April 7, 2018 • 30 mins
Pop quiz: What word denotes a nation of people, a last name and an occupation? If you guessed 'Sherpa,' then congratulations: You're correct. But what exactly is a Sherpa? Tune in and learn more as Chuck and Josh explore the culture of the Sherpa people.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Happy weekend, everybody. This is Chuck here bringing you my
selection for this Stuff you Should Know Select episode on
this fine Saturday. This one is from April eleven, Sherpas
colon Warm Friendly Living, and I know for a fact
Josh came up with that title because I thought it
was very fun and it really kind of embodied what
sherpas are all about. Um. You know, sherpas will lead
(00:23):
you up Everest or maybe some other mountain range in
the area. And the more we dug into Sherpas, the
more we realize just what um, warm, hospitable, amazing people
they are. And uh, it's really easy to overlook the
sherpa because you will often hear about the the wealthy
climber of Everest, uh, and not much about the sherpa
(00:44):
that really got them there. So this was our bid
to shine little light on the Sherpa. So here we
go with Sherpa's Warm Friendly Living. Welcome to Stuff you
Should Know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and
(01:05):
welcome to the Sherpa. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles w
Did I just say Sherpa? No, he said welcome to
the podcast. What would you say, Welcome to the sharp
because the Sherpa is a nation of people and also
a last name and also an occupation. Yeah, that's pretty good. Well,
that's the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as always
(01:26):
as Charles W. Chuck Bryant didn't ignore Gay Bryant. Yeah, yeah, Chuck,
we're talking about sherp today. Yeah. Is it Sharpa or
sharp I have no idea because I see both in
this article. I do as well. All right, let's find out,
shall we? If everyone will just hold on a second,
(01:46):
are you actually looking this up? Chuck? Most people do
this before there hit podcast. Have you have you ever
seen Well, I'm sure this won't make it in. You
never know, it'll never make it in. Have you ever
seen in Um Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom?
The first one? That was not the first one? Yes,
it was that Raiders the Lost Ark was first, That's
(02:07):
what I meant. I'm sorry, Temple of Doom was too.
What was I thinking? I don't know. You've seen Raters
of the Lost Ark? Yeah, okay, scores of times. So
you know when he find he goes to meet Marian
for the first time after like ten years after jilting her. Yes,
the drinking scene. Yes, the guy, the huge guy that
(02:27):
Marian is drinking with or I guess in a drinking
contest with. It's like they kept hearing me say chuck
over and over again. Right, Um, that my friend was Shirpa,
was it? I'm pretty sure he looked Mongolian to me. No,
they were definitely in like Nepal. Okay, yeah, it's it,
even said Nepaul. Remember he flies in the plane a
(02:49):
poop and it's like redline takes him to Nepal. Yeah,
all right, so let's call him a sharpa. So shir
Buzz is plural of Serpa. That's what I thought. I
thought so too. Um. The Sherpa people are actually pretty fascinating.
They're pretty isolated, um. And they haven't been where they are,
which is the base of Mount Everest in the um
(03:14):
Solu Kumboo area region of Nepal, for more than actually
about five years, and when they arrived in the Solo
Cumboo region, they found it uninhabited. And the reason why
is because the Sherpas are pretty much the only people
on the planet besides maybe Ethiopian Highlanders or Peruvians in
(03:34):
the Andes who could conceivably live in this area because
again it's at the foot of Mount Everest. Yes, and
we recorded a podcast on Tibetans and altitude sickness, so
if you want to know all about that, refer to
that podcast. But Josh, you're right. They migrated from Tibet
from the province of Calm to the northeast corner of
(03:56):
Nepal around the sixteenth century because of warfare. Yeah, and
as I understand, they're very peaceful people. Oh very so
they would have been fleeing warfare, I would say, so, yeah,
not running toward it right headlong. So, um, they migrated there.
There was a lot more like forest and wood and
(04:18):
fuel for fuel at the time, which is good. And
they could grow wheat and buckwheat at the time, and
that's about all I could grow. But that was enough.
Right later on, potatoes really changed the way they do
farming because they grow a lot of potatoes now. Yeah,
the I think the potato was introduced in the mid
nineteenth century and that kind of changed everything. Eighty I'm sorry, um,
(04:40):
but if you think about it this, these people, well,
when they first arrived in the area, they moved to
um Uh the Kumbo Valley, which is higher up actually
than Um the Solu area, and it's about um between
eleven thousand and thirteen thousand feet and they're like, this
is a little too high. Everybody's a little sick. So
(05:01):
we're gonna move a little further down to the Soleu region.
Between six it's still extremely high. Um, it's still extremely rocky.
And they whip this part of the Himalayas into shape.
They created um terraced farm fields. Guatemala. Baby, remember that. Yeah,
down a slope you can create you can farm on
(05:21):
the side of a mountain. People do, but um, think
about this, I mean, like, how did they figure that out?
I'm very curious. Well, I mean it's you know, it's
not rocket science. You need flat land. And if you
have a steep side of a mountain and you cut
into that, you can create a series of steps, essentially,
which is flat land. Cherris in their laughing, Yeah, I
(05:42):
would have been in trouble. Cherrys, like, I'd be in
the Guadamala three times. I know all about step irrigation,
and then I had to do all this. I would
have been like, man, I wish you were flat around here.
I guess I'll just sit here until I die. Um,
so you'd oh, I'd be terrible at it. One of
the reasons why I be terrible at it is because
I will get in my car to drive fiet from say,
(06:07):
store to store. Do you do that? Take over there
at the Edgewood, like you'll got a target and then
you'll drive to Kroger. I haven't been there in a while,
but I have. I have. Yeah, yeah, totally. I mean, like, yeah,
I'll walk. I walk more now than I ever had before.
