Humans of Thimphu

I am capturing this post from Humans of Thimphu page to archive it on my blog and express gratitude. I wish to thank the team of young people behind the project, not just for featuring me but for all the positive stories you have written so far. It’s incredible how a difference in perspective can change everything. Their deliberate effort to find stories of kindness, compassion, courage, devotion, inspiration, dedication... and share on social media that is suffocating with all sorts of negativity reminds me of the story of the Hummingbird. 

 

The only other Bhutanese platform on which we see similar expressions of positivity is Ap Pokto, which is deceivingly serious in its commitment to find and tell stories of positivity and go out of its way to help people who are in need. 

Sometimes, some people raise their brows and ask how a particular person is chosen as a silent hero or an inspiring figure by Ap Pokto or Humans of Thimphu when that person doesn’t deserve to be honoured that way. Well, that’s where we must realise that there is goodness in everyone, but only a few of us can unconditionally see through all the flaws and spot the diamond among the coal. Not all of us are kind, loving, and unjudging enough to tell a good story about a random person. Therefore, the two platforms deserve to be celebrated. 

Thank you Humans of Thimphu for choosing to feature my story on World Toilet Day, a cause that's close to my heart. When you wrote a positive story, it's less about the subject and more about you. Thank you for being kind. 

Digital Sovereignty of Bhutan

Once upon a time, when the internet was new in Bhutan, and we were trying to create our email account for the first time, we used to select either India or Bangladesh as our country because Bhutan was not on the dropdown list of countries. It was forgivable in the early days.

Over the years, that issue is solved. Finally, Bhutan was added to the list, and it was a moment of pride to choose Bhutan as our country whenever we joined any online platforms. How odd is it that some ignorant tech guys had deprived us of our sovereignty for a long time? Sometimes, I doubt their intentions. How could a big tech company not know that Bhutan is a sovereign country?

Twenty years on, everything has moved on but we still struggle with the same issue of some tech companies refusing to recognize Bhutan or treat us at par with other countries. It's no geographical ignorance anymore. 

For example, 

• In Playstore you are often told, "This item not available in your country.", which means we can't get that app because we are in Bhutan. If we tweak our location a little bit or use VPN then we get the app. Why can't we get it when we are in Bhutan?

  

  Playstore notice

• "You are not eligible for monetization. The YouTube Partner Program is not available in your current location Bhutan." This is really sad because none of our YouTubers can monetize their channel legally. They have to lie about their location to be eligible. It's easy to change the location but why? What have we done to be punished?

YouTube ineligibility notice

• On Google Maps, some of us are making efforts to add names of important places and monuments in Dzongkha, but somehow they only show the names in English. If it's uniformly applied then there is no issue but on our north places appear in Chinese script and on our south in Hindi script, which raises the question, why not Dzongkha? Worse even, some of our places appear in Chinese text and we can't change them back. 

Chinese and Hindi over Dzongkha

These are a few examples I have encountered but there could be many. They may seem insignificant but if we look carefully, why would they do that if it's so insignificant? 

What can we do to fix it? For an individual, it may be a colossal task but I think it's the job of the Ministry of Information and Communication (MoIC) or a more relevant department under it. 

Earthquake Hoax

མིང་ངན་གྱིས་ཡུལ་དཀྲོགས།། བྱ་ངན་གྱིས་གདངས་དཀྲོགས།།

My mother and I were in constant conversation over the phone debating on the hoaxed earthquake. She heard that it was going to be bigger than the Nepal earthquake and since our house was in bad shape from the last earthquake she has decided to abandon it and sleep in the kitchen garden instead. She saw the people in neighbouring villages pitching tents in their fields. The hoax has created such mass panic in rural areas. 

