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Top 10 Most AMAZING Facts about Nepal! Nepal is one of those countries everybody’s heard of, but no one knows enough about. Even its very name sounds exotic, and people like hearing about it, but how much do you actually know about this country? Here are 10 amazing facts about Nepal…stay tuned to number 1 to find out
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Transcript provided by YouTube:
nopal is one of those countries that everybody’s heard of but no one knows
enough about even its very name sounds exotic and people like hearing about it
but exactly how much do you actually know about this country here are 10
amazing facts about Nepal stay tuned – number one – find out how often it gets
invaded by other countries
number ten a unique flag Nepal is an amazing country in so many ways but
we’ll kick off our list with the flag of Nepal now technically speaking every
country’s flag is unique however Nepal wins the uniqueness award because of its
shape it’s the only non quadrilateral flag in the world it’s basically like to
join triangles with the bottom triangle having its top cut off the flag of Nepal
was accepted on December 16th 1962 and to this day it has remained one of the
most recognizable symbols of this country and just like most of the
national flags around the world it’s also full of symbolism the blue color on
the border symbolizes national unity of the country while the crimson red stands
for the courage of the Napoli’s people in general the Sun and the moon are
there to symbolize bravery and peacefulness these two are also there to
say how Nepal will exist as long as the Sun and the moon exist
number nine electricity outages although electricity should be a normal
commodity at the start of the 21st century the situation is a bit different
in Nepal in this country it’s quite normal to have electrical outages on a
daily basis the irony is that Nepal holds second place as the world’s
biggest water reserve but it still has problems with producing electricity the
biggest problem is the country’s poor infrastructure Nepal hasn’t been able to
develop itself enough so that it has good and reliable infrastructure thus
it’s normal to have electricity for 10 or 12 hours a day and then for it to be
cut off hours on end the country’s population is quite large and the
existing infrastructure simply cannot sustain that many people for the time
being this fact alone is the primary reason behind the Paul’s slow
development if you don’t have a good infrastructure and a steady supply of
electricity it’s impossible to plan ahead because of this the country’s
economy develops very slowly and their factories cannot compete with the
Western world number eight nicknamed the weed capital if you want to do enjoy
cannabis today in Nepal that wouldn’t possible well at least not legally
marijuana has been illegal in Nepal for more than 45 years being officially
banned in 1973 that year all the cannabis shops and farms had their
licenses cancelled and the dealers were banned from conducting their activities
the reason for the popularity of marijuana in Nepal was the so-called
hippie trail it was a route from Europe all the way to the Far East it was
extremely popular in the 1960s with the birth of counterculture many young
people flocked to Asian countries in pursuit of adventure many of the roads
led through Nepal and the cannabis economy flourished it was so massive
that you could literally buy the stuff everywhere but once the government saw
what they considered to be the disruptive power of the drug economy it
put it all to an end nowadays it is legal to smoke hashish but only during
the Hindu festival of Maha Shivratri number seven slower internet Nepal is
part of the modern world in the sense then it has an internet connection but
let’s be honest it could be better a lot better internet was introduced to Nepal
back in 1994 but its development has been quite slow for example the
commercial internet packages are decently fast or we’ll say acceptable
but the bigger problem is with domestic and personal packages also the internet
speed depends a lot on the actual price you pay on a monthly basis but it
doesn’t only have to do with the speed another problem is the percentage of
people using the Internet according to research completed in 2010 only around
20 percent of Nepal’s population uses the Internet which is way below the
Western average nevertheless this situation has been improving gradually
over time and more and more internet providers are finally entering the game
number six languages of Nepal when it comes to languages Nepal really has a
lot to offer many people don’t know this but Nepal has more than 100 local
languages in fact the exact number is 123
however not all of these languages are official languages of the country it
would be absolutely crazy if that were the case
the official language of Nepal is Nepali which was known in the past as cascara
or Gorkhali this language is actually a descendant of the ancient Sanskrit
language and it now serves basically as the lingua franca of the whole region of
Nepal it’s spoken by around 17 million people the second-largest language in
Nepal is my fili and it’s also one of the largest languages spoken in India in
Nepal around 10% of the people speak Maithili but this is just the tip of the
iceberg we also have to mention Bhojpuri Faro and timming all of which have over
1 million speakers but also bow chika magar dou telly and or dude with over a
