Opinion of Bhutan

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

I have a friend who tutors refugees and one of them is from Bhutan. so, can't be as good as it's cracked up to be, unfortunately.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

It's like North Korea with monks. For whatever reason it fascinates so many western liberals who should know better.

I thought so until I read one day an article by Peter Hitchens (I was bored and felt like exploring contemporary trends in crypto-fascism) praising the place. Since then, I haven´t been so fond of it.

I've always felt that basing one's opinions off of those of either Hitchens brother can't really lead anyplace good.

Gustaf offers the best critique of the mystique of such places in the West; it's part of why I'm trying to analyze it by Asian standards.

Why would it beat wealthy, democratic nations like Japan or South Korea? Sure, the latter are oppressive in many ways socially, but isn't Bhutan as well? I'm asking as someone who knows very little about Bhutan (and admittedly not a great deal about Asia in general, with the exception of China).

Japan and South Korea have extremely high rates of untreated mental illness as well as quite severe problems with things like health infrastructure because of the precipitous birthrates, which tie into a sort of pervasive sense of alienation that's existed for the past several decades (all of this is in turn related to the extreme cultural emphasis on work). Simply put, people in those countries for whatever social and historical reasons tend not to be very happy. South Korea is also more of a basket case politically than is apparent.

Of course, whether affluent and more-or-less democratic countries with those particular problems are better or worse than middle-income conservative monarchies ruled by perfectly decent-seeming kings who nevertheless have distinctly odd ideas about development is subjective. The 'conservative monarchy for happiness' model is...unusual, to say the least, and unlike opebo is certainly not what I would come up if left in a vacuum with political philosophy sourcebooks and a world to shape to my liking, but there's relatively little indication that it's not working in this particular case.

Another Asian country that has much higher self-perceived quality of life than one might expect is Mongolia, which interestingly enough is religiously similar to Bhutan except with a lot of aging Soviet atheists (Asian religion is my area of study, so naturally I zoom in on that; actually my particular focus is Japanese religion, which is one of the institutions that's been adrift in that country for a very long time--going back well before the war in some ways).

I must admit that such is not my impression of Mongolia, from the limited stuff I read - I thought they were rather worried about the Chinese taking over and drink some kind of disgusting horse milk liquor?

I know, I was surprised too, but apparently they don't find the horse milk liquor disgusting themselves.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

The social problems in Japan and Korea don't affect a small number of people, though; they're incredibly severe. Ten to twenty per cent of the Japanese population has something called Taijin kyofusho, which is a culturally-specific mental illness similar to but psychologically distinct from social anxiety disorder. That's one mental illness out of a whole crop that are either culturally specific to or first noted in Japan.

Even so, Japan is certainly a better country than Bhutan in terms of breadth of opportunity, and I'd consider it a better country overall.

I have a friend who tutors refugees and one of them is from Bhutan. so, can't be as good as it's cracked up to be, unfortunately.

Is the refugee Hindu? The eastern part of the country is home to a Hindu minority that's not treated very well (Indian Muslims might be a decent comparison). A lot of these people were forced out of the country when the government introduced a census and immigration checkpoints in the 1980s, which snowballed into ethnic strife in which the government took the side of the northern (Buddhist) groups.

[courts]

It's like North Korea with monks. For whatever reason it fascinates so many western liberals who should know better.

I thought so until I read one day an article by Peter Hitchens (I was bored and felt like exploring contemporary trends in crypto-fascism) praising the place. Since then, I haven´t been so fond of it.

I've always felt that basing one's opinions off of those of either Hitchens brother can't really lead anyplace good.

Gustaf offers the best critique of the mystique of such places in the West; it's part of why I'm trying to analyze it by Asian standards.

Why would it beat wealthy, democratic nations like Japan or South Korea? Sure, the latter are oppressive in many ways socially, but isn't Bhutan as well? I'm asking as someone who knows very little about Bhutan (and admittedly not a great deal about Asia in general, with the exception of China).

Japan and South Korea have extremely high rates of untreated mental illness as well as quite severe problems with things like health infrastructure because of the precipitous birthrates, which tie into a sort of pervasive sense of alienation that's existed for the past several decades (all of this is in turn related to the extreme cultural emphasis on work). Simply put, people in those countries for whatever social and historical reasons tend not to be very happy. South Korea is also more of a basket case politically than is apparent.

