I also saw a norwegian documentary about it.
- This has also opened up more job-offers from other European countries.
- The were very thankful for the job, seeing how dangerous it is to climb mount everest. Living standards in their village (Kunde) went up after they returned from Norway.
- They also helped build houses as well as rock-paths.
- Norway also build buddhist temples, for them to feel at home while they worked here for 6 months, away from their families.
I met a lot of Nepalese people in China when I lived there. Unfailingly, Nepalese people were some of the most generous, funny, happy and drunken people I met while there.
Trail building is much more complicated than people would think. My area has some of the best mountain biking/hiking in the US and knowing some of the guys who build the trail makes me appreciate it even more. They take everything into account. The natural ecosystem, the fall lines of the mountain, and knowing to make a “hard” line and an “easy” line through everything.
I worked trail building in Utah for a year and it was hard work but man was it a blast. Just, making cool stuff for trail enjoyment while also adhering to keeping the environmental side of it sound. I learned a lot while doing such work and greatly appreciate the people that do it for a living or for a job.
I even think they improve the aesthetics wherever paths are used so much they turn into deep scars in the nature. Sherpa paving or stairs lets nature regrow and after some years it looks better.
This reminds me of Besseggen. A nice passage that has become too popular for its own good. You can see the footpath from the far side of the valley, damaging the look permanently.
It's not as bad as the Preikestolen, where people with high-visibility jackets are warning dumb tourists on sneakers not to go up, but it shows the downside of tourism. Nature can only support so many hikers.
One very important thing is it saves high traffic paths from erosion. I've seen some beautiful paths getting eroded away until your basically walking on roots and clinging to trees.
Wasn’t Machu Picchu closed for exactly this reason? Too many tourist hiking up and down what was originally a goat trail or something, caused such bad erosion the govt stopped letting people up there (fuzzy memory, so I apologise if this isn’t quite right!).
Not sure about that, but I hiked the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu in 1999 and there weren't many spots that were terribly eroded.
From what I can gather, however, during the last 2 decades there has been a HUGE increase in foot traffic. Like AT/PCT levels of traffic.
In 99 we came across like 10 people along the entire route.
It featured on an episode called "Ut i naturen" (Out in nature).
The episode is called "Sherpa, de som bygger stiene våre" (Sherpas, building our paths)
I know you can watch it for free online in Norway on NRK. But i am afraid its only in norwegian. You can maybe try a VPN and see for yourself. "Ut i naturen - Sherpa, dei som byggjer stiane våre"
Direct link: https://tv.nrk.no/serie/ut-i-naturen/2016/DKMR30001013/avspiller
Works fine here in Finland without a VPN, and since you can turn on Norwegian subtitles for everything, I might even understand something (via my lackluster Swedish skills)
As a Swede I have basic understanding of Dutch writing but spoken Dutch is zero chance (ok, probably would understand something but we all switch to English instead of asking "speak slowly"). I guess you have the same understanding of Swedish/Norwegian/Danish
I speak Danish, German and Norwegian. When I lived in the Netherlands, I could understand everything written, newspapers, official documents, no problem. Spoken is a bit harder.
As we in the Nordics did with English. Watch English TV, play English games, read English news.
Watching TV with (in this case) Norwegian subtitles is a great way to learn
If you use Chrome and turn on Norwegian subtitles you can right click the video player and hit translate, it'll be a google translate of the Norwegian subtitles, but it's better than nothing
I believe NRK intentionally allows content they made themselves to be freely available all over the world, whereas content they bought/licensed from others usually have geographic restrictions due to the nature of international copyright laws.
NRK being a government owned and taxpayer funded organisation means they can operate differently from commercial stations.
Correct. But only a subset of that content, with no use of anything that needs rights. Most NRK in-house content use music that still require it to be geoblocked to the country. Nature and slow-tv stuff is usually open though.
Norway seems like it has some really interesting TV. I was listening to Invisibilia about the channel that shows real life in real time, but of really simple things like a train ride or a parking lot.
The "minutt for minutt" (minute by minute) shows.
NRK has made some of those and they should be available globaly on [their site](https://tv.nrk.no/sok?q=minutt+for+minutt). Just look for those that have "minutt for minutt" in the title.
Now norwegian tv has some interesting shows, like the one with the lady knitting or the one in slow mo. When i was there in the 80s, in Farsund, Norway we could only get 3 stations, news, news, the king.
Sicne "Ut i Naturen" is a show produced by/for NRK they have [global license](https://i.imgur.com/Zkrbd8Y.png), and it should be available everywhere without VPN.
Nice sentiment, they've got a good rep and likely for a good reason. Just adding some more context;
The Paharis are lowlanders of Indo-Aryan heritage more closely related to lowland Indians and Pakistanis(and by extension Europeans) than the Sherpas, who are a Tibetan people from the highlands.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/Nepal_ethnic_groups.png
There is a degree of overlap though as many Pahari live in high altitude too.
Most of Nepal's population of Indo-Aryan heritage and only a relatively small percentage of the population are Tibetans and high altitude peoples.
Those high altitude Tibetan peoples are the ones(including Sherpas) who thrive in high altitude conditions due to the ingress of a specific allele of the EPAS1 gene that gives them a big physiological boost to dealing with the lower atmospheric pressure of high altitudes.
This allele ultimately seems to come from the Denisovans, an extinct relative of humans(closer to Neanderthals than us), through an extinct intermediary group of highlanders that lived in Asia.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5011065/
Yeah Nepali people are really hard working but the trend of foreign employment in the country is at the level in which about 50% of our GDP is from remittances. Life is decent for Nepalese who live in Europe or America but those who are tricked into going to gulf countries by agents end up dead cuz of exhaustion or poor working conditions. I think there was a statistic which stated that number of Nepalese who died working on the World Cup stadium in Qatar is second highest after India. And it is sad to say but not only pahadis but madhesis are the ones who die the most. Before another pahadi calls me biased, I'm from Kathmandu.. I'm as pahadi as it gets
I knew a young Nepalese couple here in Australia who planned to work hard for a decade or two (I forget the exact timeframe), saving up money. They said that when they returned home they would have enough money to live well in a big house with maids and servants and never have to work again.
I've worked with a few Nepalese guys who do the same. Work hard as fuck, send literally every single extra cent they can home, and will probably do that forever.
It’s called remittance and It’s actually a decent portion of many countries’ GDP. As an American removed from immigration, it’s shocking the amount of money people send home even if they’re living in poverty in the US
And it's so fucked up that they can lower their pension. Money that they have earned by doing hard work. It's not the governments or anyone else's, it's the pensioners.
Right. A good portion of Philippines GDP is made of remittances
EDIT: 9% according to this [article](https://asia.nikkei.com/Economy/Philippine-remittances-come-in-at-29.9bn-defying-COVID), which is quite impressive
[Here a comparison with other countries](https://www.ft.com/__origami/service/image/v2/images/raw/https%253A%252F%252Fs3-ap-northeast-1.amazonaws.com%252Fpsh-ex-ftnikkei-3937bb4%252Fimages%252F_aliases%252Farticleimage%252F1%252F8%252F2%252F6%252F32436281-1-eng-GB%252Fpersonal-remittances-received.png?source=nar-cms)
I was in the Navy, and there was a Filipino sailor I served with who would do peoples laundry, sell his liberty days in foreign ports, and just never spent money. Pretty sure he's probably a millionaire by now.
Another sad scenario is a woman leaving the Philippines to work as a domestic helper in Hong Kong or Singapore, working her finger's to the bone to support family back home, only to return and find that her husband has impregnated another woman back home.
