Losing the yeti in forgotten nation of Bhutan

Sonam Dorjee runs Om Bar, a Thimphu gathering spot popular among the rich, the royal and the well-connected. "I believe in it about like you do," says Dorjee, smiling. "These are stories for country people."

Later, driving through the nighttime Thimphu streets, he talks a little more. "Look, this country is changing so much. There's a lot of money here now, a lot of business. Some of these beliefs aren't going to survive."

Here's the thing, though, about how countries modernize: It's seldom a dramatic transformation from one era to the next, even in an isolated country like Bhutan. Instead, it's an inexorable slide that often remains invisible until _ in retrospect _ the change becomes obvious.

"The common belief is that traditionalism dissolves in the solvents of modernity," said Mark Dailey, an environmental anthropologist at Green Mountain College in Poultney, Vt., who has studied China's modernization. "That's an oversimplification."

The reality is that cultures change piecemeal, and often find themselves holding onto beliefs that can appear contradictory.

"People tend to be stubborn," said Dailey. "Traditional beliefs help root them."

Outwardly, this country holds tightly to its past, aggressively policing its own culture. Laws require everything from traditional dress _ robes for men and ankle-length skirts for women _ to historic styles for new buildings.

But legally mandated culture can be a strange beast, blurring the line between reality and fiction. It's increasingly easy to find places, particularly in tourist areas, where Bhutan can feel like a hollow, Bhutan-themed reproduction of itself, where even gas stations are ornamented with carved wooden pillars and where nearly everyone seems to ask if you've seen any traditional dancing yet.

Some of this is pure economics. Much of Bhutan's earnings come from tourists who come in search of beautiful mountain scenery, ancient beliefs and a society unsullied by the larger world.

"We want to attach an economic sense to the culture," says Khandu Wangchuck, the finance minister. The key players in the culture business _ travel agencies, tour guides, hoteliers: "Their whole livelihood will depend on maintaining our culture."

The value of the yeti, on the other hand, is not what it once was.

"Our stories grew around things that we could not explain," says Kunzang Choden, a Bhutanese writer and folklorist.

Just a decade or so ago, the yeti helped explain the often intimidating natural world nearly everyone lived in _ the nighttime shadows, the terrifying noises on lonely forest paths, the strange footprints. But increasingly, the sounds of the forest are drowned out by music played on cheap stereos smuggled in from China.

People who no longer need the yeti can dismiss it. Believing, Choden says, "is an implicit sign of being too traditional, or even backward."

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Which, in Bhutan, no one wants to be. Even the most traditional families dream these days of well-paying jobs for their children, of lives that will take them away from ancestral homes and centuries of rural life.

Dhau, a 53-year-old farmer who uses only one name, was raised and still lives in Zamsa, a small village separated from the nearest road by a cable bridge barely large enough for a bicycle. He grew up to be like his own father, and he once expected his children would grow up to be like him.

But today there's a primary school not far away, and three years ago electricity reached the village. He has an electric cooker and a ceiling fan that can chase away the clouds of monsoon insects. One of his children is in high school, boarding in town. Another is studying computers.

Asked if he wants them to move back home someday, he was stunned by the question.

"Of course not," he said, stopping to talk as he walked home from his fields on a cloudy afternoon. "Life is difficult here, not like in the towns. I want them to get government jobs and live easier lives."

By nearly all appearances, he is a man from another time _ a subsistence farmer who works his fields with handmade tools and who holds tightly to a deeply mystical form of Buddhism. He believes fiercely in miracles and demons.

But like the tigers that roamed these forests a century ago, the yeti he once knew is gone. His children don't know about it, and he doesn't miss it. Its loss has left no obvious holes in his cultural soul. If it survives, he says, it went far away a long time ago.

"My parents used to talk about it, about meeting the huge man in the forest," he says. "But we don't talk about it now."

Then he walks away, following a dirt path toward a wooden house where electric lights now chase away the night and whatever might be hiding in its darkness.