Paper short abstract:

Middle-grounds problem of Nepalese society: phenomenon of educating youth from Dolpo and Mustang; ways of building modern transcultural identity; the clash of local traditional education with trans-tibetan and global education abroad and with the national-nepalese culture in the country.

Paper long abstract:

The lecture refers to the new phenomenon of educating children and youth from borderlands in the Himalayas, in different culture and national surroundings that influences on building modern transcultural identity. As a middle-grounds problem of Nepalese society, the Himalayan youth from Dolpo and Mustang presents the new self-creating group. Sometimes that young people have to clash with different tendencies. The worldwide system of NGO's supporting much often Tibetan refugees than Himalayan indigenous people, has been adapted by families from Dolpo and Mustang in order to take profits from Western organizations and Tibetan Central Administration in India. Many of them send their children to Tibetan schools in India and register them as "refugees". Hundreds of children are educated and bringing up in typical national Tibetan system and in Indian mass culture, far from their homes and Nepalese surrounding. When they become adult, they come back Nepal. Usually they do not know who they are: Tibetan, Nepalese or others. They start to build in a difficult socio-psychological process their identity as transcultural, and they clash with quite different self-identity of their relatives. Brothers and sisters grew up in different cultural, national and social environments. The common problem of breaking family relationship among people in Dolpo and Mustang, opportunity of educating children in Tibetan schools in India influence on developing new transcultural identity of young generation, which is based on Tibetan nationalism and Indian mass culture on the one hand, and on Himalayan regional tradition and Nepalese national culture on the other hand.