 Hello and welcome to a summary of all you need to know about Beyond the Sky and the Earth, A Journey into Bhutan, an article written by Jamie Zepper. Now I will read and explain this article in depth and the version that I will read is what appears in the Pearson Edexcel International GCSE anthology. Now do bear in mind that this was written when Zepper was 24 years old after she left Canada to teach in Bhutan and this is a memoir that grew out of an essay that she wrote about her early days in the country. So in this video I will be going over all the language techniques that you need to be aware of if you are writing about this text, so let's begin. Now I'll start by reading the first two paragraphs and then I'll point out all the important language techniques that you need to be aware of. Mountains all around, climbing up to peaks, rolling into valleys again and again. Bhutan is all and only mountains. I know the technical explanation for the landscape, landmass, meeting landmass, the Indian subcontinent colliding into Asia 30 or 40 million years ago but I cannot imagine it. It is easier to picture a giant child gathering earth in great armfuls, piling up rock, pinching mud into ridges and sharp peaks, knuckling out little valleys and gorges, poking holes for water to fall through. It is my first night in Timphu, the capital, a 90 minute drive from the airport in Paro. We took five different flights over four days to get here, from Toronto to Montreal to Amsterdam to New Delhi to Calcutta to Paro. I am exhausted but I cannot sleep. From my simple pine panelled room in the Druk Sherig Hotel, I watch mountains rise to meet the moon. I used to wonder what was on the other side of the mountains, how the landscape resolved itself beyond the immediate wall in front of you. Looking in from the baked brown plains of India this morning, I found out. On the other side of the mountains are mountains, more mountains and mountains again. The entire earth below us was a convulsion of crests and gorges and wind shaped pinnacles. Just past Everest, I caught a glimpse of the Tibetan Plateau, the edge of a frozen desert 4,500 metres above sea level. The river's altitude is about half that, but even here the winter air is very thin and dry and very cold. So essentially this opening really introduces us to the dramatic and beautiful landscape of Bhutan that she witnesses upon visiting and obviously as I mentioned, this is a memoir based on her visit when she left Canada to go and teach in Bhutan. Now the opening sentence uses a sinditan to highlight how mountainous a region is and of course remember a sinditan is when there are no conjunctions used, just commas to list something and of course this also speeds up the pace. But this sinditan just shows just how mountainous this region is, how dramatic the landscape is. Furthermore, she says Bhutan is all and only mountains and this hyperbole as well as the metaphor is her way of really emphasising in a very dramatic way just how many mountains there are in Bhutan. It really solidifies this image of Bhutan as this mountainous country in our minds as readers especially for those of us who have never been to the country before. Also she talks about landscape, landmass meeting landmass and the repetition of landmass, this word as well as alliteration, what this does again is it just shows and emphasises just how vast this area is but also just how untouched vast chunks of Bhutan are by lots of buildings and things like that it's very naturally beautiful. Furthermore she uses a comparative adjective it's easier to picture a giant child gathering and in addition she says a giant child gathering earth in great armfalls and of course what this comparative adjective coupled with this humus imagery of this giant child what this does is it emphasises just how dramatic this beautiful landscape is. Furthermore she mentions rock, mud, valleys, gorges and she uses a semantic field of nature here to really show just how untouched this land is and how vast it is. Furthermore she uses a proper-nounced timphu and paro to really educate us about this capital of course the names in this capital but of course also it now really gives us a very concrete idea of her she's now landed and the reality of living in Bhutan has become quite real for her. Also she talks about just how remote Bhutan is it took her five different flights over four days it was an exhausting trip and of course the alliteration here shows just how far away this country is from America and of course Canada and she mentions of course she's coming from Toronto to Montreal then she mentioned she has to pass through Amsterdam then New Delhi then Calcutta before finally arriving in Paro and what this listing of cities does again it emphasises just how far away the journey was just how committed of course she also was to arriving in Bhutan and she then mentions how I am exhausted but I cannot sleep and this compound sentence shows she's really entranced by this country so even if she's really exhausted after this really long journey to this remote landscape she's now really excited to be there. Furthermore she says mountains rise to meet the moon and now the hyperbole and personification here shows just how large these mountains are. Furthermore she repeats the words mountains again if you haven't caught it yet now you really know that this scenery is just filled with mountains and it's extremely dramatic to look at. Also she uses dramatic vivid verb a convulsion of crests and gorges it's just everywhere the mountains but it's not for for instance you know the hills the soft kind of appearance of the mountains. These are really sharp peaks that form the horizon of Bhutan also she says that the winter air is thin and dry and very cold and here she's using polycynditin this is in contrast to the