The tale between the hare and the tortoise over a Bhutanese dinner :)

The tortoise and the hare (Pic source: funnyjunk.com)

I guess everyone has heard about the tale between the hare and the tortoise before, where the tortoise challenged the hare for having a race on who would be the fastest to reach the finish line. The hare, which was definitely walking faster than the slow-moving tortoise, left the tortoise behind. As he was so much confident in winning the race, he decided to take a nap midway through the race and when he woke up, the tortoise had already reached the finish line before him. So, the moral of this story was: do not be over confident with yourself although you know you are having a much better quality or much stronger than your opponent. 

However, the story didn’t stop there. After realizing his over-confident trait, the hare challenged the tortoise for another race. This time, the hare moved very fast and never took any nap. Therefore, he won the race. The moral of this story was: whoever works hard and focuses on his goal unceasingly will eventually reach his goal and become a winner.

The tortoise didn’t want to lose and challenged the hare for another race. This time, the tortoise gave a term and condition for the race, which was: to not only walk on the land, but also to swim over the lake to reach the finishing line. The hare agreed to it and started walking very fast over the land and suddenly he had a big trouble trying to swim over the lake. The tortoise that slowly walked over the land had no problem swimming over the lake though, and left the hare behind. He won this race. The moral of this story was: you need to think and create a strategy to win over the race considering on the strength and weakness that both parties are having. 

Again, the story had not over yet. This time, the hare challenged the tortoise over the race again, with another term and condition, which was: to hold hand together during the race, over the land and the lake. So, while racing, the hare would piggyback tortoise on his back and on the lake, the tortoise would piggyback the hare, and both reached the finish line together, at the same time. And the moral of this story was: you need to work together, have a great team work, so that both party will have a win-win situation through the hard work and focus over the strength that each party has.

Thanks to Promod who shared the story above to all of us while having a dinner gathering over his rented flat :) I was so lucky being invited over a dinner with few Bhutanese professionals who worked in Singapore last weekend. Promod held this dinner as a farewell party for his wife who would go back to Bhutan (perhaps for good), to deliver their first baby in two months’ time.

As from the previous blog post, I only met both of them for the very first time during the opening of the Impressions of Happiness event. Promod immediately invited me over a dinner and seriously asked me to attend it. He said his wife and friend would cook several Bhutanese dishes and would like me to taste it. I accepted his over that night and went to his place the day after together with my son.

Promod and three young Bhutanese doctors - Dawa, Krishna and Deepak

There, I managed to meet up with three Bhutanese doctors and one Bhutanese student, apart from Promod and Anuja. And just like the culture of attending the Bhutanese dinner, we were served with chang-pa and beverage like wine/beer/juice once we arrived. Slowly one by one came and gathered in the living room. We had a great chit chat over many things that happened in our daily life, including the great story above that Promod got from attending the training in Singapore.

Baobei with his Ashim :)

It was very interesting. When we discussed about one topic, Dawa, one of the doctors would start to give his opinion from the medical side, while Promod, who worked in IT, would give his opinion from the IT related side, and Yeshey, a student, would talk in the opinion of the youth side. Hahaha… Dawa also joked a lot, mentioning his Bangladesh patient who came up with the 'many many many pain' words while explaining the degree of the pain that he encountered. Lolx! I enjoyed the chit chat very much guys! :)

A plate of Bhutanese dishes over a mountain of brown rice ;)

We started dinner at about 8.30pm and again, continued chit chatting and only left their place at 11.30pm. I was so lucky being able to taste the delicious spicy chicken, nakey datsi (the fern, dried red chili  and cheese specially flown from Bhutan), asparagus datsi, broccoli datsi, and ezay (chili with shallots and cheese). My son tasted Bhutanese food for a very first time. He only enjoyed the spicy chicken, but not the rest as he wasn’t used to with the taste of the Bhutanese cheese. He even took a second round of brown rice with the spicy chicken. Hohoho…

From the conversation, again, all of them came here to Singapore only to practice the theory they’d learned before in their university, to gain more experience on their working life plus to handle with people from different nationalities, to further study or to get more qualification, to earn money at the same time. But at the end of the day, all of them had a plan to go back to their country and to serve their country with their skills, knowledge and experience, and most importantly, to build their nation into a better country. It’s something that Singapore government was unable to attract the Singaporean who worked overseas to come back and to serve their country with their skill and knowledge despite the high range salary that the country might offer.

Some of the reason, as what Promod mentioned, it was a different kind of lifestyle they were having back in Bhutan. In his country, after finishing work, he could meet his friends over a tea or coffee and have a chit chat. When the sky turned dark, he would still have plenty of time to have dinner at his aunt’s house until late at night; the dinner, of course with series of chang-pa and beer/liquor (which was incredibly cheap). He would sleep late at night and wake up the next morning at 8.45am, prepare himself to work (which allowed him to start up late). Once reached office, he would have a chance to check email and other things like Facebook, and so on before really started to work. In the afternoon he would go for lunch, which could take up to 2 hours’ time. At 4pm, he would again have a tea time with colleague and in one or two hours’ time would end his working time. While in Singapore, he could not get this kind of privileges. Even he had to work on Saturday. The volume of the job and the stress would differ a lot as well.

Haiz... When would Singapore learn something from Bhutan and not always they learned from us? I didn’t think it would happen anytime soon. At the meantime I guessed we would just have to live life as it is and make it to the best that we could do and to live our lives to the fullest :)

With Promod and Anuja. Kadinche-la for the lovely dinner :)

So, thank you Promod and Anuja for the lovely dinner and for giving me a chance to meet up with more Bhutanese who lived and stayed in Singapore at the present moment. Hope all of you enjoy the rest of your time here in Singapore and have a great life! :)