NEPAL ~ A Modern Day Arranged Marriage

The Happy Letter (March 1, 2013)



Tenzin Dechen & Nawang Lhadon on their wedding day, Feb 20, 2013

Marriage Arranged via Skype:  In 1993, I met Tenzin Kelsang, a Tibetan refugee to the US who ended up in Madison, Wisconsin, and three years later, her 4 kids and husband all arrived in Madison too.  This year, daughter Lhadon turned 29 years old, and her mother Tenzin and father Migmar decided it was high time for her to be married.  Through some conversations with their neighbors who’d come to Madison from Nepal, a nephew in a Tibetan refugee camp in Nepal was identified, and Lhadon had been “Skyping” with him for seven months.

I panicked – an on-line engagement seemed too risky to me.  Lhadon is the only girl of the four kids in my adopted Tibetan family and epitomizes all the conflicts inherent in growing up as an individual belonging to a rich, ancient culture, under direct attack, and yet at the same time a 21^st century woman, desiring to be stylish and modern.  It’s been fascinating, if sometimes painful, to have watched that cultural battle wage within one young woman’s life.

I grilled her – what did she know about this guy in Nepal? 

She actually knew a lot, yet she’d never met his parents or family, nor they her, and her parents were going into this blind as well.  Yet through word of mouth, with immigrant community trust and assurances from the neighbors that he came from “a good family,” they were somehow willing to let her marry.  “It may seem strange to you, Madeline,” Lhadon reassured me, as if she were old and knowing and I was the nervous bride, “but it’s our culture.” 



Bridal pair & parents are honored guests at a Tibetan wedding.

Actually, Lhadon’s first preference went right along with my inclination:  fly to Nepal, see if she really liked this guy, Tenzin Dechen, and then get married.   But her parents absolutely refused to have their unmarried daughter arrive unaccompanied to “check out” a guy.  They told her they would go to Nepal with her and she WOULD get married.  The date was set, to my dismay, (via consultation with the local lama at the Nepali temple) on the very third day after they would arrive.  Talk about a high pressure airport meeting!

Without too much wavering, I punched “Purchase” on a cheap, 100% non-refundable, on-line air ticket to Kathmandu.  Barely home from six years of travel to third world countries – I was almost too nonchalant, leaving Wisconsin without bothering with inoculations, guide books, maps, or – thanks to the need to bring “presents” to the groom’s family-to-be -- barely even any luggage for myself.

My eyes bulged when the Tenzin and Migmar picked me up – the “luggage” we four would be carrying consisted of four humongous canvas bags, tied with ropes.  I couldn’t even lift mine.  Carry-on’s were so overstuffed that a snappy young employee of American Airlines refused to let Migmar’s carry-on into the plane.  He tagged it at the last minute, assuring Migmar it would be checked all the way through to Kathmandu, waiting for us at the end of our three plane changes and 30 hours of travel.  Sure, you know it.  It was the suitcase containing two Tibetan wedding dresses (one for me) and all of Tenzin’s antique jewelry that Lhadon was going to wear for the ceremony.  We didn’t see the suitcase again for a full week, finally claiming it, with relief,  AFTER the wedding, having to borrow dresses for the ceremony.   

Jampeling Tibetan Refugee Settlement near Pokhara, Nepal

Half century refugees:  The term “refugee camp” inspires images of rows of tents and hungry children.  But Tibet’s refugee camps have existed in Nepal for 50 years now, since Chinese took over Tibet in 1959, and thousands of refugees have been stuck in Nepal, Bhutan and India, since most other countries in the world have turned their backs on the need for Tibetans-in-exile to find new homes.  The tents have given way to refugee-constructed cement apartments.  Tibetans in Nepal and India would be prosperous and integrated, except for the fact that neither government has granted them citizenship.  Thus they cannot own houses, land or establish businesses.  How they survive is a miracle and mystery.

The groom’s settlement, Jampeling, housed about 300 families.  There was a small temple, an organic farming project that employed about 10 people, an old folks home filled with elders who spent their days chanting Buddhist prayers, a primary school whose enrollment was falling (due to birth control and smaller families )and a smattering of other offices and out buildings.  It reminded me of Wisconsin’s native American communities, which share a similar long history of cultural genocide and displacement.

Young people, including Tenzin Dechen and his four siblings, move to cities like neighboring Pokhara or the capital Kathmandu to find jobs.  Without citizenship papers, they end up underpaid and underemployed, finding work as maids, cooks, receptionists, drivers.  But Nepal is a poor country (average income $200/month), and their Tibetan community cohesion gives them a leg up. 



36 friends & neighbors helped cook, serve, decorate

The wedding was fascinating.  Because Tenzin, who herself works three minimum-wage jobs in Madison, had wired a couple thousand dollars in advance, the event was billed as “the most grand wedding that had ever occurred in Jampeling Tibetan Settlement.”  The help of thirty-six neighbors had been enlisted as cooks, servers, arrangers, and decorators.  Tenzin and Migmar were told they wouldn’t have to lift a finger.  I did notice, however, that Tenzin shelled out another couple thousand dollars upon arrival, and she kept Migmar busy stuffing envelopes of “gifts” of money that were to be presented not only to each family member on the day of the wedding, but also to all 36 of the “helpers.”  As “family”, I was also expected to generate some cash-filled envelopes. 

Five minutes to decide to marry:  Tenzin Dechen and Lhadon had about 5 minutes to size one another up and decide if it was a “go”.  While Lhadon’s mother and I unpacked and tried to figure out what to do without our missing wedding dresses, they went shopping in big Kathmandu for wedding rings, and their in-person friendship seemed a “take.”  We actually all liked Tenzin Dechen immediately – he was handsome, easy-going, kind, respectful, and attentive.  Green lights all round.  Aji Madeline (Auntie Madeline) breathed a sigh of relief.

