Interviewee: Gyanu Lamichhane

Interviewer: Priyanka Shrestha

Date of Interview: 09/05/2022

Location of Interview: Baltimore, MD

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[00:00:00]

Priyanka: So, first question is, can you tell me about coming to the US from Nepal, that story?

Gyanu: Yeah, so when I received a place to study in college, so I took my first flight out of the country. I'd never flown on a plane. So, I flew from Kathmandu to Thailand, Thailand to Seoul, Seoul to Los Angeles. And I remember getting out of the Los Angeles airport, international airport, and I had to go to the domestic terminal. And I had to leave my luggage at the international terminal and take a local transport to the domestic terminal. And I remember the lady at the door said, go outside and take shuttle A. And in Nepal, when we read for TOEFL, proper English, shuttle means rocket. So, I said, whoa, I get to take a rocket, right? So, because in Nepal, we call them buses, right? I was very confused. I got out and after some time, actually, there was a bus with a big sign saying shuttle A. So, I took that. I went to the domestic terminal. I had eight-hour layover.

Priyanka: In the domestic terminal?

Gyanu: Domestic terminal to catch a flight to India. And I had $10 in my pocket. And I went around. I couldn't remember. None of the establishments, the business stores were familiar to me. And I saw McDonald's. And of course, I had heard of old McDonald had a farm. So, I'm like, yeah, this is something I've heard of. I was looking there. I just had the menu. And the lady said, can I help you, sir? And I thought I was at the wrong place. I needed help. Because in Nepal, people will say, can I take your order? Why would anybody want to help me? I didn't know how they ate. So, I was just looking at it. I was like, no? And I sort of had my boarding pass. And they were laughing. The girls were laughing. And I saw the menu. The French fries were 99 cents. And I calculated. There was 22 rupees, 48 cents. Like 22 rupees, 48 paisa in Nepal. That feeds my family for two days. I'm not eating. So, I didn't eat for eight hours. I took the plane. And whatever was on the plane, I had. So, I came to Indiana. I came to college. That was it. And I always had in the back of my mind, I wanted to make medicine to cure TB. But then you have to take all these courses. I don't know if Stanford is liberal arts.

Priyanka: It is liberal arts.

Gyanu: But this college is liberal arts. So, I had to take everything. And I fell in love with philosophy. I took a lot of philosophy. Did a little bit of everything. But I majored in chemistry. I took sufficient course in biology and math. And in the first year, I was a math tutor, calculus tutor. Because I was already doing calculus in Nepal. So yeah. And three and a half years in college, I finished early. And then I applied and went to grad school here in Baltimore. And I did my PhD here. My thesis was on tuberculosis. Not really the disease itself, but the bacteria, the pathogen that causes TB. So, then a few things happened. I left. And then I was back in Nepal. And then I came back again as a faculty member here.

Priyanka: And you've been at Johns Hopkins ever since?

Gyanu: Yeah, since 2000. Well, I came here in 1999. And then I left for one year. And then I came back in 2005 or 2006, I think. And then ever since I've been here.

Priyanka: OK, so now we know your whole professional journey. And going back a little to the first time you came to the US. So, you had grown up in Nepal. And where did you grow up in Nepal?

Gyanu: Chitwan.

 

Priyanka: In Chitwan.

 

Gyanu: Narayangarh, yeah.

Priyanka: So, coming to the US, you did college here, undergraduate year, which is also you live in a dorm, similar to boarding school. But what did you think was the thing that maybe shocked you the most or was the most different compared to Nepal?

