Through the Looking-Glass and What Reese Found There: A Solitary Cup of Tea

It was a sunny afternoon, nothing out of the ordinary for the time of year. The wind had picked up on schedule, right around 1:30. I was sitting in my office, which I shared with the two vice principals and assistant principal. The staff insisted I take this area instead of the crowded teacher quarters below, despite repeated attempts to turn down their offer. Admittedly it was cozy, largely due to the fine interior design. A few plants were expertly placed around the room in pots, with a couple small climbers traversing the back wall. There was a large homemade bookshelf near the door which housed encyclopedias, miscellaneous literature, and religious texts. Above it was a kind of altar where students would restock the incense, chalices, and butter lamps daily. And looming over it all was a large and stunning tanka painting—a kind of hand-painted textile scroll of a Buddhist deity, in this case the historical Buddha atop a pedestal shaped like a lotus flower.

I was half ruminating on upcoming plans for class, half zoning out when a coworker, Dorji, pulled me from my reverie as he entered the room.

“Sir, why don’t you come to my house this afternoon for tea,” he said. Half requesting, half demanding.

“Uh, sure. Yeah okay.”

So after school I packed my things into my oversized bag and made my way toward his house. It was a short walk over grass and earth, up a ladder, and through a winding path past small, quaint residences. Dorji’s place was not unlike those nearby, shoddily constructed from thin wooden panels, beams, and plaster, painted white with a blue trim. He and his family certainly made the best of their circumstances, however, as evidenced by the neatly piled stacks of wood, clothing lines swaying in the afternoon breeze, and small garden. Kind of like a hobbit hole, only above ground.

Punctuality in Bhutan is a rookie mistake, even I knew that, but at times I can’t help but heed the call of my cultural instincts. In addition to being early, I wasn’t quite sure where to knock as there was no front door. I pulled the short gate ajar and stepped inside an open air room with one small shack to the left and a more sizable structure to the right. I turned right and knocked on, what turned out to be, the living room door. 

A woman answered, her features sharp and eyes kind. She bid me inside through her curt and jumbled English, insisting I first take off my shoes. She directed me to the couch and said Dorji would be returning shortly.

The woman, whose name I did not catch, promptly left the room. I sat in silence, my posture straight, scanning the room for visual stimulation. The set up was certainly comforting. Benches and chairs around a coffee table with a TV in the corner and religious relics and pictures lining the walls. It was humble as everything here seems to be.

In the absence of conversation I twiddled my thumbs and started counting the number of the King’s portraits. 3, 4, 5. Five. No, 8 if you count the small photos tucked in the corner and the calendar on the wall. Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wanghuck, known affectionately as K5 for being the 5^th king in the line of Bhutan’s monarchical lineage, is adored by all. He is a charismatic man in his early 30’s with a movie star smile, known as a real champion of the people. Few people have yet to meet him in the country—which is amazing considering the 21-hour travel time from one end of the country to the other, not to mention the sheer remoteness of certain regions.

A minute later Dorji’s wife returned and put the TV remote in my hand. I dutifully began to flip through channels, passing Hindi soap-operas, national news in Dzongkha, and Animal Planet. I finally chose a movie channel showing an old action flick and left it there for its familiar noise.

A young girl, say 8 years in age, popped out from behind the curtain. She seemed just as surprised to see me as I her, expressing her embarrassment in the all-too-common scratching of the back of her head while sticking out her tongue—a social tick picked up by the youth of Bhutan via foreign cartoons. She quickly ran away and hid, though I could hear her whispering to her sister about the strange chilip in her house.

A moment later the host had arrived. Dorji, a fellow colleague of mine was a regal looking gentleman. Tall in stature with a shaved head and lines of wisdom etched into his face. He apologized for arriving late and we spoke for about a minute before he, too, disappeared.

Some time later I was served a scalding cup of milk tea with a hint of ginger by Dorji’s wife, a drink locally known as naja along with a bowl of zao—dry, baked rice comparable to Rice Krispies. After taking a sip of the delicious tea I turned to thank my hosts, but they were nowhere to be seen.

I waited a few minutes out of politeness to touch my cup. Perhaps they went to pour themselves a cup. But they didn’t come. 5 minutes passed then 10. Eventually I decided to just drink my now tepid beverage and snack by myself.

Twenty minutes in my mind began to wander. What an odd prospect, my inner voice narrated, to be entertained solitarily. When next a person came into the room I did my best to cajole them into a nearby seat, but they’d have none of it. “Please, sir, enjoy your tea.”

After I finished I twiddled my thumbs some more until Dorji and his wife returned to collect the dishes and exclaim simple pleasantries. And that was it. Visitation complete, as odd as it was for its lack of human interaction.

Only when I stood up and put on my shoes was I engaged in conversation, for a good long while in fact. Dorji and I spoke on a myriad of school-related topics until my antsy-ness came to a breaking point and I bid farewell, passing through the gate and up the make-shift staircase composed of slate and slanted earth.

On my way home I replayed the events in my head, trying to make sense of what had transpired. Tea time in Anglo cultures is an opportunity for social bonding. Apparently here not so. In months to follow I’d encounter this ritual time and time again, for all its awkwardness. Friends explicate it as being a gesture of kindness to leave us to our thoughts and treat the guest as if royalty. Hospitality is the greatest gift the Bhutanese can display and they do it elaborately, albeit strangely through the eyes of a western visitor.