My entire defending like the weather or what's going on,
definitely depends on whether it depends on my schedule. Very
(06:28):
often I get that if I'm in a hurry, I
might do that, right. I would make a terrible strip
of though, because they don't have wheeled anything. They're a
terrible strippers. I would make both terrible. Okay, yeah, well
I know Aaron Cooper is going to make this exactly. Um, yes,
as I just said, I think I think it bears reiterating, Um,
(06:49):
Mr joke guy, there are no wheeled anything's there. There's
no cars, there's no wheelbarrows. Yeah, they don't even use wheelbarrows,
which now we've reached another reason I would be a
terrible shirt but they have to carry everything. I can
barely carry a thing a dog food out of the
grocery store to my car. And that's like with a
(07:10):
car involved, which has wheels, which they don't have in
the Solukumboo region. That's right. They carry everything, Josh, and
they use uh we actually saw this in Guatemala to
the plumb line. Trumpline, trump line. Yeah, it's home line
is a little different. What they'll do is they'll, let's say,
(07:32):
get a big load of firewood and they'll they'll they'll
wrap it up in in in a spank it on
the bottom, spanking on the bottom. They'll wrap it up
and so they can wear it on their back and
a big bundle and then attached to the top of
of you know, let's say they lay it in like
a hammock and fold that over a hammock like thing,
and then that is attached to a band that you know,
(07:54):
it's like a headband, and so it goes around their
head and it takes a lot of the weight off
their back. And we saw these at them, all the
dudes walking up the road, and I thought, man, look
at that. That's like ancient engineering still in practice and
you're like, man, I want to I gotta do more
of that, And you got back here and you're like,
we're cheeseburger and my Jan Sport backpack. Anybody who's ever
(08:17):
seen the front cover of um led Zeppelin four is
familiar with this concept as well. Was he wearing one
of those? He should have been if he wasn't, because
that's a big old bundle of sticks that guys carrying.
There was a bustle in his head. Draw honeyway. So
um Sherpas can whip a mountain into farmland. They can
(08:39):
live on buck wheat and then several hundred years without
the potato, and then the potato and yak yack milk
and yack meat. Right. Yea. They walk everywhere, but they
carry things everywhere. Um with the as they and they
they are basically a mountain, their mountain folk. They have.
(09:03):
They speak a Tibetan dialect that's virtually their own. They
don't have a written language, no written language. Until the
nineteen sixties, there is no formalized education. Um. They just lived.
They carved a very meager existence out for themselves, and
thanks to a dude named Sir Edmund Hillary, they now
(09:23):
have the foundation that he set up. And we'll get
to Edmund Hillary in a second, but everyone, come on,
you know who he is. He's the first man to
us and everest with Tin signor gay Serpa to summit
to summit. What I say, I send? Yeah, I mean,
what's this? You gotta get to the top, right or else? What?
He just blew sixty five grand that's about how much
it cost. So through his foundation in later years, he
(09:45):
he became to love the uh peaceful Buddhist of of
the Sherpa people there, and so he's like, you know,
and a set of foundation, we're gonna do things like
bring some schools, bring some hospitals, give these kids access
to healthcare, things like that. So he did that and
that helped a lot, although nowadays, you know, the schools
(10:06):
aren't in great shape evidently. Uh it's kind of hard
to get there. So um, they're they're doing what they can. Right.
You can take the folk out of the mountain, but
you can't take the mountain out of the folk, you
know what I mean? That's right. Uh. They are very friendly,
very peaceful, um, very compact, very strong, great attitudes apparently,
(10:26):
and that's not just Chuck saying that, Um, chuck, you're
basing that on the guy who basically took these very isolated, happy,
UM self sustaining, self sufficient UM people, mountain people UM
and introduced them to the world, or no, introduced them
to the people who would introduce them to the world,
(10:47):
right right, What is the Englishman who's credited with saying, Hey,
if you want to get up Everest, do you need yourself?
As that was Alexander Kellis not tens ignore gay, not
Sir Edmund Hillary right, well, tends of noor gave was
a SRP. He's far too modest. I'm under the impression
to have been like, you want to get up Everest,
you get yourself a Serpa Sherpas store. They're not big
(11:07):
self promoters. The English have been the biggest promoters of
um sherpas and UM. Alexander kellis what was his name?
He tried to make it up Everest and failed. But um,
there was a there was a point in time where well,
if you look at a mountain, it's not like a cone.
(11:28):
You know, those um styrofoam cones that you can get
at like the craft store that have like actual volume.
It's a it's a cone. The mountain is not like that.
It has all sorts of craggy peaks and different faces.
And if you go up one side and make it
up easy, just that doesn't mean that you can go
up any other side and make it up easy. Right.
(11:49):
So the place where the um the Sherpa live is
actually a pretty good way to get up Everest, but
it was closed off. Nepaul as a country was closed
off to the rest of the world until I think
nineteen forty nine. Yeah, Everest was confirmed as a high
speak in eighteen sixty five, but it wasn't like all
(12:09):
of a sudden the floodgates were open and every brit
in the world said, I must conquer that mountain that
they said that, but they were like, but how to
get to it? And they happened right, But in between
they're like, well, let's just colonize that place and then
figure out how to get up exactly true. And when
(12:59):
India be in uh colonizing, I'm sorry when England began
colonizing India, Darjeeling, across the eastern border of Nepal was
a big popular tour spot for British military political officials.
That's where the big wigs that's where they met, uh,
the Sherpa, And that's sort of where the mountaineering profession
for the Sherpa kicked off, because all of a sudden
(13:20):
they were Englishmen saying, I can now get in here
to ascend in summit this mountain, but I need some
help because I'm not carrying all that junk. Yeah, and
it's not like Sherpas are the only ethnic group around
Mount Everest. But as people soon found, like you said,
they were sturdy, they are a compact, they can carry
tons of weight, and they have a cheerful attitude. So
(13:42):
Alexander Kellis introduced the the climbing community, the Western climbing community,
to the Sherpa, and in short order, Um Sherpas became
extremely famous after like you said, Sir Edmund Hillary uh
summited um Mount Everest. Yeah, and he was one of
four people on that expedition. I never knew that. I
(14:04):
just thought it was Sir Edmund Hillary got in his
car in England and drove to Nepal and said, hey,
ten Zig, take me to the top. But it was
a big group of people and they were the only
two that made it right. They were the last ones,
and they just kept on going. But yes, it was
ten signor gay Sherpa. That's his last name. Yeah, because
(14:25):
as you said at the beginning of this, it's it's
a it's a group of people, it's a profession, and
it's a last name. That's right. Um, So at that
from that moment on, everybody knew what Sherpas were, right.