I told my mother that if His Holiness the Je Khenpo really had a vision of such a natural calamity befalling his people, more than anybody, his compassionate self would inform the nation and not some fool on WeChat.
I asked her, "Would the government leave us in the dark instead of evacuating us to safety?"
"Would I let you stay in that unsafe house all by yourself?" 
"How could you believe some random people and not me?" 
It was hard but I could convince her like I have done several times in the past. This wasn't the first wave of fear that swept across my village

The magnitude of fear and panic the hoax has created among our rural population is beyond forgivable limit. It has gone deep into the simple lives of people and disturb their peace. What do people get from doing this? Who are they? It cannot be one person but a chain of ignorant people who believed in it themselves and then shared their fear. It is a very serious offence and I hope theses people will be traced and punished. 

And more than anything we need to find a permanent solution to this repetitive problem of mass panic created by hoax, because if a salt shortage hoax could cause market to inflate salt price and people to hoard salt then anything is possible. 

The mobile app WeChat, which took internet access to rural population has now become a platform for newer evils, from sharing porn to racial jokes to hoax. With its ease of use and reach new hoaxes can do massive damage. What will be the next bad thing people will do on this platform? 

Blogging With Dragons

Do you remember the popular column "Ask Boaz" in Kuensel K2 Mag?

Well ‘Ask Boaz’ was for more than four years the favorite tech guide and information source in Bhutan, which ran as regular column in Kuensel’s weekly K2 magazine. Boaz Shmueli would answer to questions sent in by his readers with surprising wit and simplicity. Over the years, the column subtly became the most authentic history of technology in Bhutan. 

Now the complete collection of his articles from ‘Ask Boaz’ column is put into a book "BLOGGING WITH DRAGONS" and if you are quick enough, the ebook version is on Amazon.com for free these days (Click on the Picture).

Click on the pic to download the book

As I read flip through the pages I am transported down memory lane- the times we struggled with Dialup connection to the wake of Facebook on 3G network, technical nitty gritty to online security and media literacy, KB days to coming of TB, … The book is the most authentic biography of technology in Bhutan. It can give a very authentic insight into the lives of people of the Bhutan, and the gradual change we underwent in the short span of time.

The book is a legacy of a foreigner who lived a meaningful life in Bhutan and impacted everyone who owned a computer, tablet or phone.


The book can still be a helpful ‘how to’ book in Bhutan and similar countries. It can be a useful technology guidebook for anybody living in or travelling to Bhutan because we are still faced with the questions that Boaz answered years ago. 

The writer Boaz Shmueli is also the author of Thimphutech.com and Creator of android app BhutaNews. 

Being Responsible and Smart on Social Media

This is the transcript of the talk I gave to students in Yoezerling Higher Secondary School, Paro on May 30, 2015. The content of the speech is partially edited to suit the general readers on my blog but may still be relevant to just Bhutanese audience.

Good Morning. Respected Principal, teachers and dear students, thank you very much for being here this morning to listen to us. I would like to thank Media Club coordinator Madam Gyem Om for inviting us and considering us worth listening to.

My Name is Passang Tshering. I am a teacher at the Royal Academy.

I would like to take this opportunity to talk to this young group of people about something that’s handed to your generation as the greatest opportunity-The Social Media. But it’s opportunity only as long as you can handle it wisely.

Let me first define Social Media for you. There can be many difficult definitions but if I may put it in the simplest form. What’s media or Medium? It’s the means of mass communication. Think of TV, Radio and Newspaper. These are Medium of reaching out to mass. They are formal institutions run by trained people and governed by rules and regulations.

Now imagine each one of us having a newspaper of our own to write about everything we do, everything thing we like, and about people love. Imagine your own TV Channel to broadcast your family shows and your own music videos or a radio station on which you are the RJ… such mediums are called Social Media.

Facebook is your personal newspaper, your personal TV Channel, your personal Magazine. Likewise Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, WeChat, Sound Cloud, Google+ and thousand others.

Kuensel may be selling about 5000 copies if it gets lucky, BBS has the highest potential of 700,000 viewers, and all other Mass mediums in Bhutan have few thousand audiences. Now compare that to Facebook that has 1.44 billion active users. It’s over 2000 times bigger than Bhutan, with no borders and almost no rules. It’s your own world, it will grow everyday, and you can do whatever you wish. But remember 1.44 billion people out there can also do what ever they like.

