"Mischpoche"-->"cousin-brothers"

I met a Nepali girl at a bar tonight. She has a sister who lives in the Hudson Valley. She mentioned that his family had trouble accepting her sister because they were Jewish. We were talking about this, and she figured out that I'm a Jew, and mentioned how weird it was that she had met so many American Jews in Kathmandu. She's sorta right. One of my closest friends here (he's left now) was a Jewish doctor from Los Angeles.

This is not really what I meant to be writing about. But it does lead me to something that has felt extremely weird here. Essentially, a few Nepalis from the upper classes, and a few who have lived in the United States, are the only ones here who know anything about Judaism or Jews. It's incredibly strange to me to live in a place where one of my primary means of identification, both by self and others, is completely meaningless to most people.

I guess it should be no surprise that Benedict Anderson and Frantz Fanon turn out to be insightful. There is no reason why the particularities of my cultural background would matter in Nepal. By the same token, I'm sure a similar process takes place for Nepalis in America. It's still strange to try to imagine one's community in a place where the cultural borders that I've received or created are completely meaningless.