Beyond the Sky and the Earth: A Journey into Bhutan (Edexcel IGCSE English Language A)

• The writer’s description of the country and its people make it seem mysterious and beautiful:

  • The tone throughout the passage is positive and respectful

• Zeppa conveys that the country is like nothing she has ever experienced before:

  • This is emphasised by the length and difficulty of the journey to get there from Canada

• The writer’s awe and fascination with the country is conveyed through her vivid and detailed descriptions of the people and the country’s history:

  • “Our first lessons, in Bhutanese history, are the most interesting”

• There is a lack of luxuries in Thimphu that Zeppa would have been accustomed to in Canada:

  • Their “Westernised” breakfast is bland and flavourless

• There is a clash of cultures evident in the shops she describes, with signs of the outside world:

  • She details imported biscuits from India, teenagers in “acid washed jeans” and English news playing on the Bhutan Broadcasting Service

  • These intrusions seem incongruous against the beauty and what Zeppa describes as the “Bhutanese-ness” of everything else

• The town of Thimphu itself is fairly new, suggesting the intrusion of modernity into a more traditional way of life, implied by references to “rice paddies”:

  • There is a sense of needing to preserve traditional architecture and modes of dress

• The writer appears surprised that, although foreigners are few, the local people do not seem surprised by her presence:

  • It is revealed that there is a small “ex-pat” community and the young man in the hotel reception speaks “impeccable English”

• While the title is taken from a Bhutanese expression, it could also connote a sense of scale, distance and adventure:

  • “Beyond the sky and the earth” suggests somewhere that is other-worldly

• The passage is in the form of a memoir; a record of events based on personal experience and observation

• Zeppa’s paragraphs describing the people, the history of Bhutan and Thimphu itself are long with lots of factual information:

  • This shows that the history and the people are important to her

  • She takes care to describe things in great detail, suggesting that she has embraced a country and culture she initially felt apprehensive about

• Zeppa finds it difficult to comprehend the expanse of the landscape she sees, so she uses the metaphor of a “giant child” moulding the mountains and valleys out of rock and mud:

  • This implies that she feels something so awe-inspiring could not have happened by chance or merely by “technical explanation”

• Her choice of language to describe Thimphu and its people conveys beauty and grace:

  • Even the policemen are described as having “graceful hand gestures” and the government building as a “golden-tipped fortress”

  • Zeppa uses a triad of “unselfconsciousness, good humor, grace” to suggest she cannot isolate just one adjective to describe her overwhelmingly positive impressions

• The repetition of “mountains” and “landmass” conveys the vastness of this part of Asia:

  • She wonders at mountains, which “rise to meet the moon”, conveying the majesty of the natural world

• The plosives “a convulsion of crests and gorges and wind-sharpened pinnacles” illustrate the violent and extreme terrain, and the apprehension she feels at going to live somewhere so unfamiliar

• The writer uses negative adjectives to describe intrusions from the outside world, such as “stale, soft cookies” and ”hideously colored Orange Cream Biscuits”:

  • This highlights the clash of the modern with the traditional, and how the signs of the outside world seem to be out of place in such a traditional setting

• Zeppa juxtaposes the two different worlds with the suggestion Thimphu will look like New York:

  • She believes that “Thimphu will never look like New York”, implying that the two worlds will never meet

  • This is reinforced by the references to beautiful natural beauty juxtaposed with synthetic products and Western cultural references

• Zeppa employs lexical fields of local vocabulary, such as “kira”, “gho” and “dzong”, as well as rural and agricultural and architectural lexis:

  • She implies that she has become an expert in this culture and its people

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