There are some general terms of use beyond that the freedom is unlimited. The two big questions are how to use that freedom well and how to keep yourselves safe in the world that’s free.

Let me tell you my story, On Facebook I have reached my 5000 friends limit, therefore now I have started a Page. I have begun a virtual company called Bhutan Toilet Organization on Facebook. It’s doing very well and soon I can bring it out as a real organization. I have started a Business group on Facebook some years ago called bBay. It’s has 44,000 members now. From Tashigang to Samtse, Austerlia to Bangkok, bBay has made buying and selling very easy. Then I got an idea to let people advertise in my group and from there I earn 10,000 to 20,000 per month. Besides the money I earned I have earned name. Wherever I go there is at least one person in a group who would say, “You are PaSsu of bBay. Thank you man, your bBay has help me sell my car, you bBay has helped me find a land. Etc.”

I have also co-founded a group called Writers Association of Bhutan, in which we motivate young writers. Many of our members have published their own books. We plan to help writers write and get them connected to publishers. We have nearly 20,000 members.

I am also on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, WeChat, and my personal favorite is my blog. I have a personal blog called PaSsu Diary. It’s a website in which I write stories related to family, school, society and sometime politics. People from different walks of life read my articles and among them I have found many friends. Newspapers take stories from my blog and print in their papers.

I was honest and sincere in my writings but at the same time I have been polite, respectful and talked about issues more than people. I justify my allegations and sometimes when I was wrong I apologized. I didn’t attack any individual personally; I didn’t insult or humiliate individuals. Sometimes when I had to write about certain individual I didn’t write their names.

But many people think being honest, sincere, critical and straightforward is same as being aggressive, arrogant, disrespectful and nasty. Actually it’s the opposite.

Because of my good behaviors on all the social media platforms I have been appointed as the first Social Media Monitor during the last election. The Chief Election Commissioner personally called me to be the Social Media Monitor. For six months I had two jobs.

I have been invited to many workshops to be speakers, such as SAARC Literature Fest, Mountain Echoes, Media Nomad etc. including this platform today. I have also received offers from big Hotels to be their guest and just say ‘I am here at hotel so and so’. One NGO called me to their office and gave me an iPad, Hard Drive, WiFi Station and many other devices and asked me to try them out. It’s actually a gift.

I have had the honour of visiting the office of the Prime Minister, and beyond all the honour of visiting Lingkana Palace.

I think I have done enough of Donkey praise but I hope you understood what I am trying to say. Social Media is a world of its own, and just like this practical world good behaviors is expected and rewarded. 

Now let me present to you the ugly side of Social Media. Like I told you millions of people are there in that free world. Just like in the real world there are good people and bad people; don’t worry about the good people. What type of Bad people would we find on social media- thieves, frauds, criminals, liars, bullies, rapists, murderers, and the list goes on. The biggest danger is their access to millions of innocent people right there on their screen. You can be their victim.

How do your protect yourselves? First, beware of strangers. Don’t just make friends with everybody. If you don’t know the person, and has no reason why he should be your friend just don’t accept requests.

If there are some nasty people who bother you all the time, remove them from your list of friends. Life is too short to waste with people who make you unhappy. Also avoid those people who are always negative, these people could influence you over time.

If someone tells you that he is going to send you parcel or money, just know that he is a fraud. Many Bhutanese fell victims to this sort of international scams. They will say that they have sent you iPhone, iPad etc. and also show you receipts. But soon they will say the parcel is struck somewhere in Bangkok or Calcutta. Then you will be made to send $500 -$1000. Some people I heard have sent over Nu.2 million believing in people who promised to build hotel in our country.

There are many other ways of people can cheat you, but you have to know just one important rule: if someone talks about money then that’s the clue, because no stranger will randomly send you money or diamond ring.

Anonymity is another issue on Internet. Most wrong doers on social media are anonymous. They hide their real identity, use fake names and pictures to do all the wrong things. They know we can never find them. Therefore, you have to be smart enough to know that some people you are dealing with on social media, whom you don’t know personally, are fake people.

