Kathmandu's suburb as we flew into the area by a Royal Nepal Airlines flight

(1) Virtual Foundation Japan's New Assistance to the Buddhist Darshan Club's effort to help the thangka painting school in Kabre District grow into a sound community project

Nepal "Lost Horizon" of James Hilton published in 1939 has never lost its intriguing charm throughout the last century, constantly prompting the Westerners to look for the imaginary hidden lamasery of Shangri-La somewhere in the Himalayas or the Kuen-Lun Mountains. Moreover, during the second half of the 20th century, the emerging Asian countries, especially Japan, have joined the Westerners adding to the growth of Nepal's tourism industry.
But, the growing flow of tourists into the nation's capital, Kathmandu, has forever changed the life of the people in Nepal, by alluring rural population away from rural communities into the urban center giving rise to a number of social and environmental problems for the city dwellers and tourists alike.

The Kamtipur Temple House hotel we used as our base camp in Kathmandu is a charming mix of what's old and new in Nepal, even including the guard in Gurkha uniform.

The primary objective of this tour was to test and determine the technical as well as sociocultural feasibility of the use at the thangka painting school of a satellite ground terminal so that the art students can join the interactive world of the Internet e-mail communication.

Not only that, the interior design and decoration also reflect the exotic mix of the East and the West

Among the young people enrolled in the thankga painting school in the remote mountain village of the Kabre District, we cannot help noticing the obvious talent of painting thangkas, which must have been handed down from generation to generation against the background of the Tibetan Buddhist cultural tradition running through the Himalayas. In the past, however, the aspiring young artists had to come through precarious mountain paths to Kathmandu only to sell their paintings at unfairly low prices. It has proven to be more often a losing game against costly time they must spend to remain in town trying to look for good buyers.
Last year, the Virtual Foundation Japan (VFJ), thanks to the donors both in Japan and the U.S., successfully helped reopen the thangka painting school supported by the Buddhist Darshan club, a local village NGO. Since the early spring, some thirty five students were admitted and enrolled in three different classes including one in the evening, which was made possible by the solar lighting system installed with the help of the Himalaya Light Foundation (HLF) of Kathmandu. There still exists a serious obstacle for the school to face up to, i.e., the problem of having a reliable and fair outside market for the artworks produced.

VFJ and HLF have agreed to work very closely together on a number of projects. From left to right, Yoshiko & Yutaka Okamoto, Adam Friedensohn, Sapana Shakya, and Yadav Raj Gurung. They started discussion from the day of the mission's arrival

Earlier this year, VFJ had come to the conclusion that the only way to help the thankga painting school find a good market access was to provide the school Internet access via satellite so that the students could interactively access the dwellers of the world's major cities, especially those in Japan. Once they become good friends, the Nepali artists could sell their artworks just like organic farmers sell their vegetables to their urban friends nowadays.
At VFJ, we already have developed the total system fully developed whereby any remote communities can be hooked onto the Internet mail system coupled with a multilingual translation services for handling e-mails in English, Japanese, Russian and Nepali so that, in this case, Nepali artists and Japanese consumers can talk to each other without language barriers. Translation services are to be provided by human translators, avoiding the use of translation software all of which are known to be quite inadequate. Our visit to Nepal this time served as an occasion for sharing this knowledge with the Nepali NGOs so as to forge a strategic alliance to ensure the project's success.。
The end-results were a tremendous success. In addition to the now-existing cooperative alliance with HLF, we left Nepal with a great new asset of the shared experience between VFJ and HLF in trekking the mountain paths to the Kabre art school and the three days we spent for the joint project in the person of Yutaka Okamoto and Adam Friedensohn.

