Love and Honor in the Himalayas: Coming to Know Another Culture

I bought this book prior to my first Nepal trip in 2007. My dilemna was that I was going to spend three months tecahing nursing in a rural area, but since it was in a part of Nepal away from Kathmandu or Everest, there seemed to be very little written about the people of "my" area of Nepal. I was in Tansen, Palpa district, whcih is considered to be the heart of Magar/Gurung country. Most written material from Nepal seems to focus on Tibetans or else Sherpas. Now, these are fascinating groups in their own right, but my point is, there's a lot about them and not much about the other groups. Enter Ernestine McHugh. This book fits the bill, and describes cultural practices and daily life in a way that illuminates things for a westerner. Evidently, she now teaches anthropology on the college level, and has sort of "field-tested" her best stories by telling them in a college class, so she knows the kinds of questions an intelligent reader would be curious about. I thought it was very engaging at the time, and then I re read it after I returned, only to fully realize then what a gem it was. This book informed a lot of my appreciation for Magars and made my travels richer. The passage where Ms. McHugh and her cousin both get typhoid, and the sequelae, was haunting and beautifully written. I have worked in hospitals for thirty years and have an adult view of the fleeting nature of life, but this section was heartbreaking and wonderfully descriptive, worth the price of the book alone.

It's a shame this book was published by a university press that gave it such a dull academic-sounding title. The story you'll find within its pages is a wonderful eye-opening memoir that takes you deep into daily life in a tiny village in Nepal back in the 1970s--when the traditional way of life had not yet succumbed to the forces of globalization.The author does what the best authors of memoirs do--she allows herself to become almost a transparent vehicle for you, the reader. You experience at a strange and exotic world peering through her eyes and reading her vivid descriptions. She keeps her analysis to a minimum but shows you enough that you can draw your own conclusions. When I was done reading this book, the people she had described seemed so real to me it was hard to believe I hadn't met them myself. Honest, authentic, and completely without the pretentious literary tone that ruins so many current memoirs. A great book!

If you have been to Nepal, were a Peace Corps Volunteer, or lived in another culture, you will love this book. The people in this Nepali village came alive for me, and the writer was honest about the pleasure and the pain of living in another culture.

'Love and Honor in the Himalayas' will appeal to anyone who has ever desired to travel to distant lands and lose (or find) him- or herself in the invigorating freshness of new experiences, cultures, and friendships. Living as the daughter of a Gurung family in a remote Himalayan village in Nepal, McHugh experiences the incredible richness and immediacy of everyday high mountain life. Hers is a perspective unimagined by the casual tourist, and through her wonderfully rendered observations, we are challenged to look beyond our own comfortable Western lives at a culture that deserves our respect and admiration.