San Antonio College Library

Dr. Lotay Tshering, practicing surgeon and Bhutan's prime minister, puts healthcare at the center of a government best known for measuring wealth in terms of happiness, not money.

Remote and isolated, the Kingdom of Bhutan measures its economy on Gross National Happiness. Host Will Studd travels to a small farm in Bhutan where he samples some local cuisine and learns how the locals churn butter for cooking and ceremonial purposes by hand. He is then invited to visit one of the oldest monasteries in this devoutly Buddhist country, where he lights candles to guide the souls of the dead before sampling a cheese and chili dish....

The tiny kingdom of Bhutan is hidden away in the Himalayas and dwarfed by its giant neighbors, India and China. While the rest of the world pounds the treadmill of economic development, Bhutan has continued on its alternative path, pursuing the ultimate goal for its people: happiness. For centuries, its benevolent kings ignored technological advances, seeking to protect their people from outside influences. Then, overnight, 47 satellite stations began...

Cites are functional models of community life, but they can also represent the aspirations of the culture that creates them. In this program, Dan travels to Yemen to see the tower houses of Shibam, built vertically to conserve land and to remain safe against attack; to Santo Domingo, founded in the 16th century on a grid-style plan that served as the blueprint for a new empire in the New World; to Bhutan, where even recently-constructed buildings...