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SYSK Selects: Sherpas: Warm, Friendly Living · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Happy weekend, everybody. This is Chuck here bringing you my
0:04
Speaker 1: selection for this Stuff you Should Know Select episode on
0:06
Speaker 1: this fine Saturday. This one is from April eleven, Sherpas
0:11
Speaker 1: colon Warm Friendly Living, and I know for a fact
0:14
Speaker 1: Josh came up with that title because I thought it
0:16
Speaker 1: was very fun and it really kind of embodied what
0:19
Speaker 1: sherpas are all about. Um. You know, sherpas will lead
0:23
Speaker 1: you up Everest or maybe some other mountain range in
0:26
Speaker 1: the area. And the more we dug into Sherpas, the
0:29
Speaker 1: more we realize just what um, warm, hospitable, amazing people
0:34
Speaker 1: they are. And uh, it's really easy to overlook the
0:37
Speaker 1: sherpa because you will often hear about the the wealthy
0:41
Speaker 1: climber of Everest, uh, and not much about the sherpa
0:44
Speaker 1: that really got them there. So this was our bid
0:47
Speaker 1: to shine little light on the Sherpa. So here we
0:50
Speaker 1: go with Sherpa's Warm Friendly Living. Welcome to Stuff you
0:57
Speaker 1: Should Know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and
1:05
Speaker 1: welcome to the Sherpa. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles w
1:09
Speaker 1: Did I just say Sherpa? No, he said welcome to
1:11
Speaker 1: the podcast. What would you say, Welcome to the sharp
1:13
Speaker 1: because the Sherpa is a nation of people and also
1:15
Speaker 1: a last name and also an occupation. Yeah, that's pretty good. Well,
1:20
Speaker 1: that's the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as always
1:26
Speaker 1: as Charles W. Chuck Bryant didn't ignore Gay Bryant. Yeah, yeah, Chuck,
1:33
Speaker 1: we're talking about sherp today. Yeah. Is it Sharpa or
1:37
Speaker 1: sharp I have no idea because I see both in
1:40
Speaker 1: this article. I do as well. All right, let's find out,
1:43
Speaker 1: shall we? If everyone will just hold on a second,
1:46
Speaker 1: are you actually looking this up? Chuck? Most people do
1:49
Speaker 1: this before there hit podcast. Have you have you ever
1:54
Speaker 1: seen Well, I'm sure this won't make it in. You
1:56
Speaker 1: never know, it'll never make it in. Have you ever
1:59
Speaker 1: seen in Um Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom?
2:02
Speaker 1: The first one? That was not the first one? Yes,
2:05
Speaker 1: it was that Raiders the Lost Ark was first, That's
2:07
Speaker 1: what I meant. I'm sorry, Temple of Doom was too.
2:09
Speaker 1: What was I thinking? I don't know. You've seen Raters
2:12
Speaker 1: of the Lost Ark? Yeah, okay, scores of times. So
2:15
Speaker 1: you know when he find he goes to meet Marian
2:18
Speaker 1: for the first time after like ten years after jilting her. Yes,
2:22
Speaker 1: the drinking scene. Yes, the guy, the huge guy that
2:27
Speaker 1: Marian is drinking with or I guess in a drinking
2:30
Speaker 1: contest with. It's like they kept hearing me say chuck
2:33
Speaker 1: over and over again. Right, Um, that my friend was Shirpa,
2:39
Speaker 1: was it? I'm pretty sure he looked Mongolian to me. No,
2:43
Speaker 1: they were definitely in like Nepal. Okay, yeah, it's it,
2:47
Speaker 1: even said Nepaul. Remember he flies in the plane a
2:49
Speaker 1: poop and it's like redline takes him to Nepal. Yeah,
2:53
Speaker 1: all right, so let's call him a sharpa. So shir
2:56
Speaker 1: Buzz is plural of Serpa. That's what I thought. I
2:59
Speaker 1: thought so too. Um. The Sherpa people are actually pretty fascinating.
3:05
Speaker 1: They're pretty isolated, um. And they haven't been where they are,
3:09
Speaker 1: which is the base of Mount Everest in the um
3:14
Speaker 1: Solu Kumboo area region of Nepal, for more than actually
3:19
Speaker 1: about five years, and when they arrived in the Solo
3:23
Speaker 1: Cumboo region, they found it uninhabited. And the reason why
3:27
Speaker 1: is because the Sherpas are pretty much the only people
3:30
Speaker 1: on the planet besides maybe Ethiopian Highlanders or Peruvians in
3:34
Speaker 1: the Andes who could conceivably live in this area because
3:38
Speaker 1: again it's at the foot of Mount Everest. Yes, and
3:41
Speaker 1: we recorded a podcast on Tibetans and altitude sickness, so
3:45
Speaker 1: if you want to know all about that, refer to
3:48
Speaker 1: that podcast. But Josh, you're right. They migrated from Tibet
3:53
Speaker 1: from the province of Calm to the northeast corner of
3:56
Speaker 1: Nepal around the sixteenth century because of warfare. Yeah, and
4:00
Speaker 1: as I understand, they're very peaceful people. Oh very so
4:04
Speaker 1: they would have been fleeing warfare, I would say, so, yeah,
4:08
Speaker 1: not running toward it right headlong. So, um, they migrated there.