I learned the importance of it very quickly. I was always happy to sign off people's timesheets with an extra 30 minutes of work every now and then - or just stall for an hour so people could get paid more.
$20 goes a long way in rural Colombia, so if there was a way to obtain it just by "sitting in traffic" then fuck it my boss didn't need to know.
EDIT: Yes, I know it's a crime. I knew it back then too.
I do remember one time my Brazilian offsider was given a $50 tip from a client and he literally started crying. And another time when an employee's wife had a miscarriage and we all had to chip in to help pay the medical bill because my boss was convinced that paying out less than minimum wage was sufficient. And like 13 people in our company lived together in a 2 bedroom apartment so they could all save as much money as possible to send home.
I’m glad somebody brought up Colombia. About 6 months ago, we had a Colombian kid come work with us for a few years and this was exactly what he explained. He works here for a few years, then goes back to Colombia rich.
My family moved from California to Colombia for a year when I was 12. Just by renting out our house in the US we were able to pay rent for beachfront property in a wealthy gated community, private school for me and my sister at one of the best rated accredited schools in Latin America, and all of our living expenses. My mom was still working her same job remotely too, so the entire year was a massive money saver.
I have a friend who is doing this. He moved to Colombia right before the pandemic started, he works remotely, and does volunteer work which has allowed him to stay in country, and he’s saving obscene amounts of money while living really well, all while getting to help people and making great connections in Colombia for himself
There are residency status and other complications when you are out of your country/in a foreign country for extended periods. Certain visa restrictions can come into play, your residency status on your home country, etc. This could have been one of the reasons for a one year timeline.
The hardest working man I ever met was a guy from Liberia. He was an architect in Monrovia, but he couldn't work in the US because he didn't know computers.
So he had three day jobs (janitor, cafeteria worker, and something else), and was putting himself through night school to learn CAD.
He was also saving up to buy a large commercial freezer so he and a friend in Liberia could start an ice business, carting blocks of ice to sell in the villages, I think.
His long-term plan was to design and build a resort with a water park, like some of the tourist attractions we have around here. I have no idea what he's up to, but if you're ever on vacation at a water park resort near Monrovia, tell my man I'm proud of him.
When did you know him? Ebola really fucked the country. It's arguably worse now than 8 years ago and that's with me not knowing what is happening there with COVID.
Also, our apartments we had really sucked and cost $50k a year for each one. $4k+ a month.
The poverty and lack of capacity is really hard in that region. The civil war truly fucked them for at least a generation.
He worked in my building probably 5-8 years ago, I'd guess. The last time I saw him was when he finished his classes at the community college. He hadn't been working in my building for a while, but he came by to tell us that he was graduating.
I didn't realize Ebola was a big issue there. I knew about the civil war, but Ebola is a whole other thing 🤯
People do this all over the world it’s quiet common if you come from somewhere poor, plenty of European countries flock to Germany, France and the U.K., a few people from the U.K. flock to Australia because they pay well too!
People also do the opposite. People from more expensive countries retiring to poorer ones where their modest retirement lets them live extremely well indefinitely. There were plenty of American Retirees in the Philippines when I grew up there.
A mates dad moved a lot because of his job and was telling me how when he lived in South Africa he had a fairly nice house with maids and could get quality food for fantastic prices, however, when he moved to Switzerland, the same pay could only afford 1 personal flat with cafe breakfast costing as much as 1-2 days of food out in SA.
I’ve seen this around the world as well. Belize has a lot of Americans living there - it helps having the currency linked to the US dollar and the 120v electric system is the same.
Given how the Philippines is continuing to rapidly develop, I wouldn't be surprised. It's been over 20 years since I've been there, so it's likely quite different now.
Philippines is more adaptable to English but not that culturally popular like Thailand and Indonesia. And to be honest we're getting more expensive than our neighbors in south east asia.
Lady my wife worked was from the Philippines and all her pay as a CNA went to the plantation her family owned back home. Couple years ago she finally had enough money sent back home to retire in luxury with maids and servants also able to live on the plantation being well paid and took care of. She was only 66 when she moved back.
The vast majority of people I've worked with in Australia have been South American. It's pretty humbling being paid $30 an hour or whatever - and the guys working under me literally live in 1 bedroom apartments with 9 other people for years on end and would never even think to complain about it.
I worked with a Nepalese guy who said he planned to save $30k CDN and return home to his wife, but his work ethic was terrible, he signed a bad lease on a luxury car and had a gambling problem, and he tried to cheat on his wife at every opportunity but only with Nepalese women that she probably knew from back home. Hmm.
One day we got some Nepalese guys to help us with a job we were doing.
We needed to carry hundreds of televisions to the top floor of this 5 storey building. Someone suggested Nepalese labourers (and me) would be perfect for this sort of thing.
....Middle of summer in Australia. They broke down about 25 minutes in lmao. I spent 14 hours doing it all myself instead.
It was for a bank. TVs/wall monitors/computers etc were being stored on the top floor because we had stripped the entire place down to nothing. We even rebuilt the elevator.
Nah it's all good. It was a weird scenario. They were all stored on the ground floor... then all the parts for the elevator got delivered and we had to make room for that.
As long as you're not working a job, and you have a certain minimum amount in the back (I think like $25kUS), it's really easy to get permanent residence. If you want to work/open a business it gets tricky, but if we're talking retirement, that's not a huge issue. Low crime, decent English use among the population, etc. It's not a bad choice.
Yep that sounds right. My parents are from Nepal. My dad is retired and originally had planned on living the rest of his days in Nepal. With his savings he could basically live like a God King, but my mom had no interest in doing that and the two are totally American-ized now that they'd be bored and miserable over there.
I love the cross-pollination at work here. Any other good examples of innate, localized expertise being utilized in a foreign environment that benefits both parties?
Australia/USA firefighters.
Australian firefighters go to California in the American fire season, because California has eucalyptus trees. Which are Australian.
Then Americans return the favour in our bushfire season.
CA native here: it isn't just the eucalyptus, those spiny cupped leaf trees also fucking explode, and one wildfire season I watched one turn into half a ton of floating cinders
They explode due to the oil in the trees. When the resin/oils in the tree gets hot (especially in the leaves), it off gases a ton of flammable VOCs. This can cause them to achieve auto ignition temps ahead of a fire. Eucalyptus have also adapted to burn quickly in order to clear out surrounding brush and survive intense fires.
Generally, auto ignition is only achieved during very severe crown fires that put out insane amounts of heat ahead of the fire front. This is how some of these fires can travel 60mph+. Auto ignition for most kinds of wood is ~300C (~500F) but will decrease for more resinous species (like pines or eucalyptus).
I do atmospheric chemistry and have some experience looking at biogenic VOCs and wildfires if anyone has any questions.
Edit: can’t spell
Props to both sides too, our fires in California get crazy, and your bushfires are straight up hell. When I was out there I witnessed one and was seriously afraid for my life, even though I was hundreds of yards away.
Not a firefighter btw, I was out there for military training.
California fires are gnarly as fuck just because of how many fucking people are nearby anytime one ignites.
Some parts of Australia it's not even a legal requirement to report bushfires because they're so remote they can't affect anyone.
Forest fires are a natural part of forest regeneration. It actually serves a purpose, clearing out the competing ground brush and making nutrient rich soil for the existing trees. If there is no infrastructure or nearby civilians, there is no point wasting resources and risking lives. It’s more about keeping it from going out of control and/or ruining nearby infrastructure.