Gyanu: At that time, of course, right? The fluence in the US shocked me. The amount of things that they consumed shocked me. Actually, when I came to Indiana, both of my luggage was lost. I only had my carry-on. So, when I went to college, I remember the students' dean assistant, they said, oh, I'm so unhappy that they did this. I said, no problem. I just had my old clothes. They said, OK, well, let's go. I'll get some college town person, a friend of the college. It was an elderly guy, very nice guy. He came in a truck, and he took me to Walmart. So, I said, I already had one socks that I was wearing. And he asked me, what do you need? And I said, OK, I want to buy one pair of socks and one pants and one towel, right? So, we were in Walmart. So, he hands me a pack of socks, which is like a dozen of socks, Hanes, I still remember, right? And I said, I need one. The guy's like, yeah, this is one. I said, I need one pair. The guy looks at me and says, what do you mean one pair? You buy this. You need this much. I said, I have one. Tonight, I will wash this, dry it. And tomorrow, I will wear this one. Tomorrow, this will dry. And so, I will just rotate it, right? And all of us did that in Nepal. But he insisted that I buy a dozen. You know what I did? I actually kept it. And next day, when I went to Nepal, I took those socks as gifts for my brothers and my dad. Crazy, isn't it? He's like, who has 12 pairs of socks? So those were on the material side. The cultural side was people seemed open, but they were not open. In Nepali culture, you don't say, when you see somebody on the street, you don't say, hi, it was nice to meet you, blah, blah, blah, and next day, and you don't invite them or there's no strong connection. If you say, nice to meet you, that means they really mean it. You can come to their home and eat and whatnot, right? But when I came to college and people were saying, oh, so nice to meet you, I thought like, wow, these people are so nice, right? And they were nice, but I didn't know that there was a kind that had to be that gap. So those things were a little bit different than what I was used to, but those were minor things. I started in Zoan College because the quality of education was very, very good. I was learning what in Nepal, what to do, rather than why certain things are done, what is the basis. So, I like that aspect here. What was less important? Why was important here?

[0:05:00]

Priyanka: When you were in college, were there other Nepali people there too, or were you one of the few?

Gyanu: Later on, after I came, couple of years, two years later, they admitted another three students. Yeah, and they used to come to my house to make chicken and rice.

Priyanka: What was one of the things that you missed the most about Nepal when you were here?

Gyanu: At the beginning, of course, you miss your family, right? So that is one aspect. And then other aspect is simply the culture. I'm not saying the culture is better, it's just different.

 

Priyanka: Very Different

 

Gyanu: I could go outside, it's very different. I could go outside and feel at home in a sense, I knew the place, I knew the food, I knew the weather, I knew-

 

Priyanka: In Nepal.

 

Gyanu: In Nepal, yeah, right? I mean, you go outside, just the local people that I knew, my relatives, everybody else, friends, their families, and you could start talking about anything, right? Just normal talk of the day. That part I could not do in Indiana because I cannot relate to anybody, their experiences, right? In my hometown or anywhere in Nepal, we share experiences. And you can talk about your experiences and feel at home in a profound way, right? Yeah, for some time I did not feel home in new home, let's say. But that also allowed me time to focus on just my education. And the education part I felt perfectly at home because why certain things are, the nature is the way it is in sciences, all those explorations. I was already asking that question in school in Nepal. After the school's over, then just the little social interactions, I miss that, and for the weather I miss because Indiana can be really hot and really cold, just like Ohio, right?

Priyanka: Does it snow there?

Gyanu: Oh, heavy, heavy snow.

Priyanka: Was that the first time you saw snow?

Gyanu: First time I ever, well, no, I couldn't say. I mean, legally that's not correct because in Nepal you can see snow from far. But touch it, experience it physically was first time, yeah.

Priyanka: You said you started to integrate more into American culture, understand it more. Can you talk about how that happened for you, how that transition happens?

Gyanu: It's a very slow and slow process, and there's not an inflection point. There's like, ah, I went and took this course, and all of a sudden, I felt.

Priyanka: Right.

