Beyond the Sky and the Earth

Question 1

Q4 Plan

Answer 1

P1: landscape
P2: culture & people

Question 2

TAP

Answer 2

T: memoir
A: general
P: to inform & entertain

Question 3

P1:
‘giant child gathering earth in great armfuls…pinching mud into ridges…knuckling…poking…’

Answer 3

‘giant’ - large scale
‘child’ - innocence, messiness - natural landscape
present participles ‘pinching’, ‘knuckling’, ‘poking’ - playfulness & randomness

Question 4

‘five different flights over four days to get here’

Answer 4

numerical ‘five’, ‘four’ - isolation, remote village

Question 5

‘winter air is thin and dry and very cold.’

Answer 5

tricolon & monosyllables - unforgiving, sparse atmosphere
polysyndeton - relentless, difficult

Question 6

‘cracked sidewalks and faded paintwork’ vs ‘Thimphu will look like New York’

Answer 6

contrast local vs western perspective
‘cracked’, ‘faded’ - worn out, broken, disrepair, neglect or poverty
vs ‘New York’ - extravagant - urban, modern vs rural, isolated

Question 7

P2:
‘more signs of the outside world than I had expected: teenagers in acid washed jeans’, ‘cultural infiltration’

Answer 7

‘outside world’ - entrapment & cultural encroachment, colonialisation
‘acid washed’ - contrast older generation ‘gho’ & ‘kira’
‘infiltration’ - insidious, unwanted

Question 8

‘beautiful aristocratic faces with dark, almond-shaped eyes, high cheekbones, and gentle smiles.’

Answer 8

physical beauty
‘beautiful’ - admiration
‘almond-shaped’ - soft, gentle appearance
‘gentle’ - kind

Question 9

‘kira’, ‘gho’

Answer 9

traditional clothing
exotic & admire
desire to learn about culture & traditions - curiosity & respect

Question 10

‘quality that impresses me most - dignity, unselfconsciousness, good humor, grace - but can find no single word to hold all of my impressions.’

Answer 10

beautiful personality
polyptoton - ‘impresses’, ‘impressions’
asyndetic list - so many, awe, respect, admiration
‘no single word’ - cannot contain his respect, speechless

Question 11

‘Land of the Thunder Dragon’, ‘Bhutan, the name by which the country came to be known to the outside world’, ‘derived from Bhotanta’

Answer 11

colonialisation - reduction of culture - world marginalises it
‘Thunder Dragon’ - enchantment, excitement, magical, mysterious, powerful, rich culture
‘Bhutan’ - boring
anaphora of ‘outside world’ - foreign, separate, not their own choice = lack of autonomy

Question 12

‘I am full of admiration for this small country that has managed to look after itself so well.’

Answer 12

‘full’ - overwhelm
‘small’, ‘managed’ - incapability, patronising, surprise & pity - contrast start

Question 13

structure

Answer 13

repetition of ‘mountains’ in first paragraph - undulating landscape
statistics & facts - knowledge
paragraph on history - immersion in culture & interest/admiration
change in perspective - criticise to admire
present tense - past for history

Question 14

comparative points

Answer 14

narrator is impressed
different culture
sense of subtle prejudice & colonialisation
historical environment