As Bhutan navigates a rapidly changing world, the question of how to preserve its cultural identity while preparing young people for an increasingly global future is taking on renewed importance.
Marking International Youth Day, elders and young Bhutanese came together to exchange experiences, perspectives and lessons on the values that have shaped the country across generations. Her Royal Highness Princess Kesang Chodren Wangchuck graced the occasion.
The gathering placed intergenerational dialogue at the centre of the conversation, recognising that some of the most enduring lessons about identity, community and nationhood are passed down not through formal instruction, but through lived experience and storytelling.
For Dasho Zangley Dukpa, the values inherited across generations remain fundamental to Bhutan’s collective identity.
“When talking about values, I’m talking about core values. Core values that bind the different generations together,” he said. “These values are very important whether you belong to the older generation or the younger generation, for the promotion of harmony, unity, identity, and sovereignty.”
The discussions, however, also highlighted that preserving Bhutanese identity need not mean resisting change. For young people growing up in a more connected and competitive world, the challenge is to understand the principles they inherit and find ways to carry them into new circumstances.
Jamyang Selden said Bhutanese youth should be able to participate confidently on the global stage without losing sight of the values that distinguish their country.
“Even while we are competing with foreign countries or the outside world, we should always keep the GNH values and our culture in our hearts and never lose them,” she said.
She added that being rooted in Bhutanese values and being globally competent should not be seen as opposing choices.
“We don’t have to choose between being value-rooted and being globally competent. We can take both together and then be competent in the world,” she said.
Organisers said creating spaces for such conversations has become particularly important as rapid social and cultural changes alter the experiences of younger generations.
Lhatu, Executive Director of the Gross National Happiness Centre Bhutan, said the pace of transformation has increasingly created distance between young people and the cultural memory and lived wisdom of older generations.
“With the rapid pace of sociocultural transformation, we see increasingly that our youth are distanced from the lived wisdom, cultural memory, and guidance of values from the seniors,” Lhatu said.
Bringing the generations together, she said, allows the exchange to work in both directions. While elders can share their experiences and values, young people can help older generations understand how contemporary changes are affecting their lives.
“We must bring them together, where youth can also share the impact of these changes in their lives with the elders, and where we can blend so that we can really sustain our identity, our national, Gross National Happiness values and principles,” she said.
The interaction also revived the age-old role of storytelling as a bridge between generations. Rather than treating tradition as something belonging solely to the past, the exchange demonstrated how cultural knowledge can remain relevant when it is discussed, questioned and understood in the context of the present.
As Bhutan continues to modernise, preserving its identity may therefore be less about choosing between tradition and change than about maintaining a meaningful conversation between the two.
The responsibility is shared: for one generation to pass on its wisdom, and for the next to understand it well enough to carry it forward in its own way.