The next important thing to remember is being mindful of what you post online and whom you share with. Good things are hard to notice, but bad things spread like wild fire, so be very careful about what you are putting online. Ask yourself, ‘Will I not regret after putting this up?’

Be mindful about doing anything with electronic devices in the first place. You mobile phone and laptops have many secret things you don’t know. You think you have deleted something but people can use simple software and retrieve it. And nowadays, these smart phones are connected to Cloud servers; every picture you take on your mobile automatically gets backed up on the cloud. The Cloud can be hacked or if you are not careful with your password people could sneak into all your files and pictures.

These days, if you are on Facebook, you will see many of your friends posting dirty pictures. The truth is they aren't doing it. In fact they themselves don’t see the pictures. It’s some sort of infected link that hacks into your account and misuses it. Therefore, you must be suspicious about unknown links anywhere on Internet. Clicking on such links is like giving them the key to your account.

Social Media is growing each day; opportunities are growing and danger is growing too. If there are things you are unsure about don’t take chances, just ask someone in school or at home. Never do something you are unsure of and never hesitate to seek help.

I would like to end here. If there are some areas left out we will cover during the question answer session. Thank you.

Diamond Ring from a Facebook Friend?

This is a story about how some Bhutanese were defrauded on Facebook. Similar fraud made news once during the email days, where people were declared winner of million dollar lottery and asked to pay few thousand dollars to claim their prizes. Some seemed to have silently dreamt of million dollars and blindly jumped into the traps. That news should have be enough to caution us against any similar promises we receive over the internet. But some sort to learn the lesson the hard way.

Facebook is now a world of its own. People make career out of being on Facebook and some are professional frauds. That's their full time job. They write to thousands of people across the world with perhaps thousands of accounts. The old trick comes in new bottle. I have received hundreds of messages from beautiful girls, of course they are using fake identities, claiming to like my profile and seek my friendship. But interesting they ask us to write to them in their email addresses and not Facebook, which is when you have to know they is something fishy. When you don't reply them for over a day, you will notice that the account is deactivated and message gone.

Few months ago, a lady friend who was having a difficult life as single mother joyfully shared about her new found friend from the US. She told my wife that the man was sending her an iPad and iPhone. They have also planned to meet in Bhutan later this year. We were so happy for her. Her man was a captain on some ship and has sent her his picture too. He was a bit older but she was happy about that. They were even calling each other on the phone.

One day she called my wife to ask if we could help her get her parcel form Bangkok because seemingly her parcel was stranded in Bangkok for some reason. She has the postal number for the parcel. We told her that it's just matter of time. Then one day she was looking for money and she disclosed to my wife that she had to send $1000 to claim her parcel. Her man was on the ship and he was helpless. That's when I knew it was a fraud. I told her through my wife, to tell him she can wait until he reaches a seaport to clear the parcel from Bangkok. He told her that if she waits the parcel could be lost. Then we played smart and told him that we will send our relative in Bangkok to collect the parcel. Next moment his Facebook account was deactivated and his number was switched off. We could rescue her. Though we shattered her dream.

Not even a month passed when when my wife heard another woman excitedly talking about some parcel arriving and stranded somewhere. She was someone we knew closely and my wife told her our friend's story, only to discover that she went through almost the same script. She later confided to my wife that she already sent Nu.40,000 and because there was a diamond ring in the parcel she was asked to send Nu.100,000 more. She was almost ready with the cash when my wife rescued her.

Another friend my wife rescued was an old friend in Paro who was receiving generous help from a man overseas in getting the US visa. We were in Paro to drop our son when she invited us over to her place. She had lots of business plans before but we found out that she has dropped all the idea because she was readying to fly to America. We told her not to send any money before receiving the visa if he really means his help, and if he is a fraud he will cut all contacts with you. That happened.

These are the stories of three ladies that I knew of, and I can guess that there could be lots of male victims looking at the number of messages I am receiving from frauds posing as girls. Just that man won't admit it easily.