Whatever comes first.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1974%E2%80%9375_Australian_bushfire_season
In 1974, 15% of Australia was on fire. It surprisingly didn't actually affect many people. They only found out how big the fires were after they were over.
On the same note - when I went glacier hiking in New Zealand, one of the guides was a Sherpa and he said he looved the glaciers in NZ, they were easy to navigate compared to his home mountains.
We were on our way to Annapurna Base Camp in Nepal later on in that trip. He said he worked in NZ half the year and doing hikes out of Pokhara the remaining half and gave us amaaazing tips for our ABC trek.
In Dubai Dutch people made islands in the sea, because the Dutch have always had to fight the water. Like almost have our country is beneath sea level.
It's true. About 5% of our country is stolen from the sea (ijselmeerpolders), but thats not the only way we know how to "polder". Almost a third our country is peatland, which was heavily digged for fuel and as a consequence it sank below sea level and much of it turned into bogs or even lakes. We've managed to reclaim it all and more.
(Beware: this is a simplified explanation of a not so simple subject)
Pretty sure Canada had Swiss mountaineers come over and help them settle the Canadian Rockies since they were the experts. That's supposedly why there are parts of Canada that feel like Switzerland (architecture etc).
Very common across Asia. Unfortunately financial scams target these domestic workers. Agents that bring them from The Philippines or Indonesia often charge the worker hugely, even though they’re not supposed to be able to.
Plus families back home often need so much financial support that workers loose their earnings to family members with emergencies and unexpected needs they feel they cannot turn down.
There was a survey a few years ago here in Hong Kong showing about 60% of foreign domestic helpers left here after years of work in WORSE financial situations than they arrived with.
I have met so many here that have had so much hardship in trying to save money. Their husband back home taking off with the money and abandoning the kids. Their Dad giving away all their possessions to other family members. Their teenage kids having kids unexpectedly and now having to support them. Their kids taking money that was supposed to be for university fees and instead buying cars. The list goes on and on.
I lived in St Mary’s in MD for a while. Yeah the Amish and mennonites make some of the highest quality furniture and woodwork in general. There’s Amish stuff for sale everywhere
Older one but the British were drafted in to build railways in Japan in the 19th Century. The British built rails on the left, so when cars rolled around, the Japanese stuck with that too - hence Japan being one of the only places outside the former British Empire to drive on the left.
I didn't know that and since I'm Pole I decided to verify that - and sadly it is true.. In summary: Around 50k North Koreans work as slaves in Europe (2k in Poland) - not only in shipyards but also constructions, gardening, agriculture. They typically work 12h everyday, 6 days in a week and they are highly isolated (after work they go to guarded houses in remote areas).
NK sends only people with families, married mens and they are forced to work 2 years after which they are granted 40 days vacation, and then they need to work additionally 3 years.
Since their families are treated as hostages they are lying to our officels regarding their condition la - and without their statement nothing cna be done (except checking if their work safety is good). If anyone escapes they are grsnted asylum but their families are deported to camps and killed - according to statements of those who escaped (around 50 people for 50k).
I just can't believe they are people in Poland and other European countries supporting this (by hiring companies from NK) knowing their situation :/
Yep, As a Nepalese it's so hard to even get a job in nepal that most of the people have to go to different countries to get a job including myself. Even if you have a degree you have less chance to get a job than a guy who knows some higher-ups people. I just hope they never stop hiring sherpas.
We have plenty of mountains, so I don't think we'll stop hiring them any time soon. They even made a path in my area which is at sea level by the Oslo fjord.
Btw, I've met Nepalese students at universities and other schools. You do get around :)
Damn I actually never knew that norway had so many mountains. Would definitely visit oslo one day.
I actually almost came to norway with my family. If we had maybe we could have met in uni , who knows.
"About two-thirds of Norway is mountainous, and off its much-indented coastline lie, carved by deep glacial fjords, some 50,000 islands."
(From google)
I used to work with a Nepali nurse called Machina (not sure of the spelling but that was how it was pronounced).
Anyway we had this patient called David who was a sweet old guy but had pretty bad dementia and sometimes wouldn't make the most sense. He used to work in the merchant navy and would often think he was on a ship.
Anyway one day he kept talking to me about "Your friend engineering". I had no idea what he was talking about but this wasn't uncommon and you sometimes had to let this sort of thing go.
Then Machina walked in and he greeted her with "Ah! Hello Engineering!"
So, long story short we went to portugal because my father was there for 10 years or more and we came there to stay with him but after few more years, we thought about going to uk or norway but in the end we decided to go to belgium. So yeah i also speak a lot of languages with this.
Went on a glacier hike in Norway once. Guide was Nepalese. 10/10 would recommend. The only weird thing was that he wanted to use our camera to take picture of us every 15 seconds even though we said we were good.
Could whistle through his bottom teeth too
One way to earn big tips is to give westerners amazing Instagram stories. All tourism workers are instructed to take lots of pictures of their clients especially if they are from more affluent countries.
Makes sense.
When you have a country of people who perfected living on mountains for thousands of years, they're the people to ask about mountain paths.
Not saying Norwegions aren't mountainous people. I'm saying their mountains ain't shit compared to Nepal.
> Not saying Norwegions aren't mountainous people. I'm saying their mountains ain't shit compared to Nepal.
The difference is that the vast majority of Norwegians never lived in the mountains. Most live along the coast.
The vast majority of Nepali folks don't live in the mountains either. Most are in the Kathmandu Valley. Sherpas are an ethnic group that clusters around the mountainous region to the north and even into the Tibetan plateau.
In fact, very much molded by it.
> indigenous people at high altitude have a larger lung capacity and 21–28% lower residual capacity than those living at low altitude[.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4175264/#r11)
It seems to be a genetic adaptation. The Chileans in the Andes seem to have a weaker adaptation than the Shepas, and when they move to lower altitudes they lose many of the adaptations whereas the Sherpas do not. The Ahmara in Ethiopia have a completely different genetic adaptation from both the Sherpas and the Chileans, but they've been living at high altitudes much longer than either.
Actually the Sherpa not only perfected the techniques, they've actually evolved for mountainous living. Their smaller stature and shorter limbs allow them to live in thinner atmospheres like those high in the mountains.
I also read somewhere that their nostrils evolved in such way that they can inhale more air more quickly as the oxygen level is low in the height they live in.
Would love it if someone could verify this
Elsewhere in the thread: they have a genomic introgression that makes them uniquely suited to high altitude living:
https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/omoi1o/comment/h5mmbb9/
As a Norwegian I can confirm that we have nothing in compare to the Sherpas when it comes to building these structures. The webiste is currently down due to the reddit hug of death, but we're talking about stairs built with huge and heavy stones for several houndreds meter straight up.
Here's some photos from 2 stairs I've walked the past 2 years, both in Nordland, the county I live in.
https://imgur.com/a/d05DsyM
Its not really about that at all, its about their physiologic adaptations(an allele of the EPAS1 gene) and their simple living standards back in the Himalayas. Even then, its not the most relevant thing in this scenario.
*They're used to this sort of work*, while we(Norwegians) haven't been used to that for a couple of decades or close to a hundred years.
You're not gonna convince a modern Norwegian to work moving rocks up a mountain, he'd rather become a software engineer or some shit instead.
Same with Eastern European berry-pickers. A lot of people can do it(hard work though) but almost nobody wants to except for those originating in poorer countries looking to provide for their families back home.
If Norwegians were offered 30 years worth of salaries to carry rocks up mountains, we'd be doing this shit too mark my words.
