My Final Paper

Nepal: History, Culture and traditions:

Flag of Nepal

The Nepalese people welcome every people saying 'Namaste' which is a traditional way of greeting, it is the most common form of welcoming a guest in the country. It is a landlocked country with many mountains and hills which lies between India and China. Nepal consists of the highest mountain Mount Everest which is about 8848 meters above the sea level.  This country is diversified with different cultural and language. Nepal is blessed with a rich cultural heritage. This statement verifies that the country is enriched and classifies the variety in food, clothing and life. Nepal has about thirty-six different ethnic groups. Each of this different caste has their own culture and clothing styles although all of these people eat the same food.

Nepal is the land, which saw the birth of the world’s greatest religion known as Hinduism and Buddhism. Constitutionally, Nepal is a Hindu Kingdom with no prejudice against other religions. Looking at the statistics, Nepal is almost divided half and half into Hinduism and Buddhism. There are also other religions that constitute a little percent of the total percent. The people follow Buddhism as Nepal is the birth place of the Buddha. Lord Buddha is used as the symbol of peace to convey the message of peace and to all the people around the world.

Newar Ethnic Groups

As the kingdom, Nepal is multiethnic and multi-lingual, the culture of Nepal is a unique combination of tradition and novelty. The traditions and culture among Nepalese ethnic groups have their own culture and traditions, their own food and clothing.  The land is enriched with unique cultural groups like Brahmins, Chetrriyas, Baisyas, Newars and others. From this major caste, there are many subgroups and sub caste that have their own cultures and traditions. The Newars are known as the earliest known arrivals and most accomplished artisans and merchants to the Kathmandu Valley. The Sherpa’s are known for their climbing skills on the top of the mountains. The Limbus in the far eastern and the Rais in the Middle Eastern hills, gurungs to the west, and Magars to their southwest arrived from their migration from the plain. The Brahmins and Chhetris are mostly scattered across the hills and the valleys. They are known as the warriors who dominate the major political institutions and have settled throughout the rice growing areas in the hills. The other particular ethnic groups known as the untouchable unoccupational caste groups like cobblers (Sarki) and tailors (Damai) are scattered in various places in the hills. Most the people are who live around the Terai region are Maithili, Bhojpuri and Tharu people.

“The ethnic identity of most Nepali citizens is readily apparent to the dress, language, habits, and facial features and frequently determines the kind of preliminary interaction that the kind of preliminary interaction that takes place when strangers meet” (Scholz). Talking about the language, all the ethnic groups have their own communities. These communities speak different languages and dialects. Although the national language is Nepali, most of the ethnic groups have their own languages. The mother tongue is spoken by almost all the people in Nepal. Well most of the people who are educated around the urban areas speak English too and they understand the neighbor language that is Hindi language. The tourist usually visits theses places so it is easier to communicate for them.

King's Palace

Nepal was united by Prithvi Narayan Shah, king of Gorkha into a single country. Before that Nepal was a country which was divided into many small kingdoms. Every kingdom was ruled by different kings and they had their own rules, terms and traditions. It was not only during Prithvi Narayan’s regime but it started since his father Narbhupal Shah. King Narbhupal Shah had tried to seize the capital city Kathmandu, which was known as the town of Nuwakot, which overlooked the Trisuli River which formed Gorkha’s eastern boundary. Prithvi Narayan Shah was known for his political skills and he always succeeded on what he did. He always had plans and logistical preparations before attacked any of the small states. He also motivated his rank and file troops by offering them their own land assignments.

 “ In his political testament, the Dibya Upadesh, dictated a few months before his death, Prithvi famously described his kingdom as ‘ a yam between two rocks’ and recommended a defensive stance against both China and the British (Whelpton). When Prithvi Narayan Shah was trying to conquer the distributed Nepal into a single kingdom, the British were conquering different countries around the world. During this ruling of the British Army, they also tried to conquer and undermine Nepal. The British East India Company used to be a company ruled by British in India. During this period, the rulers in Nepal had to sign a treaty known as Sugauli Treaty. The treaty was called for terrestorial concessions in which parts of Nepal had to be given to British India. Under the treaty, about one-third of Nepalese territory was lost, including Sikkim, Garhwal and Sutlej River like Kangra and much of the Terai region (which are now a part of India).