Gyanu: It's just, I had a roommate from Oregon, I had another roommate from Indiana, and most of the things I observed from there, right? And you go to class, you meet a whole bunch of people, and there are certain things you just immediately pick up. Right, I mean, for example, cultural aspects. You know, you needed to get some items from somewhere. Then you find like everybody goes to Walmart or Target, you go do the same thing, figure out how things are done. And if you wanted to cook some pasta in your room, you figure out how others do it. And then you start eating local food, right? You make pasta, sandwiches here and there. You do those aspects, then Thanksgiving come, and you're like, oh well, you gotta find a family to go to. And I had a local family, they called it host family. So I went to their place, I cooked some food, I ate their food, so it's a very slow process. And you pick up a few things here and there. Certain things, I still felt foreign for some time. For example, eating out a lot, to me still, I don't prefer that. Still today, I like to eat at home. But a lot of other things, driving very, very far, for one simple thing, I grew into that. It's okay to go grocery store, drive 30 miles to a grocery store. And also, when you make friends, the boundaries are very different here. Things are a lot more formal here, even among friends. And if you say three o'clock, it's three o'clock. And if you say three o'clock to five o'clock, when it's five o'clock, you have to leave. In Nepal, it's not like that. It's not that people are not welcome here; it's just they mean three to five means three to five. And I'm able to go back and forth between the Nepali culture and the American culture. If an American invites me at five o'clock, I saw up at five o'clock. And if a Nepali person invites me at five o'clock, we saw up at seven o'clock later.

 

[0:10:00]

Priyanka: I think you kind of talked about this, but do you think there's certain things where you picked it up from American culture that you now kind of integrate into your daily life? You know that in Nepal, you did very differently. On the other side, are there certain things in American culture where you still feel you prefer the Nepali way and you still feel like you do that?

Gyanu: Yeah, so I will answer the second part first. For example, my experience has been for your elders, especially for your elderly part of the family, in the US, constantly, over time, I guess, there's a big distance. And they keep quite a bit of distance. Oh, independence, my dad and mom live over there. Once in a while, I go there to say hi. That part is very different for me. I want them close to me, I want to see them every day, I want to be able to be part of their social, every aspect of it. I still prefer that.

Priyanka: Your parents are still in Nepal?

Gyanu: They're in Nepal, but we call each other every day. They know everything about me, I know everything about them. And when I go home, it's not I'm visiting my dad's home or mom's home, it's not that. That's my, and that's part of it. Nobody says it's my dad's car or my mother's phone. It's yours, it's the whole family’s’, right? And I try to instill that in my kids also. They're not allowed to say this is your phone or my phone, this is our phone, right? So that part, I practice the Nepali side, okay? I would say food-wise, I think I still, when we eat at home, most of the nutrition is, the food or the palate is based on Nepali. And things that I practice, American, that I picked up in the US is doing things on time and the deadlines and being professional. Nepali people are not as professional. It's part of the concept to be nice and not feel like you're very robotic, right? And sometimes I think I'm a bit robotic to Nepali people because it's just being just professional. I think I practice that a little bit more American way. When I'm here, people say, oh, you're from Nepal. When I go to Nepal, oh, you're from US, right? And I ask one of my ladies, why do you call me American? It's like, oh, you went to the bathroom, turned on the light and didn't turn off. So, they're known to, Americans are like, they're very wasteful. So, I guess I practice that unknowingly. Yeah, I would say there's little things. But with time, the world is becoming very global and I think the culture is also melting. And my generation from the US, the culture is very significantly different, but the next generation, these guys, their experiences in the two countries are not that different, not as different as it was for us, right?

Priyanka: Right.

 

Gyanu: So, I also, when I go back to Nepal, Nepal has also changed quite a bit culturally. The older culture is also there, but they've also become very western. I can't say I'm practicing certain things American that I picked up in America because those people in Nepal who've been there, they picked up from somewhere, TV or whatever.

 

[0:15:00]

Priyanka: Going back a little bit in our conversation, something you said is, you talked about trying to instill Nepali values and traditional values to your children. And I was wondering if you could talk more about how you do that.