We were invited to visit the HLF headquarters in Kathmandu for office tour and presentation of HLF's HELP program

Mr. Adam Friedensohn, who is the de facto founder of the HLF, is originally from the New England region of the U.S. Atlantic Northeast. He became a practicing Buddhist in his early ears ultimately to come to Nepal to live. Conversant both in spoken Nepali and Tibetan, Adam endeavors to uphold the cultural tradition of the rural Nepali communities. But, in the meantime, through its HELP program, he extend his solar panel installation services to many a rural villages of Nepal where women have little chance to play a significant role in the redevelopment of rural communities.
The thrust of his endeavor in Nepal thus comes so close to the objectives of VFJ's Nepal projects that the strategic alliance was almost a preordained goal, which in the end is to contribute to the mitigation of the widening "digital gap" between the advanced industrial societies and the emerging and developing societies of the world.。

(2) Thus, the cooperative endeavor in launching the trekking tour to the Kabre District's mountain valley did make a significant contribution to the common cause

Sight-seeing highway constructed by Japan's Overseas Direct Aid and has just been completed

We drove eastward from Kathmandu by a chartered bus for almost two hours on a well-paved sight-seeing highway constructed by a Japanese construction company with Japan's ODA fund. It came to an abrupt end where there is a small community which looks like a bunch of temporary stores selling daily consumer supplies. We had a cup of hot tea and then moved on on foot toward the hills across rice paddies.
On our way from Kathmandu, we saw a lot of mountainside terraces planted with rice plants. I wondered where people got the water for the terraces. Later we found out that the upper terraces are for dry rice plants while the lower ones are irrigated wet paddies just like in Japan.

This sight-seeing highway was constructed with Japan's overseas direct aid, but we failed to see the direct benefit to the Nepali people.

What you see in the flat part of the background is irrigated rice paddies, and beyond them is the hilly slopes where rice plants grow on dry "paddies" with soy bean plants growing along the ridges, looking, as it were, almost like a rural scene in Japan. The soil of the hill is red with iron oxide and glitters with mica speckles. As one walks down into the depth of a valley, one sees a range of plant growth resembling the subtropical zone, but as one climbs uphill, one also sees plant life unmistakably Japanese such as balloon flowers, bush clovers, and as one climbs further, the very courtesan (oiran-so) glass. 。
August in Nepal is still well within the monsoon season. But, according to those in Kathmandu who ought to know, the weather pattern in recent years has been erratic perhaps due to the earth-warming phenomenon. In any case, during the week we spent in Nepal, the daily weather was a heavy monsoon rain in the evening and blue sky by noon the next day. As we trekked uphill, climbing above the fresh green rice paddies, Nepal's dry farming brought us a widespread corn fields on the steep hillsides, sometimes all the way up to the top, interspersed with small patches of young tubers of taro.

As one moves across the rice paddies, one faces a difficult trekking experience walking a steep and slippery red clay path into the woods leaving the small bus terminal behind

As we walked into the woods, we promptly found out that there is a rather heavy pedestrian traffic up and down the mountain path. It was perhaps due to the fact that the bus terminal became a trading post for all of the villages in the adjacent valleys accessible by road. Most of the people walking uphill carried bagfuls of consumer goods while those coming downhill had farm produce to take to the bus terminal market.
Soon afterward, we reached the first mountain pass where we rested in the shadow of a giant Himalayan pine tree. While enjoying a cup of hot Nepali tea served by a small wayside shop, we came to the realization that we had just begun a real trekking tour looking down at the villages far below and the towering crests in front of us.

For a wayside shop like this, it is such a chore to get water from the bottom of the valley. You can see the shadow of the pine tree in the foreground

As we reached a considerable height, the while walls of village dwellings in the valley below looked like so many glistening speckles. Our idea of a village in Japan of houses clustered around a wooded small shrine was no longer relevant because the houses in the valley, as you can see in the picture below, are scattered far apart from each other. We were struck by the realization that we did not have a Japanese word for a village like this.
In a village like this, farming is dependent upon rain falls, starting with corn fields from the hill crest down, then coming to dry rice paddies which changed to irrigated ones at lower slopes. The agricultural environment being such, there is no denying the fact that these villages would suffer in the years with relatively less precipitation in the monsoon season.

