A Remarkable Experiment
Shortly after we arrived in Thimphu for the first time, Adrienne Clarkson (then governor general of Canada) and I were climbing those very steep stairs, from floor to floor, for an official meeting with the King. We hadn’t yet adjusted to the altitude and were puffing away, although the Bhutanese officials were careful to make us pause long enough at each landing to recover.
It was January and cold, and we were so sooner in the wonderful throne room at the top than the King noticed that we hadn’t dressed for the climate inside the great building. Canadians are always convinced that it is warmer everywhere outside of Canada. His Majesty immediately called for his Mother’s anti-cold remedy, which, I believe, was ginger and honey in hot water. It was certainly both hot and good. And we did warm up. As we talked, the King demonstrated that combination of nobility and informality which seems so self-evident when you meet it, but which so few other leaders ever manage.
A few days later he invited our party of Canadians to a relaxed family lunch, and as we gathered to sit down, I noticed how the King personally placed each one of us with the members of the Royal Family, until only the two most junior Canadians were left standing. Then he sat down himself and put them on either side of him. At first they were so taken aback that they didn’t know what to say. But he drew them out, and they were quickly engaged in an intense conversion. Each time I see these two, they remind me of that day and their wonderful conversion.
There is a delicate balance between tradition and change, national culture and international influences, natural medicine and Western medicine, the Bhutanese talent for consensus and the Western love of debate. To create these balances is to create the expression of a remarkable experiment. It was clear to Adrienne and me as we travelled around Bhutan that the King and his father before him have been central to this whole process, just as they have been to the country’s approach to everything from national dress to education.
Cultures elsewhere have felt threatened by the outside world. Instead of seeking highly original and positive balances, they have slipped into divisive fear. What we found in Bhutan was the sort of originality which comes from equilibrium between carefully-used intelligence and calm self-confidence, with an essential dose of good humour overlaying it all. Bhutan has been very fortunate to have had such a King.
John Ralston Saul
Author
2007
Source: The Legacy of a King