By tierneybb
Walking down the side streets of Patan, behind the roar of motorcycles and chatter of passersby is a nearly constant tinkering. The sound of hammers and saws and all sorts of tools at work: this is known as an ancient center for the arts. Lineages that go back centuries pass down their knowledge of traditional crafts in workshops and homes along the meandering brick alleys and courtyards. Many of the iconographic styles considered to be nearly sacred, and with the same care and techniques practiced by their fore-bearers these workshops create masterpieces on a regular basis, such that art historians can mislocate a piece in time, not knowing whether it was made in the middle ages or 1980. This is what I've chosen to study for my independent research project this semester, and with the experiential learning style supported by SIT and anthropology I've been able to immerse myself in this artisan culture by undertaking a short apprenticeship in the copper repousse workshop of Sajan Ratna Sakya. And while it's difficult to stare down the barrel of a giant research paper after doing eight hours of skilled manual labor six days a week, I love the work that I'm learning, and well... I'm sure the paper will happen, I am involved enough with all the ideas, but I'm procrastinating on the basis my hands are too sore to write. Only three days in I started working copper and I'm nearly done with a 7x5x3" elephant image, even if it's really more like Sajan's elephant that I keep messing up and he has to correct. It's strange to him that there isn't a similar niche in America, let alone that major repousse statues died out in Europe back in the renaissance, he's making not one but two nine foot statues currently, and two other life sized portraits, all of religious figures and mostly for monasteries or private shrines. When he asked where we get devotional images in America I had to hazard a guess at China... But it also takes a bit less to make a cross than to recreate the wheel of samsara.
The experience has been amazing. While I've had small participant-observation style assignments at school, it's difficult to accommodate into an academic schedule. But SIT programs take exams a month before the semester ends so that students can disperse to every corner of the country and pursue their hearts desire (academic research wise, I would otherwise be attending the Elephant Polo World Championships down in Chitwan for the past week... Alas.) with a month of time to do whatever necessary to complete their size able final paper, that will be formally presented to the class and acts a bit like a semester thesis. Our teachers have been completely supportive to all our varied interests all semester. As we are a specialized program and take all of our classes together at the same rate we could steer lectures wherever we were interested, and we're lucky enough to have amazing lecturers who could accommodate whatever whims we can up with. Isabelle Onans in particular, our program director and Sanskrit scholar extrodinare, would simply reroute your question through an analysis of the historical development and cultural attachments to the words you used so that the question ultimately answered itself. But it has been great to feel connected to the intellectual community here as well, as many of our lecturers have been the professionals involved in enacting the changes they wish to see in both Nepal and the Tibetan community.
The most difficult thing to get over while doing research has been the cultural chasm between protocols for contacting people for information. At GW I will spend time pouring over an email asking a professor a question as politely as possible, and they're paid to talk to me. When contacting people around DC for field research I craft formal emails and send them with requests for future information and potential meetings, and if they don't respond I wouldn't think of writing another for at least a week, and never more than two. I may be on the cautious side, but I was always taught to respond to emails ASAP, and that if your emails are ignored you need to move on. That's not the way things work in Nepal though. I've mentioned before that people will drop what they're doing and gladly help you, and my theory is that the activity they scampered away from to aide some lost soul is always email. No one answers it, or checks it, certainly not without being told they have a bunch of urgent emails waiting. Instead, it's generally a good idea to send an email, but then just go ahead and call them anyway. Chances are they are never at the work number, so go ahead and dial their cell phone: no you've never met them before and were giving their number third hand as a contact, they're not expecting you, but no one minds, everyone takes that as completely normal and is most receptive to just calling, or even just showing up at their office.
This way of doing things actually ends up working a lot faster most of the time, with fewer formal boundaries to go through you will have already met for coffee by the time you would be scheduling a meeting in the US, but it just feels so wrong! It feel like you're harassing people, immediately calling after an email?! In the US I might take that as acting if someone was incompetent, but here it seems more like its your research, it's your responsibility to get them involved and tell them you sent an important email. And if an unknown number texts you and asks "how r u?" chances are its you're local research advisor. There just aren't the same perceptions surrounding how to approach contacting someone. Our academic advisor told us that if someone calls us and immediately hangs us when you answer you shouldn't be creeped out, they just want you to know they were thinking about you, in a totally normal, not stalker way.