We travelled to Amritsar for a week. Amritsar is the capitol of the state of Punjab and also the main pilgrimage site and “capitol” of the Sikh religion. The Sikh religion is a cross between Hinduism and Islam, but is very different than both. Sikhism came about around 500 years ago, and many Sikhs told us they are a “young religion” because of this. And compared to the other religions in India, they are young. For those of you that are LDS, there are surprisingly a lot of parallels between our religion and Sikhism. Someone once told me that the Sikhs are the “Mormons of the Middle East.” I’ll talk more about the religion in my next post, but for now I want to talk somewhat about the culture and people in Amritsar.
We stayed with a friend of a friend of one of the group members. He took us to his farm house, just outside of the city. It is a 250 year old fort, which is now a string of rooms (and nice rooms).We joked about how this building is older than our country. This “fortress” is a little outside of Amritsar, located in the middle of farm land. It was a beautiful place to be located! Surrounded by rice patties, fruit trees, and maize fields.
We spent part of a day following a local villager around the village. As we left the “fortress” area and walked down one of the dirt roads, suddenly a horde of people came out. The children ran to us and greeted us first, shaking all of our hands and saying “Hello, how are you?” As we got closer there was alarge group of adults there as well. One man began playing a Punjabi drum and everyone started dancing. They pulled us in and got us a dance a little too. Welcome to Punjab!
Our village friend then took us to probably half a dozen different homes. Not many spoke English, but all welcomed us in, offered us drinks or food, and would communicate with us in whatever ways possible, usually just exchanging a few words. All the homes were simple- small, but clean, with beds, chairs, and usually a tv. Based on some other places I’ve seen in India, and based on the clothing of those in the village, this was a fairly well off village, though still a simple village.
The last house we visited had a couple English speakers. We stayed a bit longer there and learned more about the area and their family. The family was all smiles as we conversed. As we were leaving one of the young women said that her family was very happy we came. I couldn’t help but think really? Just from this motley crew? How different they must look at life, that when uninvited guests who can’t speak your language, show up at your house and you are able to find happiness in this? And I could tell she genuinely meant it, that her family really did enjoy our visit. It was a really neat experience and left me with a lot of thoughts.
I woke up not feeling well at all one morning. After spending a little extra time in the bathroom and eating nothing at breakfast, my family knew I wasn’t feeling well. They gave me blankets and told me to rest. It sounded great to me. After sleeping a little I felt somewhat better and sat up. I realized the only ones left were my Tibetan sister (in her early 30s) and her daughter, age 11. I knew that the girl loved princess stories so I thought to myself, if I can’t go out now, how about watching a princess movie with the other two girls in the house? I couldn’t think of a better way for us to bond as we were stuck inside for the day. I whipped out Enchanted, which I had brought along for just this kind of moment.
After just a few minutes, I realized this was going to be so much fun! Both the mother and daughter laughed and laughed at certain parts. The mother no doubt could not understand much of the movie, but she laughed and laughed at moments and based on her facial expressions, had no problems understanding enough to enjoy it.
I also couldn’t help but think what a unique situation I am in. Here I am, with native nomads. This family I am sitting with and watching this Disney princess movie with, under other circumstances would never be in India, never live in this house, and would have probably never been around many Americans, if any. They would not have had a tv in their home (which would be a large tent), and there’s a good chance they would never have seen a Disney movie. But circumstances being what they are, this nomad family is now at least temporarily in India. If you had asked them 10 years ago, I’m sure none of them would have imagined this would have been their life. They probably would have never guessed that they’d later have an American girl living with them, nor that they would know enough English to be able to communicate with her. Life is certainly full of surprises.