synditin that she opens the passage with. Now here polycynditin just remember is when there are lots of conjunctions used and of course here it's thin and dry and very cold and this shows a mix of the beauty of this landscape but also how challenging the tough the climate is. So let's carry on. The next morning I share breakfast of instant coffee powdered milk, plastically white bread and flavorless red jam in the hotel with two other Canadians who have signed on to teach in Bhutan for two years. Lorna has golden brown hair, freckles and a no-nonsense home on the farm demeanor that is frequently shattered by a ringing laughter and stories of the wild characters that populate her life in Sasca Tuetschan. Sasha from British Columbia is slight and dark with an impish smile. After breakfast we have a brief meeting with Gordon the field director of the WUSC program in Bhutan and then walk along the main road of Timphu. Both Lorna and Sasha have traveled extensively. Lorna trekked all over Europe and Northern Africa and Sasha worked for a year in an orphanage in Bombay. They both ecstatic about Bhutan so far and I'll stay close to them hoping to pick up some of their enthusiasm. Although Timphu's official population is 20,000 it seems even smaller. It doesn't even have traffic lights. Blue-suited policemen stationed at two intersections along the main street direct the occasional truck or landcruiser using incomprehensible but graceful hand gestures. The buildings have all the same pitched roofs, three four windows and heavy beams painted with lotus flowers, jewels and clouds. One storied shops with wooden shuttered windows open onto the street. They seem to be selling the same things. Onions, rice, tea, milk powder, dried fish, plastic buckets and metal plates, quilts and packages of stale soft cookies from India, bourbon biscuits, coconut crunchies and the hideously colored orange cream biscuits. There are more signs of the outside world than I had expected. Teenagers in acid-washed jeans, Willie Nelson's greatest hits after the news in English on the Bhutan broadcasting service, a Rambo poster in a bar. Overall these signs of cultural infiltration are few but they're starting, startling against the Bhutanese of everything else. So in this part of the passage essentially what she does is she talks about the other two Canadians who are also on the same I suppose teaching mission that she's on in Bhutan. So of course we are introduced to Lorna and Sasha and of course the descriptions that we get are very contrasting. Also later on of course she then talks about just how remote this pace is. Now of course here she opens this paragraph with the adverbial phrase of time the next morning. So this is now presumably after she's had a night's rest in spite of her excitement and then she's slept it off and she's woken up. Now we see her kind of coming back down to earth. She uses language such as instant coffee, powdered milk, plasticky white bread and flavorless red jam. Now here she talks about very drab food which is a contrast of course the beautiful environment that she's seen but also it's kind of hinting at her lack of enthusiasm at Bhutan once she's now starting to acclimatize herself. She then talks about the first Canadian Lorna and she describes her golden brown hair and these pre-modifying adjectives show that Lorna is quite youthful, very beautiful and so on. However, she also talks about how Lorna makes an impression on her with her ringing laughter and of course the onomatopoeia shows just how much personality and how vivacious Lorna is. The other Canadian called Sasha is described in contrast so she's slight and dark meaning she's quite small, perhaps maybe tanned and she has an impish smile so kind of a goofy version of Lorna perhaps and these adjectives give us a contrast between of course Sasha and Lorna. Also she talks she uses active verbs to talk about how both Lorna and Sasha these two Canadians have travelled they have also tracked and these active verbs show that these people are very seasoned in travelling to very remote regions and of course we learned that they go all over Europe, Northern Africa, Sasha works in Bombay which is in India and of course these active verbs emphasise that in contrast to the author Zepa these two women have very very kind of a lot of experience in the very seasoned as travellers. Also it's really interesting this abstract noun of enthusiasm. We it creates some surprise for us after she's described this really beautiful landscape of Bhutan, this amazing scenery that she sees. It's interesting that she doesn't have the same enthusiasm as other two Canadians. Furthermore she uses the statistics 20,000 to talk about how the city Timfu has a small population but then she says it feels even smaller so it feels really claustrophobic to her and this comparative adjective smaller really creates that claustrophobic feeling we start seeing that excitement and her energy is being sapped. Also she talks she uses the adjective occasional to describe this truck and she's showing just how quiet the city is of course this is a contrast to maybe the large and bustling city of Montreal or Toronto in Canada. Also she describes the same pitched roofs and this shows that she's becoming a little bit disillusioned and underwhelmed at what she sees in Timfu. Furthermore the sibilants selling the same things emphasises just the notony of life and the predictability of this really small town. Furthermore when she lists onions, rice, milk powder, dried fish, plastic buckets and metal plates quilts and packages of still soft cookies this belongs to semantic field of food and cutlery. Again she's showing that this is like a very small town mentality in spite of this being a really important city in Bhutan and we're getting the sense that she's becoming less and