This is a typical valley community surrounded by patches of farm land. In a large valley community, it takes a few days of walking to go from one end to the other of the village

While such a valley community looked like a small constellation of stars in the sky of green trees, each dwelling as we approached them turned out to look like a house in a miniature garden as shown in the picture below. However, pastoral as it may seem on the surface in the mountain valleys, the growingly convenient means of transportation to urban centers, such as is provided by the highway built by Japan's ODA, the penetration of urban life style into valley communities has give rise to an ever increasing cash need especially among young villagers, often prompting them to leave their villages to suffer the vicissitudes of urban life.
On the other hand, it is also a fact that there is an on-going trend in these mountain villages to explore the means of putting a stop to the exodus of young people along with an increasing realization that they should do something to uphold and maintain their traditions and cultural heritages.

This is a typical scene of a picturesque mountain village scene with a house surrounded by patches of corn fields

It was just as one of the possible alternatives that the thangka painting school in the Kabre District was first started as a means of training young people to become thangka artists. In the first place, it will help the villages to relegate their religio-cultural heritages to the next generation, and then, it helps the villages to initiate their unique community development programs by providing their youth with new opportunities for cash income.
However, the thangka painting school thus begun two years ago came to a grinding stop when it failed to make the both ends meet because of the failure to have a sustainable market for the art products. It was forced to close down two years ago due to financial difficulties, but VFJ came to a realization that it was important to extend a financial support to this school so that it can be reopened on a sustainable ground. It was a giant step forward that we came to the village to offer this time the possibility of providing the thangka painting school with an Internet access via satellites so that the young village artists can directly talk to the urban dwellers of the major industrialized countries of the world.

Children are the same all over the world. Besides, the children in the remotest communities are those lest affected by the ills of urban material civilization of today. Their shining eyes and homemade vehicular sleds are just one testimony to their diverse interest in what they can do in life

We at VFJ remain convinced that once this Kabre District project turns out to be a success, it will serve as a brave role model for many other rural communities across Nepal, whereby each village can develop its own community development projects similar to this, opening the lid of a new era of person-to-person international exchange and friendship of the 21st century.
One of the problems Japan is now confronted with is the so-called "history book issue." It has sustained itself as a regional issue largely because the Asian countries including Japan have long neglected to address the issue of the divergent feelings and opinions relative to the consequences of the World War II. It was perhaps because of Japan's willingness to grand ODAs which have been used in part to alley such complaints among the Asian nations. It is hoped that our Nepal project will mark the new beginning of an era in which we can talk to each other as Asian individuals in quest of a mutually acceptable solution of such on-going issues that separate us.


(3) We finally reached the valley where the thangka painting school is located

After so many mountain passes, we finally reached the destination. On top of a hill stood a stupa where we were met by the villagers.

Around the stupa there were small bushes of Himalayan nettle which looked like our Japanese green beefsteak plant. But, the only difference was that it had prickles which attacked anyone who touches them as fiercely as mad bees.

Different from our Buddhism in Japan, which reached us filtered through the Chinese civilization, the Nepali version derives from the Tibetan Buddhism directly brought from India. As such even the stupa looked quite different to us Japanese. We were nevertheless struck by the realization we both shared the same religious tradition. As we walked down a narrow path leading to the school with village children walking with us in twos and threes.
The school was also located on top of a small hill, and stood in good condition thanks to the voluntary repair works performed by the villagers for a fresh start with three rooms including the guest room lighted by solar panels installed by the HLF field engineers. We were given the lighted guest room where we slept in sleeping bags on grass mats sheltered from monsoon rain.

To our surprise, we were welcomed not only by the people at the school, but also by caws as we entered the premise た

At this point, let me tell you something about this school, which we came to call "Terakoya School," a Japanese word used in the olden days for a primary education class offered by Buddhist monk on the temple premises. Both the guest room and the teachers' room were earthen floor, while the class room had a plastic-lined floor where students, some very young, sat doing their own things while the young instructor in priestly robe sat by with a benign smile. All this reminded us of the Japanese Terakoya class.
We were told that the principal was a local community leader who has done all the hard work as a volunteer without any remuneration aided by the Buddhist Darshan Club, a village-based local NGO. Students come early in the morning and begin their work. At all age levels, they displayed a remarkable artistic talent.