There could be hundreds of such stories hidden under heavy debts and humiliation, if only they could come out and tell their stories the next hundred could be saved. Bhutan is increasingly chasing American dream and many people silently and blindly go to any extend. We must warn people around us, especially those that are not very familiar about social media. I have highlighted the key words that frauds have used with those three ladies, let innocent people around you take note of them. Let them know that there is nobody so kind out there who would send them anything just by being a Facebook friend- Not diamond ring at least. It's common sense.

My School is an iSchool

My school got lucky one more time along with five other schools in the country. We were selected as the pilot schools for iSchool project. I am personally not involved in the project but my friend Kailash Rai is doing a great job in my school. Class IX A is chosen as iClass and there are going to have a wonderful 2014 academic year. The first question on your mind must be: What is iSchool Project about?

"The project uses the high speed internet network in conjunction with top of the line video conferencing technology to allow a few teachers to reach dozens of classrooms and hundreds of students, across Bhutan in real time. Teachers at the ‘master' classroom will teach and reach students in the ‘remote' classroom via video and will also be able to receive and answer normal questions from the students in any of the classrooms.The ‘remote' classrooms selected to participate in the pilot phase are not really that remote given the short time that was available to set up the project. However, in the future, the benefiting schools could well be extremely remote and yet benefit from the best teachers located in selected ‘master' classrooms located anywhere in Bhutan.Besides having access to top quality teachers on a live platform, the lessons will also be available for download for students who missed a lesson, and these lessons can be downloaded from any school.The iSchool idea is not intended to provide a single solution to cover every issue in the education sector. It is just one tool, that in conjunction with many other programs will help to cover every need in the sector.In addition to providing live video conferencing technology to reach many schools, technology such as the ‘smart' camera and associated software provides innumerable tools to the teacher to improve the delivery process. Smart whiteboards with an unlimited number of ‘screens' that can be switched on demand effectively provides an endless number of blackboards on which to present lessons. A document camera will enable the teacher to show real samples to help explain specific concepts to the students." -Pelkhil School Facebook

Lesson in Progress.

I am so impressed by the fiber-optically connected internet speed, which is capable of streaming live video from five school at a time (see in pic) along with high quality audio. Besides that whatever the teacher writes on the smart-board in the master school is directly broadcast on our white board through our projector, and for a person who loves technology this is heavenly.  

It was formally launched yesterday March 29,2014 by Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay from Pelkhil School and the five pilot schools took part in the event virtually. Lynchoen interacted with students and teachers of five schools. Even Education minister joined us from Phuntsholing. The Launch was a big success.

Prime Minister interacting with the Five Schools.

I wish the project all the best and hope every stakeholder will put their heart in this project to take it where it's intended to reach. 

Tokay Gecko is Valueless

Tokay Gecko was rumored to have the cure for AIDS and therefore was insanely valued in millions. Further there were many websites giving convincing details of sizes and prices of the lizard. I spent good amount of time on internet and yet I didn't encounter this hoax news until the Gelephu incident appeared in the news. This is a case of lack of media literacy at worst. The rumor is more than two years old, how did it suddenly become so viral in Bhutan?

Poor Tokay Gecko

The truth about the reptile will disappoint many people who must have gone too far to become a millionaire overnight. The lizard that is rumored to be priceless is actually valueless. It's neither endangered nor protected species. Taiwan alone imported 18 million Gecko in 2004, because it's used in traditional medicine, but curing AIDS is out of question as confirmed by World Health Organization. It can surely kill mosquitoes.

Dead Geckos to be used in Traditional Medicine 

Everybody heard about the buyers who are ready to pay millions for a Gecko that weighs over 300 gram but nobody actually sold one. Everybody is looking for buyers. There is no buyers. The best price known is USD 50, yes just 50. The online scam has sent hundred of thousands of people to jungles across the world, who must have removed every single gecko from the wild. This could lead to the extinction of the species given the depth at which the rumor has reached. The people responsible for fabricating this story are nothing less than sick Hitler for the lizard world.

