Chapter 8: Living with Folklore

There is no denying that Bhutan is a land steeped in folklore, and to western eyes at least, a rich, strange, and almost mystical variety of customs. Some of these customs are strongly associated with the pervasive Buddhist belief system that permeates Bhutanese society. Some even pre-date Bud-dhism, having their roots in the old Bon religion, and many customs and tales still seem to have a vibrant life in contemporary Bhutanese society. To venture back into the history of the country is a journey that quickly leads readers to question where fact ends and myth starts—but even that simple binary division is an illusion, and stories seem to weave back and forth in bewildering complexity between historical evidence, probability, and some scarcely believable incidents. In Bhutan today it is not uncommon to be in discussion with an educated person (for education is highly valued) and to suddenly switch from some firmly pragmatic subject in science, or politics, or educational pedagogy one minute, to some profoundly unfathomable details of religious ritual, societal belief, or archaic custom the next. The person often shrugs and smiles, as if to acknowledge the improbability of being able to embrace both of these systems, but when probed, is supremely content with the anomaly and of their own ability to move seamlessly from one to the other and back again. Of course this happens in western cultures too, but not, it seems, with such colourful and contented ease that unites the distant past in Bhutan with the very immediate present.