Rating: 
Summary: to me it was too superficial
Review: As i sad before, the whole story was superficial and the writer was kind of naive, I missed some deeper info about Bhutanese culture
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent and refreshing
Review: An excellent book, very refreshing to read
Rating:
Summary: Thought-provoking, moving. . .remains with you!
Review: First of all, the story alone is very thought-provoking. But, beyond that even, Zeppa writes so beautifully that one is transported into Bhutan, which she is right, is special. . .and I say this without ever once having set foot there. Her experience there and her style of writing had me in fits of laughter and tears throughout. I think it will be one of my top ten books forever. I want to go to Bhutan and live there all the days of my life, simply based on her description of it!
Rating: 
Summary: Great lesson on how to adjust to a different culture
Review: I read "Beyond the Sky and the Earth" to learn something about a remote little country in the Himalayas where not many people have been. I ended up not only with what I was looking for but also with a great lesson on how to adjust and respect a different culture. Miss Zeppa was able to present her cultural shock with examples on behaviors and customs that were practically irrational for her, but was able to do it showing respect for them and understanding that it was she the one out of her element and never ridculed the Bhutanese despite some beliefs that might seem "wierd" by western standards. That was the biggest virtue and the beauty of this book. It definitely leaves you wanting some more information about the kids in II C and the villagers ar Pema Ghastel. Hopefully we will be able to learn more about them aome time soon.
Rating:
Summary: fantastic read
Review: I cannot say enough about this book. It was such a pleasure to live vicariously through Jamie Zeppa. The people just jump off the page with their raw emotion and honest lifestyle. The descriptions of the scenery are so vivid that I could feel the heat and the cold right along with the author. Beautifully written. I loved it.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent journal of a young womans life changed in Bhutan
Review: This book is for anyone who is fascinated with the East, has perpetual wanderlust, or has ever thought deeply about their life and their place in the world. It's a great book written by a smart young Canadian woman who volunteers to teach children in the middle of nowhere and quickly (and sometimes painfully) learns how to "manage" on her own with no prior worldly experience. She ends up finding herself, an appreciation of simple things, and a new man. The book is full of great imagery of Bhutan, the villages, the people, the "vomit comet," and the spirituality that surrounds it all.
Rating:
Summary: One point about Jamie Zeppa's stay in Bhutan
Review: Just a response to some of the reviews of this book....Jamie Zeppa did not live in Bhutan for three years. She lived there for about ten years. Her experience as recounted in the book is a lot deeper and richer than a short stay would provide. A great read.
Rating:
Summary: The best book that I have read in a very long time.
Review: Exceptional. Transcendental. I could not stop reading. Life in Bhutan is vividly portrayed by Zeppa--as well as the perils and the awakening of an unprepared, suburban, graduate student entering the mysterious culture of a Buddhist country. The portrayals of her pupils are precious.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating look at Bhutan, growth of a young woman
Review: Ms. Zeppa kept a great journal of her first years in Bhutan, where she went from Canada in the late 1980s to become a volunteer teacher. The admirable nerviness she displays in departure unravels quickly on arrival in Bhutan, the most remote of the Himalayan kingdoms. She allows the reader to find her less likable and less open-minded during a bitter, long road trip to the tiny village where she will teach second graders. Then comes the richest part of the book. She adapts. The first time some of her new students visit her home, they take over her kitchen and cook, ending her diet of stale biscuits. She is amazed and so is the reader. As many Westerners who volunteer in Peace Corps-like situations do, Ms. Zeppa finds herself a student more than a teacher. In just a few months though, she is re-assigned to Bhutan's top college, where she will teach people not much younger than herself. As she leaves the children, her own child-like view of Bhutan also gives way. In time, she learns that the country's political and social problems are very complex. And the questions she asks her students and herself become deeper and harder to answer. Here, the influence of Buddhism on Ms. Zeppa is particularly interesting. By the end she's fallen in love with a Bhutanese man. She provides the reader wonderful descriptions of her initial misgivings about the relationship. Unfortunately, the long-term consequences and problems of marriage and a child with him are left to a mere sentence in the book's postscript. Perhaps Ms. Zeppa believes that's another story. The book's finale could have also used an update on Bhutan's social and ethnic troubles. Nonetheless, it's a well written book that I strongly recommend to anyone with an interest in Bhutan, particularly if you have visited there or plan to someday. Couple it with journalist Barbara Crossette's excellent ``So Close to Heaven,'' which looks at the economic and political pressures on Bhutan, Tibet and Nepal from a more recent timeframe than Ms. Zeppa's book does.
Rating:
Summary: A* MAJOR* Letdown
Review: Books about the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan are rare, so it was with great eagerness that I read this book. Boy, what a letdown.
The author spent some time in Bhutan, sometime few westerns get to do even if they would like given that the country is careful about how open to the rest of the world it wants to be, teaching. Initially we get a very interesting account of her adjustments and culture shock, but eventually the book becomes remarkably self absorbed, especially when she transfers to teach at a college elsewhere in Bhutan and begins sleeping with some of her students. Her breathtakingly indifference to this reprehensibly unprofessional behavior is compounded by the fact that her only concern is that she will be caught? Why is she so concerned? Undoubtedly because she knows that this would lead to her dismissal because of the unprofessional nature of these actions, yet she continues on because, well, her own desires are more important to her than ethics.
But this is not all. By the second half of the book Zeppa has become highly critical of many of the values and priorities of western culture (not a hard thing to do, and I'll grant her that much) but she then turns around and applies western values and priorities as a way to criticize aspects of Bhutanese culture, most particularly some of the policies of the school where she teaches. Which is it?
In the end Zeppa comes across as little more than a self absorbed, whiney and spoiled westerner. So smug, self righteous, and ultimately looking for validation of her own behavior. Pass.
|