Oh yeah, they were no longer confused with al pacas. No.
By in popular culture, people were like, oh, there are
(14:46):
a group of people. Yeah, literally the people from the East,
that's right. And they, like you said, don't they're not
grand standards. They don't get a lot of attention. And
I made a joke, Um, I believe it was either
dead bodies on everest or the Tibetan altitude sickness about
Sherpas being unsung at the time, about how you always
hear about, you know, the Indian or the brit standing
(15:10):
on top of the mountain and you don't see the
Sherpa behind him carrying all their junk. And that's really
true because when uh, well you know what I mean, Uh,
when Hillary ascended and summited, he got a knighthood and
Norgay got an honorary medal and you think, well, of course,
I mean, they're going to give the British guy the
knighthood and they're going to give the foreigner a medal. Untrue,
(15:34):
because sirmon Hillary is from New Zealand's right, he wasn't British,
so technically he wasn't a a citizen of Great Britain,
and neither was ten signor gay and they still didn't
get the same thing. Yeah, it was. It was called
the British Everest Expedition was the four People. So that's
why I think a lot of people probably thought Hillary
was a brit but he was not. But again, um
(15:58):
our Western culture is a little different from Sherpa culture.
They like you said, they're not grand standards, they're not
publicity hounds. They are um they do. The ones who
are involved in climbing and trekking do make a pretty
substantial amount of money, especially in comparison to what the
average person makes in Nepal. They make about two grand
(16:21):
for a trip, right, and that the gross domestic product
per capita of Nepal in two dozen sevens like three dollars.
That really puts into perspective. They're rich by other standards,
I guess extremely rich, very wealthy. Um. But they they
the I guess in addition to making money, they they
(16:41):
help other people ascend Everest to attain their personal glory,
right too, for the other people to attain their personal
story um, which is kind of there's a lot of
uh dichotomy between how the SRPA view Mount Everest and
how they interact with it. That the Western influence kind
(17:03):
of puts them in this weird position because they are
they follow a form of Tibetan buddhism um which says
that you should perform selfless acts and help others, right, Yeah,
And and being at the top of Everest to them
means you're closer to enlightenment. Right. If the people are
going to climb up anyway, you might as well go
with them for too grand sure, but you might as
(17:25):
well go with them to make sure that they don't
kill themselves. Right, very selfless people, it is. But at
the same time they're helping the West kind of exploit Everest.
That some people worry that the Everest experience is being
cheapened since since Hillary Um summited Everest, I think like
more than twenty other people have, right kind of loses
(17:47):
its um closeness to the Buddhas when you know all
these other footprints are everywhere and there's a couple hundred
dead bodies on the on the mountain. Yeah, I think
uh Nor Gay kind of summed up there how they
feel about Everest when he called it. When they asked
him how he felt about being up there, and he
he likened it to a mother hint and said what else?
(18:08):
He said that this was quote warm and friendly living.
How about that? Yeah? And then Hillary shoved him back down.
He's like, quiet to get out of my picture frame. Noah, Gay,
here's your metal. Uh So, like you said, the um
the region now, Josh, because of the massive amounts of tourism,
and not massive like Grand Canyon massive obviously, but still
(18:31):
for Mount Everests it's a lot of people going there
trying to climb it. Um. We did talk about pollution
there now, and so the very thing that brings the
Tibetan Buddhist Serpa's enlightenment is also kind of denigrated the
area somewhat. Yeah. Well, it's about twenty people passed through
that area per year. And now you can go play pool,
(18:54):
you have internet access, you have the trappings of modern living,
do you also have the drawbacks of modern living deforestation, yeah, pollution, yeah, exploitation,
that kind of stuff, right, that's right. And this is
what we should point out in uh Sagara Matha National
Park where about thirty spas live and sagar Matha is
(19:15):
the word for Everest, right. The the SRPA themselves call
um Everest Chomo Lungma, Chomo Lungma Chumbawamba. It's close, no,
but that's not it. Okay, Chomo Lugma, which means roughly
goddess mother of the world or mother hen Uh. You
want to talk about a couple of famous serpis. Yeah,
(19:39):
we can talk about Edmund Hillary all day long, but
you never hear about Appa Sharpa. Yes, and all he's
done is ascend in summit ever seventeen times more than
anybody else in the world. Not bad. What about Babu
uh cheery chehery Sharpa, Yeah, camped on the summit of
Mount Everest fore hours without oxygen. Usually what happens when
(20:02):
you climb Everest as you get your picture made and
you say, wow, this is really unbelievable. This is amazing.
All right, let's go back down right, and you have
five million canisters of oxygen is disposing. I'm really high.
Who else there's a lock Lockpa Galu Sherpa, who holds
the world record for the fastest amount everest um a
(20:23):
cent ten hours fifty six minutes in forty seconds. That's
a lot that man. Wow, you have Ming keep a
(21:04):
sharpa who Oh, what's the big deal with Ming? Ming
just climbed everest at the age of fifteen years old,
not on his xbox in real life. Yes. And then
there's Pessang Lambu Sherpa, who was chuck the first woman
which apparently, Um, when women started climbing everest or serving
(21:26):
as sherpas to climbing expeditions, um in the seventies, there
was uh, this is probably the biggest problem internally for
the Sherpa's that um, you know, Western tourism was was
having on their culture. You know, a woman's place traditionally
is at the farm in Sherpa culture, on the side
(21:50):
of the mountain. And I guess there was some static
for a while, and then finally, you know, more and
more women started doing it and we're doing it successfully,
and um that was that. Yeah. And and evidently, um,
when the husband, if the husband is the the sarpa worker,
um goes on one of these trips. Then the female
becomes ahead of the household at home if she's not
a sharper herself, and we'll take care of things just
(22:12):
like the husband would. It's nice, Yeah, Yet what else
is here? I love these people. I think we would
be you have a fun place in your heart. Means
that that they remind me the people of Guatemala, you know,
kind of short and friendly and warm, friendly living stocky. Yeah,
it makes me kind of wonder there's so many similarities
Chuck that huh huh uh yeah, because think about it.
