A comforting bowl of Thukpa, a traditional Nepali noodle soup that Aliex Bhandari’s family continues to cook in the United States to maintain their connection to home. photo courtesy of Canva
The Journey Between Two Worlds Brought to Light.
Nepal is a country settled mainly in the Himalayas mountain range, which is the highest collection of mountains in the world. Residents of Nepal, widely known as Nepali, have a strong connection to their communities. Anyone can be taught about a place through its geographical features, history, food, and culture, but those things only tell a small portion of the nation’s story. To truly understand a place, one has to understand the people. Each person experiences living in a country differently. For Nepali immigrant Aliex Bhandari, a close personal friend of the interviewer, leaving the deeply connected community of Nepal meant leaving behind a piece of his identity. Bhandari’s story is only one perspective of a life in Nepal and what it meant to leave it behind.
For Bhandari, life in Nepal was centered around his community. Bhandari lived in Jhapa, a district in southeastern Nepal, before eventually moving to the United States. Bhandari’s memories of Nepal are strongly connected to the friends and family they knew. Over time, immigration has changed those connections. Family members are now scattered around the world and parts of the United States, creating distance between Bhandari and where he grew up. Life in Nepal was also shaped by the people who lived around Bhandari and their family. When asked about how the community interacted with one another, Bhandari remembers the kindness of their neighbors. Bhandari said he stole from some of their stores and was never punished for it. By ignoring the theft, the neighbors chose to protect their bond with the Bhandari family. This shows that the community valued trust over legal punishment.
Even after moving to the United States, Bhandari’s family continued to keep part of their connection to Nepal through food. Their family still cooks Nepali dishes to this day, but they have had to adapt some recipes to use the ingredients available in American supermarkets. Bhandari gave thukpa, a Nepali noodle soup, as an example. Some of the ingredients they were used to finding in Nepal were not as easy to find in the United States, so their family had to make substitutions. They even replaced the traditional buckwheat noodles with spaghetti because the supermarkets they went to did not carry the buckwheat noodles. Although these changes may seem small, it shows how people can adapt to new places and make them feel like home. For Bhandari’s family, cooking Nepali food became one way of keeping a connection to where they came from, even when the ingredients were different.
Leaving Nepal also meant leaving behind people that had been a part of Bhandari’s life for years. Over time, their family became spread across the United States and other parts of the world, making the idea of “home” more complicated. When asked what they missed most about Nepal, Bhandari’s answer was simple: their family. Sometimes what people miss about a place is not necessarily the place itself, but the people and experiences connected to it. Moving to another country can create opportunities for a new life, but it can also mean being separated from the people, traditions, and memories that are most familiar. For Bhandari, staying connected to their culture can become a way of holding onto part of the life they left behind.
Ultimately, learning about unique places like Nepal and hearing stories from people like Bhandari expands one’s knowledge of the wider world. When time is taken to understand different countries and cultures, it opens people’s minds and signifies how everyone is connected. This broader perspective fundamentally shifts views on ourselves, proving that stepping outside the local bubble is essential for true intellectual growth.