4:14
Speaker 1: There was a lot more like forest and wood and
4:18
Speaker 1: fuel for fuel at the time, which is good. And
4:21
Speaker 1: they could grow wheat and buckwheat at the time, and
4:23
Speaker 1: that's about all I could grow. But that was enough.
4:26
Speaker 1: Right later on, potatoes really changed the way they do
4:29
Speaker 1: farming because they grow a lot of potatoes now. Yeah,
4:32
Speaker 1: the I think the potato was introduced in the mid
4:35
Speaker 1: nineteenth century and that kind of changed everything. Eighty I'm sorry, um,
4:40
Speaker 1: but if you think about it this, these people, well,
4:43
Speaker 1: when they first arrived in the area, they moved to
4:46
Speaker 1: um Uh the Kumbo Valley, which is higher up actually
4:52
Speaker 1: than Um the Solu area, and it's about um between
4:56
Speaker 1: eleven thousand and thirteen thousand feet and they're like, this
4:58
Speaker 1: is a little too high. Everybody's a little sick. So
5:01
Speaker 1: we're gonna move a little further down to the Soleu region.
5:04
Speaker 1: Between six it's still extremely high. Um, it's still extremely rocky.
5:10
Speaker 1: And they whip this part of the Himalayas into shape.
5:13
Speaker 1: They created um terraced farm fields. Guatemala. Baby, remember that. Yeah,
5:18
Speaker 1: down a slope you can create you can farm on
5:21
Speaker 1: the side of a mountain. People do, but um, think
5:24
Speaker 1: about this, I mean, like, how did they figure that out?
5:26
Speaker 1: I'm very curious. Well, I mean it's you know, it's
5:30
Speaker 1: not rocket science. You need flat land. And if you
5:33
Speaker 1: have a steep side of a mountain and you cut
5:36
Speaker 1: into that, you can create a series of steps, essentially,
5:39
Speaker 1: which is flat land. Cherris in their laughing, Yeah, I
5:42
Speaker 1: would have been in trouble. Cherrys, like, I'd be in
5:44
Speaker 1: the Guadamala three times. I know all about step irrigation,
5:47
Speaker 1: and then I had to do all this. I would
5:49
Speaker 1: have been like, man, I wish you were flat around here.
5:51
Speaker 1: I guess I'll just sit here until I die. Um,
5:55
Speaker 1: so you'd oh, I'd be terrible at it. One of
5:59
Speaker 1: the reasons why I be terrible at it is because
6:01
Speaker 1: I will get in my car to drive fiet from say,
6:07
Speaker 1: store to store. Do you do that? Take over there
6:10
Speaker 1: at the Edgewood, like you'll got a target and then
6:13
Speaker 1: you'll drive to Kroger. I haven't been there in a while,
6:16
Speaker 1: but I have. I have. Yeah, yeah, totally. I mean, like, yeah,
6:21
Speaker 1: I'll walk. I walk more now than I ever had before.