There were not a few young women in the day class. It may be that men were at work during the day, while women did have more time to spend

These women were drawing and painting religious symbols depicting good fortune. The Himalaya Light Foundation has been assisting remote communities install solar panels as a community project, and in this case, women can make use of their evening hours to do their own thangka painting at home in order to supplement their family income, thereby improving the status of women while also preventing the outflow of young people.
We were greatly encouraged by the positive attitude of the students at this school, and came out with the impression that this project can possibly become a model applicable to many other rural communities in Nepal involving not only thangka paintings but also many other traditional craft items.

This is one of the senior students with a high skill level. You can see his work more closely at the E-Bazaar site.

Especially encouraging was the fact that the school already has several senior students with comparable skill levels. We at VFJ have already begun the construction of the E-Bazaar web site as a worldwide meeting place where people can talk to and visit with these Nepali artists. In the near future, you will be able to access Nepal Gallery to meet the artists with their art works, and if you like, send e-mail messages asking them questions in English. They will be translated into Nepali before delivery to them via satellite, and their replies delivered to you in English translation. In other words, no more language barriers! When this site goes in full operation, it will also show video-stream news about the people and the life of the remote Nepali villages in the areas where the artists live.

Among them, age ranges from the lower to the upper teens. These are exactly the people who will support the future of these villages in rural Nepal

Those young people who attend the thangka painting classes are those among others who would like to live in their own villages if they can earn enough cash to get by through the sale of their art works. Nepal is known for its unique religio-cultural diversity and rich with diverse forms of arts and crafts. While thangka paintings are under limelight at this point, there exists a mountain of treasures that can be uncovered once the people living in the remote villages come to realize they can directly access the outside world for possible small businesses where people meet people in the digital meeting place called the E-Bazaar. Or else, the heightened exodus of rural population is destined to endanger the country's art heritages.

We had a special permission to be in the class room to take pictures. Onlookers at the windows are interested village youths

As you can see, there is an air of excitement in the class. Pictures were being taken, including a video camera, by several photographers, and I am certain these students had rarely had such experiences in the past. But, everybody was seriously engaged in his and her art work, while the teacher in yellow robe walked around.
The simplicity of the room, consisting of purple tile floor and mud walls around sparingly decorated with Buddhist symbols and lighted by a florescent lamp, rendered the atmosphere of the class all the more exciting. There were no desks, no chair, no black board, but there was a definite sign of life. The sign of willingness to learn as if these yougsters were instinctively unleashing the pent-up energy of their ancient cultural tradition. Something that is unmistakably in their genes was at work.

Drawing papers are expensive are rarely used in the class. Instead, the beginners use a small black board painted white with a chalk

The young beginners practice the drawing of Buddha images and Good Fortune symbols. They will not comprehend how drawing papers are being wasted lightheartedly in Japanese schools. The thangka painting school reserves its scanty fund for the purchase of high-quality natural painting materials for senior students. Nevertheless, we were quite impressed by the graceful lines with which the youngest students were drawing the images of the Buddha.
There were some ten young students at work that day, but, given their obviously high skill level as it is, we felt there was a great future potential. It seemed to us almost like a miracle for a boy of around ten years of age to be able to draw a graceful Buddha image just out of what he had in his own mind when we compared him with his counterparts in the Japanese elementary schools. We will soon be able to show this boy with with drawings on the Internet.

On this day, a young instructor, a priest from a Bhutan monestry where he spent some 16 years to become an accomplished thangka artist

This instructor, being what he is, was able to not only act as an art instructor, but also give lectures on the Buddhist scriptures and religious meanings relating to the specific symbols and drawings of the thangka. The thrust of all this is that the thangka school is to produce thangka paintings not just for tourist market, but more importantly for the preservation of the genuine religio-cultural heritage of Nepal's rural communities.
I was personally impressed by the request made by the school, out of their self-respect, not to give candies to the youngsters in the class, but felt touched when the priest instructor gracefully accepted a pack of candies which he distributed among the younger students explaining how he got them from us.