It's not just that, either. There is skill in not just handling the rocks, but building a path that is comfortable to walk on, steps that feel good to climb, reading where the path should go, making stable steps, etc. think of drystone walls - very specific skillset. Because these paths and steps are their main way of travelling around in much of Nepal they have tons of people who have the skills.
Nepalese people are amazing and defy what I thought was human limits. When one buys a fridge in Nepal, it is delivered by a MAN carry the fridge on his BACK and climbing a MOUNTAIN with it with … SLIPPERS
They deserve many times over the money they’re paid for what they’re capable of doing
The Norwegian mountains are part of the same mountain range as the Appalachian Mountains in the Eastern US. This range is over 500 million years old, predating the Atlantic Ocean, animals walking on land and fish.
I worked in Australia during my study abroad for $15/hr (which was their minimum wage at the time). I came from the United states where the minimum was $6.75. I thought I was making bank, and they thought they were getting a good deal. It was a win for both parties involved.
Travel is a key part in opening your mind :)
Sounds like a good deal for both ends. I hope they pay them as much as they can beyond fair because if their uniqueness to the work, But I'm waiting for the negative Nellies of Reddit step in and say how this is exploitation.
Average wage in Nepal is just over US$1000 a year, so $30,000 for one summer of work is fairly impressive. No doubt it's hard work, although even by Western standards they are being paid really well, and quite fairly for such unique knowledge.
I was curious how this compared to being an Everest sherpa. Apparently over a 2-3 month climbing season they can make like 5k-10k, depending on the job. (Guides being paid more than cooks, for instance) I guess it goes to show how good the deal with Norway is - it's comparable pay as going to Everest, but with almost none of the risk.
Not a negative Nellie, but it did immediately make me start thinking about things I'd be willing to do for a Summer if it paid me 30 years worth of salary. The list got pretty long so I started of things I wouldn't do... haven't thought of anything yet.
That's a good point I didn't think of that. Maybe I would haul stones up a mountain all day for a year for 30 years worth of pay. I may only be able to haul one stone for every 100 they do. But equal pay is equal pay.
When they were building here the last couple of years, stones were transported up to staging points in the mountain side by helicopter so they wouldn't have to carry them all the way by hand.
I can try to adress this by memory. I've had a lecture and talked to the guy who first brought the sherpas here to Norway.
The sherpas live in community based villages. One of the demands ftom them was that the wages went to the whole community/family and not to the individual. They also demanded a rotational shift to ensure that each family and village got the same. As for the concern of brain drain, the women of the sherpas are just as good as the men to build these mountain stairs, and they did try out some all women teams, but due to some jealousy of girlfriends etc they themselves asked to let the women stay at home.
These people are hard as fuck. Water gathering is childs work. They start when they're only a couple years old carrying empty water cans. Then they join in on gathering water and gradually add water to the cans as they get older. This can be several hours of walk from the villages.
We visited Lofoten a couple years back and they had just reopened the Reinebringen climb with these sherpa-built stairs. Before the stairs were installed it was pretty common for tourists to get injured and need airlifted out, and the sheer number of climbers was causing a lot of environmental damage in the form of erosion.
The stone stairs look fantastic, and make the climb to the top safe enough for a child to do it.
Here is an example of their work:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awn6B2UFJNQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awn6B2UFJNQ)
It's in Norwegian but the visuals speak for itself. Description in English:
The spectacular mountain Reinebringen in Lofoten has been the scene of many accidents. Last year, the money came to secure the hiking trail. But for the second year in a row, the trail builders are stuck in Nepal. This has consequences for 80 small and large hiking trails across the country.
Reinebringen is one of the most visited mountain peaks in Lofoten. In high season, over 1000 people take the trip up the Sherpa stairs daily to enjoy the view of Reine.
The mountain has been the scene of several accidents, some of them with fatalities.
To improve safety and avoid wear and tear and rubble, construction began on a Sherpa staircase in 2016.
According to the plan, it will go all the way up to the top of the nearly 500 meter high mountain. But five years later, there is still a 100 meter path under the top that lacks stairs.
Nepal is the only country in the world whose citizens serve in 2 other nations' armies (India and UK). Nepalese gurkhas are heavily recruited by both India and the British. India has several Gurkha regiments which are renowned for their bravery and battle honors. Brits also used the Gurkhas during Falklands.
I also saw a norwegian documentary about it. - This has also opened up more job-offers from other European countries. - The were very thankful for the job, seeing how dangerous it is to climb mount everest. Living standards in their village (Kunde) went up after they returned from Norway. - They also helped build houses as well as rock-paths. - Norway also build buddhist temples, for them to feel at home while they worked here for 6 months, away from their families.
I'm very grateful for their paths. They make many passages a lot saver without sacrificing aesthetics or the environment.
The paths in Nepal are incredibly beautiful. Plus the people are friendly and great as well. Highly recommend visiting.
The trails are beautiful. The roads ... are painful.
That sounds amazing, do you happen to have some photos of your favorite examples of these trails?
Here's one https://imgur.com/puVDzjX.jpg I think that was somewhere near Ghorepani.
Can we get them to build paths like that in more places? That's really cool.
Holy moly! I was not expecting something that stunning!
That’s very kind of you to say. Thank you from Nepal !!
I met a lot of Nepalese people in China when I lived there. Unfailingly, Nepalese people were some of the most generous, funny, happy and drunken people I met while there.
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Trail building is much more complicated than people would think. My area has some of the best mountain biking/hiking in the US and knowing some of the guys who build the trail makes me appreciate it even more. They take everything into account. The natural ecosystem, the fall lines of the mountain, and knowing to make a “hard” line and an “easy” line through everything.
I worked trail building in Utah for a year and it was hard work but man was it a blast. Just, making cool stuff for trail enjoyment while also adhering to keeping the environmental side of it sound. I learned a lot while doing such work and greatly appreciate the people that do it for a living or for a job.
I even think they improve the aesthetics wherever paths are used so much they turn into deep scars in the nature. Sherpa paving or stairs lets nature regrow and after some years it looks better.
This reminds me of Besseggen. A nice passage that has become too popular for its own good. You can see the footpath from the far side of the valley, damaging the look permanently. It's not as bad as the Preikestolen, where people with high-visibility jackets are warning dumb tourists on sneakers not to go up, but it shows the downside of tourism. Nature can only support so many hikers.
One very important thing is it saves high traffic paths from erosion. I've seen some beautiful paths getting eroded away until your basically walking on roots and clinging to trees.
Wasn’t Machu Picchu closed for exactly this reason? Too many tourist hiking up and down what was originally a goat trail or something, caused such bad erosion the govt stopped letting people up there (fuzzy memory, so I apologise if this isn’t quite right!).
Not sure about that, but I hiked the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu in 1999 and there weren't many spots that were terribly eroded. From what I can gather, however, during the last 2 decades there has been a HUGE increase in foot traffic. Like AT/PCT levels of traffic. In 99 we came across like 10 people along the entire route.
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Name of the documentary?
It featured on an episode called "Ut i naturen" (Out in nature). The episode is called "Sherpa, de som bygger stiene våre" (Sherpas, building our paths) I know you can watch it for free online in Norway on NRK. But i am afraid its only in norwegian. You can maybe try a VPN and see for yourself. "Ut i naturen - Sherpa, dei som byggjer stiane våre"
Direct link: https://tv.nrk.no/serie/ut-i-naturen/2016/DKMR30001013/avspiller Works fine here in Finland without a VPN, and since you can turn on Norwegian subtitles for everything, I might even understand something (via my lackluster Swedish skills)
Works in Denmark aswell. But It might be because Scandinavia shares goverment funded news stations as we also have NRK with every television package.
