Word: shangri
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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With its sparkling air, snow-capped mountains and countless whitewashed Buddhist temples, the tiny Himalayan country of Bhutan is probably the world's closest real-life equivalent to James Hilton's Shangri-La. The 1,100,000 Bhutanese, most of whom are illiterate peasants, sense that they live in a uniquely calm and contented country, which they call "the end of the rainbow land of desires." Last week Bhutan gave itself another distinction by publicly crowning the world's youngest monarch, 18-year-old King Jigme Singye Wangchuk. He will henceforth be known as "the dragon king...
Like the fictional inhabitants of Shangri-La, the Bhutanese believe in moderation in all things. Almost everyone, from the King himself to the peasants who farm the gentle, terraced hillsides, seems content with Bhutan as it is now, 95% medieval and 5% modern. In an effort to boost the economy and make life a little more comfortable, however, the government is planning to let in its first tourists-in moderation of course. Up to now, Bhutan's chief money earner abroad has been the sale of its colorful postage stamps, some of which are miniature LPs with the Bhutanese...
...been so charmed by and had blindly pursued in the name of fame and love of God as but the echo of an echo. The culture I aspired to see clearly would always by drowned by initial perceptions. Sunk beneath the latest translation and the re-re-echo. The Shangri-La Motel but the third version of an ersat movie. Of course the power of the original story remains and a core of great value transmitted, but this perception is not reality...
SUCH IDEAS LODGE entangled and warped in the eager boy and a diet of such Shangri-Las only feeds on itself. No lifeline is such romanticism, cut off from the very possibility of consistent and linear thought. Yes, lies in boxes stacked one by one along the ocean in a strip twenty miles long. Neon-emblemed inns and palaces, similar as a strip of concrete dolls notched with the original names of romance glowing from pastel tubes. Aku-Tiki, Capri, Ritz, Rivera, Bali Hai, Lodi. Still the ever more poignant essence remained, barely visible to this feeble romantic shell...
...what truth could the eager boy see through the window of an azure tinted windshield? Cruising through the neon-tinted streets as boy, his life blurred imperceptibly so the '57 Chevy he started out in became that same black Cadillac and he was indeed on the way to Shangri...