(22:37):
Everybody calls the people of Sharpa, right, there are people
from the east, but that's in reference to where you
are in Solu Kumba Kumbo. Right. What were they called
before they moved west? The people Mayan? Maybe? Uh? Finally,
Josh for my part of this podcast. If you think
(22:59):
someone is all the rail, do you think the sharp
I have a bad with not getting any recognition. There's
also something called a porter. Yeah, and a lot of
sharps grow up serving as porters. As porters, that's basically
the job below the sherpa, who does even more of
the heavy lifting and gets even less money and less
(23:19):
oxygen less clothing, yeah, and other outerwear. Yeah. And there's
an actual international porters group, right, yeah, protection group that
are advocates for their safety and fair wages. Because obviously,
if you've got a very poor person doing a lot
of hard work, they're probably being taken advantage of in
some way. So, Chuck, we would be remissed to do
a podcast on the Shirpa and everest in Hillary Um
(23:42):
and not mention the Yetti. I don't know much about
the Eddie. I didn't look at that. So the Himalayas
are the home of the yeti, the abominable Snowman. It's
another way to put it, which is basically like the cold,
extreme cold, high altitude version of Bigfoot. Is that right? Yeah? Okay,
I just always thought that's what we thought of it.
I didn't look into it. No, it is pretty much okay, Um,
(24:03):
It's a biped, very furry, heavy, large biped that's mysterious
and and lives out and out by itself. It's big Foot,
but in the him Alayas, it's like in the Empire,
like cometh, and it's more like the Abominable Snowman in
the Rudolph Christmas Specials. It looked kind of like the
(24:23):
thing in Empire, kind of who looks like wow? Um. Anyway,
Hillary himself was actually a believer in the Yeti. He
went back after summiting Everest. He went back again in
nineteen sixty to look for the Yettie because he'd seen
YETI footprints what he took to be YETI footprints. Oh really,
(24:46):
huh interesting? He found nothing though he didn't and a
lot of people think that these were just some other
animals footprints that melted in the snow and expanded as
the snow melted. Who knows YETI. Again, you have taught
me something, my friend. Thank you for that, because I
couldn't figre out how to wrap this one up. I
feel like we should apologize for the light nature of this,
but we just recorded right before this on the nuclear
(25:09):
disaster in Japan, so I think we were rife for
a little. Plus. Also, we should point out, in true
Sherpa style, Chuck, they want it this way? Well, think
about this. They there there there are all sorts of
trappings of Western influence and degradation of culture. Um, there
is a dwindling of population. I think at its peak.
(25:31):
This area was home to thousand people. Now it's down
to thirty fire like you said in them in the
park right. Uh the the There was a National Geographic
survey of Sherpas saying are you concerned about Western influences
on your culture? And they were like, not overly. Can
(25:53):
you hand me the tepot remote you're sitting on it
if you have any mountain do or bolt. So that's it,
a Serpas. If you want to read more, Um, there's
actually some more in there, especially um, more on the
Buddhist religion. I believe we didn't cover that fully. Um. Yeah,
there's more goodness in there for sure. Yes, you can
(26:15):
type in serpa's or sharpa if you want to be
safe in the handy search bar at how stuff works
dot com, written by Kristen Kagner of stuff Mom never
told you. That's right, that's true. Excellent podcast. Yes, it
is a great podcast. And they did a great job
at south By Southwest they did. Um And since I
said handy search bar and south By Southwest, that means
(26:36):
it's time for listener mail. That's right, Josh. This is
a little more Disney dirt, and most of the Disney
dirt we got wasn't very good. We got a bunch
of um. Yeah, there's really nothing going on there. There's
underground tunnels, but that's no big deal, and it's really
not like you guys think. We finally got a pretty
good one. This is from m and m Um seems
(26:59):
like she would have been one of the employees that
I might have been hanging around with that know about
the dirt. Some people apparently don't even know about this stuff.
I hope we don't get in trouble for this hang out. Hey, guys,
I just finished listening to the Tickling podcast, excited that
you asked for Disney dirt. As a cast member at
the Happiest place on Earth for almost four years, I
(27:20):
gleaned some interesting tidbits of information for starters. In a
work room behind Pirates of the Caribbean, there exists an
infamous Milar table, which has a long standing reputation for
being a favorite place for cast members to be amorous
with one another after hours. I can't imagine how clean
such a table might be, but many cast members have
(27:42):
been known to participate in the tradition simply for the
sake of being part of the legend. It's for like
the Mile High Club. I guess on my attraction, the
Jungle Cruise. Uh it said that one can't be a
real skipper until they have urinated into the river. No, so,
she says, I suspect it is much about you know,
(28:05):
you can you can create the uh what what is
it the most? What happens to play? Happiest place on Earth?
But if you staff it with board and nihilistic twenty
year old, it's going to end up like this. Yeah,
someone's going to be in the river. Most of the time.
This is done before after park operating hours, when a
skipper can take out a boat alone and relieve him
(28:26):
or herself, often into the hippo pool. So you can
imagine it's harder for girls to participate in this rite
of passage either. Sheer logistics, but I do know some
women who have managed to become real skips. I think
it'd be more physics than logistics, she says. The mechanics
boggles my mind. Now for the gnarly stuff under Space Mountain,
there are stored sixty tho body bags. Supposedly they're there
(28:48):
in case of a natural disaster or some other emergency
where people may be trapped inside the park for an
extended period of time. I don't believe that. I don't
believe it either. The food freezers in the storeroom down
the hall are also over six ft tall for storage,
if you know what I mean. It's quite morbid and
a popular site for telling ghost stories. I've got plenty
more if you want some off the record ghost stories.
(29:09):
This was on the record geez or personal anecdotes from
my time as a jungle Crui skipper. I'd be happy
to share. Keep up the great work from m Well.
I would love to hear the off the record once.