6:24
Speaker 1: My entire defending like the weather or what's going on,
6:26
Speaker 1: definitely depends on whether it depends on my schedule. Very
6:28
Speaker 1: often I get that if I'm in a hurry, I
6:30
Speaker 1: might do that, right. I would make a terrible strip
6:32
Speaker 1: of though, because they don't have wheeled anything. They're a
6:35
Speaker 1: terrible strippers. I would make both terrible. Okay, yeah, well
6:41
Speaker 1: I know Aaron Cooper is going to make this exactly. Um, yes,
6:45
Speaker 1: as I just said, I think I think it bears reiterating, Um,
6:49
Speaker 1: Mr joke guy, there are no wheeled anything's there. There's
6:53
Speaker 1: no cars, there's no wheelbarrows. Yeah, they don't even use wheelbarrows,
6:59
Speaker 1: which now we've reached another reason I would be a
7:01
Speaker 1: terrible shirt but they have to carry everything. I can
7:04
Speaker 1: barely carry a thing a dog food out of the
7:07
Speaker 1: grocery store to my car. And that's like with a
7:10
Speaker 1: car involved, which has wheels, which they don't have in
7:16
Speaker 1: the Solukumboo region. That's right. They carry everything, Josh, and
7:20
Speaker 1: they use uh we actually saw this in Guatemala to
7:22
Speaker 1: the plumb line. Trumpline, trump line. Yeah, it's home line
7:29
Speaker 1: is a little different. What they'll do is they'll, let's say,
7:32
Speaker 1: get a big load of firewood and they'll they'll they'll
7:36
Speaker 1: wrap it up in in in a spank it on
7:39
Speaker 1: the bottom, spanking on the bottom. They'll wrap it up
7:41
Speaker 1: and so they can wear it on their back and
7:42
Speaker 1: a big bundle and then attached to the top of
7:45
Speaker 1: of you know, let's say they lay it in like
7:47
Speaker 1: a hammock and fold that over a hammock like thing,
7:50
Speaker 1: and then that is attached to a band that you know,
7:54
Speaker 1: it's like a headband, and so it goes around their
7:56
Speaker 1: head and it takes a lot of the weight off
7:58
Speaker 1: their back. And we saw these at them, all the
8:00
Speaker 1: dudes walking up the road, and I thought, man, look
8:02
Speaker 1: at that. That's like ancient engineering still in practice and
8:06
Speaker 1: you're like, man, I want to I gotta do more
8:09
Speaker 1: of that, And you got back here and you're like,
8:10
Speaker 1: we're cheeseburger and my Jan Sport backpack. Anybody who's ever
8:17
Speaker 1: seen the front cover of um led Zeppelin four is
8:20
Speaker 1: familiar with this concept as well. Was he wearing one
8:23
Speaker 1: of those? He should have been if he wasn't, because
8:27
Speaker 1: that's a big old bundle of sticks that guys carrying.
8:29
Speaker 1: There was a bustle in his head. Draw honeyway. So
8:32
Speaker 1: um Sherpas can whip a mountain into farmland. They can
8:39
Speaker 1: live on buck wheat and then several hundred years without
8:43
Speaker 1: the potato, and then the potato and yak yack milk
8:47
Speaker 1: and yack meat. Right. Yea. They walk everywhere, but they
8:52
Speaker 1: carry things everywhere. Um with the as they and they
8:58
Speaker 1: they are basically a mountain, their mountain folk. They have.
9:03
Speaker 1: They speak a Tibetan dialect that's virtually their own. They
9:06
Speaker 1: don't have a written language, no written language. Until the
9:09
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties, there is no formalized education. Um. They just lived.
9:15
Speaker 1: They carved a very meager existence out for themselves, and
9:19
Speaker 1: thanks to a dude named Sir Edmund Hillary, they now
9:23
Speaker 1: have the foundation that he set up. And we'll get
9:26
Speaker 1: to Edmund Hillary in a second, but everyone, come on,
9:29
Speaker 1: you know who he is. He's the first man to
9:31
Speaker 1: us and everest with Tin signor gay Serpa to summit
9:34
Speaker 1: to summit. What I say, I send? Yeah, I mean,
9:37
Speaker 1: what's this? You gotta get to the top, right or else? What?
9:40
Speaker 1: He just blew sixty five grand that's about how much
9:42
Speaker 1: it cost. So through his foundation in later years, he
9:45
Speaker 1: he became to love the uh peaceful Buddhist of of
9:51
Speaker 1: the Sherpa people there, and so he's like, you know,
9:53
Speaker 1: and a set of foundation, we're gonna do things like
9:55
Speaker 1: bring some schools, bring some hospitals, give these kids access
9:59
Speaker 1: to healthcare, things like that. So he did that and
10:02
Speaker 1: that helped a lot, although nowadays, you know, the schools
10:06
Speaker 1: aren't in great shape evidently. Uh it's kind of hard
10:10
Speaker 1: to get there. So um, they're they're doing what they can. Right.
10:14
Speaker 1: You can take the folk out of the mountain, but
10:15
Speaker 1: you can't take the mountain out of the folk, you
10:17
Speaker 1: know what I mean? That's right. Uh. They are very friendly,
10:19
Speaker 1: very peaceful, um, very compact, very strong, great attitudes apparently,
10:26
Speaker 1: and that's not just Chuck saying that, Um, chuck, you're
10:29
Speaker 1: basing that on the guy who basically took these very isolated, happy,
10:34
Speaker 1: UM self sustaining, self sufficient UM people, mountain people UM
10:40
Speaker 1: and introduced them to the world, or no, introduced them
10:44
Speaker 1: to the people who would introduce them to the world,
10:47
Speaker 1: right right, What is the Englishman who's credited with saying, Hey,
10:50
Speaker 1: if you want to get up Everest, do you need yourself?