Coming back to Bhutan, I am still wondering why the Gelephu incident even happened. The lizard is neither endangered nor protected yet the poor caretaker was arrested and slapped Nu.100,000 fine. This case added gravity to the rumor. Under normal circumstance would anybody be arrested for capturing a lizard? Why is everything that is (considered or rumored) priceless suddenly taken care by law? Is law greedy? Is law ignorant? Tokay Gecko didn't make any Bhutanese millionaire but it has generated lots of suspicion and hatred in the society and criminalized a few.

Please let ignorant people around you know that Tokay Gecko won't make them millionaire. Verify my claims with articles in The Bangkok Post and Global Voice, the only two authentic site that cared to report on the lizard. All the other sites are fake, created just to launch the rumor.

Fish on bBay

I am pleased to see my bBay appearing in Kuensel's List of "Site You Could Use". But more than that, Gyalsten K Dorji must be applauded for bringing bright new change to boring Kuensel pages, in fact Kuensel could build on this idea and make a list of their own like the famous Forbes List.

I created bBay two years ago and it enjoyed publicity from Business Bhutan and Thimphutech.com besides my own blog. Today it's one of the most active groups on Facebook where the following happens (from Kuensel)

"If you are looking to buy or sell something, the most active place to do this today is on Facebook. Named after ebay, the popular online auction and shopping website, a page named B-Bay currently has almost 14,000 members using the page to find buyers for their second hand items, or to find something they want. A wide range of items, like apartments, land, vehicles, electronics, jewellery, shops, and even doma can be found being marketed on the Facebook page. The page also provides for some entertaining exchanges between buyers and sellers. Since the page is hosted on Facebook, posts are free."

Page 13- Kuensel

I must thank my dear friend, idea box and brilliant businessman, Tshering Tenzin who helped grow bBay to the size it has today. Right from the beginning we made it clear to ourselves that bBay will help people from being bullied by brokers, which is why we have banned over hundred brokers till date. We, including my wife and brother, monitor bBay everyday to keep the wall free from spams, jokes, harassment, and brokers. We only earn a few Nu. from the Ads we post on cover and in pinned section, which is at times questioned.

What is the Fish on bBay?
However, recently I visited a big office where I met two smart guys who were upset with me. They confessed to me that they were among the brokers whom I have banned, but what they shared after that upset me. After they were banned they have fooled us by joining with new account and remained ideal to escape out censorship. But what they enjoyed was full access to what our members post and they were the active buyers. They buy from our members and sell offline. To shock me even more they say they have done two to five deals each week. Sometime they see their sold cars coming back on bBay, which happens because there are many more hidden brokers on bBay. They promised to give me a list of all the brokers they know on bBay so that I can make it a clean place I had hoped for. So my dear member on bBay, I must admit to you all that there are some fishes in the group, which is important for you to know, but as long as you are getting what you want for the price you agree they should be a problem.

Two Big Surprises in Bajothang

Bajothang town is a beautiful dream gone wrong for a long time and I have seen the town on the headlines of many news medias on various unpleasant issues. It is plagued with every mismanaged urban problems and only strong fingers are pointed from different direction rather than strong hands of action.
But yesterday morning we woke up to two big and unexpected surprises: There was 3G network on my cell phone and later I was overwhelmed by the news of hi-tech water purification and pumping technology installed at our water source. It was complete surprise because we never had any clue about the planning and progress of the two great developmental works.

3G reaches Bajothang

And it was unexpected because so far nothing seemed to be moving forward in Bajothang. But this seems like a great beginning to a new year of prosperity. We already had the nation's first tunnel highway opened and now we have the nation's first hi-tech water source, which will end the perennial water shortage in Bhutanese towns across the country. So far Bhutan remained the only country with lots of fresh water rivers that suffered water shortage. And now Bajothang becomes the 4th town in Bhutan to be connected with 3G internet after Thimphu, Phuntsholing and Paro.
If Thimphu is the brain of the country, Wangdue now is becoming the heart! Thank you for the wonderful surprises!