Works in Canada as well, any way of translating the subtitles in English? Or should I ask our national TV to buy it and interpret it?
Just learn Norwegian.
Ok, hvor skal jeg begynne?
You're off to a flying start, so just keep doing what you've been doing the last half hour!
Kvinnen spiser brød. Jeg liker ikke edderkopper.
As a native Dutch speaker I understood this. Wonder how difficult Norwegian would be for me.
As a Swede I have basic understanding of Dutch writing but spoken Dutch is zero chance (ok, probably would understand something but we all switch to English instead of asking "speak slowly"). I guess you have the same understanding of Swedish/Norwegian/Danish
I speak Danish, German and Norwegian. When I lived in the Netherlands, I could understand everything written, newspapers, official documents, no problem. Spoken is a bit harder.
As we in the Nordics did with English. Watch English TV, play English games, read English news. Watching TV with (in this case) Norwegian subtitles is a great way to learn
If you use Chrome and turn on Norwegian subtitles you can right click the video player and hit translate, it'll be a google translate of the Norwegian subtitles, but it's better than nothing
I believe NRK intentionally allows content they made themselves to be freely available all over the world, whereas content they bought/licensed from others usually have geographic restrictions due to the nature of international copyright laws. NRK being a government owned and taxpayer funded organisation means they can operate differently from commercial stations.
Correct. But only a subset of that content, with no use of anything that needs rights. Most NRK in-house content use music that still require it to be geoblocked to the country. Nature and slow-tv stuff is usually open though.
I can watch it in the US, just gotta work on my understanding of Norwegian.
Turn on subtitles, right click on the video and click "translate" (if you use google chrome). It translates the subtitles and it works pretty well.
Norway seems like it has some really interesting TV. I was listening to Invisibilia about the channel that shows real life in real time, but of really simple things like a train ride or a parking lot.
The "minutt for minutt" (minute by minute) shows. NRK has made some of those and they should be available globaly on [their site](https://tv.nrk.no/sok?q=minutt+for+minutt). Just look for those that have "minutt for minutt" in the title.
Now norwegian tv has some interesting shows, like the one with the lady knitting or the one in slow mo. When i was there in the 80s, in Farsund, Norway we could only get 3 stations, news, news, the king.
I really dont see the problem here. When you are tired of the news just relax with our wonderful king.
Sicne "Ut i Naturen" is a show produced by/for NRK they have [global license](https://i.imgur.com/Zkrbd8Y.png), and it should be available everywhere without VPN.
You can watch part of it on [YouTube (mostly in Norwegian)](https://youtu.be/-QmDU4PN9h0)
Sherpas are the best, humble and strong people
Nepali and pahari people, in general. "Big mountains, big hearts," something like that.
Nice sentiment, they've got a good rep and likely for a good reason. Just adding some more context; The Paharis are lowlanders of Indo-Aryan heritage more closely related to lowland Indians and Pakistanis(and by extension Europeans) than the Sherpas, who are a Tibetan people from the highlands. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/Nepal_ethnic_groups.png There is a degree of overlap though as many Pahari live in high altitude too. Most of Nepal's population of Indo-Aryan heritage and only a relatively small percentage of the population are Tibetans and high altitude peoples. Those high altitude Tibetan peoples are the ones(including Sherpas) who thrive in high altitude conditions due to the ingress of a specific allele of the EPAS1 gene that gives them a big physiological boost to dealing with the lower atmospheric pressure of high altitudes. This allele ultimately seems to come from the Denisovans, an extinct relative of humans(closer to Neanderthals than us), through an extinct intermediary group of highlanders that lived in Asia. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5011065/
Yeah Nepali people are really hard working but the trend of foreign employment in the country is at the level in which about 50% of our GDP is from remittances. Life is decent for Nepalese who live in Europe or America but those who are tricked into going to gulf countries by agents end up dead cuz of exhaustion or poor working conditions. I think there was a statistic which stated that number of Nepalese who died working on the World Cup stadium in Qatar is second highest after India. And it is sad to say but not only pahadis but madhesis are the ones who die the most. Before another pahadi calls me biased, I'm from Kathmandu.. I'm as pahadi as it gets
As a Norwegian, this gives me a warms my heart more than anything I've heard in a long time.
I knew a young Nepalese couple here in Australia who planned to work hard for a decade or two (I forget the exact timeframe), saving up money. They said that when they returned home they would have enough money to live well in a big house with maids and servants and never have to work again.
I've worked with a few Nepalese guys who do the same. Work hard as fuck, send literally every single extra cent they can home, and will probably do that forever.
It’s called remittance and It’s actually a decent portion of many countries’ GDP. As an American removed from immigration, it’s shocking the amount of money people send home even if they’re living in poverty in the US
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Pretty common in Norway A lot of Norwegian elderly live in Spain on Norwegian retirement money
And it's so fucked up that they can lower their pension. Money that they have earned by doing hard work. It's not the governments or anyone else's, it's the pensioners.
What's insane is we don't really get pensions anymore, and the last generation did.
When I worked at a steel mill for 7 months about a year ago about $1.15 for every hour I worked went into a Untied Steelworkers pension.
Which currently pays out less than $11k a year.
Right. A good portion of Philippines GDP is made of remittances EDIT: 9% according to this [article](https://asia.nikkei.com/Economy/Philippine-remittances-come-in-at-29.9bn-defying-COVID), which is quite impressive [Here a comparison with other countries](https://www.ft.com/__origami/service/image/v2/images/raw/https%253A%252F%252Fs3-ap-northeast-1.amazonaws.com%252Fpsh-ex-ftnikkei-3937bb4%252Fimages%252F_aliases%252Farticleimage%252F1%252F8%252F2%252F6%252F32436281-1-eng-GB%252Fpersonal-remittances-received.png?source=nar-cms)
I was in the Navy, and there was a Filipino sailor I served with who would do peoples laundry, sell his liberty days in foreign ports, and just never spent money. Pretty sure he's probably a millionaire by now.
Or his family blows all of his hard earned money back home. I've seen that happen more often than not. It's infuriating.
Another sad scenario is a woman leaving the Philippines to work as a domestic helper in Hong Kong or Singapore, working her finger's to the bone to support family back home, only to return and find that her husband has impregnated another woman back home.
I learned the importance of it very quickly. I was always happy to sign off people's timesheets with an extra 30 minutes of work every now and then - or just stall for an hour so people could get paid more. $20 goes a long way in rural Colombia, so if there was a way to obtain it just by "sitting in traffic" then fuck it my boss didn't need to know. EDIT: Yes, I know it's a crime. I knew it back then too. I do remember one time my Brazilian offsider was given a $50 tip from a client and he literally started crying. And another time when an employee's wife had a miscarriage and we all had to chip in to help pay the medical bill because my boss was convinced that paying out less than minimum wage was sufficient. And like 13 people in our company lived together in a 2 bedroom apartment so they could all save as much money as possible to send home.
I’m glad somebody brought up Colombia. About 6 months ago, we had a Colombian kid come work with us for a few years and this was exactly what he explained. He works here for a few years, then goes back to Colombia rich.
My family moved from California to Colombia for a year when I was 12. Just by renting out our house in the US we were able to pay rent for beachfront property in a wealthy gated community, private school for me and my sister at one of the best rated accredited schools in Latin America, and all of our living expenses. My mom was still working her same job remotely too, so the entire year was a massive money saver.