Sunrise

After the demise of Prithvi Narayan Shah, his son Pratap Singh ascended the throne. But, Pratap Singh died after two years and nine months in his office. After him, Pratap Singh’s son Rana Bahadur Singh ascended the throne at the age of three. There were series of murder cases in the regimes, which at the end turned out into the court massacre popularly known as Kot Parva. It was then when Janga Bahadur Rana was elected to be Prime Minister and the chief of Nepalese Army. According to the history, Jung Bahadur Rana exiled the king and the queen to Banaras. Later Jung Bahadur Rana charged the king and kept him under the house arrested and finally his own son Surrendra was declared the King. At the end of this whole regime, Janga Bahadur became the powerful Prime Minister of Nepal. After this, Chandra Shumsher ruled the country but as the anti-rana movement was germinated from the time of Janga Bahadur Rana. The end of First World War, the anti-rana voices was raised and in 2007 B.S., King Tribhuwan abandoned the Rana-regime and throne himself to be the King of Nepal.

According to my knowledge, there used to be a good political system in Nepal some ten years back when there was Kingship. “A10-year Maoist insurgency-punctuated by cease-fires in 2001. 2003, 2005, and 2006 began in 1996”. When the recent King Gyanendra announced the reinstatement of Parliament, the Maoists declared a three-month unilateral cease-fire. The communist party of Nepal (Maoists) merged with the much smaller Communist Party of Nepal. Recently, the country has its own president and prime minister though it has been facing lot difficulties in solving the political system.

Nepal is one of the underdeveloped and poorest countries in the world. The estimated per capita income of 1998 according to the facts was about US$158 to US$180. There are many factors that have been made Nepal to be an undeveloped country. Some of the reasons are economic underdevelopment, lack of resources and infrastructures, country being a landlocked country, lack of institutions for modernizations and lack of policies and conductive to development. 

The Living God

Nepal is a country which has a very different landscape than any other country. On the top, it is covered with mountains where people mostly do not live, in the middle part is the hilly region where it consist of lots of hills and the lower part is the Terai region where it has flat lands. Due to this kind of land structure, the country faces lots of difficulties to build up connections with its own areas. The transportation of goods between the inner cities is very difficult. Most of the things are transferred either by trucks, railroad and ropeways. Since, it is a landlocked country; it does not build up very little contact with other countries than India and China. Nepal has faced shortages of different things like consumer goods, raw materials, and other industrial inputs. It can totally classify that Nepal’s economy is dependent on India. 

An Overview of Agriculture

About 90% of the people in Nepal largely depend on agriculture although only 20% of the total land is cultivable. In trying to develop the agricultural production, the government has focused on good irrigation and the use of fertilizers and insecticides. The other effort that government has made to increase the productivity is the implementation of new machines and new seeds of high-yield varieties. The main drawback of people who farm is they depend totally on the weather conditions. As they wait for the rain, sometimes there is no rainfall which results in destruction and waste of seeds. Usually, rice, corn and sugarcane are the main products from this agricultural product, among this rice are the most important crop produced in Nepal. Other food crops that are produced in Nepal are wheat, millet and barley. Food like sugarcane, tobacco farming, potatoes and oilseed has also contributed a lot to the agricultural sector. According to the facts, production of milk, wheat, meat and fruit has contributed on its own to this sector.

Brick Factory

Industry in Nepal hasn’t got a chance to flourish large scale industries but small scale industries can counted in the hands. Most of the small scale industries produced agricultural products like jute, sugar and tea as raw materials. But other than this product most of them are imported from India. Some of the cottage industries like basket-weaving as well as cotton fabric and edible oil production. Some of them also own a Private industry but they are found very short. 

Trekking

Tourism is a major source of foreign earning in Nepal. Mount Everest has been one of the greatest attractions of tourism. This highest mountain in the world was first climbed by Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Sherpa in 1953. Hiking, rafting, canoeing, and hang gliding are considered other main attractions of tourism in Nepal. Other than this the culture, people and traditions and architecture were the site of attractions. 