Adam Friedensohn of HLF gave a short but very effective presentation on what can happen once the satellite system is installed at the schoolした

Adam Friedensohn can not only speak Nepali fluently, but he also possesses an extraordinary persuasive manner of speech. Deeply imbued with the Buddhist teachings, he talked about the Internet world and thangkas touching upon the religious background of Buddhism inducing the students to ask lively questions.
This scene was so touching to all of us that Ms. Miki Soejima, the student of the Ryukoku University of Kyoto, told me later that she was "deeply touched" by the lively session, especially by the positive reactions of the students. While the students of this university have been involved in VFJ's Nepal project for the last couple of years, it was a remarkable occasion that Miki was able to come to Nepal with us this time. I felt that she will exert a positive influence on the rest of the student group this fall. She in fact told me later that the experience in Nepal changed her world view.

(4) Finally the monumental village event took place in the valley

On the grassy slope of the small hill at which the school stood, the official open-air site was being prepared for the occasion to welcome the Japanese delegation.

The slope was decorated with strings of multi-color triangular flags fluttering in the wind over us, and the podium was set up with a microphone powered by the HLF solar panels with a raw of chairs for the guests of the occasion right behind. The coordinator was the head of the Buddhist Darshan Club who introduce the speakers. Most impressive was a local lady who told the audience, if in a halting fashion, her own account of how she learned the art of thangka painting which made it possible for her to improve the quality of her life. It must have been such an encouragement for the aspiring young students in the audience.

Despite rainy weather of the morning, the audience continued to grow finally growing into a crowd far above four hundred, which meant most of the people in the entire valley community

While it must have been true that the various ethnic folk dances performed did play a role in attracting the crowd, it was nevertheless an unmistakable fact that the villagers gathered with the expectation that the thangka school project will finally provide the community with a real means with which to access the outside world via a communication satellite and the Internet
I was asked to speak as the main guest of the occasion, and my English speech was translated by a young Nepali officer of the Himalaya Light Foundation. I was pleased to see a positive audience reaction, especially by the young people while the elderly villagers appeared somewhat confused by the idea of digital communication.

Seated behind the podium were the VFJ mission members with local community leaders and a representative of the Nepal National Radio Corporation.

The faint yellow scarf I have on in this picture is the welcome gift customarily given friendly visitors in Nepal. In order to prepare the physical setup for this occasion, the entire furniture, the tables and chars, of the thangka school were borrowed out hand-carried by the villagers. It was a monumental occasion for both VFJ and HLF in that this will be remembered by the villagers as the kickoff event by which the entire valley will come in direct touch with the outside world joining the global community of peoples.
If, therefore, the two NGOs can join forces to make this project a sustainable success, it will certainly arouse the aspirations of the rural communities of not only Nepal but also many other Asian communities in the remote areas of the Asia-Pacific region.

Thus, our mission was successfully completed and had a relaxing evening dinning with a bottle of Scotch and a gift case from our Sherpas.

Allow me to tell you something about Sherpas. I said earlier that we alighted from the chartered bus at the end of the scenic drive to take on a trekking tour of two nights and three days. For this, we had five Sherpas in addition to four of us from Japan and another four from HLF, a group of thirteen all together. The Sherpas carried the satellite terminal equipment, all the groceries, cooking and dinning and camping equipment and supplies. This is a lot for five Sherpas to carry on their backs going up and down the mountains. Look at this picture. All the chairs, plates, cups and the silvers were used three times a day to be washed with scanty water supply. We really needed to appreciate their services.

(5) What we saw and thought about on our way down the mountain paths

Kids continued to pop out of the bushes where their home must be. They all looked clean and well dressed indicating the importance their parents must attach to their children's education

Something quite unexpected took place as we began our descent from the hilltop school. Young boys who appeared to be in the upper years of the elementary school up to those who are unmistakably junior high school students suddenly appeared from nowhere and began walking down the path with us. As time went by, more and more boys joined us until we reached a point where we could see the school buildings in the distance across a steep valley. We took this picture there together though there was no conversation at all except for a few shared English words. They knew all about us, and were anxious to talk to us. Lacking the language medium, we kept smiling at each other as we continued the descent.

All these kids went with us until we reached the school on top of a small hill.

