Haaretz: The audacity of hope in Nepal
It is hard to think of two cultures more dissimilar than those of America and Nepal. The first glorifies an individual's ability to change in order to get ahead and overcome the many obstacles in his path. Therefore there is no story more beloved than a "Cinderella" tale: Against all the odds, thanks only to their abilities, a poor person breaks through and achieves amazing things. Nepalese culture, however, sanctifies the individual's ability to accept and come to terms with the way things are in a way that will not damage the purity of his soul. You're in distress? Don't fight it; learn to live with it. Change will come only in the inner realm of the soul.
While the Americans glorify deeds, the Nepalis believe in miracles. Acceptable behavior is also entirely different: If the American is extroverted, the Nepali is introverted. If the American extravagantly shares all his troubles and achievements, the Nepali hides them. In many senses, these two cultures operate in parallel universes.
"There, in the university's fine library, I encountered a small book about a person I had never heard of before," Bhattarai said, "and it shook up my life. This was the biography of Che Guevara, and after I read it I swore to do everything in my power to help my people live in real economic and social freedom."
The hopes attached to him compete only with those pinned on his colleague on the other side of the globe, United States President Barack Obama. It is with good reason he is called "the Nepali Obama" here. Like Obama, Bhattarai is a rare combination of a man of the book and a man of deeds. And like Obama, he too attributes importance to symbolic measures. When he was elected, he preferred to do without an official car and instead continued to travel in a locally made car, without air-conditioning.
...... the idea of a "first lady" is also foreign to Nepalese culture.
...... nearly 60 percent of Nepalese people live below the poverty line.
Traditional agriculture is still the main source of employment for more than 80 percent of the citizens and added to this is the difficulty in recruiting foreign investment because of the small size of the economy, the geographic remoteness, the absence of infrastructures within the country and the considerable exposure to natural disasters.
