets and television to rob and fraud people successfully. The most prominent consequence is the gang fights among youth copying it from movies and wrestling shown on television. Such change in the social behaviour of youth, transplanting a new culture is attributed to modern way of life which is more dependent on modern technologies. Therefore modern way of life is most threatening issue in the Bhutanese society.
The modern way of life is all about materialism- the attachment to money and properties, and has greater risk of mental stresses such as dissatisfaction, greed and depressions. As Eckersley had rightly stated that “Many physiological studies had shown that materialism is associated, not with happiness, but with dissatisfaction, depression, anxiety, anger, isolation and alienation.”(n.d. p.252.258). This is because success in materialism attainment causes anxiety, hatred, alienation and isolation by other people out of jealousy. According to Eckersley (n.d. p.252.258), the failure in the achievement of materialistic life causes dissatisfaction, depression and sadness leading to anger with not only what we have but also with whom we are. Thus peace is never gained due to mental stress. Thus modern way of life is threatening the peaceful life of Bhutanese.

The family bond of Bhutanese people is extensively threatened by the modern way of life. In Bhutan we can no more see strong family bond like in the past, most of the time, families gathered around a TV show with a conflict over channels, women fighting for Indian serials, children for the cartoon network. Women forget to guide children cook for their husband. Each and every family member doesn’t have patience to eat together like in the olden days. Mostly both of the parents go to office and children get spoilt in absence of parental advice. Thus modern way of life has unavoidable risk of losing and weakening families bond. The strength of relationship among spouses is degrading leading to domestic violence. Thus, such cases were pointed out by Clark and Levy, “Dorji, a 37-years-old truck driver bludgeoned his wife to death after she discovered he was addicted to heroin.”(n.d.). This is cause due to modern way of use of drugs.
 Along with manifold impacts and far greater risk of modern way of life there are few advantages of it. As stated by Thomos “Developments of technology aims to comfort people.” The modern technologies comfort the life of people and make things work more efficiently. People can have easier and accessible life. One can travel more frequently to the place where it takes quite a long period, in once upon a time. Yet these advantages of modern way of life cannot weigh the risk faced by the Bhutanese.  
Therefore in the recent years modern way of life is dragging Bhutanese to many social and individual problems with greater risk than that in the past. Although there are few advantages such as work efficiency and ease, yet the major risk faced by Bhutanese such as cultural domination instead of culture exchange, rise in crime wave with greater train from media, mental stress due to attachment towards materialistic life, and losing and weakening of family bond among parent-children and spouses are greater in weigh. So in the nutshell, Bhutanese should always take such risks into account before forgoing the traditional way of life with adoption of modern way of life.








 Reference
Clark, C.S. & Levy, A.(n.d.). Fast forward into trouble. Retrieved from http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2003/jun/14/weekend7.weekend2

Eckersley, R.(n.d.). Modern Western cultures a health hazards? International Journal Of Epidemiology Vol. 35(2). PP.252-258

Rinchen, K. (Media and Public Culture: Media Whitewashing. Royal University of Bhutan, Ministry of Education,Thimphu.


Rose, E.(2005). The Wiring of Bhutan: A Test Case for Media Ecology in the Non-Western World. Proceedings of the Media Ecology Association, Vol. 6


Thomos, J.(n.d.). Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Modern technology is creating single world culture. Retrieved from http://www.oppapers.com/essays/Do-You-Agree-Or-Disagree-With/984845  

United Nations Educational,  Scientific and Cultural Organization. (2002). Issues on
Culture and Development. Retrieved from http://www.unesco.org/culture/development/index.shtml


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Friday, August 10, 2012

A Tribute to My Teachers(For all the teachers around the world)


A Tribute to My Teachers
(For all the teachers around the world)

How thee feel, lot I wonder
Of thy aspirations and determined teaching,
Departure of thine, less I ponder
As thee shelter me all above.
Nothing was I and noting I’ll be.
Rhyme of mine goes to all teachers,
Regardless of partiality, experience and gender,
Four words imparted to me art my preachers,
In the hearts of students only thee enter.
Thou art praiseworthy but speechless I become
As beyond eternity’s my appreciation, heartily I welcome.
Teachers’ art second parents, the world says!
But less I discriminate as thou art simply flawless.
Of all the noble, thee the ideal choosen stays,
As thee burn thy candle to light my darkness.
Sometimes struggled, depressed and blamed thou art,
Yet, solely destined was thee to inspire my life.
Dreams art what abruptly I feared to dream,
Yet, I dare dream now at thy endeavours.
Deceitful was I, but divinely educated I am,
With sky the limit and paradise so close.
Finding my true intelligence was thy priceless lesson,
Till doomsday thine memoirs, my lines shall mention.
Criticism is what thee hath to face,
But critics in itself is thy motivation to preach,
Because of thee, my mind flourishes in peace,
To my destiny and dreams, thou art my bridge.
Pioneering all profession, the future thee determine,
What’s in fate, evidently thee can examine.
So poor I am but zealously I salute;
To thy inspiration and footsteps, this is my tribute…

By: Lobzang Basil Dawa
       B. Sc. Life Science
       3rd Semester(2012)         
       Sherubtse College