Blue Chili on Dzongkha Google

The saddest part of training Dzongkha teachers is at the end when they ask us if what we just taught could be done in Dzongkha- it's 'No' most of the time. They have to know a little bit of English anyway. I take the blame on my self for failing to be powerful and efficient enough to make computer Dzongkha-ready though I spent much of my life dealing with computer. I didn't have mark enough to pursue computers abroad nor did I have money enough to go on my own. God knows what those Bhutanese computer experts are doing.

However there are a few things we discovered as we desperately struggled together to make sense of internet through Dzongkha.
If you have the Dzongkha Keyboard installed then you can type in the search key word in Dzongkha, and Google is smart enough to find us whatever in available accordingly. 

Googling in Dzongkha

Google Dzongkha Results

The title of my post emerged when we were mocking the new Dzongkha words, which even the Dzongkha teachers find it hard to tolerate. We were all on one side when it came to disagreeing with formation of new Dzongkha words that are combination of existing words- like the names of things like computer, TV, football, tape recorder, type writer, vehicle, etc. We can't create new words, we are just connecting old words to make new ones, and land up making it very uneasy for our tongue. 

Then one lopen asked me to translate Ema Hoem to English, which I instantly could- Green Chili, then he asked me to go word by word and do the translation again, which is when I realized Ema hoem is actually Blue Chili. We discussed it at length to understand how such word could be very subtle to notice because of its usage over time. I searched Ema Hoem (typed in Dzongkha) in Google and following is what I got!

When you search for Ema Hoem on Google!

Wikipedia is available in all the language you can think of, and when I say so my 20 Dzongkha teachers look at me in full glow, but then I have to say, Except Dzongkha! I apologize as if it was my fault again. But I also ask them to put half the blame on Dasho Shrub, the man who is responsible for the development of Dzongkha Language (or are we all equally responsible?). Later I discovered that among hundreds of language on Wikipedia there is Boed Weig, meaning Tibetan Language- Bingo. With Tibetan Dzongkha teachers are more comfortable than English.

Wikipedia Doesn't have Dzongkha but look for Boed Weig (Tibetan) 

The following is how Wikipedia looks once we switch to Tibetan Language mode and this brings internet closer to our Dzongkha lopens.

Most Dzongkha Teachers can read, write and understand Tibetan!

What and how much will to take to make Google and Wikipedia possible in Dzongkha is the question I have been asking myself for quite sometime, and today with this post I ask you the same question. Let's also ask who will do that?

The Rights to Internet

The title "the Rights to Internet' might sound a little strange because it is neither from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 nor Convention on the Rights of the Child of 1989. But considering the time the two were drafted, Internet couldn't have bothered those big brains. Now internet is a serious matter. It divides people as much as it connects them. You must have heard about internet connecting people from across the world, and must wonder where this 'dividing' thing emerges from.
We all know the difference between rich and poor, and we know what makes one rich and other poor. Through that same scale if we look at people in this information world we can see how poor some people are in comparison to others. I meet hundred students every day and I can notice the difference in the degree of smartness among them. The smart ones, the critical ones, and the confident ones are mostly the ones who are in my Facebook friend list. They are the lucky ones who are connected to the world through internet. They are divided from the ones who are not connected, and in the information world they are the rich ones exercising their dominance over the poor in the classroom. The same reason divides the rural students from the lucky urban brothers. Why should something that is easily available become a dividing factor, after all we don't need railroads or airport to expand internet connectivity.

Image Courtesy: The New York Times

There is fiber optic cable running across the country, and it's very unreasonable if all schools are not given internet connection within next few years. Our children should not find themselves in alien lands after their graduation, they should get the real taste of life in schools. They should not just hear about internet like fairy tales, they should use it. Schools with internet connection must make it accessible to students through whatever means possible. We must break the dividing factor among the students of same school and among rural and urban schools. Everybody should have equal rights to internet just like any other rights.

How Much Would it Cost Us?