less excited the more and more she walks around the city especially Timfu and she is a little bit disillusioned at what she sees this is even added by the fact that it comes from so she emphasises that a lot of this stuff comes from India bourbon biscuits, coconut crunchies and she talks about this imported food but actually she thinks it's a little bit disgusting. Furthermore she mentions the outside world and what this does, this description shows and portrays Bhutan as really secluded and isolated. Also it's interesting she mentions these pop culture references Willie Nelson and the Rambo poster and it's interesting because she's saying that there are hints of the outside world but actually she's referencing outdated pop culture in some ways kind of showing that even the youth in Bhutan a little bit behind western culture so even if they're a little influenced by western culture the influenced by you know stuff that was maybe popular in the 60s and 70s but not really popular today. So again this is adding to this underwhelming feeling that the author is having as she's getting acclimatised to Timfu. Also she uses the neologism Bhutanese-ness and neologism by the way is when somebody makes up a new word so she's talking about she's trying to convey how strong and how prevalent the Bhutanese culture is and maybe she feels that it's too entrenched and the country is perhaps too inward facing rather than maybe influenced by the external countries and the external environment. So let's carry on. The town itself looks very old with cracked sidewalks and faded paintwork but Gordon tells us that it didn't exist 30 odd years ago. Before the 60s when the third king decided to make it the capital it was nothing but rice paddies a few farm houses and a zong one of the fortresses that are scattered throughout the country. Timfu is actually new. Timfu will look like New York when you come back after year in the east he said. At the end of the main road is Tashichodong the seat of the royal government of Bhutan a grand whitewashed red roof golden tipped fortress built in the traditional way without blueprint or nails. Beyond hamlets are connected by footpaths and terraced fields barren now climb steadily from the river and merge into the forest. Timfu will never look like New York to me I think. The Bhutanese are very handsome people the best built race of men I ever saw wrote emissary George Bogle on his way to Tibet in 1774 and I find I agree of medium height and sturdily built. They have beautiful aristocratic faces with dark almond shaped eyes high cheekbones and gentle smiles. Both men and women wear the black hair short the men wear the women wear Kira a brightly striped ankle dress and the men a go a knee length robe that resembles a kimono except that the top part is exceptionally voluminous. The Bhutanese of Nepali origin tend to be taller with sharper features and darker complexions they too wear the go and Kira. People look at us curiously but they don't seem surprised at our presence although we see few other foreigners in town we know they are here. Gordon said this morning about Timfu's small but friendly expat community. Now in the first half of this chunk of the passage she still has very unflattering ways to describe Timfu. So she says that the town looks really old cracked sideways faded paintwork and these man-made structures that she conveys seem really old, unexciting and frankly quite ugly from her perspective. Also she talks about the rice paddies and the few farmhouses which existed before these structures were built and she talks and she makes reference to these simple agricultural lifestyles to show that Bhutan historically was quite a rural population. Also the simple sentence Timfu is actually new it's quite sarcastic because actually what this is conveying is that she feels that Timfu looks really outdated and ironically actually a lot of these buildings are quite new. Furthermore the simile like New York is kind of mocking this person who is a Gordon himself who's basically comparing Timfu like New York it's anything but New York to Zepa who's viewing it as actually a very old and somewhat backward city. Also she describes the royal government's building grand whitewashed red roof golden tipped fortress. This is a synterton kind of shows its unflattering in terms of its description of the government building. Furthermore when she mentions hamlets this is language related to peasantry and it's still somewhat portrays Bhutan as backwards and of course this is a contrast so the government building which is ground whitewashed red roof which itself isn't that beautiful is right next to these hamlets. Furthermore when she mentions how barren the landscape is again this is a really negative adjective so she really is starting to show a really unflattering side to Timfu. Furthermore it's interesting that whilst she describes Timfu in this very unflattering way actually she describes the Bhutanese people as very very beautiful and actually it's interesting that she clusters them all as a group so she uses lots of adjectives to really show that as a whole they have a really striking and somewhat beautiful and entrancing appearance. Also her mention of cultural clothing so she mentions the Kira and the Go. This local clothing is her cultural reference to what they wear of course this makes us realise that actually she lives amongst them she knows what she's talking about. Also she uses alliteration few other foreigners to emphasise just how small the foreign community really is and the speech marks expat further highlights just how few foreigners really are and of course this further emphasises just how remote Bhutan is and how close the country is to outsiders. So let's carry on. When we stop to ask for directions at a hotel the young man behind the counter walks with