Oscar's Bhutan

I am Oscar. This is my Bhutan blog. This is me. Oscar.

I am currently on the final year of a master’s degree in sustainable biotechnology in Copenhagen, a topic that I will take with me and explore in The Kingdom of Bhutan. I have a particular interest in sustainable policy and how countries (especially those within the EU) will transition to circular, renewable, green, carbon neutral – or however you want to phrase it – economies.

I will be in Bhutan’s capital Thimphu for the next few months observing all things sustainable here. I will sleep and study at Royal Thimphu College (RTC from now on) along with 1800 Bhutanese students and 32 internationals. The college is 30 minutes outside Thimphu, 2500 meters up and 10 years old. At RTC, I will take courses in Himalayan anthropology, attend an internship – most likely in the Centre for Bhutan Studies (CBS) but it is not set in stone yet – and carry out research. Everything I take at RTC, along with the observations and conversations I have here will provide a platform for a project I will write on the subject of what can be learnt in Bhutan and applied in the EU regarding sustainable policy generation and implementation.

I am writing this blog so for three reasons: (1) so that anyone that is interested can also experience a little bit of this fairly closed off country, (2) as a diary of sorts to refer back to when writing up the project, and (3) so that my mum can regularly check that I’m still alive. The blog is therefore part travel blog (what I’m doing/seeing/smelling/tasting) and part academic writing on sustainability, policy and development. I will try to give due notice as to which posts contain what in the title but they will most likely contain a mixture of both.

Just a quick disclaimer: I haven’t written a blog before or in a non-academic style for that matter, so do expect a liberal use of brackets (they kind of stand for extra thoughts I have mid sentence that I don’t have the patience or skill to incorporate neatly within the text), possibly some verbose explanations, especially if I am excited about something I am writing about and please forgive my pretentiousness that may crop up every now and again. I will try to keep posts light and entertaining. My target audience is my mum, dad, girlfriend and future me.

Ideas for future posts are at present:

• Sustainability and how we treat the dead
• Bugs in my bathroom (literally pictures of bugs in my bathroom – more entertaining than you think)
• An in-depth look at Bhutanese phallus paintings
• Freedom and conformism
• Drukpa Kunley the world’s maddest monk (will quite possibly be my magnum opus)

So stick around and prepare yourself for some bombastic Bhutanese blogs.