Monday, January 26, 2009

Getting Along.

I arrived at the dining hall a bit early today, just in time to hear a rousing speech from the head of the dining staff to his crew. Mr. Li (Chinese) was reminding all of his staff (Nepalese) that they were lucky to have such good jobs working here and that it was only by the grace of god that they have been granted such luck. He implored them all to thank god for this gift of employment and remember that their best reward for hard work is knowing that god is watching all that they do.

I’m going to ignore the whole Chinese/Nepalese relationship and the fact the Nepalese staff are placed in a subordinate role to a Chinese supervisor, but rather I just want to point out the religious factor here. The dining staff (presumably majority Buddhist) are thanking god for the opportunity to serve Americans here (presumably majority Christian) while we are all located in the capital of an Islamic country. I suppose this could be inspiring to some people, but really it just makes my head hurt.

2 comments:

shane said...

The Nepalese workers are probably Hindu, the differences between Hinduism and Buddhism in Nepal are very minor so it doesn't really matter.

Above all else Nepalese are dirt poor so they probably don't care that the manager doesn't understand or insults their polytheistic views as long as they can eat and send some money home.

Adam said...

Thank you for clarifying the religious issue.

I agree they likely are very happy to be making good money to send home, but it seems to me that the Nepalese, as a nation, are pretty poor but they don't particularly like the way the Chinese, as a nation, treat them. I was trying to draw a mild parallel to this.

And maybe the questions isn't whether the workers care, but if I should care. The answer; they're just the help, why would I care at all?