A review by sweetearlgrey
Beyond the Sky and the Earth: A Journey Into Bhutan by Jamie Zeppa

5.0

First, let’s get this out of the way: yes, this is a book about a white woman temporarily moving to a developing country to ‘find herself’… BUT! This story is about more than meets the surface. Zeppa is extremely vulnerable, relaying her unfiltered experiences and less-than-perfect thoughts/worries/feelings. She demonstrates an ability to view herself and her surroundings critically.  She experiences severe cultural shock upon her arrival in Bhutan, but overtime falls madly in love with the country and its people. She inevitably compares her home country (Canada) with Bhutan, and, in doing so, indirectly touches on the differences between individualism and collectivism, materialism and material poverty, as well as Christianity and Buddhism. There’s just an abundance of food for thought. I’m now on the search for a more recent book on Bhutan that accounts for the development that has occurred since 1999, especially with the well-known Gross National Happiness Index. I would love to see Zeppa update this book if she hasn’t already done so. 

My favourite quotes (spoilers):

(About Bhutan) What I love most is how seamless everything is. You walk through a forest and come out in a village, and there's no difference, no division. You aren't in nature one minute and in civilisation the next. The houses are made out of mud and stone and wood, drawn from the land around. Nothing stands out, nothing jars.

And if you hit upon the idea that this or that country is safe, prosperous, or fortunate, give it up, my friend...for you ought to know that the world is ablaze with the fires of some faults or others. There is certain to be some suffering...and a wholly fortunate country does not exist anywhere. Whether it be excessive cold or heat, sickness or danger, something always afflicts people everywhere; no safe refuge can thus be found in the world — Buddhist scriptures

Standing there with an armful of rhododendrons I have picked in the forest, I am aware of two possible versions: I can see either the postcard, or I can see the family bent over the earth in aching, backbreaking labor, the ghosts of two children dead of some easily preventable disease, and not enough money for all of the surviving children to buy the shoes and uniforms required for school. It is too easy to romanticize Bhutan. The landscape cannot answer back, cannot say, no you are wrong, life here is different but if you add everything up, it's not better. It is merely a scenic backdrop for the other life you will always be able to return to, a life in which you will not be a farmer scraping a living out of difficult terain.