10:52
Speaker 1: As that was Alexander Kellis not tens ignore gay, not
10:57
Speaker 1: Sir Edmund Hillary right, well, tends of noor gave was
11:00
Speaker 1: a SRP. He's far too modest. I'm under the impression
11:03
Speaker 1: to have been like, you want to get up Everest,
11:05
Speaker 1: you get yourself a Serpa Sherpas store. They're not big
11:07
Speaker 1: self promoters. The English have been the biggest promoters of
11:12
Speaker 1: um sherpas and UM. Alexander kellis what was his name?
11:18
Speaker 1: He tried to make it up Everest and failed. But um,
11:22
Speaker 1: there was a there was a point in time where well,
11:25
Speaker 1: if you look at a mountain, it's not like a cone.
11:28
Speaker 1: You know, those um styrofoam cones that you can get
11:31
Speaker 1: at like the craft store that have like actual volume.
11:34
Speaker 1: It's a it's a cone. The mountain is not like that.
11:38
Speaker 1: It has all sorts of craggy peaks and different faces.
11:42
Speaker 1: And if you go up one side and make it
11:44
Speaker 1: up easy, just that doesn't mean that you can go
11:46
Speaker 1: up any other side and make it up easy. Right.
11:49
Speaker 1: So the place where the um the Sherpa live is
11:54
Speaker 1: actually a pretty good way to get up Everest, but
11:58
Speaker 1: it was closed off. Nepaul as a country was closed
12:01
Speaker 1: off to the rest of the world until I think
12:03
Speaker 1: nineteen forty nine. Yeah, Everest was confirmed as a high
12:06
Speaker 1: speak in eighteen sixty five, but it wasn't like all
12:09
Speaker 1: of a sudden the floodgates were open and every brit
12:12
Speaker 1: in the world said, I must conquer that mountain that
12:15
Speaker 1: they said that, but they were like, but how to
12:17
Speaker 1: get to it? And they happened right, But in between
12:21
Speaker 1: they're like, well, let's just colonize that place and then
12:24
Speaker 1: figure out how to get up exactly true. And when
12:59
Speaker 1: India be in uh colonizing, I'm sorry when England began
13:03
Speaker 1: colonizing India, Darjeeling, across the eastern border of Nepal was
13:06
Speaker 1: a big popular tour spot for British military political officials.
13:11
Speaker 1: That's where the big wigs that's where they met, uh,
13:15
Speaker 1: the Sherpa, And that's sort of where the mountaineering profession
13:18
Speaker 1: for the Sherpa kicked off, because all of a sudden
13:20
Speaker 1: they were Englishmen saying, I can now get in here
13:23
Speaker 1: to ascend in summit this mountain, but I need some
13:26
Speaker 1: help because I'm not carrying all that junk. Yeah, and
13:28
Speaker 1: it's not like Sherpas are the only ethnic group around
13:31
Speaker 1: Mount Everest. But as people soon found, like you said,
13:35
Speaker 1: they were sturdy, they are a compact, they can carry
13:37
Speaker 1: tons of weight, and they have a cheerful attitude. So
13:42
Speaker 1: Alexander Kellis introduced the the climbing community, the Western climbing community,
13:47
Speaker 1: to the Sherpa, and in short order, Um Sherpas became
13:51
Speaker 1: extremely famous after like you said, Sir Edmund Hillary uh
13:56
Speaker 1: summited um Mount Everest. Yeah, and he was one of
14:01
Speaker 1: four people on that expedition. I never knew that. I
14:04
Speaker 1: just thought it was Sir Edmund Hillary got in his
14:06
Speaker 1: car in England and drove to Nepal and said, hey,
14:12
Speaker 1: ten Zig, take me to the top. But it was
14:15
Speaker 1: a big group of people and they were the only
14:17
Speaker 1: two that made it right. They were the last ones,
14:19
Speaker 1: and they just kept on going. But yes, it was
14:21
Speaker 1: ten signor gay Sherpa. That's his last name. Yeah, because
14:25
Speaker 1: as you said at the beginning of this, it's it's
14:27
Speaker 1: a it's a group of people, it's a profession, and
14:31
Speaker 1: it's a last name. That's right. Um, So at that
14:35
Speaker 1: from that moment on, everybody knew what Sherpas were, right.
14:39
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, they were no longer confused with al pacas. No.