I could not resist the temptation of the idea that it would be a wonderful thing if I could manage to install a satellite terminal at their school so that they could talk directly and interactively to their counterparts in Japan. It would be a relatively simple project now that the thangka painting school will he hooked up onto the integrated communication service without language barriers this fall.
In addition, there already is a plan to video-stream the local news in and around this village at our E-Bazaar site starting this fall, we can do exactly the same thing on the school-to-school level. This will be a major breakthrough for all the children and school students in the Asia-Pacific region for paving the road toward building a friendly community of nations in this part of the world. Such a radical innovation has finally came to pass in the remotest of the remote areas of Asia no matter where and when.

The school facilities are not a great deal better than those we saw at the thangka painting school with so much that can be done to improve the existing condition

We all managed to return to our Kathmandu base camp without accidents, though the heavy overnight rain made the red-clay mountain paths much more treacherous. We encountered the villagers on their way home, and continued to be impressed by the sturdiness of the mountain people who traversed these steep roads by the day. The young mother in this picture is an eloquent example.

Obviously she is enjoying her life. But, in addition to the little boy, she has a baby and a large bag of supplies on her back.

While such an exciting trekking tour will remain very vivid in our memories, is it fair for all of us to make this experience a merely casual and exotic travel experience? The answer is an emphatic NO! All of us have just too much to lose if this is the first and the last encounter in life. Why is it that we cannot hope to add further to the friendship we helped build between Japan and Nepal? Why can't we make this the beginning of a sustained interaction so that we can explore the possibility of working together for our common goals? My conclusion at the end of the trekking tour is 100% positive. I shall do whatever is in my power to realize the new project idea of installing another ground satellite terminal at this school within the next year or two. And, if successful, it will spread across Nepal and go beyond to see the day this young mother will have a chance to talk to her counterparts in the rest of the world.

(6) Upon return to Kathmandu, I worked while others spent a day visiting the city

For the first time, they got out on their own, relaxing in a local restaurant for a change

For four of us, after three days of mountain trekking, hot shower and cold beer were especially healing. After all, we are the creatures of the natural as well as the man-made urban environments. The departure for Japan is now only in a day and a half. As the head of the Virtual Foundation Japan, I had to spend much of the day in intense discussions with Adam and Sapana on how we would proceed beyond what we have just accomplished at this point. Yoshiko who inspected a broad range of arts and handicrafts both at HLF and stores in town during the same period while taking care of Takamachi-san who had a weak eyesight problem and stayed in town, took the other three for shopping and sight-seeing.

Matsumoto-san who was in charge of the satellite/computer communication took personal interest in the little solar-powered wagon invented by HLF

HLF has been actively engaged in recent years in promoting the home use of solar panels in rural Nepali communities. Notably, beside developing a hardware such as this solar-powered wagon, HLF is implementing an ambitious program called HELP (Home Employment & Lighting Package), under which individual families receive solar panels for home lighting, and then, by using the evening hours productively turning out traditional handicraft items for sale to pay for the alternative energy hardware. Of course, when the bill will have been fully paid off, these families continue to plow back the cash income for improving their quality of life. It was in this area that VFJ and HLF struck a common ground for synergetic cooperation pointing to the possibility of a strong strategic alliance.

Mr. and Mrs. Okamoto relaxing at the home of Adam Friedensohn and Sapana Shakya

Having successfully completed the job at the thangka painting school, Okamoto and Friedensohn spent the entire afternoon hours addressing the specific issues and problems. In addition to the future mode of cooperation between VFJ and HLF, we discussed and agreed on specific action timetable for the immediate future between now and the inauguration of the VFJ's E-Bazaar project in conjunction with the HLF's HELP project. At six thirty, the rest of the HLF/VFJ group returned from the sight-seeing tour to join the dinner party at Friedensohn's.
A timely word or two on the hanging thangka scroll below. This unique thangka seems to depict Buddha and the Buddhist view of the Universe. The scroll represents the cultural tradition of the Tibetan/Himalayan Buddhism different from the straight rectangular type common in Japan which is of Chinese origin.

Suprabhat Basnyat of HLF enjoyed testing his spoken Japanese with VFJ tour members, from right to left, Teruhisa Mitsuda, Miki Soejima, and Koji Tamamachi

The comfortably spacious home for Adam, Sapana and their little son seemed like a luxury for us living in large urban centers in Japan, but when we were told of the low cost of housing in Kathmandu, it made us wonder about the ultimate wisdom of living in a city like Tokyo, the most expensive in the world. The Nepal visit left an impression with us of an extreme gap between the rich and the poor, but, everybody we met, was kindhearted, especially in the vast countryside. We have had the fortune of visiting with so many children thanks to their unhesitating curiosity. We will never forget the twinkling eyes of the wonderful children of Nepal.