I have learned that "If Amazon.com shuts down for 60 minutes, it loses more than US$3 million" from a ThimphuTech.com's tweet. Boaz Shmueli, the passionate brain behind ThimphuTech.com works and lives in Thimphu. He has the world of internet on his finger tips, and has been very kind in helping every Bhutanese with tech related issues. He also runs a Q&A column in Kuensel's weekend K2 magazine to extend his helpful hand further. So far he has been our 'May Day'; he enlightened us on issues faced by our isp and other organizations, he warned us of hackers and malicious activities on our sites, he showed us better and secured way to occupy space on the virtual world... he always remained tactful and did us the services that we should actually expect from our ISP Druknet. He also covered areas in cellular communication when BMobile failed to explain or inform.

That Tweet!

So when he tweet about Amazon.com right after Bhutan experienced an unexplained and uninformed internet outage he means to let Druknet understand that every time they are out of service they are losing business. But question is would they even know about the tweet since Druknet is not even on twitter?
If Amazon.com loses $3 million in 60 minutes of shutdown, how much could we (Bhutan) possibly be losing when;

1. When Internet is down across the country four many 60 minutes?
2. When Mobile network fails?
3. When the electricity goes out for days and weeks?
4. When the roads remain blocked for days? and 
5. When the whole Nation is put to standby mode for a day on the Pedestrian Day?

Or do we even care? Another tweet from @tsheringtenxin suggests that unlike Amazon.com ours are "govt owned enterprise after all. It's not going to hurt them in the bone to lose business for weeks and months."

Selling Books in Wangdue- Nothing business about it!

If selling books were as easy as selling beer I wouldn't have chosen to sell Yeewong Magazine and Student Digest in Wangdue. And I am ready to accept any proposal to sell Bhutanese books here. I am a busy teacher and also forbidden to do business but I am a literature lover more and there is nothing business in what I am doing.

Student Digest on Sale!

Bajo town though merely born yet, has over 50 shops selling alcohol. If you don't find a bar in every next building, you win a lunch from me at Hotel Phuensum- well they sell alcohol too. On the contrary, if you find one shop that sells books in Bajo Town I bet you a copy each of Yeewong and Sutdent Digest. I am already sorry!
The adventure of selling books is something like the journey to Mt Everest- hardly possible. People have lots of excuses when it comes to buying books but I have way around each excuse. It is irritating, humiliating, saddening, and less often exciting. Many talk straight about my commission, that which but goes in travelling around and I don't mind forgoing it as long as I can spread the books in every corner of Wangdue Dzongkhag. I want to do business which gives me more satisfaction than money.

My wife runs a shop that entertains children with Play station games, computer games and internet. We chose to do this business even after known that our costumers are the generation with no money in their hand. While the whole town is madly busy intoxicating adults and drawing huge cash we are patiently enlightening children and exciting them on their crumbled changes. There is nothing business about this either.
Two magazines have already made it to our shelf and we are willing to accept more as long as it goes on to educate a child- anything for youth. If parents don't want their children to swim in rivers, get into fights, do drugs, drink alcohol,... put some cash in their hand and bring them to KPS- buy them books, let them Google, and let them see what it feels like to be Ben 10, after all a Students Digest cost less then a bottle of beer, and if your sacrifice another bottle your child can enjoy hours of gaming and surfing!

Google+ and Facebook

If Facebook were a country, it would be the third most populated country with over 750 million active citizens, beating even the United States. It gives me pain to realize the fact that a man younger than me would be ruling that country, yes I am hinting at Mark Zuckerberg. One crazy idea made all the difference!

The King!

But I am not alone in the list of people who envy Zuckerberg. Some countries blocked Facebook, many companies followed, and so many offices tried. But it surprised me when I found even Google was jealous. But I never thought Google will add a “+” and join the war against Facebook. Google+, is nothing new- another surprise, but has acquired over 18 million users even before it opened to public. That is over 30 times the population of Bhutan.

If + could make a difference...

With Facebook blocked in so many places Google+ is going to have party. When I joined Google+ last Sunday I was very lonely, so I told Pema Gyamtsho, who invited me there, that Google+ is a brand new bar with different brands of wine and whisky, but all our friends are still drinking in the old bar called Facebook. It felt very lonely among 18 million people after having spent years with 750 million people.