Gyanu: Yeah, so what I try to, me and my wife, what I try to teach these guys is try not to stress more on me, try to stress on us, we. And you'll say, oh, this is my room. No, this is not your room, this is our room, our house. Don't say this is my iPad, we cannot have a little perimeter around you. Me, me, me is not as productive again for yourself than saying certain things should be us. If you say me, take responsibility, because this is my responsibility. But then this is our product or this is our resource. Those things, I think the American system also has that, but I feel like at times there's more like me, my resources rather than our collective resources. But there is an upside to that. But I've thought about this quite a bit and found that within the family, I prefer our resources rather than my, this is my money and I'm going to order my food and pay for it myself. That part I still feel a bit compartmentalizing within the family and then that's not as good as saying, yeah, we're in this together. And you can say this is our versus another family's, that is okay. A few other things and have genuine respect for elderly people rather than say like, you know, they're on their own. It's not that there's a circle of life. You know, when you're young, you need people's help. You are here today because somebody helped you stand on their feet, fed you. When you're towards the end of life, you also become physically vibrant. So, if you can make time, do whatever, you know, a small amount of time, do that.

Priyanka: Do you think your kids generally understand when you're trying to kind of steer away from the very individualism and the very like individualistic?

Gyanu: Yeah, that is the right word.

Priyanka: That's kind of what I think American society champions that. It's like the foundation of like, oh, like we can do it ourselves. Like we don't need anyone. But at home, you try to teach them the more communal aspects of the Nepali culture. And how do you see them navigating that? Or do you think that they generally understand what you're trying to teach at home?

Gyanu: Yeah, I think they get that. And they've also been back to Nepal and they get that aspect. That yeah, you know, there are aspects that you have to consider your own individualistic ownership of it. Like for example, when he brings his homework, that's his homework. That's his homework. Oh, it's his family homework, right? But if he brings a pack of cookies from school, he wins a certain thing and brings that to be shared at home. It's not only his, right? So, I think when I see the difference between my kids and let's say somebody who, an American family, you know, who's been here the third, fourth generation and my neighbors and so on. I think these guys are able to understand that more than they are. Simply because they don't have, their parents also don't have that experience to teach them. Yeah, so these guys are able to be individualistic, they're more hybrid, you know? When they are among Americans, they are a hundred percent American, right? And when they are with us, they're not a hundred percent American, but they're certainly not a hundred percent or even 50% of all. It's somewhere in there. And there are certain aspects. They can pick up and they're like, oh yeah, this is super important. My parents are, you know, roots, right? And they will practice that, right? But then they're able to quickly revert to the other side also.

[0:20:00]

Priyanka: While they're young, obviously you can teach them a lot and they're, you know, living with you so you have more control over what values you're passing down in the future. Do you think that they will also continue to pass down the values that you're teaching them?

Gyanu: It's difficult to predict, especially the future. For me, it's not about whether they will pass on the value because those values, they have some connections to those values through their parents. I hope they will be able to, whatever their experiences are, right? They will look at everything, they will think about it. They will critically think about it and say, what is right? And whatever that right happens to be. If, let's say, the Asian culture that we are teaching, that they have experience that we have taught them, is more productive or more fitting or more humane, then practice that. If whatever they decide, I want them to be able to think, right? And decide the correct set of tools that may be cultural tools, right? And if that happens to be Nepali, go for it, right? And if that doesn't happen to be Nepali or American, and it happens to be Icelandic, go for it. Who cares, right? But it has to be more meaningful than all the other choices. Right? You see what I'm saying here?

Priyanka: Mm-hmm. For yourself, do you see yourself ever going back to Nepal, is that something you want to do, or you think you'll just live here now?