14:44
Speaker 1: By in popular culture, people were like, oh, there are
14:46
Speaker 1: a group of people. Yeah, literally the people from the East,
14:50
Speaker 1: that's right. And they, like you said, don't they're not
14:52
Speaker 1: grand standards. They don't get a lot of attention. And
14:56
Speaker 1: I made a joke, Um, I believe it was either
15:00
Speaker 1: dead bodies on everest or the Tibetan altitude sickness about
15:03
Speaker 1: Sherpas being unsung at the time, about how you always
15:06
Speaker 1: hear about, you know, the Indian or the brit standing
15:10
Speaker 1: on top of the mountain and you don't see the
15:12
Speaker 1: Sherpa behind him carrying all their junk. And that's really
15:15
Speaker 1: true because when uh, well you know what I mean, Uh,
15:19
Speaker 1: when Hillary ascended and summited, he got a knighthood and
15:23
Speaker 1: Norgay got an honorary medal and you think, well, of course,
15:27
Speaker 1: I mean, they're going to give the British guy the
15:29
Speaker 1: knighthood and they're going to give the foreigner a medal. Untrue,
15:34
Speaker 1: because sirmon Hillary is from New Zealand's right, he wasn't British,
15:38
Speaker 1: so technically he wasn't a a citizen of Great Britain,
15:43
Speaker 1: and neither was ten signor gay and they still didn't
15:46
Speaker 1: get the same thing. Yeah, it was. It was called
15:48
Speaker 1: the British Everest Expedition was the four People. So that's
15:52
Speaker 1: why I think a lot of people probably thought Hillary
15:53
Speaker 1: was a brit but he was not. But again, um
15:58
Speaker 1: our Western culture is a little different from Sherpa culture.
16:02
Speaker 1: They like you said, they're not grand standards, they're not
16:06
Speaker 1: publicity hounds. They are um they do. The ones who
16:10
Speaker 1: are involved in climbing and trekking do make a pretty
16:13
Speaker 1: substantial amount of money, especially in comparison to what the
16:18
Speaker 1: average person makes in Nepal. They make about two grand
16:21
Speaker 1: for a trip, right, and that the gross domestic product
16:25
Speaker 1: per capita of Nepal in two dozen sevens like three dollars.
16:29
Speaker 1: That really puts into perspective. They're rich by other standards,
16:33
Speaker 1: I guess extremely rich, very wealthy. Um. But they they
16:37
Speaker 1: the I guess in addition to making money, they they
16:41
Speaker 1: help other people ascend Everest to attain their personal glory,
16:47
Speaker 1: right too, for the other people to attain their personal
16:49
Speaker 1: story um, which is kind of there's a lot of
16:54
Speaker 1: uh dichotomy between how the SRPA view Mount Everest and
17:00
Speaker 1: how they interact with it. That the Western influence kind
17:03
Speaker 1: of puts them in this weird position because they are
17:07
Speaker 1: they follow a form of Tibetan buddhism um which says
17:10
Speaker 1: that you should perform selfless acts and help others, right, Yeah,
17:15
Speaker 1: And and being at the top of Everest to them
17:17
Speaker 1: means you're closer to enlightenment. Right. If the people are
17:20
Speaker 1: going to climb up anyway, you might as well go
17:23
Speaker 1: with them for too grand sure, but you might as
17:25
Speaker 1: well go with them to make sure that they don't
17:27
Speaker 1: kill themselves. Right, very selfless people, it is. But at
17:30
Speaker 1: the same time they're helping the West kind of exploit Everest.
17:34
Speaker 1: That some people worry that the Everest experience is being
17:37
Speaker 1: cheapened since since Hillary Um summited Everest, I think like
17:42
Speaker 1: more than twenty other people have, right kind of loses
17:47
Speaker 1: its um closeness to the Buddhas when you know all
17:52
Speaker 1: these other footprints are everywhere and there's a couple hundred
17:55
Speaker 1: dead bodies on the on the mountain. Yeah, I think
17:57
Speaker 1: uh Nor Gay kind of summed up there how they
18:00
Speaker 1: feel about Everest when he called it. When they asked
18:02
Speaker 1: him how he felt about being up there, and he
18:04
Speaker 1: he likened it to a mother hint and said what else?
18:08
Speaker 1: He said that this was quote warm and friendly living.
18:12
Speaker 1: How about that? Yeah? And then Hillary shoved him back down.