An old Woman wearing Cultural Dress

As Nepal is a home of several ethnic groups, it has a common social family structure. Generally, people live in either joint or small family in which joint families; the family might be living together from generations to generations. Each member of the family is binded to their norms and values. The marriage is normally arranged by parents with the help of a marriage consular called Lamhi, although love marriage is popular among new generation. We can claim that Nepalese society has changed mainly in the major cities and among the youths not only in terms of marriage but in every other aspect. 

Food: Dal, Bhat, Tarkari, Achar

The food culture in Nepal can be considered same all over the country. The main meal of Nepalese people is rice, curry and pulse known as ‘Dal-Bhat-Tarkari-Achar’, which a perfect combination of carbohydrate, protein, vitamin, mineral, and fat. Bhat is the boiled rice, Dal is the well cooked lentils soup from different beans, Tarkari is spicy fried vegetables and Achar is the seasoned vegetables. This meal is eaten all over the country by the people twice a day. In the morning and in the afternoon, people usually eat light foods like tea, coffee and food snacks. For the cooking purpose, Nepalese people use sunflower vegetable oil and ghee to fry while for the spices they use items like garlic, ginger, turmeric, bay leaf, clove, pepper, chilli powder and others. People in the mountains consume typical Nepali food known as ‘gundruk and dhido’ in which gundruk is the dried spinach while dhido is made from some crushed corn. These kinds of food are also sold in restaurants in cities.

Different ethnic groups

 Each ethnic group has their own sense of dressing styles according to their lifestyle, language, culture and tradition. Most of the main ethnic groups have their own unique style of dressing according to region. The national dress of boys is they wear ‘Daura Surwal and Dhaka Topi’ and for the girls would be a ‘Phariya Cholo’.  Especially youths in the cities wear casual dress like T-shirt and pant. The sense of dressing in the cities is more westernized and influenced by media and fashion. The elderly womens wear Sari Blouse and Kurta Sulwar. 

Hilly Area

            There are various types of climate that are found in Nepal. To name some of them, they are monsoon subtropical, temperate monsoon and alpine/tundra. The subtropical monsoon climate is found in the Terai region, the temperate monsoon climate is found in the Hills and alpine in the mountainous region of Nepal. According to one of the websites, the average rainfall of the country in the whole year is 1700MM. But the mean annual rainfall varies from less than 300MM. The Monsoon usually stats in the month of June and ends in September. The temperature during summer in Nepal would be more than 40 degree Celsius and is about 28 degree Celsius in the middle Hills while the temperature in the winter in the Terai region would be 7 degree Celsius and is below freezing point in the Hills. 

Pokhara

 In conclusion, Nepal is a very beautiful country with the highest mountain and rich in cultural heritages. Nepal is known as the land of non-stop festivals and a land of brave Gurkhas. The city of Nepal, Kathmandu is a city full of golden pagodas and is also known as the home of Living Goddess (Kumari). The religious tolerance and harmony are the common features in the Nepalese way of lifestyles. As everyone knows, Lord Buddha was known as the God of peace who was born in Lumbini, Nepal. Thus, Nepal is homeland of high mountains and all other natural resources, cultural heritage that makes it wonderful than any other countries in the world.



Some Pictures of Nepal:

Swayambhu Temple

Durbar Square

Monuments

Cannoying

People celebrating festival Indra Jatra

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Pashupatinath Temple

The Eye of Lord Budhha

Typical House of Nepal

Gosaikunda

Cultural Toy

Valley View

Pashupatinath Temple

Works Cited:

Scholz, Leo E. ROse & John T. Nepal. Boulder: Westview Press, Inc., 1980.

Whelpton, John. A HISTORY OF NEPAL. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nepal

http://nepal.saarctourism.org/culture-religion.html

http://www.everyculture.com/Ma-Ni/Nepal.html

http://www.nepalvista.com/nepalfaq/customs.html

http://www.articlesbase.com/travel-articles/nepal-the-most-beautiful-country-in-the-world-727222.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gurkha_War

http://www.nepalinformation.com/history.html

http://www.mongabay.com/reference/country_studies/nepal/all.html