Gyanu: For the foreseeable future, definitely I'll be here, right? But with regards to retiring, my heart still says I will retire in Nepal, but I might make trips back and forth, because I feel more like, as a tree, I feel more of the trunk of the tree. The root is in Nepal, because the root is, the trunk grew out of the root. So, my parents and everybody else, my brothers and sisters, everybody else in Nepal, right? So, I am the trunk here. And I gave rise to these kids, right? I mean, our two kids. They are fully in the US. So, I'm holding both ends here. So, I think right now I'm working, you know, and it's a lot easier for me not to think about other things than work and family. And look, who are my dependents? These two kids, right? And then my parents are not dependent on me for their physical well-being or whatnot, because they're still, they can do that, you know, they can take care of themselves, right? So, I don't have to think too much about that right now. They want to be independent right now, too, with regards to their own living and so forth. Not that that doesn't mean that they don't want me around. Of course, they want me around, but it's okay if I'm away. But I think there will be a time when these guys are gone, callers, and then we're just sitting here, and then slowly we'll feel very isolated. And the fact that we walked here and just talking about our experience, it's fun. That is not going to be easy to do a bit later. It's an empty nest. And then it will be work, and then you come back from work, and it's like, okay, it's kind of boring. And then if we retire, there's nothing to do. And I think at that time, I can't predict the future. Again, going back to why am I here? 20 years ago, I would have thought differently, but now more and more I thought, if it's the same thing, if the world is flat, I'm saying figuratively here.

 

Priyanka: Gotcha.

 

Gyanu: Then one may think that, oh, I'm going back to Nepal. But it's not my time leading the US too. The world has become flat, it's the same thing. Then I might think, wait a minute, whatever I have earned and banked for the future gets me more somewhere else. It's like Americans retiring in Panama. And I know the culture there. I feel at home there as well. And it's the same thing if I have to pay three times more at another place for the same thing. I might think of making those choices. But yeah, that's what I think. And more, it's not the money aspect will draw me to Nepal. It's the cultural aspects.

 

Priyanka: Culture aspect.

 

Gyanu: Absolutely. Because everybody else is there. Oh, what? Here's the exact example. In Nepal, kids would not say it's 10 minutes and we need to go blah, blah, blah. People there will spend time talking and socializing a lot. On average, Americans socialize less than people in Nepal. When you're old, you've done your karma. Karma means you've done your material aspect of life. It's like you've raised your kids, or money, whatever it is, material. You've taken care of the material aspect. So now you can't work because of bodily functions and so forth. Then what do you do? What can you do? You share your experiences. You talk. You can't just sit at home and stare. And where do people talk more? People over there are more welcoming to talk. You go, there's tea. You can talk and talk on forever. And the weather is also nice. Winter here, you can't go outside and talk even if people want to talk. In an equation, there is a variable, let's say it's socializing, and there is a coefficient of that variable. That coefficient for socializing, the coefficient as a variable in your life, let's say there is a socializing aspect, there is nutrition, there is healthcare, let's say when you get older, and each of them have a coefficient. This coefficient, the weight of that, is very high for Nepali people, and then I can find it there. Much more easily than here.

 

[0:25:00]

Priyanka: It's like the linear equation of life.

 

Gyanu: Correct. Yeah.

 

Priyanka: As one of the last questions is, what does being Nepali mean to you? And is that something that has really evolved?

Gyanu: That's a very good question, a very profound one, and I don't think I have an answer. What does Nepali mean? What does it mean to be Nepali? Okay, I'll try to answer this, because when I go from U.S. to Nepal, right, I usually take the same route that everybody else here takes, right? Go from here to Doha, right?

Priyanka: Yeah.