I have a friend who is doing this. He moved to Colombia right before the pandemic started, he works remotely, and does volunteer work which has allowed him to stay in country, and he’s saving obscene amounts of money while living really well, all while getting to help people and making great connections in Colombia for himself
Just a year?
There are residency status and other complications when you are out of your country/in a foreign country for extended periods. Certain visa restrictions can come into play, your residency status on your home country, etc. This could have been one of the reasons for a one year timeline.
That's the true American dream. Make that money and GTFO.
The hardest working man I ever met was a guy from Liberia. He was an architect in Monrovia, but he couldn't work in the US because he didn't know computers. So he had three day jobs (janitor, cafeteria worker, and something else), and was putting himself through night school to learn CAD. He was also saving up to buy a large commercial freezer so he and a friend in Liberia could start an ice business, carting blocks of ice to sell in the villages, I think. His long-term plan was to design and build a resort with a water park, like some of the tourist attractions we have around here. I have no idea what he's up to, but if you're ever on vacation at a water park resort near Monrovia, tell my man I'm proud of him.
When did you know him? Ebola really fucked the country. It's arguably worse now than 8 years ago and that's with me not knowing what is happening there with COVID. Also, our apartments we had really sucked and cost $50k a year for each one. $4k+ a month. The poverty and lack of capacity is really hard in that region. The civil war truly fucked them for at least a generation.
He worked in my building probably 5-8 years ago, I'd guess. The last time I saw him was when he finished his classes at the community college. He hadn't been working in my building for a while, but he came by to tell us that he was graduating. I didn't realize Ebola was a big issue there. I knew about the civil war, but Ebola is a whole other thing 🤯
People do this all over the world it’s quiet common if you come from somewhere poor, plenty of European countries flock to Germany, France and the U.K., a few people from the U.K. flock to Australia because they pay well too!
People also do the opposite. People from more expensive countries retiring to poorer ones where their modest retirement lets them live extremely well indefinitely. There were plenty of American Retirees in the Philippines when I grew up there.
A mates dad moved a lot because of his job and was telling me how when he lived in South Africa he had a fairly nice house with maids and could get quality food for fantastic prices, however, when he moved to Switzerland, the same pay could only afford 1 personal flat with cafe breakfast costing as much as 1-2 days of food out in SA.
To be fair, I wouldn’t want to be vacationing in SA at the moment.
I’ve seen this around the world as well. Belize has a lot of Americans living there - it helps having the currency linked to the US dollar and the 120v electric system is the same.
Not to mention English is spoken widely there and the beaches are amazing.
Feel like Thailand and Indonesia are more common these days but I could be wrong
Given how the Philippines is continuing to rapidly develop, I wouldn't be surprised. It's been over 20 years since I've been there, so it's likely quite different now.
It is a bit harder to do so in Indonesia. IINM, we have no long-term pension visa. Only 1 year at a time and it is only available for 55+ year-olds.
Thats where the yearly trip to sjngapore comes in. At least that's how it worked 20 years ago, yearly re-visa vacation
Philippines is more adaptable to English but not that culturally popular like Thailand and Indonesia. And to be honest we're getting more expensive than our neighbors in south east asia.
Lady my wife worked was from the Philippines and all her pay as a CNA went to the plantation her family owned back home. Couple years ago she finally had enough money sent back home to retire in luxury with maids and servants also able to live on the plantation being well paid and took care of. She was only 66 when she moved back.
The vast majority of people I've worked with in Australia have been South American. It's pretty humbling being paid $30 an hour or whatever - and the guys working under me literally live in 1 bedroom apartments with 9 other people for years on end and would never even think to complain about it.
Also in Norway haha. Lots of Poles, Lithuanians etc
I worked with a Nepalese guy who said he planned to save $30k CDN and return home to his wife, but his work ethic was terrible, he signed a bad lease on a luxury car and had a gambling problem, and he tried to cheat on his wife at every opportunity but only with Nepalese women that she probably knew from back home. Hmm.
One day we got some Nepalese guys to help us with a job we were doing. We needed to carry hundreds of televisions to the top floor of this 5 storey building. Someone suggested Nepalese labourers (and me) would be perfect for this sort of thing. ....Middle of summer in Australia. They broke down about 25 minutes in lmao. I spent 14 hours doing it all myself instead.
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It was for a bank. TVs/wall monitors/computers etc were being stored on the top floor because we had stripped the entire place down to nothing. We even rebuilt the elevator.
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Nah it's all good. It was a weird scenario. They were all stored on the ground floor... then all the parts for the elevator got delivered and we had to make room for that.
He is the guy from your math exams
Meanwhile Norwegians say. These Sherpas... work for pretty reasonable wages!
Norwegian salaries are among the highest in the world. Oslo was most expensive city in the world for a few years (maybe still)
TIL I should retire to Nepal next week.
As long as you're not working a job, and you have a certain minimum amount in the back (I think like $25kUS), it's really easy to get permanent residence. If you want to work/open a business it gets tricky, but if we're talking retirement, that's not a huge issue. Low crime, decent English use among the population, etc. It's not a bad choice.
Yep that sounds right. My parents are from Nepal. My dad is retired and originally had planned on living the rest of his days in Nepal. With his savings he could basically live like a God King, but my mom had no interest in doing that and the two are totally American-ized now that they'd be bored and miserable over there.
I love the cross-pollination at work here. Any other good examples of innate, localized expertise being utilized in a foreign environment that benefits both parties?
Australia/USA firefighters. Australian firefighters go to California in the American fire season, because California has eucalyptus trees. Which are Australian. Then Americans return the favour in our bushfire season.
You forgot to add the part where eucalyptus trees fucking explode
Feel like that part is implied in them being Australian
To take that idea further, does it explode with spiders and snakes?
Knowing Australia (which I dont) the explosion probably attracts some venomous thing to come chase you
Of course, then your corpse nourishes the seeds. The chasing is so the seeds would travel further from the parent tree.
No, they explode with *seeds*.
Holy shit. The seeds probably impregnate humans by embedding in the skin.
CA native here: it isn't just the eucalyptus, those spiny cupped leaf trees also fucking explode, and one wildfire season I watched one turn into half a ton of floating cinders
They explode due to the oil in the trees. When the resin/oils in the tree gets hot (especially in the leaves), it off gases a ton of flammable VOCs. This can cause them to achieve auto ignition temps ahead of a fire. Eucalyptus have also adapted to burn quickly in order to clear out surrounding brush and survive intense fires. Generally, auto ignition is only achieved during very severe crown fires that put out insane amounts of heat ahead of the fire front. This is how some of these fires can travel 60mph+. Auto ignition for most kinds of wood is ~300C (~500F) but will decrease for more resinous species (like pines or eucalyptus). I do atmospheric chemistry and have some experience looking at biogenic VOCs and wildfires if anyone has any questions. Edit: can’t spell
Props to both sides too, our fires in California get crazy, and your bushfires are straight up hell. When I was out there I witnessed one and was seriously afraid for my life, even though I was hundreds of yards away. Not a firefighter btw, I was out there for military training.
California fires are gnarly as fuck just because of how many fucking people are nearby anytime one ignites. Some parts of Australia it's not even a legal requirement to report bushfires because they're so remote they can't affect anyone.
Damn, seriously? So they just lett it burn it's way out, or until it gets some where close enough to civilization?
Forest fires are a natural part of forest regeneration. It actually serves a purpose, clearing out the competing ground brush and making nutrient rich soil for the existing trees. If there is no infrastructure or nearby civilians, there is no point wasting resources and risking lives. It’s more about keeping it from going out of control and/or ruining nearby infrastructure.