half a million speakers each if we add to these over 100 smaller languages it’s
clear how Nepal is considered the linguistic gem of the world number five
the only living goddess Kumari the word Kumari comes from the Sanskrit language
and it could be translated as princess in Nepal
Kumari is a prepubescent female who was selected from a specific group the
Newari community in the Shakti castle this is the tradition of worshipping a
divine female energy resting in the girl’s body to qualify to be chosen the
girl has to be in perfect health has never been sick she must possess all of
her teeth and she must be a prepubescent virgin but these qualifications are just
to pass round one after round one things get even tougher the next round includes
looking for signs of divinity in a girl such as the eyelashes of a cow or the
thighs of a deer to name just a few the goddesses hair must be black finally
when a girl has chosen to assume the energy of the goddess there comes the
final test she must been a knight in a ritual room
that’s filled with the heads of many slaughtered animals but she cannot show
any sign of fear the girl will remain the reincarnation of the goddess until
she gets her first period because at that moment it is assumed that the
divine energy left her body number 4 ethnic groups
with the population of just over 25 million people Nepal is definitely not a
small country sure it’s not the biggest but it’s probably a lot more than you
thought right the interesting thing about Nepal is that the people in this
country define themselves as primarily Napoli’s they mainly come from two
groups indo-aryan and sino-tibetan in addition to these there are many more
nationalities and ethnic groups but all of them identify as Napoli’s because
there are so many languages and so many ethnic groups inhabitants of nepal do
not make the correlation between their ethnicity and nationality as it would
make a whole lot of mess instead people identify themselves as Napoli’s through
citizenship and allegiance number three cow is a sacred animal as you probably
know that cow is considered a sacred animal in India but it’s the same in
Nepal as the population is predominantly Hindu in 2015 the cow was declared the
country’s national animal and it made it all the way to the Napoli’s Constitution
after many years of political unrest Nepal got a new constitution and in it
cow was declared sacred in respect of the Hindus and all cow slaughter was
banned the interesting thing is that even on the practical side cows are a
great help because they help to regulate traffic yes as funny as it may sound
cows are allowed to walk freely down the streets of Kathmandu and without them
traffic would be even more chaotic but cows helped the traffic issue because
they serve as road dividers and traffic islands number two etiquette
since there are so many nationalities and ethnic groups in Nepal it’s safe to
assume that there would be so many different customs and traditions and
this is absolutely true Nepalese people are in general quite friendly and they
will greet a foreigner to their land expressing interest in taking a picture
with them and showing them around the traditional nephal ease greeting is
namaste which can be translated as greetings to the divine inside of you
which is truly wonderful this is a sign of great respect and when
you want to greet someone like this you should hold your palms together like
you’re praying when it comes to shopping it’s even more interesting if you want
to agree with someone you should tilt your head a little bit
if expressing disagreement when you don’t want to buy something or you don’t
want to go somewhere you should hold your hand up and swivel it a little and
for pointing around don’t use your finger instead point with your chin also
food is not consumed from other people’s plates once one person uses a plate it’s
theirs and theirs alone number one Nepal was never colonized strange as it may
seem Nepal was never a colonized country and it has managed to avoid all major
military conflicts of the modern age the reason for this lies in the fact that
Nepal is located in a pretty special region and it’s almost impossible to
conquer it many have tried but without success the only country that was close
to conquering Nepal was the British Empire during the Anglo Nepalese war of
1814 to 1816 the two countries were disputing over border issues and in the
end Nepal was forced to give 1/3 of its territory to the British but the country
was never conquered as a whole the British had massive troops and they hit
hard but Nepal’s rugged terrain served as a buffer zone and the British were
powerless large mountain chains repelled the British troops and Nepal was saved
it was much easier to sign a treaty with Nepal than to press on desperately
however during the actual fighting an interesting thing occurred the British
officers were so impressed with the Nepalese Gurkha troops that they wanted
to see them fighting on their side these were Nepalese people of Indian Gurkha
ethnic background as a result of their courage in combat many soldiers from the
ranks of the Gurkha were reunited into the British colonial
army spreading the name and courage of the Nepalese people what do you think
about Nepal in its culture it’s on my bucket list for sure don’t forget to
like this video and hit that subscribe button namaste
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This post was previously published on YouTube.
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