Of course, whether affluent and more-or-less democratic countries with those particular problems are better or worse than middle-income conservative monarchies ruled by perfectly decent-seeming kings who nevertheless have distinctly odd ideas about development is subjective. The 'conservative monarchy for happiness' model is...unusual, to say the least, and unlike opebo is certainly not what I would come up if left in a vacuum with political philosophy sourcebooks and a world to shape to my liking, but there's relatively little indication that it's not working in this particular case.

Another Asian country that has much higher self-perceived quality of life than one might expect is Mongolia, which interestingly enough is religiously similar to Bhutan except with a lot of aging Soviet atheists (Asian religion is my area of study, so naturally I zoom in on that; actually my particular focus is Japanese religion, which is one of the institutions that's been adrift in that country for a very long time--going back well before the war in some ways).

^^^

This, a thousand times this. You MUST post more, you're worth like 200 average people here.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

It's like North Korea with monks. For whatever reason it fascinates so many western liberals who should know better.

I thought so until I read one day an article by Peter Hitchens (I was bored and felt like exploring contemporary trends in crypto-fascism) praising the place. Since then, I haven´t been so fond of it.

I've always felt that basing one's opinions off of those of either Hitchens brother can't really lead anyplace good.

Gustaf offers the best critique of the mystique of such places in the West; it's part of why I'm trying to analyze it by Asian standards.

Why would it beat wealthy, democratic nations like Japan or South Korea? Sure, the latter are oppressive in many ways socially, but isn't Bhutan as well? I'm asking as someone who knows very little about Bhutan (and admittedly not a great deal about Asia in general, with the exception of China).

Japan and South Korea have extremely high rates of untreated mental illness as well as quite severe problems with things like health infrastructure because of the precipitous birthrates, which tie into a sort of pervasive sense of alienation that's existed for the past several decades (all of this is in turn related to the extreme cultural emphasis on work). Simply put, people in those countries for whatever social and historical reasons tend not to be very happy. South Korea is also more of a basket case politically than is apparent.

Of course, whether affluent and more-or-less democratic countries with those particular problems are better or worse than middle-income conservative monarchies ruled by perfectly decent-seeming kings who nevertheless have distinctly odd ideas about development is subjective. The 'conservative monarchy for happiness' model is...unusual, to say the least, and unlike opebo is certainly not what I would come up if left in a vacuum with political philosophy sourcebooks and a world to shape to my liking, but there's relatively little indication that it's not working in this particular case.

Another Asian country that has much higher self-perceived quality of life than one might expect is Mongolia, which interestingly enough is religiously similar to Bhutan except with a lot of aging Soviet atheists (Asian religion is my area of study, so naturally I zoom in on that; actually my particular focus is Japanese religion, which is one of the institutions that's been adrift in that country for a very long time--going back well before the war in some ways).

^^^

This, a thousand times this. You MUST post more, you're worth like 200 average people here.

If this isn't sarcastic, thank you very much! I'm always gratified when my analysis of Asia is well-received outside my own little academic bubble.

[courts]

If I wanted to be sarcastic I'd be funnier than that.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

If I wanted to be sarcastic I'd be funnier than that.

Thank you very much, then.

[Gustaf]

It's like North Korea with monks. For whatever reason it fascinates so many western liberals who should know better.

I thought so until I read one day an article by Peter Hitchens (I was bored and felt like exploring contemporary trends in crypto-fascism) praising the place. Since then, I haven´t been so fond of it.

I've always felt that basing one's opinions off of those of either Hitchens brother can't really lead anyplace good.

Gustaf offers the best critique of the mystique of such places in the West; it's part of why I'm trying to analyze it by Asian standards.

Why would it beat wealthy, democratic nations like Japan or South Korea? Sure, the latter are oppressive in many ways socially, but isn't Bhutan as well? I'm asking as someone who knows very little about Bhutan (and admittedly not a great deal about Asia in general, with the exception of China).

Japan and South Korea have extremely high rates of untreated mental illness as well as quite severe problems with things like health infrastructure because of the precipitous birthrates, which tie into a sort of pervasive sense of alienation that's existed for the past several decades (all of this is in turn related to the extreme cultural emphasis on work). Simply put, people in those countries for whatever social and historical reasons tend not to be very happy. South Korea is also more of a basket case politically than is apparent.