18:15
Speaker 1: He's like, quiet to get out of my picture frame. Noah, Gay,
18:20
Speaker 1: here's your metal. Uh So, like you said, the um
18:23
Speaker 1: the region now, Josh, because of the massive amounts of tourism,
18:28
Speaker 1: and not massive like Grand Canyon massive obviously, but still
18:31
Speaker 1: for Mount Everests it's a lot of people going there
18:33
Speaker 1: trying to climb it. Um. We did talk about pollution
18:36
Speaker 1: there now, and so the very thing that brings the
18:40
Speaker 1: Tibetan Buddhist Serpa's enlightenment is also kind of denigrated the
18:45
Speaker 1: area somewhat. Yeah. Well, it's about twenty people passed through
18:51
Speaker 1: that area per year. And now you can go play pool,
18:54
Speaker 1: you have internet access, you have the trappings of modern living,
19:00
Speaker 1: do you also have the drawbacks of modern living deforestation, yeah, pollution, yeah, exploitation,
19:06
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff, right, that's right. And this is
19:09
Speaker 1: what we should point out in uh Sagara Matha National
19:12
Speaker 1: Park where about thirty spas live and sagar Matha is
19:15
Speaker 1: the word for Everest, right. The the SRPA themselves call
19:21
Speaker 1: um Everest Chomo Lungma, Chomo Lungma Chumbawamba. It's close, no,
19:27
Speaker 1: but that's not it. Okay, Chomo Lugma, which means roughly
19:31
Speaker 1: goddess mother of the world or mother hen Uh. You
19:35
Speaker 1: want to talk about a couple of famous serpis. Yeah,
19:39
Speaker 1: we can talk about Edmund Hillary all day long, but
19:41
Speaker 1: you never hear about Appa Sharpa. Yes, and all he's
19:44
Speaker 1: done is ascend in summit ever seventeen times more than
19:48
Speaker 1: anybody else in the world. Not bad. What about Babu
19:52
Speaker 1: uh cheery chehery Sharpa, Yeah, camped on the summit of
19:58
Speaker 1: Mount Everest fore hours without oxygen. Usually what happens when
20:02
Speaker 1: you climb Everest as you get your picture made and
20:04
Speaker 1: you say, wow, this is really unbelievable. This is amazing.
20:07
Speaker 1: All right, let's go back down right, and you have
20:09
Speaker 1: five million canisters of oxygen is disposing. I'm really high.
20:14
Speaker 1: Who else there's a lock Lockpa Galu Sherpa, who holds
20:20
Speaker 1: the world record for the fastest amount everest um a
20:23
Speaker 1: cent ten hours fifty six minutes in forty seconds. That's
20:26
Speaker 1: a lot that man. Wow, you have Ming keep a
21:04
Speaker 1: sharpa who Oh, what's the big deal with Ming? Ming
21:08
Speaker 1: just climbed everest at the age of fifteen years old,
21:12
Speaker 1: not on his xbox in real life. Yes. And then
21:16
Speaker 1: there's Pessang Lambu Sherpa, who was chuck the first woman
21:22
Speaker 1: which apparently, Um, when women started climbing everest or serving
21:26
Speaker 1: as sherpas to climbing expeditions, um in the seventies, there
21:30
Speaker 1: was uh, this is probably the biggest problem internally for
21:35
Speaker 1: the Sherpa's that um, you know, Western tourism was was
21:41
Speaker 1: having on their culture. You know, a woman's place traditionally
21:46
Speaker 1: is at the farm in Sherpa culture, on the side
21:50
Speaker 1: of the mountain. And I guess there was some static
21:52
Speaker 1: for a while, and then finally, you know, more and
21:54
Speaker 1: more women started doing it and we're doing it successfully,
21:57
Speaker 1: and um that was that. Yeah. And and evidently, um,
22:01
Speaker 1: when the husband, if the husband is the the sarpa worker,
22:05
Speaker 1: um goes on one of these trips. Then the female
22:07
Speaker 1: becomes ahead of the household at home if she's not
22:10
Speaker 1: a sharper herself, and we'll take care of things just
22:12
Speaker 1: like the husband would. It's nice, Yeah, Yet what else
22:16
Speaker 1: is here? I love these people. I think we would
22:20
Speaker 1: be you have a fun place in your heart. Means
22:22
Speaker 1: that that they remind me the people of Guatemala, you know,
22:25
Speaker 1: kind of short and friendly and warm, friendly living stocky. Yeah,
22:29
Speaker 1: it makes me kind of wonder there's so many similarities
22:31
Speaker 1: Chuck that huh huh uh yeah, because think about it.