Gyanu: And I feel like nothing's happening, right? When I take the plane from Doha to Nepal, most of the people are Nepali, right? I already feel 80%, I'm happy. They're talking about the same things, right? And then when I land in Kathmandu, which is not my home, I'm 90%. I feel at home, that means I feel at Nepal. It's when I see my parents, I feel 100%. What does Nepali mean to me, being Nepali? It's a set of experiences that you pick up during your formative years, you know? At my son's age, and I came here at the age of 18. There are certain things, your palate, your tongue already has molded to prefer in terms of taste. I'm just talking about something that's easy to relate to here, right? Certain food, you like that, right? But not only food, Nepali is a very physical kind of thing. But then there are cultural aspects, right? You know, I can feel like, I think that they talk about this in the US all the time. I had a friend here, who had another American friend, and the American friend said like, oh, whenever I go with Anup, I don't have to pay hotel, because he always knows some Nepali, and they allow you to stay in their home overnight. To them, it's very foreign. To me, it's perfectly fine, right? So again, in the equation of, linear equation of, it may not even be linear, actually, it may be quadratic, what knows that? There are certain aspects. Without notifying somebody well in advance, people are more, I could today go to Ujjal's house in Boston, he's not gonna say, you didn’t notify me. I came here without telling you. It's perfectly fine. These little things make a life, right? I mean, that is the equation of life. So, there are many, many, many variables, and certain things, each of these variables are slightly different from one country, or one culture will matter. It's not even one country, you know, south and north. You're in California from Midwest.

 

Priyanka: Very different.

 

Gyanu: Very different, right? So that's why I can't give an answer to you, but there are certain cultural aspects, like if I haven't seen my friend for 10 years, I can be in their house, and they will welcome, without notifying them, right? Or if I'm in, if I need help, some serious help, I'm more likely to get that help in an informal way, rather than go to a bank, you know, it's very professional, very formal, I need to pay him by this time. I know people are like, there's more non-business type of interaction in Nepal that takes care of these needs. Yeah, I mean, and keeping your parents close to you, I think that is more, there's more emphasis on that in Nepal, not only in Nepal, maybe other cultures also, than here, it's done in a very different way here. It's more so like, make sure that you have your social security, make sure that you have your, like, independent, right? And in Nepal, it's like, don't be independent. That makes me more Nepali, I guess. And I like that aspect, that please be dependent on me. Be dependent on me for materially, also, be dependent on me emotionally. It's important as humans, right? If we don't have emotions, then we're just machines. At the core, we are all humans, right? I'm a biologist, right? It's the same set of genes, it's information you're a computer scientist of, right? I mean, you're doing computer science.

 

Priyanka: Yes.

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Gyanu: So, it's a bunch of cores that are written, right? You cannot stray away from that core. In a certain environment, you know, if you have a software here, but then the software is talking to another thing, it's passing some variables here, then you react in a certain way, but it's not going to react in a way it's not programmed. So, we all have the same genetic code, and that genetic code is designed to take information in a certain way, and there is a boundary within which it has to act. So, I think it's very simplistic to make it black and white, and say it's Nepali, it's American, or two different cultures. There's certain aspects of culture that no matter what, we as humans, we always react the same way. If a child falls on the road, it doesn't matter which culture you come from, right? We just are programmed, and no other culture can deprogram you. So, yeah.

 

[0:30:00]

Priyanka: I don't think I necessarily think of it as, you definitely don't think of it as black and white, or very distinct, but I think there is, I think there's a lot of labels in the world, and one label is, it's easy to label things, right? They're like Nepali and American.

Gyanu: We like to make it more simpler, certain things.  It makes it easy for us to consume that aspect.

Priyanka: To, yeah. To allocate it, you kind of compartmentalize it, yeah. And I think for me what's the most interesting is that there's no set way on how to define the label. I think everyone does that on their own, and so I think a lot of this project is kind of understanding, there's this label, Nepali, what does that mean? And I think it's interesting to see how different people take that. And yeah, in closing, I always, the last question I ask all my interviewees is, if there's anything else that you wanna add that you think is important to your story, or that you wanted to talk about, but you just didn't get a chance to, the floor is yours.

Gyanu: No, I think as an interviewer you did an excellent job, and you had very, for your age, I think you were hitting above your age with regards to the quality of the question and the complexity of the question. I'm used to not having to think this much to answer. You covered everything, so nothing to add here.

Priyanka: Thank you, thank you so much.

Gyanu: Thank you.