Of course, whether affluent and more-or-less democratic countries with those particular problems are better or worse than middle-income conservative monarchies ruled by perfectly decent-seeming kings who nevertheless have distinctly odd ideas about development is subjective. The 'conservative monarchy for happiness' model is...unusual, to say the least, and unlike opebo is certainly not what I would come up if left in a vacuum with political philosophy sourcebooks and a world to shape to my liking, but there's relatively little indication that it's not working in this particular case.

Another Asian country that has much higher self-perceived quality of life than one might expect is Mongolia, which interestingly enough is religiously similar to Bhutan except with a lot of aging Soviet atheists (Asian religion is my area of study, so naturally I zoom in on that; actually my particular focus is Japanese religion, which is one of the institutions that's been adrift in that country for a very long time--going back well before the war in some ways).

I must admit that such is not my impression of Mongolia, from the limited stuff I read - I thought they were rather worried about the Chinese taking over and drink some kind of disgusting horse milk liquor?

I know, I was surprised too, but apparently they don't find the horse milk liquor disgusting themselves.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

The social problems in Japan and Korea don't affect a small number of people, though; they're incredibly severe. Ten to twenty per cent of the Japanese population has something called Taijin kyofusho, which is a culturally-specific mental illness similar to but psychologically distinct from social anxiety disorder. That's one mental illness out of a whole crop that are either culturally specific to or first noted in Japan.

Even so, Japan is certainly a better country than Bhutan in terms of breadth of opportunity, and I'd consider it a better country overall.

I have a friend who tutors refugees and one of them is from Bhutan. so, can't be as good as it's cracked up to be, unfortunately.

Is the refugee Hindu? The eastern part of the country is home to a Hindu minority that's not treated very well (Indian Muslims might be a decent comparison). A lot of these people were forced out of the country when the government introduced a census and immigration checkpoints in the 1980s, which snowballed into ethnic strife in which the government took the side of the northern (Buddhist) groups.

Well, then I don't think we disagree.

[ingemann]

Is the refugee Hindu? The eastern part of the country is home to a Hindu minority that's not treated very well (Indian Muslims might be a decent comparison). A lot of these people were forced out of the country when the government introduced a census and immigration checkpoints in the 1980s, which snowballed into ethnic strife in which the government took the side of the northern (Buddhist) groups.

I'm not going to defend the opression of minority groups, but one of the main reason for the dislike of the Hindu group was because the Hindu population in neighbouring Sikkim was used as a apoligy for Indian annexation of that former kingdom. As the Hindu population are partly immigrant or descendents of immigrants, the Bhutan government fear the same is going to happen to them. It doesn't excuse their behaviour, but it do put it in perspective.

[Sbane]

Pretty religiously oppressive, but otherwise it's a fine country. Hey, even inside India the northeastern states (very similar to Bhutan) have restrictive laws on property ownership to make sure the Hindu plains dwellers keep out. Of course they are more than welcome for tourism. And since I'm fine with tribals inside India protecting their culture against outside forces, I am fine with the Bhutanese doing the same. If they don't want to join the modern world, that's their decision.

[Sbane]

Is the refugee Hindu? The eastern part of the country is home to a Hindu minority that's not treated very well (Indian Muslims might be a decent comparison). A lot of these people were forced out of the country when the government introduced a census and immigration checkpoints in the 1980s, which snowballed into ethnic strife in which the government took the side of the northern (Buddhist) groups.

I'm not going to defend the opression of minority groups, but one of the main reason for the dislike of the Hindu group was because the Hindu population in neighbouring Sikkim was used as a apoligy for Indian annexation of that former kingdom. As the Hindu population are partly immigrant or descendents of immigrants, the Bhutan government fear the same is going to happen to them. It doesn't excuse their behaviour, but it do put it in perspective.

Yeah, but Sikkim has way more of an economy now than Bhutan does. And a lot of it is driven by tourism from the rest of India. Whether that's a good or bad thing is up to you. They are their own state, and have a fair degree of autonomy. If it got annexed into West Bengal, they would have a lot more to complain about. Hell, I think the Darjeeling area should become their own state as well.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Agreed that most of the problems with Bhutan stem from the policy implications of its desire to remain relatively isolated. It's a somewhat disconcerting trade but it doesn't seem to have bothered most of the Bhutanese.

I do feel bad for those Hindus though.