22:37
Speaker 1: Everybody calls the people of Sharpa, right, there are people
22:40
Speaker 1: from the east, but that's in reference to where you
22:44
Speaker 1: are in Solu Kumba Kumbo. Right. What were they called
22:49
Speaker 1: before they moved west? The people Mayan? Maybe? Uh? Finally,
22:56
Speaker 1: Josh for my part of this podcast. If you think
22:59
Speaker 1: someone is all the rail, do you think the sharp
23:01
Speaker 1: I have a bad with not getting any recognition. There's
23:05
Speaker 1: also something called a porter. Yeah, and a lot of
23:07
Speaker 1: sharps grow up serving as porters. As porters, that's basically
23:12
Speaker 1: the job below the sherpa, who does even more of
23:16
Speaker 1: the heavy lifting and gets even less money and less
23:19
Speaker 1: oxygen less clothing, yeah, and other outerwear. Yeah. And there's
23:24
Speaker 1: an actual international porters group, right, yeah, protection group that
23:28
Speaker 1: are advocates for their safety and fair wages. Because obviously,
23:31
Speaker 1: if you've got a very poor person doing a lot
23:33
Speaker 1: of hard work, they're probably being taken advantage of in
23:35
Speaker 1: some way. So, Chuck, we would be remissed to do
23:38
Speaker 1: a podcast on the Shirpa and everest in Hillary Um
23:42
Speaker 1: and not mention the Yetti. I don't know much about
23:45
Speaker 1: the Eddie. I didn't look at that. So the Himalayas
23:47
Speaker 1: are the home of the yeti, the abominable Snowman. It's
23:49
Speaker 1: another way to put it, which is basically like the cold,
23:53
Speaker 1: extreme cold, high altitude version of Bigfoot. Is that right? Yeah? Okay,
23:57
Speaker 1: I just always thought that's what we thought of it.
24:00
Speaker 1: I didn't look into it. No, it is pretty much okay, Um,
24:03
Speaker 1: It's a biped, very furry, heavy, large biped that's mysterious
24:09
Speaker 1: and and lives out and out by itself. It's big Foot,
24:12
Speaker 1: but in the him Alayas, it's like in the Empire,
24:16
Speaker 1: like cometh, and it's more like the Abominable Snowman in
24:19
Speaker 1: the Rudolph Christmas Specials. It looked kind of like the
24:23
Speaker 1: thing in Empire, kind of who looks like wow? Um. Anyway,
24:31
Speaker 1: Hillary himself was actually a believer in the Yeti. He
24:34
Speaker 1: went back after summiting Everest. He went back again in
24:38
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty to look for the Yettie because he'd seen
24:42
Speaker 1: YETI footprints what he took to be YETI footprints. Oh really,
24:46
Speaker 1: huh interesting? He found nothing though he didn't and a
24:48
Speaker 1: lot of people think that these were just some other
24:51
Speaker 1: animals footprints that melted in the snow and expanded as
24:54
Speaker 1: the snow melted. Who knows YETI. Again, you have taught
24:58
Speaker 1: me something, my friend. Thank you for that, because I
25:02
Speaker 1: couldn't figre out how to wrap this one up. I
25:03
Speaker 1: feel like we should apologize for the light nature of this,
25:06
Speaker 1: but we just recorded right before this on the nuclear
25:09
Speaker 1: disaster in Japan, so I think we were rife for
25:12
Speaker 1: a little. Plus. Also, we should point out, in true
25:16
Speaker 1: Sherpa style, Chuck, they want it this way? Well, think
25:19
Speaker 1: about this. They there there there are all sorts of
25:22
Speaker 1: trappings of Western influence and degradation of culture. Um, there
25:27
Speaker 1: is a dwindling of population. I think at its peak.
25:31
Speaker 1: This area was home to thousand people. Now it's down
25:34
Speaker 1: to thirty fire like you said in them in the
25:38
Speaker 1: park right. Uh the the There was a National Geographic
25:44
Speaker 1: survey of Sherpas saying are you concerned about Western influences
25:49
Speaker 1: on your culture? And they were like, not overly. Can
25:53
Speaker 1: you hand me the tepot remote you're sitting on it
25:56
Speaker 1: if you have any mountain do or bolt. So that's it,
26:00
Speaker 1: a Serpas. If you want to read more, Um, there's
26:04
Speaker 1: actually some more in there, especially um, more on the
26:07
Speaker 1: Buddhist religion. I believe we didn't cover that fully. Um. Yeah,
26:12
Speaker 1: there's more goodness in there for sure. Yes, you can
26:15
Speaker 1: type in serpa's or sharpa if you want to be
26:19
Speaker 1: safe in the handy search bar at how stuff works
26:22
Speaker 1: dot com, written by Kristen Kagner of stuff Mom never
26:25
Speaker 1: told you. That's right, that's true. Excellent podcast. Yes, it
26:27
Speaker 1: is a great podcast. And they did a great job
26:29
Speaker 1: at south By Southwest they did. Um And since I
26:33
Speaker 1: said handy search bar and south By Southwest, that means
26:36
Speaker 1: it's time for listener mail. That's right, Josh. This is
26:42
Speaker 1: a little more Disney dirt, and most of the Disney
26:45
Speaker 1: dirt we got wasn't very good. We got a bunch
26:47
Speaker 1: of um. Yeah, there's really nothing going on there. There's
26:50
Speaker 1: underground tunnels, but that's no big deal, and it's really
26:53
Speaker 1: not like you guys think. We finally got a pretty
26:55
Speaker 1: good one. This is from m and m Um seems
26:59
Speaker 1: like she would have been one of the employees that
27:02
Speaker 1: I might have been hanging around with that know about
27:04
Speaker 1: the dirt. Some people apparently don't even know about this stuff.