We all ended up sitting on the floor just like we do in Japan. Adam's charming little boy had his day playing with strange adult possessions

The entire evening did bring all of us together both as individuals and national NGOs. But, after tomorrow, as we fly back to Osaka via Shanghai, the mountain state of Nepal will once again become a remote world only accessible by Internet e-mail, let alone the thangka painting school in the Kabre District, which will remain totally inaccessible until our E-Bazaar project goes under way this fall.
This being the situation in all the past, the moment the ordinary Japanese families will see on PC screen, with motion and sound, the classes of the thangka school, the individual thangka paintings being worked on by student artists, and the children of the village running around barefoot, will mark the day of historic change of the 21st century taking place in the remotest of the remote areas of Asia.

(7) Good bye to the Kamtipur Temple House hotel: A genuine hospitality and a clear awareness of cultural tradition

Construction of additional sections is under way and the hotel will have a brand new dinning hall and a spacious courtyard by the next summer

Before closing my narrative report, I must touch on the subject of our base camp hotel in Kathmandu. The name of the hotel, Kamtipur, is like our Horyu-ji temple in Nara. It does have the best of the convenience of a modern hotel but added to it is the traditional architecture and interior decor of excellent taste. Living in it is a constant reminder of the good old days of the Kingdom of Nepal. Besides, it is noted for its ecology-conscious style of management initiated by its general manager, Puspa Neupane. He should be commended for his well-mannered and efficient employees as well.

Puspa Neupane joined the Okamotos in the front yard to discuss the possibility of eco-tourism in Nepal

Since I met Puspa two years ago during my stay at his hotel, he has consistently displayed his own personal interest in the development of eco-tourism in rural Nepal. Now, we have the opportunity to reassess such a possibility as a result of the implementation of the VFJ's E-Bazaar project. If there are sufficient number of Japanese families which will have come to enjoy person-to-person dialogue with the teachers and students of the thangka painting school, and if they become interested in coming to Nepal to visit with their newly acquired friends, what will prevent them from joining an eco-tour organized by all of us?

日本の古い寺院や神社にもよく見かける竜の頭。その口からは精励清冷な地下の湧き水がほどばしっていて、古い時代のお寺の佇まいを再現しています

Some young Japanese, most likely college students like Miki Soejima who came with us to Nepal this time, might really want to come to the thangka painting school by himself or herself, or in a small group to really get acquainted with the life of the village in the valley while visiting the classes at the school. This will be an ecology tourism in the most genuine sense.
Take a look at this picture of the fountain you can look down on from the dinning room of the Kamtipur Temple House hotel. Is it not a scene you saw somewhere sometime in Japan? Yes. It is a mirror image of the old fountain places of the temples and shrines across Japan. Just a reminder that you will not be in a strange country when visiting places in Nepal.

Yoshiko and Puspa celebrated their reunion in Kathmandu. They visited with each other in Osaka this spring when Puspa was passing through Japan on his way to the U.S.

Thus, our Nepal visit came to a successful end. We have agreed to work with the Himalaya Light Foundation very closely in integrating VFJ's E-Bazaar project with HLF's HELP program. After achieving the first joint project at the thangka painting school, we will proceed with the plan to (1) help provide a glass-case international market for the Nepali rural communities through the E-Bazaar which will disclose the total information on how the Nepali arts and crafts are bought by the people around the world who have become friends with the Nepali artists on the personal level much in the fashion organic vegetables are produced and marketed today, and (2) help promote eco-tourism by means of which all of us in the Asia-Pacific region can share the common issues and problems we face as the 21st century continues to unfold its pages.
As we move into such a direction in Nepal, VFJ stands ready to do the same first in the Russian Far East, and then in the Philippines, to be followed hopefully by the provinces of Southeast china, constructing a national ethnic galleries for each one of them.