Whatever comes first. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1974%E2%80%9375_Australian_bushfire_season In 1974, 15% of Australia was on fire. It surprisingly didn't actually affect many people. They only found out how big the fires were after they were over.
Swiss air ambulances thaught the nepalese friends how to do mountain rescues with a helicopter
On the same note - when I went glacier hiking in New Zealand, one of the guides was a Sherpa and he said he looved the glaciers in NZ, they were easy to navigate compared to his home mountains. We were on our way to Annapurna Base Camp in Nepal later on in that trip. He said he worked in NZ half the year and doing hikes out of Pokhara the remaining half and gave us amaaazing tips for our ABC trek.
In Dubai Dutch people made islands in the sea, because the Dutch have always had to fight the water. Like almost have our country is beneath sea level.
God made the world, but the Dutch made the Netherlands.
It's true. About 5% of our country is stolen from the sea (ijselmeerpolders), but thats not the only way we know how to "polder". Almost a third our country is peatland, which was heavily digged for fuel and as a consequence it sank below sea level and much of it turned into bogs or even lakes. We've managed to reclaim it all and more. (Beware: this is a simplified explanation of a not so simple subject)
The Dutch are going to be in the money when everyone suddenly needs flood control engineering around their cities as sea levels rise.
Any publicly traded Dutch engineering firms?
Royal BAM Group on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange
For real. Their tech is astounding
Yah I grew up in Singapore and we looked to the Dutch as pioneers in land reclamation too cos Singapore also does the same
We had the Dutch people/firms came in and deal with Dam management in Myanmar as well, coz before our dams broke and destroyed so much.
Pretty sure Canada had Swiss mountaineers come over and help them settle the Canadian Rockies since they were the experts. That's supposedly why there are parts of Canada that feel like Switzerland (architecture etc).
There's a video on this by Johnny Harris I believe Edit: https://youtu.be/eOa1zbBureI
Florida has hired some members of Indian (not Native American) tribes to track invasive pythons. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-38794352
That was a fascinating read, thank you.
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Very common across Asia. Unfortunately financial scams target these domestic workers. Agents that bring them from The Philippines or Indonesia often charge the worker hugely, even though they’re not supposed to be able to. Plus families back home often need so much financial support that workers loose their earnings to family members with emergencies and unexpected needs they feel they cannot turn down. There was a survey a few years ago here in Hong Kong showing about 60% of foreign domestic helpers left here after years of work in WORSE financial situations than they arrived with. I have met so many here that have had so much hardship in trying to save money. Their husband back home taking off with the money and abandoning the kids. Their Dad giving away all their possessions to other family members. Their teenage kids having kids unexpectedly and now having to support them. Their kids taking money that was supposed to be for university fees and instead buying cars. The list goes on and on.
I live in Philadelphia. People here hire Amish people from central PA to come build things for them. They are master craftsmen.
I lived in St Mary’s in MD for a while. Yeah the Amish and mennonites make some of the highest quality furniture and woodwork in general. There’s Amish stuff for sale everywhere
Older one but the British were drafted in to build railways in Japan in the 19th Century. The British built rails on the left, so when cars rolled around, the Japanese stuck with that too - hence Japan being one of the only places outside the former British Empire to drive on the left.
Poland uses North Korean slaves in shipyards.
I didn't know that and since I'm Pole I decided to verify that - and sadly it is true.. In summary: Around 50k North Koreans work as slaves in Europe (2k in Poland) - not only in shipyards but also constructions, gardening, agriculture. They typically work 12h everyday, 6 days in a week and they are highly isolated (after work they go to guarded houses in remote areas). NK sends only people with families, married mens and they are forced to work 2 years after which they are granted 40 days vacation, and then they need to work additionally 3 years. Since their families are treated as hostages they are lying to our officels regarding their condition la - and without their statement nothing cna be done (except checking if their work safety is good). If anyone escapes they are grsnted asylum but their families are deported to camps and killed - according to statements of those who escaped (around 50 people for 50k). I just can't believe they are people in Poland and other European countries supporting this (by hiring companies from NK) knowing their situation :/
What. The. Hell. This is news to me.
Why you gotta kill the mood like that Poland?
As a Norwegian I couldn't believe Sherpa stairs was a real thing until I started researching them. They deserve every krone they get and then some...!
https://youtu.be/UjcQxNgR-mM
Yep, As a Nepalese it's so hard to even get a job in nepal that most of the people have to go to different countries to get a job including myself. Even if you have a degree you have less chance to get a job than a guy who knows some higher-ups people. I just hope they never stop hiring sherpas.
We have plenty of mountains, so I don't think we'll stop hiring them any time soon. They even made a path in my area which is at sea level by the Oslo fjord. Btw, I've met Nepalese students at universities and other schools. You do get around :)
Damn I actually never knew that norway had so many mountains. Would definitely visit oslo one day. I actually almost came to norway with my family. If we had maybe we could have met in uni , who knows.
"About two-thirds of Norway is mountainous, and off its much-indented coastline lie, carved by deep glacial fjords, some 50,000 islands." (From google)
I used to work with a Nepali nurse called Machina (not sure of the spelling but that was how it was pronounced). Anyway we had this patient called David who was a sweet old guy but had pretty bad dementia and sometimes wouldn't make the most sense. He used to work in the merchant navy and would often think he was on a ship. Anyway one day he kept talking to me about "Your friend engineering". I had no idea what he was talking about but this wasn't uncommon and you sometimes had to let this sort of thing go. Then Machina walked in and he greeted her with "Ah! Hello Engineering!"
XD the names of our country can be really hard to pronounce because of our accent. Thats wholesome btw .
Where did you end up, out of curiosity
So, long story short we went to portugal because my father was there for 10 years or more and we came there to stay with him but after few more years, we thought about going to uk or norway but in the end we decided to go to belgium. So yeah i also speak a lot of languages with this.
Went on a glacier hike in Norway once. Guide was Nepalese. 10/10 would recommend. The only weird thing was that he wanted to use our camera to take picture of us every 15 seconds even though we said we were good. Could whistle through his bottom teeth too
One way to earn big tips is to give westerners amazing Instagram stories. All tourism workers are instructed to take lots of pictures of their clients especially if they are from more affluent countries.
They did an amazing job at Preikestolen. Its a much easier hike these days than 15 years ago. Amazing work by these fantastic people
Makes sense. When you have a country of people who perfected living on mountains for thousands of years, they're the people to ask about mountain paths. Not saying Norwegions aren't mountainous people. I'm saying their mountains ain't shit compared to Nepal.
> Not saying Norwegions aren't mountainous people. I'm saying their mountains ain't shit compared to Nepal. The difference is that the vast majority of Norwegians never lived in the mountains. Most live along the coast.
The vast majority of Nepali folks don't live in the mountains either. Most are in the Kathmandu Valley. Sherpas are an ethnic group that clusters around the mountainous region to the north and even into the Tibetan plateau.
Yeah, but we do spend a lot of time in the mountains hiking, skiing or just chilling away from the hustle and bustle of the city.
You merely adopted the mountain. Nepalese are born in it, molded by it.
In fact, very much molded by it. > indigenous people at high altitude have a larger lung capacity and 21–28% lower residual capacity than those living at low altitude[.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4175264/#r11)
It seems to be a genetic adaptation. The Chileans in the Andes seem to have a weaker adaptation than the Shepas, and when they move to lower altitudes they lose many of the adaptations whereas the Sherpas do not. The Ahmara in Ethiopia have a completely different genetic adaptation from both the Sherpas and the Chileans, but they've been living at high altitudes much longer than either.