The next day, we drove 6 hours  to the settlement, near Pokhara in the middle of Nepal.  I’d driven the same road 25 years earlier enroute to a trekking expedition, and remembered it as a dirt road heading toward pristine, terraced mountains.  Now it was a paved, if still bumpy highway, crowded with honking, diesel-exhuming trucks that roared past tree-denuded mountain-sides and garbage-lined rivers.  The mighty Himalayan range was almost lost in the pollution.



Father Migmar honors parents of groom

The settlement was nestled in a beautiful valley with Annapurna visible in the clouds.  The wedding was one continuous haze of white, silk, ceremonial scarves, called kata, being put around everyone’s necks – first the bride’s family greeted each of the groom’s family, who were seated, with a kata and a gift of money in a blue envelope plus a brightly wrapped present.  (Hence our bulging luggage, which turned out to be filled with Nike shoes and brand-name jackets and purses.)  Then the groom’s family brought out a new set of scarves, and one by one draped us and gave us envelopes containing money (my gift was 555 rupees, about US $7).  Lamas intoned prayers, grandparents were honored, then 300 friends and neighbors arrived to pay their wishes (plus envelopes containing money), first at the family’s small Tibetan New Year (Losar) altar, beneath its framed picture of the Dalai Lama, then to the parents and grandparents and the bride and groom.




Neighbors helped cook 16 dishes

Tenzin Dechen and Lhadon remained seated, wondrously clad in traditional silks and furry Tibetan caps (shamo gasse), accepting scarves and good wishes.  The job of Lhadon’s bridesmaid, her cousin who had traveled by bus and train from a similar Tibetan settlement in India, was to remove the scarves when they became too numerous.  By the end of the day, I glimpsed a cloud of hundreds of white scarves near the family altar.

Fifteen cooks, 21 dishes, and one faux pas:  Finally it was time to eat, the 15 cooks having been at work for 24 hours in a tent pitched in the back yard.  Huge caldrons were boiling sweet and plain rice, rolled bread called tigmo, buffalo curries, fried chicken, Nepal’s ubiquitous dal bhat (thin lentil soup) plus a mushroom-spinach soup.  There were 16 dishes in all, many spicy.  An over-eager helper shoved me to the front of the line.  To my horror, I glanced back and saw the holy lamas, bride and groom, and bent-over grandparents in line behind me.  Ah, well:   another of those cultural faux pas I’ve spent a lifetime accumulating.

Sign at Pajorling Camp listing  facts about  Tibetans who

have self-immolated to protest China's occupation

Horrifically, since 2009, 107 Tibetans, mostly monks, have self-immolated in protest of China’s rule of Tibet. To acknowledge this, Tibetan New Year’s celebrations across the world during the past two years have been muted.  Thus at this wedding, there would not be circle dancing or singing long into the night.  But the local temple had given a dispensation for card playing, so small groups formed for a Tibetan version of Mahjong (bah), and piles of crumpled bills were evidence of friendly betting.  Dinner was served after that -- not left-overs, but an entirely new set of dishes.

 

On day two, tables were turned, and the groom’s family cooked for the helpers, draped them in kata and gave them each envelopes of money.  Merriment continued, though now cards and gambling were replaced by chair stacking and caldron washing.  We were not allowed to help, except for Lhadon, who was now included in everything the groom's family did.  We were already missing her.

A poignant moment:  One of the more poignant moments came when both father’s exchanged dances, during an informal family evening after the wedding.  The nickname of Tenzin Dechen’s father is Gelbu (“the king“), after one of his well-remembered roles in Tibetan opera.  Lhadon’s father, Migmar, is likewise an accomplished folk singer and dancer.  The performance of Tibetan opera is now forbidden in old Tibet, and in the years since Nepal’s new China-leaning government took power, permission for performances has increasingly been denied. 

Contrast this to Japan, where kabuki and Noh theater are venerable arts, respected by people, studied in school at least rudimentarily by students, and supported at highest government levels.  Tibetan opera is no less rich a tradition, but is another piece of culture being actively suppressed.  Without accompanying musicians, both fathers sang their parts, then “dah dee di dum” ‘ed where musicians were supposed to come in.  Embarrassed by the old men’s antics, younger people were laughing and making jokes during it.  This broke my heart, and I wondered if there were places where this wonderful, fragile and endangered art might still be being nurtured.[1]
 

Leaving a kata on the bridge:  Two days later, white ceremonial scarves were swirling through the air, as both family sets draped one another to say good-byes.  As our taxi pulled away from the village, now with lightened luggage but topped with a heap of caldrons that needed to be returned to a monastery enroute and crammed with 16 relatives eager for a tour of holy temples, it paused by the Seti River Bridge.  Several got out to tie a last kata around the railing, blessing the homes and health of those left behind.

Leaving home, groom ties kata to bridge

We will soon leave Lhadon to spend the remainder of the month with her new family.  Already a US citizen herself, she will return to Madison to complete a Spouse Visa application, which hopefully will take only a year to be approved.  Then Tenzin Dechen will be able to come to Madison, Wisconsin, as a future US citizen-to-be.  My adopted Tibetan family will surely all be at the airport to welcome him with a blessing snowstorm of kata.

Madeline

Kathmandu, NEPAL, March 1, 2013

globalmaddy@gmail.com

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[1]  Tibetan opera is still taught and celebrated with annual festivals at the Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts in Dharamsala, India, I was told.