Kuenza's Diary

There are times when I think that I am probably different from many people. There are also times when I think that as a human being, and a social animal, I am probably similar to all other human beings. I am not even sure if it is good to have such thoughts. It is probably the way I am brought up, values and principles I hold which direct me into how I live and how I see the world. In some ways I have always thought that I did better than many others in fulfilling the social obligations, especially in keeping touch with my friends and families, and also making the social bond live, as well as happen. You see, I find myself organizing many events for family get-togethers, and I also do my best to make time to be there for my community in times of death and sickness, and also in joyful times of my friends, families and the people from my community’s achievements. And I thought I was above average in all this. But I think we often misread ourselves. I did read somewhe...

As part of the GNH dissemination workshop series, I was nominated along with three other colleagues to travel to Malaysia and South Korea in March this year. I was in a dilemma about whether to join them or stay back – because my second child had just turned one year. But having watched so many Korean dramas from being a girl to now, I was tempted to visit South Korea so much that I wanted to join them. And so I did! My husband, my mother and my niece had to take extra responsibility of caring for him; putting babies to bed and soothing them back to sleep when they wake up in the middle of the night is quite a tiresome job for non-mothers. But my boy being a very amiable baby gave them little trouble.  Our counterpart in Malaysia had arranged so many meetings – from meetings over breakfast to lunch to dinner besides presentations to different offices and gatherings, we were left tired to our bones on our last day there, which was 23 rd March 2017. Our flight to Seoul ...

This post is long overdue. I visited Laya in April and I have been meaning to write about it for such a long time. But somehow, I couldn’t. It seems absurd that my excitement of it did not burst beyond the normal routine that ate up my time. Anyway…. My office, the Centre for Bhutan Studies and GNH Research began its 2015 nation wide GNH Survey in January 2015. There were six survey teams: each team comprised of 11 enumerators, three drivers and one supervisor and one assistant supervisor. My team went to Samtse, Samdrup Jongkhar, Tashigang, Punakha and Gasa dzongkhags. The survey questionnaire was revised and it was shortened to 147 questions from 249 questions from 2010 survey questionnaire. But it still took 1 and half hours on average to complete one interview. I will not repeat the nine domains of GNH and any other aspects. For those of you who are interested more in GNH, please visit www.grossnationalhappiness.com We were in Gasa district towards the end of March...

I was in the field supervising a group of enumerators for the Second nation wide GNH Survey, if you remember. I was in Samtse last month and now I am in Samdrup Jkngkhar. I got here yesterday. My team has been here for 19 days already but I had to take leave -- remember, I made a short update from Singapore? It was for that purpose that I had to take leave. Once I got back home from that visit, I was unsure when to join my team because the New Year was just a few days away and if I didn't stay back to celebrate it with my family, I was going to travel on the New Year. No matter how hard it was, I had to decide on the latter. I travelled on Losar and got to the field to  eat dinner with my team. In a way, that was a huge relief. But leaving my family was difficult. One friend said, 'I can't believe you are leaving on Losar. As a mother, it is very important for you to be there on Losar'. I know that, but when I have to make choices like this, I also know that my ...

Let me introduce her first. She is known has Rima and she is known to many Bhutanese because of her active blogging . I came across her blog for quite sometime. Until we started talking on Facebook, (which was quite recently), I had been wondering about her. I wondered whether she was Bhutanese and where she lived. So for the ones who are wondering like me: she is originally Indonesian Chinese. She is married to a Singaporean and lives in Singapore. She first visited Bhutan with her parents through the travel agent as tourist and she fell in love with Bhutan ever since. So, the second time, she visited Bhutan through the invitation of one of her Bhutanese friends. Since then, she has been in touch with Bhutanese through the Bhutanese bloggers and those visiting Singapore. This time, I happened to be the lucky one and thus meet her, in person. She is a lady with an easy smile and warm heart. And she doesn’t mind taking the trouble to meet you, even if it means stretching beyond her...