27:08
Speaker 1: I hope we don't get in trouble for this hang out. Hey, guys,
27:12
Speaker 1: I just finished listening to the Tickling podcast, excited that
27:14
Speaker 1: you asked for Disney dirt. As a cast member at
27:17
Speaker 1: the Happiest place on Earth for almost four years, I
27:20
Speaker 1: gleaned some interesting tidbits of information for starters. In a
27:24
Speaker 1: work room behind Pirates of the Caribbean, there exists an
27:27
Speaker 1: infamous Milar table, which has a long standing reputation for
27:32
Speaker 1: being a favorite place for cast members to be amorous
27:35
Speaker 1: with one another after hours. I can't imagine how clean
27:39
Speaker 1: such a table might be, but many cast members have
27:42
Speaker 1: been known to participate in the tradition simply for the
27:45
Speaker 1: sake of being part of the legend. It's for like
27:47
Speaker 1: the Mile High Club. I guess on my attraction, the
27:51
Speaker 1: Jungle Cruise. Uh it said that one can't be a
27:55
Speaker 1: real skipper until they have urinated into the river. No, so,
28:01
Speaker 1: she says, I suspect it is much about you know,
28:05
Speaker 1: you can you can create the uh what what is
28:08
Speaker 1: it the most? What happens to play? Happiest place on Earth?
28:12
Speaker 1: But if you staff it with board and nihilistic twenty
28:15
Speaker 1: year old, it's going to end up like this. Yeah,
28:18
Speaker 1: someone's going to be in the river. Most of the time.
28:20
Speaker 1: This is done before after park operating hours, when a
28:23
Speaker 1: skipper can take out a boat alone and relieve him
28:26
Speaker 1: or herself, often into the hippo pool. So you can
28:29
Speaker 1: imagine it's harder for girls to participate in this rite
28:32
Speaker 1: of passage either. Sheer logistics, but I do know some
28:35
Speaker 1: women who have managed to become real skips. I think
28:37
Speaker 1: it'd be more physics than logistics, she says. The mechanics
28:40
Speaker 1: boggles my mind. Now for the gnarly stuff under Space Mountain,
28:44
Speaker 1: there are stored sixty tho body bags. Supposedly they're there
28:48
Speaker 1: in case of a natural disaster or some other emergency
28:51
Speaker 1: where people may be trapped inside the park for an
28:53
Speaker 1: extended period of time. I don't believe that. I don't
28:56
Speaker 1: believe it either. The food freezers in the storeroom down
28:58
Speaker 1: the hall are also over six ft tall for storage,
29:01
Speaker 1: if you know what I mean. It's quite morbid and
29:03
Speaker 1: a popular site for telling ghost stories. I've got plenty
29:06
Speaker 1: more if you want some off the record ghost stories.
29:09
Speaker 1: This was on the record geez or personal anecdotes from
29:13
Speaker 1: my time as a jungle Crui skipper. I'd be happy
29:15
Speaker 1: to share. Keep up the great work from m Well.
29:18
Speaker 1: I would love to hear the off the record once.
29:21
Speaker 1: What is her name? Am? I'd like to take her
29:23
Speaker 1: to lunch? Yeah? Well, please at least send us an email. Okay,
29:26
Speaker 1: I don't think we'd be allowed to go out to
29:28
Speaker 1: lunch with that girl. Our significant others are good. Um, Chuck, Josh,
29:34
Speaker 1: you got anything else? I'm done? All right? Um? What
29:36
Speaker 1: should we call for here? How about if you've a
29:40
Speaker 1: sended everest it's boring? Okay? Um? If you are interested
29:48
Speaker 1: in your state seceding from it's current geographical boundaries, we
29:53
Speaker 1: want to hear why that's right? Uh? Send it in
29:55
Speaker 1: an email to Stuff Podcast at how stuff works dot
30:00
Speaker 1: com for more on this and thousands of other topics,
30:07
Speaker 1: visit how stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works,
30:11
Speaker 1: check out our blogs on the how stuff works dot
30:13
Speaker 1: com home page. M