Kathmandu (Pahichan) February 4 – A dear friend from Vermont, Gus, was a frequent visitor to Nepal, not only because he loved Nepal but he also built deep relationship with the Gender and Sexuality minority communities in Nepal. He was instrumental in helping those living with HIV from these minority communities.<\/p>\n
One day he asked me: \u201cWhy does everybody call me \u2018Kuire\u2019 Uncle? First I don\u2019t like to be called \u2018Uncle\u2019, second what does \u2018Kuire\u2019 means? I have a name; my name is Gus with a capital G. why don\u2019t they call me just \u2018Gus\u2019?\u201d<\/p>\n
These are innocent questions that many foreigners, who are often called Kuire (a white-person) + brother (or uncle or sister or aunt) in Nepal, baffled with such nicknames when they visit Nepal. This is probably similar throughout the regions across Asia.<\/p>\n
We are taught from the childhood that it\u2019s disrespectful to call anybody by name, especially your elders. I knew my father\u2019s name early enough as I was introduced as Ramjee \u2018s (my father\u2019s name) son, in the school or anywhere else where elderly people were gathering and inquiring who I was. But I only knew my mother\u2019s name much later when I was 13\u201314 years old while visiting my maternal-home. Some relatives of my mother asked me if was a son of Shashi. I told them: \u201cNo my father is Ramjee\u201d, they said: \u201cyes, but your mother is Shashi.\u201d First time I realized that mothers have another name in addition to the name we call them: Mother\u00a0!, my mother!.<\/p>\n
The word \u2018Name\u2019 in Nepali language is translated as a \u2018Naam<\/em>\u2019 (same in Pali and Sanskrit and in many Indic languages, the English word is directly taken from this very root word\u00a0NAAM<\/em>), also means\u00a0Chitta<\/em>\u00a0(or mind). So the given names we have supposed to be the reflection of our\u00a0Chitta<\/em>\u00a0or Mind; or at least the parents\/elderlies expect that when grow-up we become like the name suggests that was given to us when we were kids. That\u2019s why (middle) name like\u00a0Bahadur\u00a0<\/em>(meaning brave) is very common for boys,\u00a0Kumari<\/em>\u00a0(virgin) is a very common name for girls. Also\u00a0Maan<\/em>\u00a0(meaning pride) for men and\u00a0Maya<\/em>(meaning illusion) for women are very common middle names. The most common and popular first names are usually taken from their favorite Hindu\/Buddhist god or goddess\u00a0, deities, demi-gods or many saints, like:\u00a0Sita, Durga, Kali, Ram, Krishna, Buddha or Shiva<\/em>\u00a0etc.<\/p>\n \u201cIdentity\u201d is translated a\u00a0pahichan<\/em>, which usually refers to the social status you have acquired (or built up) through your exemplary role with others or in the society. So the \u2018role\u2019 you play or have been playing with others defines your identity.<\/p>\n When I just started Blue Diamond Society (an advocacy group for Sexual and Gender minority rights in Nepal) back in 2001, I got an opportunity to attend a training session (HIV, Gender and Sexuality, community building etc.) in Lucknow, India where Mr, Shivanandan Duncan Khan (one of the first activists who worked hard on HIV and LGBTQi rights in South Asia) was the trainer and many members of the sexual and gender minority communities from across India were participating. During the discussion of gender identity and sexual orientation subjects, all participants were introducing their sexual or gender identities as they prefer. Some were introducing themselves using the indigenous terms like\u00a0Hijra, Kothi, Janana, Napumsaka<\/em>\u00a0and a very few of the participants were using the \u201cmodern\u201d English term like Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, etc.<\/p>\n As soon as someone introduced himself as a gay person, another participant was quick to reflect saying \u201cAree, eh to Enshlish Kothi hei!<\/em>\u00a0(oh he is an English Kothi)\u201d.\u00a0Kothi<\/em>\u00a0means effeminate man who takes passive role. The gay man insisted upon his Gay identity, and then the other Kothi person\u2019s reply was eye opening to me as she said something like this in Hindi: \u201cDarling! you may be called yourself \u2018Gay\u2019 based on the western perspective, but here in India you will be called a \u2018Kothi\u2019 and since you are an English educated person, so we call you a \u2018English Kothi\u2019. Here in South Asia our identity is not defined only based upon who do you sleep with, but also, and more so, is defined based upon what role do you play with that other person you sleep with.\u201d<\/p>\n Arguments continued but this reply made the importance of \u201cwhat ROLE do you play\u201d clearer to me. It defines our identities in South Asia. The indigenous identities are based on gender roles, not based upon the sexual orientations like in the west. It\u2019s been many years since then but the debate on sexual and gender identities has not been settled yet between the English speaking LGBTQI communities and English non-speaking community members, perhaps the class divide is even wider now. Especially, the economic, cultural and intellectual influence from the west is continue getting stronger in rest of the world, regardless of the political or military colonization may have ended long ago. One group might prefer western-based (sexuality-based) identities using English terms while others struggle to keep their ageless indigenous (gender-based) identities.<\/p>\n And the roles (social, political, financial, professional or personal ones) you play with others defines your relationships with others, defines whether you are a friend or a foe. And we are part of the cultures that believes on building relationships and cherish the value of such relationships.<\/p>\n So a \u201cname\u201d is not just a label or data for us, it is the reflection of our feelings and thoughts (our mind), so it is perfectly fine to introduce yourself but how can you claim that you know the other one\u2019s mind\/thoughts\/feelings by calling their name? So calling another by name feels odd, which may sound very odd to the western people, but this is the way eastern cultures perceive.<\/p>\n Also, from ancient time, our cultures are teaching us and reminding us to be mindful of not to inflate one\u2019s ego, and name and identities are big part of our ego; hence the calling by a person\u2019s name is always discouraged.<\/p>\n So all the \u201cKuire\u201d Uncles, \u201cKuireni (white-female)\u201d Aunts, or \u201cKuireni\u201d sisters or \u201cKuire\u201d brothers; I know it\u2019s not part of your culture but it\u2019s a beautiful approach for building relationships, please don\u2019t get offended by it, rather appreciate when someone in Nepal calls you a \u201cKuire Uncle\u00a0!\u201d. The intent behind it is one of respect. You can do the same thing reciprocal, which, in fact, may also save you from an embarrassment of forgetting foreign names. Welcome to Nepal!<\/p>\n Namaste!<\/p>\n PS: the word\u00a0Kuire<\/em>\u00a0is derived from the word\u00a0Kuiro\u00a0<\/em>which means fug in Nepali language. Hence, Kuire\u00a0<\/em>means someone similar to the color of fug, which is (off-) white.<\/p>\n Source :\u00a0medium<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Kathmandu (Pahichan) February 4 – A dear friend from Vermont, Gus, was a frequent visitor to Nepal, not only because he loved Nepal but he also built deep relationship with the Gender and Sexuality minority communities in Nepal. He was instrumental in helping those living with HIV from these minority communities.
\nOne day he asked me: \u201cWhy does everybody call me \u2018Kuire\u2019 Uncle? First I don\u2019t like to be called \u2018Uncle\u2019, second what does \u2018Kuire\u2019 means? I have a name; my name is Gus with a capital G. why don\u2019t they …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":11681,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,621,492,490],"tags":[1910,1444],"class_list":["post-11680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-issue","category-news","category-opinion","category-slider","tag-gender-and-sexuality-minority","tag-lgbtqi"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11680"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11680\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11682,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11680\/revisions\/11682"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}