HIMALAYA, the Journal of the Association for and Himalayan Studies

Volume 37 Number 1 Article 32

June 2017

Review of Sherpa: Trouble on Everest by Jennifer Peedom

Pasang Yangjee Sherpa The New School

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Recommended Citation Sherpa, Pasang Yangjee. 2017. Review of Sherpa: Trouble on Everest by Jennifer Peedom. HIMALAYA 37(1). Available at: https://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/himalaya/vol37/iss1/32

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License. This Review is brought to you for free and open access by the DigitalCommons@Macalester College at DigitalCommons@Macalester College. It has been accepted for inclusion in HIMALAYA, the Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@Macalester College. For more information, please contact [email protected]. introduction to a powerful tantric It laid out everything for the audience Sherpa soars in its presentation of yogi, a different sort of religious to decide for themselves—what the the human story on the mountain. It specialist from the scholar-monk costs, benefits and motivations of the shows the Sherpa mountain workers who occupies much of the Western people involved are. I felt that it was moving rocks to set up luxurious imagination. a well-researched, emotional, and camps filled with books, a television beautiful gift that will aid in raising set and comfortable chairs. It also Alyson Prude is an Assistant Professor awareness about safety concerns shows them singing and laughing, of Religious Studies at Georgia Southern on the mountain and fairness in the and then shaken and disturbed, University. Her research focuses on Nepali mountaineering industry. following the tragic accident in the women’s religious practices in Tibet and Khumbu Icefall, in which sixteen the Himalayas. One year later, I have had some time Sherpas died in 2014. The clients are to think about the documentary also shown being excited and jovial and watch it a few more times. as they gear up for their ascent. After The documentary follows Phurba the tragic accident, the clients are Tashi, who has climbed Mt. Everest shown being devastated by the loss twenty-one times. Phurba’s next and also to find out that they will not climb will make him a world record be climbing that year. holder with the most number of successful Everest ascents. Phurba The frustration at the Everest base Tashi’s captivating story of going camp with some never-before-seen to the mountain, and his family’s clips of a brawl that took place in emotional reaction to it, always 2013 is captured in the documentary. Sherpa: Trouble on Everest leaves me wishing there was a better It is this part of the film that occupational choice for many like makes many of my Sherpa friends Jennifer Peedom. USA. 2016. 96 him. The tears that roll on Phurba’s uncomfortable. A relative told me minutes. wife Karma Doma’s face reminds after a screening in New York that me how cruel reality is for Sherpa the documentary was good but if only Reviewed by Pasang Yangjee women, who wait not knowing what it could leave the scene of the Everest Sherpa* their fate will be. brawl out, it would have been better. At the 2015 Kathmandu Film Festival, Going on an Everest expedition is In June of 2015, I watched Sherpa: a representative from the mountain not an easy choice, the documentary Trouble on Everest, a Discovery workers said that the brawl as shown shows. Sherpa or not, one has to Channel documentary, in my quiet in the film was a biased depiction, weigh their decision of going to the living room in Seattle. I had never which did not show the whole picture mountain against many factors. For experienced anything like it before. of how the Sherpas were mistreated Sherpas, sometimes it might mean leading up to the incident. So, the Right afterwards, I felt that it pretending to their families that brawl can be misinterpreted, and was one of the best portrayals of there is no risk in what they do. For the Sherpas can be misrepresented. the Sherpa story on the mountain I the mountaineering clients, it might This part of the documentary had seen. I thought that it captured mean investing every single penny to definitely leaves a bitter impression, the sentiment of the Sherpas, and the make their dream come true. but one has to wonder how this messiness at the base camp, very well.

HIMALAYA Volume 37, Number 1 | 163 Unlike its predecessors, Sherpa pays intimate attention to details of Sherpa life that can easily go unnoticed. To recognize these nuances one has to spend hours patiently listening to the Sherpa stories. Only then does the silence of Sherpas become meaningful.

Pasang Yangjee Sherpa on Fearless in Sherpa: Trouble on Everest particular story embedded in the Western clients have made only larger mountaineering mess could to find out that they cannot climb be told some other way. One has is sobering. to also understand this is not a This movie about mountaineering, film about Sherpa kindness, or aptly titled Sherpa, changes the about the infamous brawl. This narrative of the Sherpas’ place acknowledgement, however, within the industry. Director Jennifer does not come without pain and Peedom has created a magnificent embarrassment. documentary with an exceptionally The scenes of the brawl, in fact, well-researched script, and the make the documentary whole. film successfully raises the issue of Leaving it out would have been an fairness and safety on Mount Everest incomplete portrayal of the Sherpa on a global scale. story. Human emotions are brought Pasang Yangjee Sherpa is an full circle—from Karma Doma’s tears, anthropologist based in Seattle. She the silent sadness of her in-laws, the received her doctoral degree from aspirational imagination of her sons, Washington State University in 2012. She and her husband’s dutiful reckoning was a lecturer (2013-2015) at Penn State to the burst of built up anger and University before joining The New School frustration from that season and as a postdoc fellow (2015-2016). many before. *Originally published online at Unlike its predecessors, Sherpa glacierhub.org on April 26, 2016 pays intimate attention to details under the title “‘Sherpa’ Soars as a of Sherpa life that can easily go Documentary of Life on Everest”. unnoticed. To recognize these nuances one has to spend hours patiently listening to the Sherpa stories. Only then does the silence of Sherpas become meaningful. That is exactly what Jennifer Peedom, the director, has done. From her years of experience being among the mountaineers on the mountain, she is able to show the heaviness in the silence of Sherpa mountain workers waiting for orders in their camp. In the process of showing the Sherpa side of the story, however, Peedom does not forget about the Western clients. To know about the sacrifices

164 | HIMALAYA Spring 2017