Is West a perfect model for Nepal in shifting its gear to next level?

In present days, the steady cultural revolution taking place in Nepal seem to be highly influenced by West, especially Americas and Europe. In fact, we can see cultural ‘copy and pasting’ directly from West. With the evolution of internet, social media, and so on, the pace of dissemination of information is now faster than ever. Keeping aside few good aspects of this evolution, we seem to be welcoming anything and everything that we see and hear from west.

For the purpose of this article, I strictly limit the definition of culture into - “the collective way of doing things”. The way we do things, in terms of entertainment, education, economy, lifestyle, thinking, and everything else.

Just finished listening to Prof. Mohan Prasad Khanal on Sushant Pradhan podcast. There were a lot of interesting information but what consumed my attention is that both participants kept on iterating that today In Nepal we think ‘everything and anything that is copied from West is better.’ I am privileged that I am studying in the country which is the leader of present day World Order, hope it remains same for long. I am also glad that I decided to come to this country only after I was capable enough to question myself before copying everything and anything, be that was a situational. In these six years of steep learning curve, I got to observe Western culture closely, not saying that I have perfected the western culture or even studied it. Yet, there are some aspects that we are better off not copying.

When I look at Nepal, I see a clay ready to be shaped into any shape, and ready to be colored any color we want. And people of our country will have a strong hand in shaping and coloring of our country moving forward. At this early stages, we can see ourselves looking at West and copying their shape and color, doesn’t matter their shape cannot hold what is important, or their color is too bright or too dim for our benefit, we just take it as an attractive model. It is understandable that all these are the results of western influence on our country’s culture since very long. But today we have on our next door, the second biggest economy in the world competing to be the biggest. China’s culture is an example of Eastern culture. It is true that there are some aspects of how things are carried out in China that are better of not copying, but it is also true that many aspects have been proven successful. While west is consumed with decadent and luxury, China is advocating hardworking and simplicity. While West is fighting for individualism and fractions, China is encouraging collectivism and unity. There are much more…

So, today Nepal is given an access to two different play books each with its own positive and negative sides, each proven to succeed. The question is whether we want to read only one book and copy it or read both and take the positives only leaving negative sides behind.

Now coming back to the opinion point, I think our culture fueled by hard work shouldn’t be replaced by decadence, collectivism shouldn’t be replaced by individualism, hospitality shouldn’t be replaced by selfishness, large family structure should not be replaced by unit family structure, our food consumption shouldn’t be replaced by processed food of west, natural and authenticity shouldn’t be replaced by consumerism, and so on. I can break all these down to specific examples but that might make this post too long.!