What is her name? Am? I'd like to take her
to lunch? Yeah? Well, please at least send us an email. Okay,
I don't think we'd be allowed to go out to
lunch with that girl. Our significant others are good. Um, Chuck, Josh,
(29:34):
you got anything else? I'm done? All right? Um? What
should we call for here? How about if you've a
sended everest it's boring? Okay? Um? If you are interested
in your state seceding from it's current geographical boundaries, we
want to hear why that's right? Uh? Send it in
(29:55):
an email to Stuff Podcast at how stuff works dot
com for more on this and thousands of other topics,
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Happy weekend, everybody. This is Chuck here bringing you my
selection for this Stuff you Should Know Select episode on
this fine Saturday. This one is from April eleven, Sherpas
colon Warm Friendly Living, and I know for a fact
Josh came up with that title because I thought it
was very fun and it really kind of embodied what
sherpas are all about. Um. You know, sherpas will lead
(00:23):
you up Everest or maybe some other mountain range in
the area. And the more we dug into Sherpas, the
more we realize just what um, warm, hospitable, amazing people
they are. And uh, it's really easy to overlook the
sherpa because you will often hear about the the wealthy
climber of Everest, uh, and not much about the sherpa
(00:44):
that really got them there. So this was our bid
to shine little light on the Sherpa. So here we
go with Sherpa's Warm Friendly Living. Welcome to Stuff you
Should Know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and
(01:05):
welcome to the Sherpa. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles w
Did I just say Sherpa? No, he said welcome to
the podcast. What would you say, Welcome to the sharp
because the Sherpa is a nation of people and also
a last name and also an occupation. Yeah, that's pretty good. Well,
that's the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as always
(01:26):
as Charles W. Chuck Bryant didn't ignore Gay Bryant. Yeah, yeah, Chuck,
we're talking about sherp today. Yeah. Is it Sharpa or
sharp I have no idea because I see both in
this article. I do as well. All right, let's find out,
shall we? If everyone will just hold on a second,
(01:46):
are you actually looking this up? Chuck? Most people do
this before there hit podcast. Have you have you ever
seen Well, I'm sure this won't make it in. You
never know, it'll never make it in. Have you ever
seen in Um Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom?
The first one? That was not the first one? Yes,
it was that Raiders the Lost Ark was first, That's
(02:07):
what I meant. I'm sorry, Temple of Doom was too.
What was I thinking? I don't know. You've seen Raters
of the Lost Ark? Yeah, okay, scores of times. So
you know when he find he goes to meet Marian
for the first time after like ten years after jilting her. Yes,
the drinking scene. Yes, the guy, the huge guy that
(02:27):
Marian is drinking with or I guess in a drinking
contest with. It's like they kept hearing me say chuck
over and over again. Right, Um, that my friend was Shirpa,
was it? I'm pretty sure he looked Mongolian to me. No,
they were definitely in like Nepal. Okay, yeah, it's it,
even said Nepaul. Remember he flies in the plane a
(02:49):
poop and it's like redline takes him to Nepal. Yeah,
all right, so let's call him a sharpa. So shir
Buzz is plural of Serpa. That's what I thought. I
thought so too. Um. The Sherpa people are actually pretty fascinating.
They're pretty isolated, um. And they haven't been where they are,
which is the base of Mount Everest in the um
(03:14):
Solu Kumboo area region of Nepal, for more than actually
about five years, and when they arrived in the Solo
Cumboo region, they found it uninhabited. And the reason why
is because the Sherpas are pretty much the only people
on the planet besides maybe Ethiopian Highlanders or Peruvians in
(03:34):
the Andes who could conceivably live in this area because
again it's at the foot of Mount Everest. Yes, and
we recorded a podcast on Tibetans and altitude sickness, so
if you want to know all about that, refer to
that podcast. But Josh, you're right. They migrated from Tibet
from the province of Calm to the northeast corner of
(03:56):
Nepal around the sixteenth century because of warfare. Yeah, and
as I understand, they're very peaceful people. Oh very so
they would have been fleeing warfare, I would say, so, yeah,
not running toward it right headlong. So, um, they migrated there.
There was a lot more like forest and wood and
(04:18):
fuel for fuel at the time, which is good. And
they could grow wheat and buckwheat at the time, and
that's about all I could grow. But that was enough.
Right later on, potatoes really changed the way they do
farming because they grow a lot of potatoes now. Yeah,
the I think the potato was introduced in the mid
nineteenth century and that kind of changed everything. Eighty I'm sorry, um,
(04:40):
but if you think about it this, these people, well,
when they first arrived in the area, they moved to
um Uh the Kumbo Valley, which is higher up actually
than Um the Solu area, and it's about um between
eleven thousand and thirteen thousand feet and they're like, this
is a little too high. Everybody's a little sick. So
(05:01):
we're gonna move a little further down to the Soleu region.
Between six it's still extremely high. Um, it's still extremely rocky.
And they whip this part of the Himalayas into shape.
They created um terraced farm fields. Guatemala. Baby, remember that. Yeah,
down a slope you can create you can farm on
(05:21):
the side of a mountain. People do, but um, think
about this, I mean, like, how did they figure that out?
I'm very curious. Well, I mean it's you know, it's
not rocket science. You need flat land. And if you
have a steep side of a mountain and you cut
into that, you can create a series of steps, essentially,
which is flat land. Cherris in their laughing, Yeah, I
(05:42):
would have been in trouble. Cherrys, like, I'd be in
the Guadamala three times. I know all about step irrigation,
and then I had to do all this. I would
have been like, man, I wish you were flat around here.
I guess I'll just sit here until I die. Um,
so you'd oh, I'd be terrible at it. One of
the reasons why I be terrible at it is because
I will get in my car to drive fiet from say,
(06:07):
store to store. Do you do that? Take over there
at the Edgewood, like you'll got a target and then
you'll drive to Kroger. I haven't been there in a while,
but I have. I have. Yeah, yeah, totally. I mean, like, yeah,
I'll walk. I walk more now than I ever had before.