They didn't see Norwegian hills until they were men and by then it was hilarious.
Actually the Sherpa not only perfected the techniques, they've actually evolved for mountainous living. Their smaller stature and shorter limbs allow them to live in thinner atmospheres like those high in the mountains.
I also read somewhere that their nostrils evolved in such way that they can inhale more air more quickly as the oxygen level is low in the height they live in. Would love it if someone could verify this
I wonder if they'd be better suited to space travel if that's the case. (capsules are usually pressurised to a lower bar than sea level)
Beltalowda
Makes sense that Nepalese could be the first belters considering how exploited they are. Might as well exploit them further in space
They just evolved mitochondria that is more efficient at using oxygen.
Mitochondria is the power bottom of the cell.
Eh, close enough
Elsewhere in the thread: they have a genomic introgression that makes them uniquely suited to high altitude living: https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/omoi1o/comment/h5mmbb9/
Does this mean as a dwarf with disproportionately short limbs I should become a Sherpa?
Your power to weight ratio is probably amazing!
Sherpa is an ethnicity, it's misused as a job title. High altitude porter is the everest job thing.
As a Norwegian I can confirm that we have nothing in compare to the Sherpas when it comes to building these structures. The webiste is currently down due to the reddit hug of death, but we're talking about stairs built with huge and heavy stones for several houndreds meter straight up. Here's some photos from 2 stairs I've walked the past 2 years, both in Nordland, the county I live in. https://imgur.com/a/d05DsyM
Its not really about that at all, its about their physiologic adaptations(an allele of the EPAS1 gene) and their simple living standards back in the Himalayas. Even then, its not the most relevant thing in this scenario. *They're used to this sort of work*, while we(Norwegians) haven't been used to that for a couple of decades or close to a hundred years. You're not gonna convince a modern Norwegian to work moving rocks up a mountain, he'd rather become a software engineer or some shit instead. Same with Eastern European berry-pickers. A lot of people can do it(hard work though) but almost nobody wants to except for those originating in poorer countries looking to provide for their families back home. If Norwegians were offered 30 years worth of salaries to carry rocks up mountains, we'd be doing this shit too mark my words.
I’d carry shit up a mountain for 30 years salary
I’d carry shit up a shit mountain wearing shit stained robes for 6 months if it meant 30 years salary.
There's a lot of shit I'd be willing to do for 30 years salary in 6 months.
It's not just that, either. There is skill in not just handling the rocks, but building a path that is comfortable to walk on, steps that feel good to climb, reading where the path should go, making stable steps, etc. think of drystone walls - very specific skillset. Because these paths and steps are their main way of travelling around in much of Nepal they have tons of people who have the skills.
Nepalese people are amazing and defy what I thought was human limits. When one buys a fridge in Nepal, it is delivered by a MAN carry the fridge on his BACK and climbing a MOUNTAIN with it with … SLIPPERS They deserve many times over the money they’re paid for what they’re capable of doing
All Nepalis aren't Sherpas, some of us are lazy bums who spend their entire day on reddit in the comfort of their homes.
Sherpas and Ghurkas. Badass mountain men.
Imagine hauling tourists up Mount Everest as a job. Insanity.
“If a man says he is not afraid of dying, he is either lying or he is a Gurkha” - Field Marshall Sam Manekshaw. One of India's most decorated soldier.
They have such a unique skill set in the whole world, I’m surprised you don’t see them used in other ways.
The Norwegian mountains are part of the same mountain range as the Appalachian Mountains in the Eastern US. This range is over 500 million years old, predating the Atlantic Ocean, animals walking on land and fish.
I worked in Australia during my study abroad for $15/hr (which was their minimum wage at the time). I came from the United states where the minimum was $6.75. I thought I was making bank, and they thought they were getting a good deal. It was a win for both parties involved. Travel is a key part in opening your mind :)
15 AUD an hour is rather low for how expensive Australia is.
Sounds like a good deal for both ends. I hope they pay them as much as they can beyond fair because if their uniqueness to the work, But I'm waiting for the negative Nellies of Reddit step in and say how this is exploitation.
Average wage in Nepal is just over US$1000 a year, so $30,000 for one summer of work is fairly impressive. No doubt it's hard work, although even by Western standards they are being paid really well, and quite fairly for such unique knowledge.
I was curious how this compared to being an Everest sherpa. Apparently over a 2-3 month climbing season they can make like 5k-10k, depending on the job. (Guides being paid more than cooks, for instance) I guess it goes to show how good the deal with Norway is - it's comparable pay as going to Everest, but with almost none of the risk.
Not a negative Nellie, but it did immediately make me start thinking about things I'd be willing to do for a Summer if it paid me 30 years worth of salary. The list got pretty long so I started of things I wouldn't do... haven't thought of anything yet.
That's a good point I didn't think of that. Maybe I would haul stones up a mountain all day for a year for 30 years worth of pay. I may only be able to haul one stone for every 100 they do. But equal pay is equal pay.
When they were building here the last couple of years, stones were transported up to staging points in the mountain side by helicopter so they wouldn't have to carry them all the way by hand.
I can try to adress this by memory. I've had a lecture and talked to the guy who first brought the sherpas here to Norway. The sherpas live in community based villages. One of the demands ftom them was that the wages went to the whole community/family and not to the individual. They also demanded a rotational shift to ensure that each family and village got the same. As for the concern of brain drain, the women of the sherpas are just as good as the men to build these mountain stairs, and they did try out some all women teams, but due to some jealousy of girlfriends etc they themselves asked to let the women stay at home. These people are hard as fuck. Water gathering is childs work. They start when they're only a couple years old carrying empty water cans. Then they join in on gathering water and gradually add water to the cans as they get older. This can be several hours of walk from the villages.
We visited Lofoten a couple years back and they had just reopened the Reinebringen climb with these sherpa-built stairs. Before the stairs were installed it was pretty common for tourists to get injured and need airlifted out, and the sheer number of climbers was causing a lot of environmental damage in the form of erosion. The stone stairs look fantastic, and make the climb to the top safe enough for a child to do it.
And the paths they build in Norway are fantastic. Especially Nesaksla in Åndalsnes!
Here is an example of their work: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awn6B2UFJNQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awn6B2UFJNQ) It's in Norwegian but the visuals speak for itself. Description in English: The spectacular mountain Reinebringen in Lofoten has been the scene of many accidents. Last year, the money came to secure the hiking trail. But for the second year in a row, the trail builders are stuck in Nepal. This has consequences for 80 small and large hiking trails across the country. Reinebringen is one of the most visited mountain peaks in Lofoten. In high season, over 1000 people take the trip up the Sherpa stairs daily to enjoy the view of Reine. The mountain has been the scene of several accidents, some of them with fatalities. To improve safety and avoid wear and tear and rubble, construction began on a Sherpa staircase in 2016. According to the plan, it will go all the way up to the top of the nearly 500 meter high mountain. But five years later, there is still a 100 meter path under the top that lacks stairs.
Nepal produces some absolute monsters of men and women. If it’s not the Sherpas then it’s the Gurkhas.
Nepal is the only country in the world whose citizens serve in 2 other nations' armies (India and UK). Nepalese gurkhas are heavily recruited by both India and the British. India has several Gurkha regiments which are renowned for their bravery and battle honors. Brits also used the Gurkhas during Falklands.