The royal dress weavers are at work and excitement is building in Bhutan ahead of next month’s royal wedding that will see the young king of the Himalayan nation wed in a fairy-tale ceremony.
The Oxford-educated biking fanatic Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, 31, who was crowned in 2008 at the start of democracy in the Buddhist-majority country, is set to marry student Jetsun Pema, a commoner, on Oct. 13.
Organizers have promised a low-key affair from a royal family that is famed for its common touch, but the Bhutanese are gearing up to mark a momentous occasion in the life of the reclusive kingdom between China and India.
Photo: AFP
In their apartment in the capital Thimphu, weavers Kelzang Choden and her mother are hurriedly working on an outfit for the future queen, an intricately patterned dress of geometric shapes dominated by gold thread and yellow.
“She will wear according to her element. There are five elements in our culture. For example, red is fire and earth is yellow,” Choden said. “Her element is earth so it will probably be mostly yellow.”
Pema, 21, has ordered numerous kira, the elegant national dress for women made from raw silk that takes months to finish and can cost up to US$3,000. Several famed weavers are competing for the honor of clothing her on the big day.
“It would be the biggest privilege,” said Choden, whose mother Kuenzang Wangmo has designed outfits for the previous king and his four wives, as well as the younger sister of the present king.
Bhutan, famed for its invention of “Gross National Happiness” to measure progress and its citizens’ well being, is one of the most remote and insular places on Earth.
It had no roads or currency until the 1960s, allowed television only in 1999 and continues to resist the temptation of allowing mass tourism — preferring instead to allow access to only small, organized groups of well-heeled visitors.
The main wedding ceremony will take place in a fortress and monastery in the town of Punakha, set in a steep valley at the confluence of two fast-running mountain rivers.
The giant building, accessible by footbridge and intricately decorated with wall paintings and carvings, is being spruced up for the occasion, with work underway in the gardens and fresh paint in evidence.
“His Majesty has been consistent all along that the events should be simple and traditional. It’s how he operates in his own life,” royal spokesman Dorji Wangchuck said.
“He has never been in favor of extravaganzas,” the spokesman said, adding that no foreign royals or heads of state had been invited.
King Wangchuck, a keen basketball player and Elvis fan, and four of his forebears have ruled Bhutan since 1907 when the royal family took over and brought stability to the previously war-ravaged nation.
The monarch lives in a cottage in Thimphu rather than a palace, and is famed for inviting his subjects to tea. Among his most recent guests were members of the Thimphu weight-lifting club.
The main celebration will be held in the capital on Oct. 16 where members of the public will get the opportunity to glimpse the newlyweds in a ceremony at the city’s sports stadium.
It promises to be a spectacle of traditional dance and music, but the Bhutanese themselves will be part of the show as they wear their finest traditional clothing, which is compulsory in government offices.
Many choose to wear the dress — kira for women and gho for men — in everyday life as a statement of national pride, but a royal wedding calls for even more elaborate dressing-up.
At The Traditional Boot House in Thimphu, manager Tshering Tobgay says average daily orders have doubled since the king announced his intention to marry in May.
Tobgay and his half-dozen team are working frantically in a bid to clear the backlog for their colorful knee-length boots which are worn on special occasions.
“Everyone is working overtime until 9 to 10pm at night,” he said.
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
HOLLYWOOD IN TURMOIL: Mandy Moore, Paris Hilton and Cary Elwes lost properties to the flames, while awards events planned for this week have been delayed Fires burning in and around Los Angeles have claimed the homes of numerous celebrities, including Billy Crystal, Mandy Moore and Paris Hilton, and led to sweeping disruptions of entertainment events, while at least five people have died. Three awards ceremonies planned for this weekend have been postponed. Next week’s Oscar nominations have been delayed, while tens of thousands of city residents had been displaced and were awaiting word on whether their homes survived the flames — some of them the city’s most famous denizens. More than 1,900 structures had been destroyed and the number was expected to increase. More than 130,000 people
A group of Uyghur men who were detained in Thailand more than one decade ago said that the Thai government is preparing to deport them to China, alarming activists and family members who say the men are at risk of abuse and torture if they are sent back. Forty-three Uyghur men held in Bangkok made a public appeal to halt what they called an imminent threat of deportation. “We could be imprisoned and we might even lose our lives,” the letter said. “We urgently appeal to all international organizations and countries concerned with human rights to intervene immediately to save us from
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
RSS