My entire defending like the weather or what's going on,
definitely depends on whether it depends on my schedule. Very
(06:28):
often I get that if I'm in a hurry, I
might do that, right. I would make a terrible strip
of though, because they don't have wheeled anything. They're a
terrible strippers. I would make both terrible. Okay, yeah, well
I know Aaron Cooper is going to make this exactly. Um, yes,
as I just said, I think I think it bears reiterating, Um,
(06:49):
Mr joke guy, there are no wheeled anything's there. There's
no cars, there's no wheelbarrows. Yeah, they don't even use wheelbarrows,
which now we've reached another reason I would be a
terrible shirt but they have to carry everything. I can
barely carry a thing a dog food out of the
grocery store to my car. And that's like with a
(07:10):
car involved, which has wheels, which they don't have in
the Solukumboo region. That's right. They carry everything, Josh, and
they use uh we actually saw this in Guatemala to
the plumb line. Trumpline, trump line. Yeah, it's home line
is a little different. What they'll do is they'll, let's say,
(07:32):
get a big load of firewood and they'll they'll they'll
wrap it up in in in a spank it on
the bottom, spanking on the bottom. They'll wrap it up
and so they can wear it on their back and
a big bundle and then attached to the top of
of you know, let's say they lay it in like
a hammock and fold that over a hammock like thing,
and then that is attached to a band that you know,
(07:54):
it's like a headband, and so it goes around their
head and it takes a lot of the weight off
their back. And we saw these at them, all the
dudes walking up the road, and I thought, man, look
at that. That's like ancient engineering still in practice and
you're like, man, I want to I gotta do more
of that, And you got back here and you're like,
we're cheeseburger and my Jan Sport backpack. Anybody who's ever
(08:17):
seen the front cover of um led Zeppelin four is
familiar with this concept as well. Was he wearing one
of those? He should have been if he wasn't, because
that's a big old bundle of sticks that guys carrying.
There was a bustle in his head. Draw honeyway. So
um Sherpas can whip a mountain into farmland. They can
(08:39):
live on buck wheat and then several hundred years without
the potato, and then the potato and yak yack milk
and yack meat. Right. Yea. They walk everywhere, but they
carry things everywhere. Um with the as they and they
they are basically a mountain, their mountain folk. They have.
(09:03):
They speak a Tibetan dialect that's virtually their own. They
don't have a written language, no written language. Until the
nineteen sixties, there is no formalized education. Um. They just lived.
They carved a very meager existence out for themselves, and
thanks to a dude named Sir Edmund Hillary, they now
(09:23):
have the foundation that he set up. And we'll get
to Edmund Hillary in a second, but everyone, come on,
you know who he is. He's the first man to
us and everest with Tin signor gay Serpa to summit
to summit. What I say, I send? Yeah, I mean,
what's this? You gotta get to the top, right or else? What?
He just blew sixty five grand that's about how much
it cost. So through his foundation in later years, he
(09:45):
he became to love the uh peaceful Buddhist of of
the Sherpa people there, and so he's like, you know,
and a set of foundation, we're gonna do things like
bring some schools, bring some hospitals, give these kids access
to healthcare, things like that. So he did that and
that helped a lot, although nowadays, you know, the schools
(10:06):
aren't in great shape evidently. Uh it's kind of hard
to get there. So um, they're they're doing what they can. Right.
You can take the folk out of the mountain, but
you can't take the mountain out of the folk, you
know what I mean? That's right. Uh. They are very friendly,
very peaceful, um, very compact, very strong, great attitudes apparently,
(10:26):
and that's not just Chuck saying that, Um, chuck, you're
basing that on the guy who basically took these very isolated, happy,
UM self sustaining, self sufficient UM people, mountain people UM
and introduced them to the world, or no, introduced them
to the people who would introduce them to the world,
(10:47):
right right, What is the Englishman who's credited with saying, Hey,
if you want to get up Everest, do you need yourself?
As that was Alexander Kellis not tens ignore gay, not
Sir Edmund Hillary right, well, tends of noor gave was
a SRP. He's far too modest. I'm under the impression
to have been like, you want to get up Everest,
you get yourself a Serpa Sherpas store. They're not big
(11:07):
self promoters. The English have been the biggest promoters of
um sherpas and UM. Alexander kellis what was his name?
He tried to make it up Everest and failed. But um,
there was a there was a point in time where well,
if you look at a mountain, it's not like a cone.
(11:28):
You know, those um styrofoam cones that you can get
at like the craft store that have like actual volume.
It's a it's a cone. The mountain is not like that.
It has all sorts of craggy peaks and different faces.
And if you go up one side and make it
up easy, just that doesn't mean that you can go
up any other side and make it up easy. Right.
(11:49):
So the place where the um the Sherpa live is
actually a pretty good way to get up Everest, but
it was closed off. Nepaul as a country was closed
off to the rest of the world until I think
nineteen forty nine. Yeah, Everest was confirmed as a high
speak in eighteen sixty five, but it wasn't like all
(12:09):
of a sudden the floodgates were open and every brit
in the world said, I must conquer that mountain that
they said that, but they were like, but how to
get to it? And they happened right, But in between
they're like, well, let's just colonize that place and then
figure out how to get up exactly true. And when
(12:59):
India be in uh colonizing, I'm sorry when England began
colonizing India, Darjeeling, across the eastern border of Nepal was
a big popular tour spot for British military political officials.
That's where the big wigs that's where they met, uh,
the Sherpa, And that's sort of where the mountaineering profession
for the Sherpa kicked off, because all of a sudden
(13:20):
they were Englishmen saying, I can now get in here
to ascend in summit this mountain, but I need some
help because I'm not carrying all that junk. Yeah, and
it's not like Sherpas are the only ethnic group around
Mount Everest. But as people soon found, like you said,
they were sturdy, they are a compact, they can carry
tons of weight, and they have a cheerful attitude. So
(13:42):
Alexander Kellis introduced the the climbing community, the Western climbing community,
to the Sherpa, and in short order, Um Sherpas became
extremely famous after like you said, Sir Edmund Hillary uh
summited um Mount Everest. Yeah, and he was one of
four people on that expedition. I never knew that. I
(14:04):
just thought it was Sir Edmund Hillary got in his
car in England and drove to Nepal and said, hey,
ten Zig, take me to the top. But it was
a big group of people and they were the only
two that made it right. They were the last ones,
and they just kept on going. But yes, it was
ten signor gay Sherpa. That's his last name. Yeah, because
(14:25):
as you said at the beginning of this, it's it's
a it's a group of people, it's a profession, and
it's a last name. That's right. Um, So at that
from that moment on, everybody knew what Sherpas were, right.
Oh yeah, they were no longer confused with al pacas. No.
