Frontline World. Stories from a small planet. Bhutan is a Himalayan kingdom tucked between China and India.
A seemingly magical place that has for centuries secluded itself from the rest of the world. A place with no traffic lights and no fast food chains. A country with more monks than soldiers.
where it's law to wear traditional dress in public places. This tiny country of less than a million people has guarded its culture from outside influence. People who come here to Bhutan, they all fall in love with Bhutan.
Why? Because we have a beautiful country, we have a rich tradition, rich culture, unspoiled. People who travel to Bhutan cannot...
I cannot believe that there is a country still left in the world which is almost untouched. And time and again they've always told me, they said don't bring television into the country. Oh, shoo shoo shoo, cable just in.
But in June 1999, Bhutan did bring television into the country. After years of cultural protectionism, TV was legalized by royal decree. The last place on earth to hook up to the box.
We found the man who the Bhutanese called the cable guy, Rinsi Dorji. Just a few years ago he hardly knew how a television worked. I thought how is it possible that pictures are just coming out there without any tape being played there.
Then of course I tried to find out how it was coming and this that. Then I said, it is a wonderful technology, that broadcasting from somewhere else and that everybody could see on the television set. We are tuning the TV. It's fine.
You don't want to accept the fact that... We watched Rinsi wiring up homes every day. 45 channels for just $5 a month.
Everything from the BBC to... to Baywatch, all for the same price as a bag of dried red chillies. But not everyone welcomes the new entrepreneurs. These are business people.
These are not even technicians. These are business people who want to sell. And they will broadcast, they will show anything they want.
There are good things as well as bad things. But as a cable operator, I can't selectively give programmes because the demand is such that some parents would like to have some programmes which are not good for others. Rinzi invited us to his family home. In the backyard, five satellite dishes receive signals from all over the world. Beneath the living room, racks of receivers and decks have taken the place of traditional livestock.
The family home has become central control. This setting that we have at the moment is good for 33 channels. Once we go on expanding, then we would require more space and more equipment and more racks. But Rinsi's mother-in-law was sceptical.
I think people have suddenly realized that there are so many things that they desire, which they were not even aware of before. And the truth is that most of these television channels are commercially driven. And so what the Bhutanese people are, yes, are driven towards consumerism. That's inevitable and that's to some extent unfortunate, but inevitable. When I come home from school, I change my clothes and go straight to the TV room and watch television.
I watch Cartoon Network and check if there is wrestling in Star Sports. When it's my exam time, I could not study because of thinking about the cartoon characters and the superstars of the wrestling. I was very happy. I was very happy. I was very happy.
I was very happy. I was very happy. I was very happy. I was very happy.
I was very happy. I was very happy. I was very happy.
Television was introduced only last year. Everybody is curious to see what is happening. They have never seen a special monk, they have never seen television in their life.
So they are curious, very much curious to know what is that. I noticed that last week when I was with my brother and watching television, so sometimes I forget my prayer things. So sometimes they're disturbing these guys on TV. So I thought maybe better not to have my son.
Soon after television started, we started getting letters to the editor for the newspaper from children. Children who seemed very hurt. The letters actually specifically asked about this World Wrestling Federation program.
Why are these big men standing there hitting each other? I mean, what's the purpose of it? They didn't understand. They were very hurt. Now, a few months later, one morning, I mean a personal example, one of my sons, seven years old, jumped on me early in the morning on the bed and he says, hey I'm Triple H, you can be Rock.
And we were fighting. Suddenly these were new heroes for our children. Music Chubby Chief The government has requested the cable operators that they should, to the extent possible, exercise discretion on their part. But it's easier said than done.
With all these satellite dishes that are available, it'll be difficult to control. And so the light of 45 channels flickers, and the Bhutanese tune in to the rest of the world. I have myself heard comments from people saying that, my God, we didn't know that we were living in such a peaceful country. There seems to be violence and crime everywhere around the world.
So, in a way, the positive thing is that Bhutanese people realize how good a life they are living in this country. There's more of the world to explore on our website. Discuss the world and tell us what you think of our stories from a small planet at pbs.org.