I also want to say that communicating with my family has become quite the adventure. Only one of the brothers speaks English fairly well. The other brother and his wife are just learning. They know quite a bit now, but sometimes we are totally guessing when we communicate. But we have come up with quite the system. When the brother who speaks English is not there, the three of us have become quite the communicating team. One evening, the brother who speaks English was gone and it was just the three of us, me and the two that are learning English. We were talking and the brother was trying to tell me the story of how he got the scar on his arm. His vocabularly is way too limited for this kind story so he got up and started acting it out. I then would make motions and facial expressions with a few random words to make sure I was understanding. The English speaking brother then got home and saw us and laughed and asked me if I understood the story. I could honestly say yes, I understood! We used hardly any language, but I knew we had communicated. The English brother laughed and said we had become quite the communicating team. He pointed out that the other brother, Lhamo would act things out and I would use body language and facial expressions.Tam Kho, the wife is great at reading all the cues and serves as the “middleman” and can tell when we understand and when we don’t. So between the acting, body language, facial expressions, and interpreting, we almost always find some way to communicate!
Obviously, I’ve learned that words are not the only way to communicate. And they are not the most important either. I realized the other day when I was with my family at a party that I truly adore this family. Sure, we’ve struggled to communicate, but I feel so close to them. We may have had less talking than a “normal family” would, but I still feel incredibly close to this family! I trust them completely and know that they would do anything to help me. They have been so giving, open, and welcoming. I’ve learned to read their body language and facial expressions (as they have mine) more than many people I’ve known for years. We can communicate so much without words! And we have communicated so much without words that I don’t feel like we’ve been at a loss because of the communication barrier. I don’t think I could have gotten any closer to them, had we been able to communicate with words.
The other night, while we were at a party, I sat across from Tam Kho, my Tibetan sister. We would catch each other’s eyes once in a while and make facial expressions, clearly exchanging thoughts. It was so much fun! And made me realize that they really have become my Tibetan family.
I’ve never had a real interest in the Miss America pageant. For those of you that know me, I’m sure that’s not too surprising. I did however find myself one weekend attending the Miss Tibet pageant. I’m not exactly sure why I was so intrigued with the idea and why I thought it would be interesting to attend. I do however know that when my family said they were going, it was incredibly easy for me to decide that I wanted to go along.
The Miss Tibet contest has been going on in India since 2002. This year there were four contestants. My Tibetan brother later told me that sometimes there is only one contestant. Not much of a competition, but they still go on with it because they want to make sure to have it every year. There has been a lot of controversy on the whole issue. Many Tibetans do not like the idea of it. Also not many girls are willing to compete in it.
Again, I’ve never seen the Miss America pageant- my only exposure would be Miss Congeniality or the short clip of the Miss South Carolina blooper from a few years ago, and I just don’t think that either counts. So I’m not really sure how different this is than the Miss America pageant. But here is what happened at Miss Tibet 2010.
There was a long introduction and then the girls came out, in jeans and t-shirts to introduce themselves (in English, except one who used a translator). Then there were three rounds, with “entertainment” (dancing, singing, etc) in between each round. The first round was the gown round. The girls came out in western style gowns. A little more modest than ones back in the states usually are, but nonetheless, still western style gowns. The second round was the traditional Tibetan costumes round, followed by a Q&A round.
As I sat there watching these Tibetan young women “strutting their stuff” down the walkway, I couldn’t help but think about how shy Tibetan girls and women usually are. I thought back to just the weekend before at the Amdo Party I attended and how each of the females struggled with their shyness to perform in front of everyone. Each and everyone one of them. How much harder would it be for a Tibetan young woman to wear “revealing” clothing and “strut” in front of hundreds (if not maybe thousands?) of people?
Anyway, here are a few other things that Miss America probably doesn’t have:
-English, Hindi and Tibetan languages being used
-A Tibetan man in a bright, metallically light blue suit, with long flowing hair, coming out and doing a jump-kick center stage (at least I’d never seen that before, that’s for sure)
-Monks in the audience
-The audience reciting the “Om Mani Padme Hum” prayer before we officially began
-Young Indian girls performing an interpretive dance of the story of Buddha’s life
-A dog making his way through the audience and reaching the front stage