By in popular culture, people were like, oh, there are
(14:46):
a group of people. Yeah, literally the people from the East,
that's right. And they, like you said, don't they're not
grand standards. They don't get a lot of attention. And
I made a joke, Um, I believe it was either
dead bodies on everest or the Tibetan altitude sickness about
Sherpas being unsung at the time, about how you always
hear about, you know, the Indian or the brit standing
(15:10):
on top of the mountain and you don't see the
Sherpa behind him carrying all their junk. And that's really
true because when uh, well you know what I mean, Uh,
when Hillary ascended and summited, he got a knighthood and
Norgay got an honorary medal and you think, well, of course,
I mean, they're going to give the British guy the
knighthood and they're going to give the foreigner a medal. Untrue,
(15:34):
because sirmon Hillary is from New Zealand's right, he wasn't British,
so technically he wasn't a a citizen of Great Britain,
and neither was ten signor gay and they still didn't
get the same thing. Yeah, it was. It was called
the British Everest Expedition was the four People. So that's
why I think a lot of people probably thought Hillary
was a brit but he was not. But again, um
(15:58):
our Western culture is a little different from Sherpa culture.
They like you said, they're not grand standards, they're not
publicity hounds. They are um they do. The ones who
are involved in climbing and trekking do make a pretty
substantial amount of money, especially in comparison to what the
average person makes in Nepal. They make about two grand
(16:21):
for a trip, right, and that the gross domestic product
per capita of Nepal in two dozen sevens like three dollars.
That really puts into perspective. They're rich by other standards,
I guess extremely rich, very wealthy. Um. But they they
the I guess in addition to making money, they they
(16:41):
help other people ascend Everest to attain their personal glory,
right too, for the other people to attain their personal
story um, which is kind of there's a lot of
uh dichotomy between how the SRPA view Mount Everest and
how they interact with it. That the Western influence kind
(17:03):
of puts them in this weird position because they are
they follow a form of Tibetan buddhism um which says
that you should perform selfless acts and help others, right, Yeah,
And and being at the top of Everest to them
means you're closer to enlightenment. Right. If the people are
going to climb up anyway, you might as well go
with them for too grand sure, but you might as
(17:25):
well go with them to make sure that they don't
kill themselves. Right, very selfless people, it is. But at
the same time they're helping the West kind of exploit Everest.
That some people worry that the Everest experience is being
cheapened since since Hillary Um summited Everest, I think like
more than twenty other people have, right kind of loses
(17:47):
its um closeness to the Buddhas when you know all
these other footprints are everywhere and there's a couple hundred
dead bodies on the on the mountain. Yeah, I think
uh Nor Gay kind of summed up there how they
feel about Everest when he called it. When they asked
him how he felt about being up there, and he
he likened it to a mother hint and said what else?
(18:08):
He said that this was quote warm and friendly living.
How about that? Yeah? And then Hillary shoved him back down.
He's like, quiet to get out of my picture frame. Noah, Gay,
here's your metal. Uh So, like you said, the um
the region now, Josh, because of the massive amounts of tourism,
and not massive like Grand Canyon massive obviously, but still
(18:31):
for Mount Everests it's a lot of people going there
trying to climb it. Um. We did talk about pollution
there now, and so the very thing that brings the
Tibetan Buddhist Serpa's enlightenment is also kind of denigrated the
area somewhat. Yeah. Well, it's about twenty people passed through
that area per year. And now you can go play pool,
(18:54):
you have internet access, you have the trappings of modern living,
do you also have the drawbacks of modern living deforestation, yeah, pollution, yeah, exploitation,
that kind of stuff, right, that's right. And this is
what we should point out in uh Sagara Matha National
Park where about thirty spas live and sagar Matha is
(19:15):
the word for Everest, right. The the SRPA themselves call
um Everest Chomo Lungma, Chomo Lungma Chumbawamba. It's close, no,
but that's not it. Okay, Chomo Lugma, which means roughly
goddess mother of the world or mother hen Uh. You
want to talk about a couple of famous serpis. Yeah,
(19:39):
we can talk about Edmund Hillary all day long, but
you never hear about Appa Sharpa. Yes, and all he's
done is ascend in summit ever seventeen times more than
anybody else in the world. Not bad. What about Babu
uh cheery chehery Sharpa, Yeah, camped on the summit of
Mount Everest fore hours without oxygen. Usually what happens when
(20:02):
you climb Everest as you get your picture made and
you say, wow, this is really unbelievable. This is amazing.
All right, let's go back down right, and you have
five million canisters of oxygen is disposing. I'm really high.
Who else there's a lock Lockpa Galu Sherpa, who holds
the world record for the fastest amount everest um a
(20:23):
cent ten hours fifty six minutes in forty seconds. That's
a lot that man. Wow, you have Ming keep a
(21:04):
sharpa who Oh, what's the big deal with Ming? Ming
just climbed everest at the age of fifteen years old,
not on his xbox in real life. Yes. And then
there's Pessang Lambu Sherpa, who was chuck the first woman
which apparently, Um, when women started climbing everest or serving
(21:26):
as sherpas to climbing expeditions, um in the seventies, there
was uh, this is probably the biggest problem internally for
the Sherpa's that um, you know, Western tourism was was
having on their culture. You know, a woman's place traditionally
is at the farm in Sherpa culture, on the side
(21:50):
of the mountain. And I guess there was some static
for a while, and then finally, you know, more and
more women started doing it and we're doing it successfully,
and um that was that. Yeah. And and evidently, um,
when the husband, if the husband is the the sarpa worker,
um goes on one of these trips. Then the female
becomes ahead of the household at home if she's not
a sharper herself, and we'll take care of things just
(22:12):
like the husband would. It's nice, Yeah, Yet what else
is here? I love these people. I think we would
be you have a fun place in your heart. Means
that that they remind me the people of Guatemala, you know,
kind of short and friendly and warm, friendly living stocky. Yeah,
it makes me kind of wonder there's so many similarities
Chuck that huh huh uh yeah, because think about it.
