The Bhutanese Leading the way.
Forty-four teachers under Thimphu Thromde attended a six-day training on Driglam Namzha that concluded last Saturday.
The training was coordinated by Department of Culture (DoC) under Ministry of Home and Cultural Affairs (MoHCA).
The Department thought that if teachers were trained on Driglam Namzha, they could disseminate their knowledge to a good number of students. But the main objective was to maintain uniformity among the citizens.
“If it works, we are planning to conduct such trainings region-wise,” said the resource person of the training, Driglop Tshering Penjor.
According to one of the participants, a Dzongkha teacher of Jigme Losel Primary School, teachers who were trained learnt a lot of new things about Bhutanese etiquette.
“For instance, we learned the importance and reason of marriage and birthday celebrations. Till now we celebrated blindly without knowing the significance,” he said.
Karma Wangchuk, teacher at Chang Rigphel Lower Secondary School felt that the training was different and conflicted with many lessons he had learnt in the past.
Zomba Lham who wants to pass on her new found knowledge to students said she found the training “really helpful”.
However a participant Wangdi said that acceptance is the primary requirement if Driglam Namzha is to become a norm.
In the training, the key concern raised by the participants was about the wearing of Kabney and Rachu since almost all the participants had pre-conceived notions about how they should go about it.
But the resource person explained that the rules have not changed since the time of the third king. Giving an example, he explained that women usually wear Rachu the normal way at the left shoulder with the fringes at the front in places like offices or dzongs and at various functions.
However when it came to prostrating, receiving blessings and so on, the woman wears the Rachu in two ways: around the neck though the Rachu should enfold the shoulders whereas Royals hold it around their arms.
Till now the DoC has trained 30 batches of people, each comprising 35 participants.
Why all these things are conducted in the WEST? Why not in other parts of the country? Are there no teachers in other parts of the country, who require such kind of trainings? Why the Coordinators are apprehensive about the successfulness of the training? Are they doubtful about themselves on our country’s etiquette? They should not be doubtful rather go on with this training as well to other parts of the country, which would HELP our teachers…when our country’s unique cultural etiquette is under threat? Go and conduct similar trainings to all the school teachers so that they can teach it to their students who make up the future citizens of the country….remember: DO NOT ONLY FOCUS ON THE ZHUNGKHA LOPONS…OTHER LOPONS ARE ALSO BHUTANESE….teach them too…All the best!
My personal view is that since we have now become a democracy, this hideous practice of drilam namzha should be scrapped. At the end of the day, the only thing drilam Namzha promotes is that everyone is not equal and that some people are more equal than others.
If we spent half the time we spend on trying to drape our kabneys perfectly on our shoulders, in some other work which benefits someone, I am telling you, we as a nation will be much better off. Drilam Namzha classes are a sheer waste of money and very similar to DDC coining new words in Dzongkha which nobody uses. ie Television in English is Jangthong in Dzonghka, but everyone still calls a TV a TV and rightly so.
Hey Mr Monk…are you out of your mind? I think u are one kind of a person who doesn’t know the value of RESPECT..Driglam namzha nurtures a person to become a respectful person and a fruitful person..times have changed..agree…that doesn’t mean that we can do away with Driglam Namzha..NO..we simply can’t do away with it…Have you forgotten yourself or what? I think you need to change your ATTITUDE…please don’t take it to the heart in what i say..but i feel that you are a PESSIMIST…please don’t mind…Change for the BETTER please!
Messi, it is my opinion and I stand by what I have said. I have never said that we should stop respecting people and surely we don’t have to be taught drilham namzha to respect our elders, what I have said is that drilham namzha teaches inequality and it may have been relevant in our past, but it is definitely outdated now, especially as we have now become a democracy.