I avoided being part of Nepali associations and organizations all the years I lived abroad. Luckily, that wasn't too difficult most of the time because most places I lived in neither had any sizeable Nepali population nor organizations.
One reason behind the avoidance was a discovery I made about many Nepali men -- you can take them out of Nepal, but you can't take Nepal out of them!
On April 13, Ministry of Health and Population of Nepal made another projection about COVID-19 cases in the country. If one were to go by their past projections, this should and can be written off too. However, there is at least one confounding factor this time around.
One of the many consequences of low science literacy and high level of religiosity and the attendant belief in superstitions in the highly patriarchal Brahmanic society of Nepal is unabashed cruelty to females. One way the cruelty is meted out is in the way they are blamed for a newborn's sex as it that were determined by gestation and birthing. Science says otherwise, of course!
When left is right and right is left; when might is right and right is wrong; and when the wrong get their way and are held is high esteem, what is left?!
I'll tell you what is left...Nepal.
You are left with the country of Nepal...where pride is the new shame!
How a society uses information and knowledge depends a lot on the kind of society it is. An open and outward looking society uses information and knowledge to free their people, for example. A closed and inward-looking society, on the other hand, utilizes them to control their people. Nepal, being a closed and inward-looking society, expends a lot of effort into controlling their people, starting from when they are children.
Combination of lack of good quality and level of education and a social system based on a highly discriminatory caste system means that, in Nepal, there are many instance of people displaying their ignorance and/or bigotry and prejudices without even them being aware that that's what they are doing.
This blog post is about one such example: Nepalis mocking the American twang in a Nepal-born American as well as fellow Nepalis for their non-mainstream Nepali accents.