(22:37):
Everybody calls the people of Sharpa, right, there are people
from the east, but that's in reference to where you
are in Solu Kumba Kumbo. Right. What were they called
before they moved west? The people Mayan? Maybe? Uh? Finally,
Josh for my part of this podcast. If you think
(22:59):
someone is all the rail, do you think the sharp
I have a bad with not getting any recognition. There's
also something called a porter. Yeah, and a lot of
sharps grow up serving as porters. As porters, that's basically
the job below the sherpa, who does even more of
the heavy lifting and gets even less money and less
(23:19):
oxygen less clothing, yeah, and other outerwear. Yeah. And there's
an actual international porters group, right, yeah, protection group that
are advocates for their safety and fair wages. Because obviously,
if you've got a very poor person doing a lot
of hard work, they're probably being taken advantage of in
some way. So, Chuck, we would be remissed to do
a podcast on the Shirpa and everest in Hillary Um
(23:42):
and not mention the Yetti. I don't know much about
the Eddie. I didn't look at that. So the Himalayas
are the home of the yeti, the abominable Snowman. It's
another way to put it, which is basically like the cold,
extreme cold, high altitude version of Bigfoot. Is that right? Yeah? Okay,
I just always thought that's what we thought of it.
I didn't look into it. No, it is pretty much okay, Um,
(24:03):
It's a biped, very furry, heavy, large biped that's mysterious
and and lives out and out by itself. It's big Foot,
but in the him Alayas, it's like in the Empire,
like cometh, and it's more like the Abominable Snowman in
the Rudolph Christmas Specials. It looked kind of like the
(24:23):
thing in Empire, kind of who looks like wow? Um. Anyway,
Hillary himself was actually a believer in the Yeti. He
went back after summiting Everest. He went back again in
nineteen sixty to look for the Yettie because he'd seen
YETI footprints what he took to be YETI footprints. Oh really,
(24:46):
huh interesting? He found nothing though he didn't and a
lot of people think that these were just some other
animals footprints that melted in the snow and expanded as
the snow melted. Who knows YETI. Again, you have taught
me something, my friend. Thank you for that, because I
couldn't figre out how to wrap this one up. I
feel like we should apologize for the light nature of this,
but we just recorded right before this on the nuclear
(25:09):
disaster in Japan, so I think we were rife for
a little. Plus. Also, we should point out, in true
Sherpa style, Chuck, they want it this way? Well, think
about this. They there there there are all sorts of
trappings of Western influence and degradation of culture. Um, there
is a dwindling of population. I think at its peak.
(25:31):
This area was home to thousand people. Now it's down
to thirty fire like you said in them in the
park right. Uh the the There was a National Geographic
survey of Sherpas saying are you concerned about Western influences
on your culture? And they were like, not overly. Can
(25:53):
you hand me the tepot remote you're sitting on it
if you have any mountain do or bolt. So that's it,
a Serpas. If you want to read more, Um, there's
actually some more in there, especially um, more on the
Buddhist religion. I believe we didn't cover that fully. Um. Yeah,
there's more goodness in there for sure. Yes, you can
(26:15):
type in serpa's or sharpa if you want to be
safe in the handy search bar at how stuff works
dot com, written by Kristen Kagner of stuff Mom never
told you. That's right, that's true. Excellent podcast. Yes, it
is a great podcast. And they did a great job
at south By Southwest they did. Um And since I
said handy search bar and south By Southwest, that means
(26:36):
it's time for listener mail. That's right, Josh. This is
a little more Disney dirt, and most of the Disney
dirt we got wasn't very good. We got a bunch
of um. Yeah, there's really nothing going on there. There's
underground tunnels, but that's no big deal, and it's really
not like you guys think. We finally got a pretty
good one. This is from m and m Um seems
(26:59):
like she would have been one of the employees that
I might have been hanging around with that know about
the dirt. Some people apparently don't even know about this stuff.
I hope we don't get in trouble for this hang out. Hey, guys,
I just finished listening to the Tickling podcast, excited that
you asked for Disney dirt. As a cast member at
the Happiest place on Earth for almost four years, I
(27:20):
gleaned some interesting tidbits of information for starters. In a
work room behind Pirates of the Caribbean, there exists an
infamous Milar table, which has a long standing reputation for
being a favorite place for cast members to be amorous
with one another after hours. I can't imagine how clean
such a table might be, but many cast members have
(27:42):
been known to participate in the tradition simply for the
sake of being part of the legend. It's for like
the Mile High Club. I guess on my attraction, the
Jungle Cruise. Uh it said that one can't be a
real skipper until they have urinated into the river. No, so,
she says, I suspect it is much about you know,
(28:05):
you can you can create the uh what what is
it the most? What happens to play? Happiest place on Earth?
But if you staff it with board and nihilistic twenty
year old, it's going to end up like this. Yeah,
someone's going to be in the river. Most of the time.
This is done before after park operating hours, when a
skipper can take out a boat alone and relieve him
(28:26):
or herself, often into the hippo pool. So you can
imagine it's harder for girls to participate in this rite
of passage either. Sheer logistics, but I do know some
women who have managed to become real skips. I think
it'd be more physics than logistics, she says. The mechanics
boggles my mind. Now for the gnarly stuff under Space Mountain,
there are stored sixty tho body bags. Supposedly they're there
(28:48):
in case of a natural disaster or some other emergency
where people may be trapped inside the park for an
extended period of time. I don't believe that. I don't
believe it either. The food freezers in the storeroom down
the hall are also over six ft tall for storage,
if you know what I mean. It's quite morbid and
a popular site for telling ghost stories. I've got plenty
more if you want some off the record ghost stories.
(29:09):
This was on the record geez or personal anecdotes from
my time as a jungle Crui skipper. I'd be happy
to share. Keep up the great work from m Well.
I would love to hear the off the record once.
What is her name? Am? I'd like to take her
to lunch? Yeah? Well, please at least send us an email. Okay,
I don't think we'd be allowed to go out to
lunch with that girl. Our significant others are good. Um, Chuck, Josh,
(29:34):
you got anything else? I'm done? All right? Um? What
should we call for here? How about if you've a
sended everest it's boring? Okay? Um? If you are interested
in your state seceding from it's current geographical boundaries, we
want to hear why that's right? Uh? Send it in
(29:55):
an email to Stuff Podcast at how stuff works dot
com for more on this and thousands of other topics,
visit how stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works,
check out our blogs on the how stuff works dot
com home page. M
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Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!