us to the street pointing out the way explaining politely in impeccable English. I search for the right word to describe the people for the quality that impresses me most dignity, unself-consciousness, good humour, grace but can find no single word to hold all of my impressions. In Timphu we attend a week-long orientation session with 12 other Irish, British, Australian and New Zealand teachers new to Bhutan. Our first lessons in Bhutanese history are the most interesting. Historical records show that waves of Tibetan immigrants settled in Bhutan sometimes before the 10th century but the area is thought to have been inhabited long before that. In the 8th century the Indian saint Padmasambhava brought Buddhism to the area where it absorbed many elements of Bonn, the indigenous shamanist religion. The new religion took hold but was not a unifying force. The area remained a collection of isolated valleys each ruled by its own king. When the Tibetan lama Gawang Nam Guyel arrived in 1616 he set about unifying the valleys under one central authority and gave the country the name a drug cure meaning land of the thunder dragon. Earlier names for Bhutan are just as beautiful. The Tibetans knew the country as a southern land of medicinal herbs and the south so I'll stop there for now. Now this paragraph essentially highlights just how amicable the Bhutanese people are and of course you mentioned specifically the young man who was behind the counter when they were asking for directions and he literally walks with them so this alliteration just shows how amicable Bhutanese people can be. Furthermore the adverb and adjective politely and impeccable to describe his English just shows how much this man in particular impressed her with his manners and even with his ability to speak really fluent English. Furthermore the ascendant here to describes the quality of many Bhutanese people that she's met so dignity, unsubconsciousness, good humor, grace. Here she seems actually in spite of her earlier lack of enthusiasm for the city. She seems really fond of the Bhutanese people. Also she mentions that historical records show that waves of Tibetan immigrants settled in Bhutan sometimes after the 10th century but the areas thought to have been inhabited long before that. Now this complex sentence shows her intrigue at Bhutanese history. She finds it really really intriguing and even if perhaps she feels like it's too far removed from outside influences actually this is something perhaps that's a strength that helped it historically. Also her references to religion, Buddhism, shamanist religion shows the Bhutanese specific religious way of living. Furthermore she uses proper nouns dracul, land of the thunder dragon, southern land of medicinal herbs and what these proper nouns do is they expound on Bhutan's history showing her own unique interest in the country and its culture. So let's carry on. Early names for Bhutan are just as beautiful. The Tibetans knew the country as the southern land of medicinal herbs and the south sandalwood country. Districts within Bhutan are even more felicitously named. Rainbow district of desires, lotus grove of the gods, blooming valley of luxuriant fruits, the land of longing and silver pines. Bhutan, the name by which the country became known to the outside world, is thought to be derived from botanata meaning the end of Tibet or from the Sanskrit Bhutan meaning highlands. While the rest of Asia was being overrun by Europeans of varying hue but similar cry only a handful of westerners found the way into Bhutan. Two Portuguese Jesuits came to call in 1627 and six British missions paid brief but cordial visits from the late 1700s until the middle of the next century. Relations with the British took a nasty turn during the disastrous visit of Ashley Eden in 1864. Eden who had gone out to the small problem to sort out the small problem of Bhutanese raids on British territory had his back slapped his hair pulled and his face rubbed with wet dough and was then forced to sign an outrageous treaty that led to a brief war between the British and the Bhutanese. Considering the consolidated British empire in the south and the great game being played out in the north between the colonial powers Bhutan's preservation of its independence was remarkable. I am full of admiration for this small country that has managed to look after itself so well. Now she mentions the etymology of the name Bhutan and etymology means where the word comes from and again she further emphasizes just her intrigue at Bhutan, its history and she sees it as very beautiful. Furthermore she makes mention of western countries hinting that Bhutan was actually in danger of colonization especially during this period in the 16th, 17th and 1800s when a lot of European countries were expanding their colonies outwards so of course here she hints at the Portuguese Jesuits, the British missions and usually historically speaking the colonialists used to use religious missions initially as a way to get headway into the country and then afterwards the guns would follow so of course here she hints at Bhutan also facing the same threat of colonization. Furthermore she uses a light hope to sort out the small problem so she obviously understates the problem which would have caused which led to a brief war between the British and the Bhutanese in terms of political tensions. Also as she's ending this article she says she's the first person pronoun she chose that she respects and likes Bhutan in spite of all the drawbacks that she sees in the country. So that's all thank you so much for listening to this video and for watching it and if you found this video useful make sure you visit our website www.firstreadtutors.com that you can find lots of revision materials to help you in your work. Thank you so much for listening.