Many Japanese people will get to understand the real Bhutan, according to a scholar and long-time friend of Bhutan, Dr Yoshiro Imaeda, who has translated Her Majesty Ashi Dorji Wangmo Wangchuck’s book, A Portrait of Bhutan, into Japanese.

On October 30, Ms Ayaka Matsubara, an editor of the Japan Broadcasting Publishing Co., which released 5,000 copies of the Japanese edition on October 25, and Dr Imaeda called on Her Majesty as the author of the book that is now on sale all over Japan.

Ms Matsubara told Kuensel that Japanese people were interested in Bhutan and wanted to know more. The book, called “A Great Country of Happiness� in Japanese, provides an insight to Bhutanese life by a Bhutanese. She added that it was the perspective of woman and that made it even more interesting.

Her Majesty, in her narration, portrays Bhutan’s transition from a pristine undeveloped country into a modern nation of the new millennium. This experience comes vividly to life through Her Majesty’s own experiences.

Dr Imaeda told Kuensel that the book will not change the Japanese way of life, in the sense that Japanese would find it difficult to achieve the level of happiness that the Bhutanese enjoyed, but it had important lessons. For example, it was uniquely Bhutanese that, after a battle, there was never any joy or celebrations. As described in the book the Bhutanese would, instead, pray for enemies who had died or suffered.

The book, he said, was a good revelation of Bhutanese history that was not found anywhere else.

After meeting the author Ms Matsubara said that Her Majesty was, like the book itself, “charming�.

Her Majesty Ashi Dorji Wangmo Wangchuck said that, through the book, she hoped the Japanese readers would get a better understanding of Bhutan and the profound concept of Gross National Happiness. Source: Kuenselonline